the domino effect

"AIRPORTS ARE CESSPOOLS OF GERMS."

"Jesus, we've been here for five minutes. We haven't even stepped foot outside the airport yet and you're complaining,"

Athena turns, glaring at Damon from behind her sunglasses that are entirely unnecessary inside the airport. "Yes, Damon, I'm complaining. I'm a complainer. I like to bitch about everything. This isn't news, don't act surprised."

Damon rolls his eyes, pushing past someone to get to the doors, Athena following close behind him. It's sunny and warm outside, the usually-rainy state of Oregon thankfully not living up to its name for their brief visit. Damon looks around at the lines of cars parked on the curb, waiting for customers or family members, or dropping people of the same caliber off.

Finding a man standing outside a nice black car, Damon walks forward, plastering a smirk on his face, catching his attention. "Hey, man, you're gonna give us the car, yeah?"

The man's pupils dilate instantly and he nods, placing the keys into Damon's hands with a blank stare. Damon takes them, looking over his shoulder towards Athena with a nod of his head. "Let's go,"

Athena swings the strap of her overnight bag off her shoulder and pulls the backseat door open to chuck it onto the seat before she climbs into the passenger seat while Damon does the same on the driver's side.

Falling into the flow of the airport traffic, Damon clears his throat and Athena finally pulls her sunglasses off, looking entirely unhappy at the detour they've had to take that just so happens to be a 39 hour drive away from their actual problems.

"Do you have this guy's address?"

She hums and nods, pulling up the text Alaric had sent her with the address upon her hasty request the night before last. "Joshua Parker, 1129 Anchor Street. It's not too far from here."

"Perfect. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can go home and get rid of Jo and Luke," Damon hums, his brows twitching curiously. "Do you even know what you're supposed to be asking this guy about?"

"I don't really know," Athena shrugs. "I'm kind of hoping it'll be one of those things I figure out when we get there."

"Oh, great. Unplanned interrogations with witches always go over well."

──────

"Seems a little ridiculous that this guy just lives in your typical suburban nightmare," Damon notes as they come to a stop at the curb outside of the Parker house. "I feel like these idiots should live in some secret lair or something."

Athena hums, eyeing the house. "I don't know why you'd think that, considering you're an idiot and your house is normal."

"Funny," Damon gives her a flat look. "So, have you figured out your strategy for this yet? 'Cause I think you're running out of time to brainstorm and I've got to go meet that hunter Ric knows."

"Yeah, don't worry about me, I have a plan," Athena nods, shifting to take her seatbelt off. "Go meet her and figure out what she knows about the Five and if she has any ideas on how a Potential could get access to the map without killing a bunch of vampires. I'll meet you at the hotel in like, an hour."

"How are you getting back to the hotel if I'm taking the car?"

"Don't worry about it, Damon, jeez," She groans, pushing the car door open and stepping out as Damon rolls his eyes at her dramatics. "Just go meet Ric's little friend and see if we can prevent Nick from becoming a psychotic murderer."

He sighs exasperatedly and she shuts the door before he can respond, walking around the front of the car onto the sidewalk, approaching the Parker house with a lazy stride. She turns to look over her shoulder as she walks up the porch, shooing him off with a wave. She can't see his face through the window tint, but she knows that he rolled his eyes at her.

She waits until he drives off before she turns back to the front door of the house, raising her hand to knock.

For a second, there's no response, and she wonders if she had managed to somehow end up here when no one's home, but then the door swings open and a taller, silver-haired man is standing there with a glare on his face.

"Can I help you?"

Athena offers the man a saccharine smile, sticking her hand out for him to shake. "Athena Hunt," As the man eyes her outstretched hand, she takes the opportunity to lunge toward him, swinging her other hand up to grab him by the fabric of his shirt, shoving him backwards into the house.

She keeps her grip on him tight as she kicks the front door shut behind her, and as soon as she's reached behind her to lock it, she shoves him down to the floor at her feet.

"You're Joshua Parker. The Gemini Coven, right?"

The man huffs out a breath, smirking up at Athena with vitriol in his eyes. "I don't answer to vampires."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm not a vampire," Athena retorts. "Your kids are causing me problems, Joshua."

His lip curls in distaste and Athena raises a brow at the sight. "Which ones?"

"Well, there's not that many left, is there?" She huffs, allowing him to get back up to his feet a few feet in front of her. "Not after Malachai killed them all. Why did he do that, by the way? I've been curious about that since I found out, and none of the news articles seem to have an answer."

A look full of disgust and something close to hatred takes over the man's face. "Malachai was a monster. He didn't have a reason why, he just did it."

"Now that I don't believe," Athena chuckles humorlessly. "Jo and Luke must have those crippling guilt complexes for a reason, right?"

Joshua scoffs. "I can't imagine they're causing you that many issues. They're virtually useless without the coven."

"They want the cure for vampirism. That's causing me plenty of problems, actually."

For the first time, a shade of surprise seems to hit him but he quickly recovers and laughs coldly. "Luke. Josette wants to find the cure for Luke, doesn't she?"

"Yeah, and she came to Mystic Falls asking about the Originals, looking for the cure, knowing too much for her own good," Athena says, crossing her arms against her chest. "It's like she has a death wish."

"Well, you can tell her that no matter what she does, Luke is no longer a member of this coven. Vampires go against the will of nature, and he made an idiotic mistake that he has to face the consequences for. No cure will change that."

Athena frowns, eyes roaming over Joshua with growing disdain. "Does your stupid coven mean that much to you?"

The older man steps forward, leaning towards Athena. Athena doesn't step back no matter how much she wants to, and for a second she wishes Damon were here just so she'd have some backup. But she'd purposefully sent him off to meet with that hunter because she'd kept all of the information Alaric had given her about the Gemini coven and the cure to herself. No one but her and Alaric knew that there was only one dose, hidden on some desert island somewhere, and that it was a virtual death sentence to whoever took it. She didn't know how to say any of this without landing them all in a bigger mess than they were already in, which is why she was trying to get as much information as she could before it could go wrong, that way she could at least attempt to do some damage control when it was all over.

"A coven is all a witch has. Without one, you're virtually powerless. My children got what they deserved. And after everything my family has been through, I won't risk one of them being a threat to the others."

"Oh, you mean a threat like your son Malachai killing four of his siblings?" Athena watches that off-putting look of disdain at the mention of his son washes over him again and she clenches her fists at her sides. "I tried to look into him, you know? But for whatever reason, there's no trace of him anywhere after the initial incident. It's not even like he died, he just... disappeared. Is that what you mean when you say they got what they deserved?"

Joshua points a finger at Athena, eyes narrowing. "You need to watch where you stick your nose, young lady. Some things need to be left in the past, and Malachai is one of them."

"My name is Athena, you old prick, and threatening me isn't going to get you anywhere. What's going to happen is you're going to do one of two things, because I can't imagine you'll do both; you're either going to let your kids come home, vampire or not, and be a good father to them, or you're going to tell me about what happened with Malachai."

The man does nothing but glare at her for a moment before he shifts, clearly rethinking his options. He seems to size her up for a moment but clearly thinks better, undoubtedly tapping into some part of his power that screamed at him not to test her.

Joshua is visibly unhappy when he meets her gaze again for a split second but he doesn't voice it. He looks past her towards the windows that face the street. "What do you want to know about Malachai?"

"Shocker. They never pick the good dad option," Athena sighs, scoffing quietly. She cocks her hip out, rolling her eyes. "Start from the beginning. A kid doesn't just kill four of his siblings for no reason."

"Malachai did," Joshua says easily, like it's the simple truth. "He was a sociopath. He had no regard for anyone's life, it didn't matter if it was his family or not. Nothing we ever did was the right thing, and he wanted more than he was offered."

"Enough with the vague shit," She grunts, lip curling in a slight snarl. "What pushes a kid to murder his family?"

"The Gemini Coven has a tradition, it's sacred to us. The families of the Gemini Coven have a history of twins— my wife and I were no different. I had a twin brother, and my wife had a twin sister. Malachai and Josette were born twins, they were our first children. At first, we didn't plan on having anymore children, but when we started to notice that something was off about Malachai, we got worried that it would affect the coven. We had 4 children before we finally had twins again."

"Luke and Liv."

Joshua spares Athena a glance.

"He talks about her a lot," She says simply, earning no discernible reaction from the man. "You're talking about the ritual where the twins fight for one another's powers and one of them has to die, aren't you? Is that why Malachai did it?"

"The leader of the Gemini Coven is decided by whoever wins in the merge. What made us have more children after Malachai and Josette is the fact that Malachai was born without magic."

Athena makes a noise that might be surprise, but is mostly laced with confusion. "Wouldn't that just make Jo the winner by default?"

"There is no default. The ritual that takes place between the twins requires both of them to have their own magic at the start, and whoever is stronger will absorb the other's powers. Malachai didn't have his own magic."

Athena bites the tip of her tongue to keep her focus on the subject at hand and the questions they flew all the way here to ask. "So, Malachai didn't have magic. Is that why he killed them? Jealousy?"

"I would imagine that was part of it, yes. He was very ambitious, and he thought that he was owed a great many things because of his disadvantage in our world. But Kai wasn't completely powerless. He was an abomination."

Athena's throat tightens at the word and she clenches her fists at her side. "Why would you think that?"

"He was a siphon. He had no real power, but he could drain someone of theirs. He was a leech. And he thought he was owed the power his siblings had, so he would take it."

Athena's face twists in surprise but she frowns quickly, maintaining her focus on one thing at a time. "So, what, he couldn't complete the ritual? It sounds like he just wasn't meant to be the leader of the coven."

"The ritual takes place between the twins and the stronger of the two absorbs the other's powers. Kai had an unfair advantage due to his abilities and it was deemed unsafe for him to participate when he could easily win. Josette took the news just fine, but Kai... he felt he was being denied his destiny. Luke and Liv were the best bet in the end."

Athena narrows her eyes, taking in his words slowly. "The whole point of the ritual is that the more powerful twin wins. You couldn't have known Kai would win no matter what type of unfair advantage he had, anything could've happened, but instead you all told him he couldn't have the thing he was raised to want and you're surprised he turned out wrong?"

"A coven is made up of witches, and only a witch can take place as leader of one. A siphon is not a witch. Kai did not seem to understand that."

Athena blinks rapidly, shaking her head to rid herself of the many thoughts turning around in her head. "Okay, so, you told Jo and Kai that they weren't in the running to lead the coven anymore and Kai snapped and killed his siblings?"

"Josette managed to escape with Liv and Luke, and they managed to get a few blocks away to one of the other coven members' houses. By the time my wife and I found him, Kai was nearly catatonic. He didn't fight, he didn't try to run. He acted like it was inevitable, like we shouldn't have been surprised or upset."

"Did you call the police? Get him arrested?"

"A prison cell wouldn't ever be enough to hold Kai. Even without a regular source of magic to siphon from, he's conniving and manipulative. The coven decided he needed something more secure than a cell."

Athena's dark eyes roam over the slowly-tensing stature of the man in front of her. She doesn't like him, but she also can't fathom 4 of her children being murdered by their brother because of a sacrifice ritual.

She also can't help but feel like even though he's being open about this, he's still hiding something.

"Did you kill him?" She asks simply, a look of skepticism on her face.

"No," Joshua says, seemingly not offended by the assumption. "Kai has been trapped in 1994 for almost 20 years, reliving the same day over and over. He is completely alone, and so long as the Gemini Coven is still here, he won't know freedom."

Athena doesn't need to see a mirror to know she's wearing a look of utter disbelief right now, and when she starts to think about what Damon would be doing if he were with her, she can picture a similar look on his face, too.

"I— you," She stops briefly, and starts again. "You've had your son trapped in a–a time loop for 18 years?"

The question is rhetorical, considering Joshua has said exactly that in much more convoluted terms. Athena just can't process the fact that the words being said aren't just words, but are real life.

"He's probably gone completely insane by now," She mutters without really thinking.

"He was already insane," Joshua says darkly, a glare on his face that shows shadows of the sorts of things he likely thinks about his eldest son. "Malachai is an abomination, and he deserves every part of this punishment."

"Do you ever go there to check on him? Is that place even accessible?"

A fire lights in the man's eyes as he looks at Athena. "No one will ever go there, it's too risky. Kai would find a way to escape the second someone went through the barrier, and we wouldn't be able to get him back in there a second time."

His eyes flicker from Athena back out the windows and he crosses his arms over his chest. "I answered your questions about Malachai. If that's all that you need from me, then I'd say it's time for you to leave."

"You're really going to disown some of the last children you have because your son is a vampire? You'd think after losing so many, you'd be grateful that one of them is immortal."

"I'm sure you and I have very different opinions on these things."

Athena scoffs, shaking her head. "I'm sure we do. It's— it's fine, actually, I don't need your help. You ultimately gave me nothing, which means I wasted valuable time coming here to hear a bullshit story while your kids are back in Mystic Falls trying to find a way to come back home because for some reason, they still love you. I can't imagine that anything I say will matter to you, but it's truly selfish that you'd knowingly watch your children almost kill themselves trying to get this cure just to come home to a coven that doesn't care about them. I hope this is worth it in the end."

"If that's a threat, I'd like to ask that you rethink things. I'd hate for this to get truly messy."

Athena pushes her hair behind her ears, eyes flashing dangerously at his smug tone. "I don't make threats, I make promises. But you aren't even worth the time it'd take to clean up what was left of you when I finished. I'm just trying to tell you that I don't take no for an answer, and I'm going to find this cure, and if that means I have to get into that prison world and get your son out, then I'll do that, too."

She turns on her heel and stomps back towards the door, flicking the lock back over and twisting the handle to open it. Before she can step out of the house, Joshua's voice stops her.

"You'll regret it."

She tilts her head slightly as she turns back around to look at Joshua. The man takes her silence as a cue to continue.

"The cure should be forgotten. My children, too. I'm telling you right now, if you think you can trust anything to do with this, you will face nothing but pain and betrayal."

Athena contemplates his words for a moment, humming. "I think I'll take that chance."

Joshua scoffs, shaking his head. "Fine. But don't expect a warm welcome the next time you show up on my doorstep unannounced."

"If I have to come back here, I promise it won't be me who's in danger," Athena smirks, lifting her hand in a wave as she steps out onto the porch. "You have a good day now. And stay the hell away from Mystic Falls."

──────

The hotel room has been largely silent since Athena returned, getting into her room and immediately banging on the door that connected her to Damon's room right next door. After Damon told her that the hunter didn't know anything they didn't already know about the Five or unlocking the map without killing, Athena had told him that Joshua was also largely unhelpful spare for his ridiculous and ominous threats about his children.

Propped up against the pillows on the headboard, Athena furiously types out a text into her phone where she has it propped up against her legs in her lap. With her face furrowed in a tight frown, she feels Damon's attention flicker from whatever movie is playing on the TV to her. Without looking up from her phone, she speaks up.

"I'm texting Bonnie and telling her what's going on. I don't want Jo or Luke knowing where we've been, though, so I'm not telling her about everything just yet."

"Probably a good idea to wait to drop that bomb until we're home," Damon agrees. He pauses for a second and then clears his throat. "Do you think he's telling the truth?"

"About the cure or his kids? Either way, the answer is yes," She huffs, finally looking up from her phone to roll her eyes. "The ominous act pisses me off, and I'm not exactly eager to listen to the deadbeat dad tell us how well he knows his kids, but I mean, there's gotta be some truth to his words, right?"

"I don't really think a child that's been supported and loved by well-rounded parents kills his siblings, so I think his parenting advice loses a little bit of credibility."

Athena sets her phone down in her lap, turning her head to focus on Damon. "So you're saying we shouldn't listen to what he said?"

"Well, you don't want to stop looking for the cure, right?"

Athena's prolonged silence makes Damon glance over at her as he sits up on the couch, turning fully to face her. "You... do you want to stop looking for the cure?"

"I didn't say that!" She holds her hands up in defense, shaking her head as he watches her. "But you have to admit, it's been nonstop chaos since Jo and Luke showed up and told us about the damn thing. We never would've known about it if it weren't for them, and we'd have avoided this whole Brotherhood of the Five mess with Nick, and everything else that's happened since then."

"Or we could've stumbled into it some other way and been in the same mess with way less information than we have now. We can't look at this based on the what ifs, Athena."

She narrows her eyes at him, thinking about everything Alaric had told her. She knows she needs to tell them about what she knows, but if she can convince everyone to stop looking for the cure altogether, it would solve her problem completely, right?

She clears her throat, sitting up some. "Okay, but all of this has been extremely dangerous and we've barely gotten any closer to finding the cure. We're not even doing it for us, we're doing it for a baby vampire and his witch sister. If it comes down to it, finding this cure isn't worth risking any of our lives for, especially for people who are virtual strangers."

Damon sighs and it sounds annoyed in a way she never hears him. "We're always in danger, Athena. We've handled everything that's come our way so far, I don't think this cure could be any worse than say, I don't know, your family?"

"First of all, that's a sensitive subject so watch it. Second of all, I'm not actually worried about how dangerous it'd be to find the cure, I'm worried about the fact that we're getting ourselves into this mess for two people who are in desperate need of learning to cope. Don't you think Luke would be less interested in this cure if his sister wasn't in his ear telling him that being a vampire was terrible and reminding him that he's been abandoned by their family? What if we just go home and tell them what their dad said and end this whole thing?"

"I think that's a bad idea, Athena. They don't need to know we were asking questions about anything, let alone asking their father. The second they know we're rethinking this and going behind their backs, they're gonna turn on us and land us in more shit."

"I'm so not threatened by either one of them that that statement almost made me laugh out loud," Athena deadpans the words, staring at Damon. "Why are you being so weird about this? I genuinely can't believe that you care this much about finding the cure for some sad little kid."

Damon shrugs at her words. "I don't care about finding the cure for Luke, that's not what this is about. I'm more worried about someone else finding the cure for themselves and all of this being for nothing. And, you know, inevitably landing us in—"

"More shit, yeah you said that. Do you think other people are looking for it?"

"I don't know. But we aren't the first ones to go looking for it, and I wouldn't be surprised if we ran into some trouble because of our timing. And God knows if we're looking for it, I can't imagine who else is."

Athena falls quiet, a contemplative look on her face as she shifts her eyes to the television running through a commercial on low volume. She needs to tell them the truth. All of them, including Jo and Luke. It's the only thing that makes sense in the long run. At least in terms of the cure and what it will take to get it, whether that involves somehow getting Kai out of his prison world or not.

But Damon's right, too, and he's not voicing anything she hasn't thought of before. When she'd nearly made herself sick wondering if Stefan would want to take the cure, they'd talked about it that night. It was ultimately better if they had the cure in their possession, because they'd be able to destroy it or use it for something good if necessary.

Pursing her lips, Athena nods slowly. "I guess we'll keep looking for the cure. Whether it's for Luke or simply so we know it's not in the wrong hands, I think— I think you're right. It'd be better if we had it."

Damon nods at her words, giving her a look that's mixed with pride and something else.

"We'll talk about it with everyone when we get home," He says, voice much less terse than before. "It's gonna be fine, Athena. We always figure it out."

"Yeah," Athena says, keeping her eyes on the television so she doesn't have to meet Damon's gaze anymore. "You're right."

She doesn't know what to do with the thought that Damon looked relieved when she agreed with him. And she doesn't know what to do with the thought that he's lying to her.

She can't say much. She is, after all, lying to him about quite a few things. Like the fact that everyone who's tried to find the cure has failed. Or the fact that there's only one dose of this cure, and she doesn't plan on letting Luke have it.

She isn't going to let anyone have it, as a matter of fact. She's going to destroy it, and she really doesn't care who she has to go through to do it.

──────

author's note; i promise i'm not abandoning this fic (or any other fics) i have just been busy having affairs with my coworkers and changing careers and finishing my freshman year of college and getting into car accidents 

edited and published; 6.29.25.

- liz