The Devil Takes Care of His Own

Old Friends

My first mistake was that I was looking down at my phone instead of looking up while I was walking. I bumped into someone and whined. My head and hands were resting on their broad chest and I blushed softly when I tried to steady myself.

"I'm sorry. I was texting a friend of mine and I wasn't really paying attention." I said, looking up and feeling myself falter a bit when my blue eyes met with those that were looking down at me.

He smirked softly as he looked down at my small frame and he shook his head as I stood up a bit and slid my phone into my back pocket.

"Don't worry about it, love." He began in an accented voice that I was definitely not expecting to find in Mystic Falls, "But I must ask, where are you running off to in such a hurry?"

"Oh, I'm on my way to see an old friend of mine." I said with a small shrug.

"An old friend?" he raised an eyebrow and I looked a bit confused, "Who?"

"Um, Damon Salvatore. We've been friends for as long as I can remember." I pushed my hair out of my eyes, still looking up at him, "Do you know him?"

"I do actually. Unfortunately, we are not very good friends." he explained, looking me up and down a bit in a way that was probably supposed to be sneaky, "I'm Nik, by the way. Nik Mikaelson."

"I'm Ashley Darko, but most people call me Ash." I replied, feeling a bit more shy than I would ever had expected of myself.

"Tell you what, Ashley," he began, leaning a bit closer to the point where he was towering over me as he slid his phone out of his pocket, "I'd like to see more of you. Maybe next time our meeting can be a bit smoother. What do you say?"

I nodded and his phone slid into my hands. I typed in my name and number quickly then handed it back to him.

"I need to go surprise my friend. It's been a while since we last saw each other." I explained, backing away a bit even though I wouldn't mind spending the rest of the day talking to him in the middle of the street.

He nodded and put his phone into the pocket that was on his leather jacket after sending me a short text just so I would have his number as well. We parted ways and I made my way down the road to the Salvatore house. I walked in easily. I had been invited into the home of the Salvatore's enough to come and go as I pleased. Of course, the person I was looking for was right where I expected him to be. His head was looking down at his phone and there was a glass bottle in his hands which I snatched away from him easily.

"Salvatore, you should be much more aware of your surroundings. If I was a hunter, I could've killed you several times by now." I teased, nudging his back playfully as I took some drinks from the bottle he was once holding.

"Ashley?" Damon asked as he rose from his seat and looked up at me, confused but obviously happy as his arms wrapped around me in a tight hug. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you. After all, I'm your best friend." I said teasingly as I hugged him back and his arms slowly slid away from me.

"Let me guess, you got tired of Max?" he asked as he sat back down at the couch and I sat beside him with my legs over his lap, already getting comfortable in his house as I usually did.

"You could at least pretend to be a kind gentleman towards me." I said with a roll of my eyes while I slid the glass from his hand and sipped at it myself, watching as my oldest friend locked his phone and placed it on the armrest of the couch.

"What happened? Last time we spoke, he was your soul mate." He asked, still looking at me with a bit on confusion.

"Let's be honest here, I'm my own soul mate." I sipped at the dark liquid again then shrugged, "besides, I probably don't have much of a soul at this point."

"Yeah, you're probably right." He began passive-aggressively, "If there is such a thing as a soul, I doubt you have one."

"Are you still mad at me for the last time we saw each other?"

"You snapped my neck, Ash. Yes, I'm mad."

I rolled my eyes playfully and our round of drinks came out. We both took a glass and I looked up at him, readjusting my sunglasses so they were on top of my head and not over my eyes.

"In my defense, I needed people to think you were dead in order to save my sister. You probably would've done the same." I explained, knowing that he'd be over it in seconds yesterday.

"Yeah, you're probably right." He took a few sips at his drink, "By the way, how is your lovely twin sister? Is she still as attractive as I remember?"

"Well, considering we are identical twins, I'd be insulted if she wasn't still attractive in your eyes."

"Where is she? Usually you and Olivia are on separate continents. Has that changed?"

I shrugged and finished my drink as he did. "Last I heard, she was in Italy with her newest love. She just turned him. I suppose this is a honeymoon in their eyes. What about Stefan?"

Before Damon could answer the question, Stefan walked in with a few people who I could only assume were his friends behind him. All of them, except for Stefan silenced in surprise as they walked in and saw us together on the couch. Stefan ran towards us and wrapped his arms around me in a bone-crushing hug similar to the one his older brother had given me earlier.

"Ashley," he mumbled softly as he pulled his body away from mine, "this is unexpected."

"Well, I decided to visit my favorite people in the world." I said sweetly, watching as he nodded and smiled knowingly.

"Right..." he began in a suspicious tone, "So when did you and Max break up?"

"How do you know we aren't still together?"

"Because if the two of you were still together, his car would be parked outside and he'd be watching you and Damon very closely." He said simply as if he was surprised that I wasn't able to figure out his clues.

"Right, well, aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?" I asked him in an attempt to change the subject after rolling my eyes playfully at his words.

He nodded and gently grabbed my hand as he pulled me towards the group of confused teenagers. For the first time, Damon looked up and he raised an eyebrow when he saw the rather large group that was there.

"Ashley, these are some of my friends. This is Tyler, Caroline, Bonnie, Matt, Jeremy, and my girlfriend Elena." He paused for a second in order for me to try and get their names right, "Everyone, this is Damon's best friend Ashley Darko."

"Now that we are on the topic of friends, maybe someone can explain to me why you arrived with every mismatched member of the Breakfast Club?" Damon asked from where he was a few feet behind us.

Stefan sighed and walked back towards Damon with me right behind him. I sat with my legs over Damon's lap and the bottle in my hand as I had before while everyone crowded around the Salvatore brothers on the couches and chairs around the living room.

"What's going on?" Damon asked again, his voice a bit slower now since he was obviously more concerned.

"We need a better plan to get rid of Klaus." Stefan began to explain, "I know you just want to kill him, but we both know why you can't do that."

"So what do you want us to do?" Damon started in his ever-present sarcastic tone as he snatched the bottle back from my hand, "Are we going to distract him with Caroline again? Eventually he's going to catch on and realize that we dangle her in front of him for a distraction."

Stefan shook his head and started going on and on about a new plan that he seemed to have. Luckily, I was all caught up to everything that he was talking about because Damon and I were constantly sending each other messages back and forth. While he spoke, I could tell that some of Stefan's friends were a little uneasy to be talking about all of this with me in the room since they had never met me before. At the end of his lengthy speech, Stefan took a deep breath then looked back over at Damon and I in a way that made me know I wouldn't be happy with whatever he was about to say.

"No way," Damon began before I could even say anything, "I have one friend that I don't secretly despise. You aren't going to include her in whatever plan you have cooking up in your head right now."

"It's a good plan. In fact, I'm sure our lovely blonde friend here will be very interested in meeting Klaus." He sat next to me and bit his lip softly, "You'll help us, right Ashley?"

"Stefan, I don't even know what you want me to do yet. You can't expect me to agree to a plan if I haven't heard my part in it." I said with another roll of my eyes. "I'm not about to let you pimp me out to one of the original's."

"No one is pimping you out to the original's. We just need you to be extra nice to Klaus while the rest of us plan his epic demise. Can you do it? Please? For your favorite Salvatore?" Stefan asked, whining a bit like a little kid and making Damon chuckle.

"What makes you think that you're her favorite Salvatore? I'm the one that's her best friend. You're just the pesky little brother that can't handle his own playdates." Damon mumbled, making me groan.

"I'll do it." I said, just to shut both of them up since I usually helped them out with whatever they needed anyway, "But, I don't even know who Klaus is so you're going to have to direct me towards him whenever we happen to bump into the big bad boogeyman that you're all so afraid of."

Stefan nodded and I could tell there was still something hidden up his sleeve.

"Alright. First things first, you need to get back in school like Elena and I." he said simply, making me groan again since I knew I wouldn't be able to find a way out of this one.

AN: This may be the first chapter but I will probably not be posting anything else until I get some feedback to know what everyone thinks!!!