Written 2013 by VeGirl

"Today is Christmas Eve, and I want to spend it with my family." Anna said as we had breakfast, her eyes flickered between us in an apologetic way.

We all looked at each other. "Of course..." We started to discuss the importance of a healthy family relation, since we all knew what an unhealthy relation could lead to by now.

"What about you?" Damon asked me.

"Me?" I thought about it. "I'd like that, but only if you'll come with me."

Damon's eyebrows flew up high in surprise, and then a huge smile appeared on his face. "That'd be nice." He slid his arm around my waist. Klaus sighed and rolled his eyes toward us.

"What about you; will you come, or are you going to sit here old grumpy?"

"Old Grumpy?"

I smiled teasingly. "Yes, you have a slight tendency to be grumpy, and if we're going to talk about age; you win!"

"How about showing a little respect for the elders then, luv." Klaus narrowed his eyes sharp. "...especially when this elder can snap your neck like a twig." He added with a sweet smile where the threats were obvious in his eyes.

I shrugged my eyebrows. "That's a good point." I said, making Klaus actually look surprise. "Would you care to join us, Mr Mikaelsson?"

He just raised his eyebrows. "Don't overdo it, luv."

I growled. "Are you ever pleased?" I thought he'd roll his eyes, but he just smirked.

I called my mother to let her know I was in Sweden, and asked if I could take two friends with me to celebrate Christmas. She was ecstatic to see me again and around two pm we walked in through the front door of my family house, where my mother met me in the hallway.

"Hi Mom."

"Hi, my sweet baby." My mother hugged me hard with tears in her eyes.

"These are my friends, from the States." I was just about to introduce them, when they did it themselves.

"Ian."

"Joseph."

Wow, they had really paid attention! I was impressed.

She greeted them welcome just as my two brothers came hasting out to the hallway and wrapped me into their arms and twirled me around each in turn, while I squealed and laughed.

"It's nice to see you again, sis." Tomas said. "Yeah, it's been too long." Anton, the other brother filled in.

I started to look around for my sister, and found both Damon and Klaus in a really protective stance. I gave them a reassuring smile. "Isn't Louise here?" I asked my mother.

"No, she's with Daniels family." Yes, of course, she'd be spending time with her boyfriend's family.

My father came out to greet us and I introduced the guys to the male part of my family. I was actually quite impressed by the amount of respect Klaus managed to master; he who was head of the food chain in any company, showed actual respect for my father. Dad showed us all into the living room where we sat down on the couch.

"You have a lovely home!" Damon said as he looked around.

"Thank you dear... and what do you guys do for a living?" My mother asked curiously, and I thought about numerous questions that would have been so much worse.

"Acting, mostly." Damon answered.

Yeah, acting human, I thought.

"That sounds interesting." My mother commented polite. "Have I seen you in anything?"

Damon smiled his charming devious smile. "I don't know what kind of movies or shows you would be interested in, but I know Emma has seen us." He joked in the most respectful way.

A timer rang in the kitchen and my mother excused herself and gave me a questioning look for me to follow her. "Who are these guys? There is something dark about those two." My mother hissed when we were out of hearing range; at least what she thought.

No kidding; I thought. "You think?" I deflected. "They're really sweet, both of them, the darkness is mostly attitude." I lied with a huge smile plastered on my face and wondered how she could possibly know that.

"Is Anna with her family?" My mother asked as we walked back to join the others.

"Yes, she wanted to celebrate Christmas with them." I said but was interrupted by Klaus. "She found out a little about her family yesterday, that she needed to discuss." I turned to glare at him. Was that about his little errand the day before?

"How come you're not celebrating Christmas with your own families?" My mother asked, interrupting the turmoil and curiosity in my head.

"Mom, this isn't a hearing!"

Klaus chuckled. "I have a big family and it seems to be a bit hard to keep everybody together, with all the drama." I gave him a scowling look, which luckily nobody noted.

"You're right about that." My father said in his broken English; he was really bad at speaking English, but he understood a lot more than he spoke.

"What about you, Ian?"

He didn't respond, so I nudged him in the ribs with my elbow. "What about you Ian?"

"Oh, unfortunately my family contains of only my brother and myself, and he is with his girlfriend this year."

"Oh, I'm sad to hear that."

"We lost our parents a long time ago, and you survive." He gave my mother a flashing smile. "This is nice though, I haven't celebrated Christmas like this in a long time."

The conversation turned to the differences in celebration between our countries; a more neutral topic.

"So, did you find any vampires over there?" My brother teased a little while later, making me choke on my drink.

"Yes." I said when I was done coughing my lungs up. "They're actually sitting on this couch." I gestured with my hand.

He widened his eyes and laughed, and so did both Damon and Klaus, but for other reasons.

We managed to keep a fairly normal dinner-conversation despite the fact that three of us was lying most of the time. Me and my family did our best to share our Swedish Christmas traditions, even if the guys thought we were running on crazy for asking them to taste what they thought was odd food; such as the pickled herring.

"Is it supposed to taste like this?" Damon asked with a frown.

"This isn't in your usual diet I suppose." My brother said, almost making me choke on the food as well before I understood that Anton was referring to the herring.

"No, I have a picky taste."

"Red and liquid." I murmured before I could stop myself. Klaus and Damon glared, but my brothers laughed and I had to laugh with them, to hide it off as a joke.

"Don't think the fact that your family is here would stop me from eating you!" Klaus threatened, making my brothers double up in laughter and me to swallow hard, well aware of the actual threat.

"Maybe I taste like the herring now?" I raised one of my eyebrows in a challenging way.

"That's a strong argument, luv. I'll think about it first."

"So which one of you is the boyfriend?" My brother Anton had a cheeky smile.

Klaus looked over at Damon and I could almost hear the silent threats going between them. "That'll be me." Damon said and put an arm affectionately on the back of my chair. "She just swept into town and I knew that I wanted her and nobody else." He smiled towards me.

"And not in a dinner-kind of way." Klaus commented, making us all chuckle.

It was a good feeling that my parents just accepted these guys sitting on each side of me; granted, they didn't understand which parts of the conversation was true and which was false, but we laughed together and had a fun time. It was first when Damon started to make decisions over me, which I had to object. "I'd rather make that decision myself; I'm twenty four, I'm older and that means stronger than you, darling." I teased Damon. "I've slammed you to the ground before..."

Damon made an annoyed face at me, and then he turned towards Klaus. "And how old are you, Joseph?"

"One thousand one hundred and twenty six." He simply said. "So I'm stronger than you, luv." He said darkly to me, making my family chuckle again.

"I'm sure you are." I smiled and turned towards my family to explain. "His character is the ultimate bad guy of the show, and it's fun to tease him."

"Until he kills you..."

"Yeah." I put my hand on his face with a sweet smile. "Luckily you are nothing like your character." His eyes glistened and I thought they were shimmering in golden yellow. Had I pushed him hard enough, was he about to snap? I decided to take a step back. "So Anton and Tomas what have you been up to?"

They told me about work and school, Tomas was one year younger than me and was on his last college year, while Anton was three years older and working at a computer company. I had no idea of exactly what he did in that company, but I'm sure he and Jay, the computer-wizard could have some interesting conversations.

"Is it programming or design?" Klaus asked interested and I was glad when I saw my brother light up.

"Yeah, we're developing computer-programs for different companies and their specific needs." Anton explained.

"That sounds interesting, even if I'm an old guy and feeling a little off my game here." A glint was shown in his eyes. "One thousand one hundred years older than you." He said and made it sound like a joke; which it actually wasn't.

After a very nice evening, it was time for us to say good bye. "That's a perceptive mother you have there, luv." Klaus said when we walked back home to the hotel. "Talking about our dark sides."

"Yeah, how the hell could she know that?"

He exhaled half a laughter. "Most people have a sense of danger around vampires, a sixth sense to tell them to stay away; probably some primal animal instinct. You lack that."

I stuck my tongue out at him.

He just made a face as to say that he rested his case, and I knew he was right; I had experienced so much in these guys' company, that I could no longer claim that vampires didn't exist.

* * * * *

Damon had walked up to our suite with Anna after breakfast, while Klaus and I stayed put in the breakfast room. "What did you find out about Anna yesterday?" I took the opportunity to ask curiously.

"We have found some question marks in her linage that we need to shead some lights on. But they don't have that kind of record down here in the south."

"Isn't that weird?" I asked as we got up to walk to our suite.

"It has definitely wakened my curiosity." Klaus commented when we walked towards the elevators.

"Excuse me, Mr. Morgan?" the receptionist called as we walked by.

Morgan?

"Joseph Morgan, right?" Klaus hissed discretely to me.

"Oh... Yes that's right." I thought about smacking my palm over my forehead for my own stupidity, but restrained myself with a polite smile as I stopped to wait for Klaus. The guy in the reception handed over a brown package to Klaus before we walked back to the elevators.

"A Christmas present; and you said you don't have any friends..." I teased him, but noted the serious face.

"At the end of the day, we are all alone."

"That's a choice you have made, Klaus!"

"How long do you think you'll live? And this isn't a threat at all, but when you have lived for a century, you have lost a lot of friends." His voice had a sadness when he bent closer to me. "Try a millennium, luv."

I hadn't thought about that.

~ ~ ~ A/N ~ ~ ~

Hello my lovelies,

So what do you think of the Christmas celebration? They're quite whitty to disguise every serious topic as a joke, don't you think?

Lots of love! / V.G.

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