❝the murder party❞

"YOUR FRIEND IS GOING TO BE A PROBLEM," Elijah took the drink from Damon, shaking his head a bit. "If he gives John back that ring, we are– and I say this delicately– royally fucked."

Damon rolls his eyes at Elijah. "I know. But Ric's stubborn, he won't give up yet."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because I know Alaric, and I know John," Damon scoffed. "And no one in the history of the planet wants to listen to John Gilbert."

Elijah gives him a warning look. "It's not something we can risk. We have to–"

The Original quickly cuts himself off when the door bursts open and Alaric walks in with a wide, nervous grin. He looks pointedly at Damon, who gives him an impatient glare at the sight of Andie beside him.

"Gentlemen, we forgot about dessert,"

Andie turns her attention to the Original, a smile on her face. "Elijah,"

The Original smirks as he looks to the girl holding her hand out invitingly. "Miss Star,"

He hands his drink off to Damon, who takes it with growing irritance the longer Elijah entertains Andie's charms. Elijah takes the woman's hand and swiftly spins her, turning them back out of the study.

As soon as they are gone, Damon turns to Alaric and swats his hand out, smacking the man's arm. "What the hell?" His harsh whisper makes Alaric give him a slightly apologetic look.

Sighing, Ric gestures to the dagger lying on the table behind Damon. He shoves past Damon and reachess for a piece of paper and a pen. He quickly scribbles the message on it and holds it up to Damon, his eyes wide in panic as the vampire scans it.

'The dagger will kill you if you use it'

Damon rolls his eyes and huffs, tearing the paper from Ric's hand. "I know,"

"What?" Alaric drops any pretense of being subtle, his disbelief lacing his voice as it echoes through the study.

Damon shakes his exasperatedly and exits the study, aware of Alaric trailing after him as they entered the dining room after Andie and Elijah.

Andie smiles politely at Alaric as the two men return, gesturing to where her purse sits a few feet away. "Alaric, could you grab my notebook out of my bag?"

Damon disregards them both and fixes his glare on John, who quirks an eyebrow at the sudden attention. "Elijah, did John tell you that he's Elena's Uncle-slash-Father?"

"Yes, I'm well aware of that,"

The vampire shrugs carelessly, giving no mind to John's warning look. "Of course, she hates him, so there's absolutely no need to keep him on the endangered species list. Might as well just take him out now, wouldn't you think?"

John narrows his eyes accusingly at Damon's antagonizing words, but Andie interrupts again, oblivious to the tension settling amongst the group. "Oh, Ric, it's in the front pocket on my– you know what? Excuse me guys, sorry."

She steps away from the table, but hardly anyone notices.

"What I'd like to know, Elijah, is how do you intend on killing Klaus?"

Elijah doesn't fall for the faux concern John attempts to put on, and he clears his throat lightly. "John, there's a few things we should probably clear up before things get too confusing for you."

He glares dangerously at John, setting his palms down on the table. "I allow you to live solely because Elena would become an even bigger thorn in my side if I killed you. I allow Elena to remain in her home, living her life with her friends and family as she does as a courtesy. If you become a bigger liability, I'll take her away and you will never see her again."

John's jaw clenches and he sits up, missing the threatening mark he was going for. "If you threaten Elena, I will–" He abruptly stops speaking as Andie joins them again, her notebook in hand as she turns to Elijah.

As Andie starts to question Elijah, Damon stands up and cuts her off. "Excuse us for a moment, Andie, I need to speak with my friends in the other room."

Damon gestures for John to follow he and Elijah, and they push past Ric who watches them go confusedly.

As soon as they're in the study again, Elijah grabs John by the throat and pins him down on the table. The human grunts in pain, his face going red as he struggles to breathe.

Damon chuckles, peering down at John, watching the confusion settle into his panicked eyes. "You had a good idea, John, I admit. You give me the dagger thinking I was going to kill Elijah with it, and then you get Elena all to yourself because you knew it'd kill me, too. You'd look like the hero and your precious little girl would live to see another day."

John gasps for air and Elijah tightens his death grip, glaring down at the irritating man. "It's a shame you were too full of yourself to see what has been going on right beneath your nose."

Damon flashes the dagger in John's eyesight and watches fear fluster him further. "How do you think, Elijah?"

The Original huffs an amused laugh, a violently humorous glint in his eye. "Something poetic,"

Damon positions the dagger over John's heart and pierces it ever so slightly into his skin, making him yell a strangled groan that Elijah muffles behind his hand.

"I'd say you died a hero, John," Damon shook his head, sounding put-upon. "But I won't lie to you on your deathbed."

He takes John's arm and lifts it, ignoring the restraint the human tries to show in his last minutes and wraps his hand around the handle of the dagger. Damon uses his own strength to push the dagger into his chest, and pierces the man's pounding heart in the blink of an eye.

As quickly as he stabbed him, Damon ripped the dagger out and Elijah let go of his grip on John's throat as the man's eyes slowly dimmed to nothing, and his pulse came to a silent stop.

Damon turns to Elijah with a victorious grin on his face, but stops in his tracks as he looks up.

Alaric's jaw is practically on the floor, and he feels an insurmountable disbelief overtake him. "What the hell is going on?"

Damon shares a panicked look with Elijah before he disappears, reappearing right behind Alaric to twist the man's neck with a sharp snap. Alaric drops to the floor, temporarily dead, and Damon meets Elijah's gaze from across the room.

"Well," He sighs heavily, putting his hands on his hips as he steps away from John Gilbert's body. "Shit."

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"It's been thirty years, Elijah. Can't you just forget about me already?"

The vampire smirks as he approaches the sullen, black haired man. "That's the thing about eternity, Damon, you tend to not forget anything."

Damon resists an eye roll. Thirty years since he first met Elijah Mikaelson that night in Nevada, and he's yet to get rid of him. Every decade or so he's visited by the Original vampire, all in the debt of some unknown face.

In those thirty years, he's told Damon plenty of stories about how he and his family came to be, and how they were the first vampires in existence, and at one point Damon thought it was nice to have someone there to talk to even if he acted put off by it. But after thirty years of loneliness, with Elijah occasionally being around for a few days at a time, he was sick of it.

The last three decades had been hard on him. He adjusted to his lonely life, but the moments of silence still caught up with him. Only once had he written to Stefan, but he hadn't gotten a response, so he took that as silent treatment. Or perhaps death– but he never cared to explore his brother's life after he left. It would save him more pain to think Stefan dead than it would anything else.

He'd long since left Nevada and the haunting comfort of his cabin in the woods, instead living in the middle of nowhere in Illinois. Yet somehow, as he always did, Elijah found him. Much to Damon's growing disdain.

"You could always compel me to forget. You'd be doing us both a favor."

Elijah laughs, like everything Damon says in amusing. "You express a want to forget me, but deep down you are curious. You want to know why I've come every time, for this friend I won't tell you about."

The Original huffs, unbothered by the way Damon continues chopping wood despite his arrival. "Deep down, Damon, you enjoy my company. You desire to know why I keep coming back, why I simply don't lie to my friend about your wellbeing, and as much as I wish to tell you what you want to know, it's not safe for either of us."

"Then why are you here?" Damon scoffs, resting the axe on his shoulder and wiping sweat off his forehead. "You've seen me. Better to report back to whoever's so adamant about knowing me even if I don't know them."

The man seems to contemplate his words for a moment. "I can assure you, Damon, I'm a man of my word and I explicitly promised my friend that I would make sure you aren't doing anything detrimental to your life, or simply giving up. Just because your eternity has been selectively miserable doesn't mean there aren't people who still care for you."

Damon frowns at his defensive tone. If he didn't know any better, he'd say that he offended the Original somehow, or the person he's here on behalf of.

He sighs in defeat. "I'm alive still. Isn't that enough?"

"There's a difference between being alive and living. You have forever to find out what you want, yet you're cowering away from every form of life because of what you've lost. That's no life, Damon, it's hell."

"Then I'm right where I belong."

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author's note; i love cliffhangers because i'm naturally problematic

edited and published; 4.18.22.

- liz