CHAPTER XXXVII
❝ You're so cute. ❞
As soon as they landed they were handed separate tasks.
Bonnie had to get the information from Shane (who seems to know a lot about this, as per Bonnie) and Damon was to accompany her.
Jamie had offered to help as well and had also gone with Bonnie.
And Stefan had asked Lucy to talk to him at the Grill.
"Why?" she whined. "If my help is not required then I'll sleep, not have drinks with you at the Grill!"
"You can sleep later on. But we need to talk. It's a matter of a few minutes." he tried to reason.
"So talk. Can't we talk here only?"
"We're literally just a block away from there."
"I'm exhausted, Stefano." she pouted at him. "I need sleepppp."
"I know, Lucy, I know. But do it for me this once, please. Just a talk at Grill and I'll even drop you while you can sleep in car."
"Ugh." she groaned, giving in to his puppy eyes. "Fine. But I want coffee. Lots and lots of coffee."
"Deal."
"And I'm feeling cold. Give me your jacket."
"Fine." he assented, removing his jacket and handing it over to her.
"I mean why do you even wear it? It's not like you feel cold. In fact it might be suffocating you." she said when she was done wearing his oversized leather jacket.
"No, it doesn't suffocate me. I feel neither cold nor hot. And, I wear it 'cause it's style."
He then walked her to the Grill, deflecting the puppy eyes she kept sending his way and settled down on the table situated as inside as possible.
"Now tell me what is it that you wanna talk about?" Lucy sighed, slumping down in her chair opposite to Stefan's after shrugging off the jacket.
"What is going on?"
"What do you mean 'what is going on'?" she rose a brow at him. "I mean the hunter shit is going on, right?"
"You know what I mean." Stefan said, crossing his arms. "What is going on between you and Klaus?"
"Nothing." she chuckled, waving her hand reassuringly. "What would be going on between me and him?"
"Then why did you call him Nik?"
"It was a slip of tongue." she exclaimed.
He didn't look convinced and narrowed his eyes at her.
"Slip of tongue?" he raised a brow.
"Yeah!" she threw her hands in the air with super exaggeration.
"You sure?"
"Hundred percent."
"Fine. I'm not convinced at all but I'll believe it for now." he shrugged. "Why did he invite you to that ball?"
"How would I know that? He is the one who invited me. I didn't ask him to. Anyway, Elena was also invited and so was Carol, so were you and so was the whole damn town!"
"But the whole town wasn't dancing with him."
"What is so wrong with that? It's just a dance!"
"You and me, we both know that it wasn't just a dance, Lucy."
She fell silent after that, throwing her hands in frustration and groaned loudly.
"Okay, Mr. Detective Salvasore." she huffed.
"Salvatore." he corrected.
"Salvasore."
"Tore."
"Sore."
"More." a newer voice added as they both turned to the source of that voice. "We're playing rhymes, right?"
"No. We're not playing anything." Stefan sighed hard as Lucy passed an awkward smile to Klaus.
"I saw my two most favourite people and thought to join their pleasant company." Klaus smiled at them, taking a chair from the adjoining set of table and sitting on that chair which was too close to Lucy's for Stefan's liking.
Stefan suddenly stood up, glaring at him.
"Stay away from my sister." he warned and just left.
"Wow." Klaus muttered casually. "He just asked me to stay away from you and then left you alone with me. Very good."
"He is being very weird today."
"Maybe me locking away Elena did wonders to his brain." he snickered to himself.
"No it's not it." she snorted, resting her cheek on her palm. "Well, this would make me the traitor, but I think it'll be fine."
"What is it?" his brows furrowed.
"Uhhh... okay, let it be. I don't wanna be the traitor." she groaned and slumped down her head on the table. "I just wanna sleep."
"You wanna sleep? Here?"
"Yeah." she exclaimed sleepily. "I haven't slept for two days. Last night I was flying back here, worried out of my mind 'cause no one bothered to tell me what exactly happened. All I got to know was a vague 'things got out of hand'. I mean who even says that? That's dumb. They're dumb. Both me and Bonnie were so worried, we thought someone died or somethin'. And the night before that I was practising with Bonnie."
"Oh my god." he sighed, shaking his head and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, keeping his hand there.
"You shouldn't miss on sleep like that, you know? It's not good for your health at all." he looked at her sternly as she smiled up at him.
"And I'm sorry for leaving so abruptly." an apologetic expression overcame his face. "You asked me to at least stay another day and I just left."
"It's s'okay. I understand. Elena just killed the hunter. It was pretty necessary to handle this situation."
"I'm still sorry. I could have dropped a message but I didn't. I'm sorry."
"It's alright. You're not obliged to inform me of every single thing you do."
"But I want to." he smiled at her sweetly. "Isn't this the basics of a relationship - never hide anything from your partner?"
"You're so cute." she chuckled softly and took the hand resting by her cheek placing a fleeting kiss onto it and snuggled into it.
Nik just smiled broadly at her and he, too, rested his head beside her on the table, facing her completely.
"If someone was to look at us right now, they would think that you drugged me and are gonna kidnap me." Lucy grinned at him.
"No they won't." he whispered as Lucy placed her hand tenderly on his cheek and shuffled a little closer.
Their first kiss would be on a coffee table with their heads resting on it? Weird and uncomfortable.
"Then they might think that I drugged you and plans on kidnapping you." she whispered, leaning a little closer.
"Let people think. Their job is to think and talk." he whispered back, his eyes briefly averting to her lips.
A throat cleared behind them.
What was with people interrupting their kiss?
They both suppressed an annoyed sigh.
"Yes?" Klaus groaned as they both raised their head and reacquired a sitting position.
"Your coffee." the waiter smiled awkwardly at them, placing the glass of coffee on the table.
"Thank you." Lucy muttered, passing him a strained smile.
Niklaus sighed when the waiter left their side.
Lucy just cleared her throat awkwardly, "Won't you ask me what I stopped from telling you earlier?"
"Okay, what is that you're not telling me?"
"Told ya, can't tell. It's a secret. I'll get busted from the group." she placed a finger on her lip, making a shushing sound.
He rolled his eyes but smiled nonetheless.
"Are they planning something against me?" he questioned.
"Nothing that will kill you." she waved her hand carelessly and took a sip from her coffee, closing her eyes.
"They're trying to break Elena out?"
She peeled an eye open. "What makes you think that?"
"Stefan left us alone here so that he can break Elena out." Klaus sighed angrily, standing up and already ready to go. "He fooled us both."
"Why do you even need Elena? She's a vampire now." she asked, setting her coffee down.
"I'm just trying to protect her. Vampire or not she can still be of my use."
"You sure you're not hiding something?"
He paused in his way but didn't turn to look at her. "No. I'm not hiding anything."
Before she could press further her phone rang, the name 'Stefan' flashing across the screen.
She picked it up, looking at Klaus who had now turned to look at her and was obviously overhearing the conversation.
"Yes, Stefan."
"Um, is Klaus with you?"
"Yeah, maybe." she said uncertainly.
"Uhh, just let him know that I tried to break Elena out and I lost her-"
"-what-?" she exclaimed.
"-but we've found a way to stop the hallucinations. Jeremy just needs to kill a vampire. I will turn anyone if I have to."
Lucy just looked at Klaus who looked extremely angry and motioned for her to pass him the phone.
"Stefan, how brilliant. And here I was wondering what made you leave all of the sudden." he spoke into the phone with faux cheerfulness. "Bring the Gilbert Boy over. That Hybrid which helped you break the little doppelganger out will be sufficient for stopping the hallucinations, I believe."
◇◇◆◇◆◇◇
Everyone else was stuck in Elena business, but Lucy was too sleepy to help.
She just called Vaishali to pick her up, who was more than eager to hear the accounts of her trip.
"Whoever this Kol is, he is literally my favourite now!" she had exclaimed, nearly losing the control of the car, when Lucy had told her how, or who exactly, had made sure Klaus was there at the club.
"He has a girlfriend." Lucy chuckled, her eyes tired from the lack of sleep.
"Men are just ew." Vaishali scrunched up her nose in disgust. "I'm not even interested."
"That's news for me." Lucy hummed, looking over at her.
"Yup."
"I mean, it's good though, otherwise I would've been left boyfriend-less if you were in the line." she joked, eliciting a chuckle from her.
"Thank you, though." Vaishali sighed, smiling at her sincerely. "For not judging."
"I mean, seriously, V? You thought I would judge? Like literally, I used to have two dads who were very happy together and it's also not like I've not dated women in the past. I'm like a century old, I'm cool with all this. And trust me, if someone judges you on this basis just punch them in the face and tell them to fuck off. Love is love."
"Yeah, I'll definitely punch them. Will break all the teeth as well." she chuckled before clearing her throat, "Okay! Enough about me. We're talking about you. What happened after he came to the club?"
"Well, we danced."
"Like, dance dance or dirty dance?" she wiggled her brows at her.
"Kinda both." she shrugged. "But not 'exactly' dirty dance. We didn't kiss or grab each other or something like that."
"Uh." Vaishali groaned loudly. "Why? Why didn't you?"
"I don't know, we just didn't." she justified herself, throwing her hands in the air. "We were dancing and then we went for dinner at the terrace. Kol arranged it but there was no food."
Vaishali just rolled her eyes and snorted. "Dinner without any food. How unique."
"Yeah." Lucy chuckled. "Well, we talked about our lives. Nik told me all about his and then we started discussing random topics."
"Nik..." she said in a sing-song voice, teasing her.
"Yeah." she grinned softly. "Nik as a nickname. In fact he asked me to call him 'Nik' all of the sudden some weeks back."
"You know, you are so sleepy right now but are still looking so vibrant talking about him. You really do like him."
"I guess I actually do." Lucy smiled softly to herself. "I mean, who won't? He's charming, irresistibly hot and that accent is just... cherry on the top."
"You both are sooo cuteee."
"Thanks." Lucy grinned at her. "So, then we were by the pool and suddenly we were throwing water at each other and then I fell into it. But I yanked him in as well. And we were about to kiss but Kol appeared out of nowhere."
"What the hell!?" Vaishali exclaimed angrily. "That idiot. I take my words back, he is definitely not my favourite at all."
Lucy just laughed at her reaction. "Actually, someone was killed, the police was there and they were clearing the club."
"Oh," the angry expression left her face, "but still he shouldn't have ruined the moment."
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A/n:
Wellllllll, hi?
How was it? Good or bad?
Until then,
Ripahhhhhhhhhh.
Word Count : 2037