Mystic Falls
The car ride to Mystic Falls was filled with nothing but silence.
During the ride, Benjamin seemed more interested in texting random people on his phone than anything else. Sebastian, on the other hand, spent half of the ride reading a book and the other half sleeping. Meanwhile, Jordan remained focused on driving but was also preoccupied with worrying about Damon and how things might turn out in Mystic Falls.
After the brothers got the whole story from their uncle Jordon the night before about what their father was really up to. It wasn't a shock since they already knew what kind of Father Damon was. He never did anything with the goodness of his heart; there was always someone he was willing to hurt to get what he wanted, and that person just happened to be Stefan again.
The feud between Damon and Stefan prevented the Salvatores from being a real family and Benjamin and Sebastian from really getting to know their uncle, Stefan.
To this day, nobody knows what was said between Stefan and Damon the night everything fell apart.
Benjamin and Sebastian couldn't understand how their father would want to bring someone like Katherine back into their lives when the best place for her was being stuck in the tombs for the rest of her life. If Damon was going to try and bring anyone back, then it should be their mother, but unlike Katherine, she was dead, and she wasn't ever going to come back.
As far as everyone knew, you couldn't bring back the dead, and if there were any, then people would be bringing back their loved ones all the time.
Jordan Peterson parked the car outside the Salvatore boarding house, a place he'd not been in a while; now, this place would be his and the brother's home for however long they decide to stick around.
He debated whether he should turn the car around and forget ever having a phone call with his friend, but this wasn't about what he wanted. This was about what Benjamin and Sebastian wanted, and they wanted to be here. He was going to do this for them and only them.
He finally turned off the engine and looked at the oldest, who was already staring at him as if he knew what his uncle was thinking. "I'm going to get the bags out of the back. You can be the one to wake Seb."
"You know, Uncle J, I think you secretly hate me." One thing Benjamin didn't want to do was wake his brother. The last time he woke his brother up, it didn't end pretty. He ended up with a broken nose and a few words from Sebastian that nobody should want to hear. "Why must you do this to me?"
"You'll be fine." Jordan shook his head with a smile like he remembered the day. "This time, you don't have water to throw over him."
Benjamin didn't need to worry about waking his younger brother Sebastian as Jordan slammed the car door, causing Sebastian to wake up thinking something was wrong. Benjamin found it funny when Sebastian got a sudden wake-up call and hit his head on the top of the car. Once again, Benjamin was witness to Sebastian's not-so-kind words.
For such a nice guy like Sebastian, he knew how to say not nice things.
"Shut it, asshole." Forgetting about his pain, Sebastian decided to punch his brother on the arm, which got him to stop laughing and let out a few curse words of his own.
"No need to get violence dipshit." Benjamin rubbed the spot where he was hit. "I know you hate Dad and everything -"
Sebastian chose to ignore his brother's words and instead focused on the view outside the window. As he gazed out, he noticed a girl walking towards the house. She seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite place where he had seen her before. "I wonder who she is?"
"I have no idea, but I am about to find out," Benjamin said as he quickly got out of the car, not even giving his brother a chance to stop him. He knew he had to intervene and prevent his brother from making a fool of himself.
Jordan noticed the girl, and unlike Benjamin, he didn't look happy about seeing this girl; in fact, he looked a little angry. He was going to kill Damon for not saying something about Katherine already being let out of the tombs. After getting the last of the bags out of the car, he made his way over to her, standing in front of her, stopping her from going any further. "What are you doing here?"
"Excuse me?" She didn't expect such a rude welcome from someone she didn't know. "I-"
"Seriously. Uncle J—" Benjamin stopped Jordan from snapping at the poor girl again. That's no way to speak to a pretty girl," he smiled at her. I'm sorry about him. He just doesn't know how to talk to a girl. It's no wonder he can't get one."
"Shut up, asshole."
That's twice someone has called him an asshole. It may be time he learned to keep his mouth shut.
"See what I mean, rude?" he smiled when he made her smile. "I'm Benjamin, and you are?"
Sebastian leaned against the car, watching the whole thing play out. He could never understand how his brother could get any girl he wanted by only smiling at them.
"Elena." Elena only meant to come here to talk to Stefan. She was not expecting to get stopped by three strangers before she could even knock on the door. One was rude, one was trying to flirt with her, and the other was quiet, as if amused by what was going on.
"Well, Elena, it was nice to meet you... I guess..." It was Sebastian's turn to interrupt someone from saying something. "But we shall be going."
"But -"
"Come on," he said, grabbing Benjamin's arm and dragging him away from Elena and towards the house, leaving Jordan alone with her.
"That's okay. Just leave me with all the bags, why don't you?" Jordan should have known this was going to happen. He would be left with all the bags while the other two disappeared. One of these days, he would leave them in the middle of the street for anyone to take.
He forgot about Elena still standing there until he turned and nearly crashed into the girl. "Aren't you going to go -" away. "inside?"
"I was going to ask if you need any help with the bags," Elena said, realizing it was pointless since he already had them. "But I can see you've got it covered." She didn't want to go inside Stefan's house alone, not knowing whether he was there.
"I'm used to being the one left to get the bags," he said, glancing around in hopes that someone would come and save him from this awkward conversation with the girl who resembled someone he despised for ruining his best friend's life. "I'm sorry for being rude earlier," he continued. He couldn't apologize for mistaking her for Katherine, but he wanted to make amends. "I'm not having a good day, and I kind of took it out on you, so yeah, I'm sorry. My name is Jordan."
"I'm Elena, as you already know," she said, feeling a bit awkward. "I came over to see Stefan, but I'm not sure if he's home or not. Maybe it would have been better if I had called instead of showing up like this."
History has a funny way of repeating itself. Hopefully, this time, it will not end like the last one.
"How about we go and see if Stefan is inside?" he asked her as they approached the house without bothering to check if she was following him. Once inside, he was met with Damon's smirking face. "Where are Benjamin and Sebastion?" he asked.
There was a crash coming from somewhere upstairs, followed by Sebastion yelling something probably at Benjamin, which wasn't anything new.
"Upstairs, they're fighting over which room each one will get," Damon answered, looking amused about the whole situation. "I missed them—" he was going to say something else, but he stopped when Jordan stepped aside to relieve an awkward Elena looking around the place, probably hoping that Stefan would turn up at any moment.
"Ah, you must be Elena." Damon smiled again, this one full of misery. "I'm Damon, Stefan's brother."
Elena glanced briefly at Jordan before her attention was on Damon. "Stefan never told me he had a brother," she said.
"Because Damon's not worth mentioning these days," Jordan said. He got a nudge from his best friend, who wanted him to stop talking and not ruin the moment, even though he didn't know what was about to happen. "I'm going to leave you two alone and make sure Benjamin and Sebastion don't kill each other," he added. He smiled at the girl, surprising himself. "It was lovely to meet you, Elena."
By the time Jordan got upstairs and to the room, he heard the brothers still arguing. Both brothers were standing in the middle of the room with the same look on their faces. It looked like neither one of them was going to back down until they got the room.
"I can't believe you two—" Jordan sat the bags by the door and got in the middle of them, keeping them apart before blood was spilled. "Acting like children fighting over who gets which room, why don't you just flip a coin and let that decide for you?"
At that idea, the brothers scoffed like he said something crazy.
"Uncle J, we love you, but maybe it's best you let us do it our way," Sebastian said, turning to his brother. "Right, Benji?"
"Yeah, right." Benjamin nodded his head. "Besides, we are not kids."
Jordan turned to scoff. "Of course not, since kids these days are way smarter than the two of you."
"Have you ever thought about becoming a comedian, Uncle J?"
"Who cares?" Sebastian didn't want or need to hear Jordan's reply. He wanted to deal with this room debate situation, which is why he was glaring at Benjamin again. "I still think I should be getting this room as I got here first."
"You know Seb, that is the lamest argument I've heard -"
"He's right." Jordan cut Benjamin off. The oldest glared at him, while the youngest smiled at Benjamin, feeling proud that he had won for once. Now you can stop fighting over a stupid room."
"Unbelievable." Benjamin wasn't happy, though he said nothing else about the matter. He grabbed his bags and left the room to find his own.
✰✰✰✰
Once Sebastion was unpacked, he didn't wait around to have a conversation with his father like Benjamin. Instead, he decided to escape and go to one place he hadn't been in over a year.
ANASTINA BLAKE SALVATORE.
As he sat down in front of his mother's gravestone, he ran his fingers over her name. He began to rant about various things, as he usually does when he visits her grave. Even though he never knew his mother, as she passed away when he was just a week old, he still feels a strong connection to her. He feels as though she is with him every time he comes to visit her resting place.
"So that's us back in Mystica Falls, and by the looks of things, we are here to stay. Dad has something going on, and he wants us here with him because he misses us. I don't know what to believe when it comes to Dad. I don't even want to know what he's got planned for Uncle Stefan this time. Here's hoping whatever Dad has planned doesn't get anybody killed just because he wants to get back at Stefan for the same thing he did to me and Benji. Speaking of Benji, I lied to him when I told him I didn't hate our father when the truth is that I hate him a little for taking our lives away from us, which stopped us from having a family of our own." Sebastion thought about what life would be like if he wasn't turned into a vampire. Sometimes, he even thought about what it would be like if he grew up with a mother and a father. "At least one good thing came out of us this. I'm not doing it alone; I've got Benji to help me get through everything just like always ---"
A cracking sound from behind made him turn to see Benjamin, who appeared apologetic for the interruption. He sighed and returned to his previous task.
Benjamin sat down next to his brother. "I knew you'd be here," he said. It was the only place his brother went when he wanted to be alone.
"How long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough to hear you lied about hating Dad," Benjamin answered with a smile. "Don't worry. I used to hate him -"
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, that's hard to believe since he couldn't do no wrong in your eyes."
"He's not perfect, Seb, and neither are we," he nudged him a little. "I hated him for a while until I sat down and talked with him. If you have a conversation with him and tell him how you feel, it might do both of you some good. He's still our dad, and he's the only parent we've got. Without him, we wouldn't be here right now having this conversation. He gave us another life, one we shouldn't take for granted."
"You want me to talk and forgive him when he can't even forgive Stefan for doing the same thing to him," Sebastion pointed out. " The difference between them and us is that Stefan didn't kill his brother. All he did was take his choice away from him."
Benjamin didn't want to have this argument with his brother. "We don't know what happened between our uncle and father; it's got nothing to do with us. -"
"It's got everything to do with us if we keep getting put in the middle."
"Look, I don't want to talk about this here." Especially in front of their mother's grave.
"Do you ever think things would be different if she were around?" changing the subject was the way to go.
"Yeah, I do."
✰✰✰✰
In the middle of the night, Jeremy Gilbert was sitting on his bed in his room. His best friend, Miley Bennet, was pacing back and forth in front of him, confusing him and making him dizzy just by watching her. Finally, fed up with her mumbling, he stood up from his bed and grabbed her by the shoulders, stopping her from burning a hole in his bedroom carpet.
"Are you ever going to tell what is on your mind, or am I supposed to guess?"
Miley bit her bottom lip, looking straight into her best friend's eyes. "You'll hate me," she said.
"I won't. I can never hate you," he told her. I never hated you when you pushed me off the swing when we were six, causing me to break my arm. I never hated you when you decided it was a good idea to bury my action figures in the sand. You're my best friend, and nothing you can say or do will ever make me hate you."
"You say that now, but once you find out what I've done, then you'll probably be throwing me out of your house." Jeremy was looking at her like she was a little crazy, and she already felt like she was going crazy. "I could have stopped Vicki from getting hurt last night."
"How could you p-"
He was cut off when she shoved her sketch pad into his chest and told him to look it over. Yep, he was officially confused. Well, he was until he saw what she had drawn.
A clear drawing of Viki Donovan lying in the middle of the woods with blood on her neck.
Jeremy looked up from his drawing and then back down at it. He was surprised to see that his friend Miley had drawn a picture of Vicki, even though Miley wasn't there when they found her. It was Jeremy and his sister who discovered Vicki's whereabouts. "What is this?" Jeremy asked, confused.
"I drew that a few days before it even happened." She took the pad from his hands, flipped it over a page, and handed it back to him. "I also drew that one on the same night."
This time, the drawing he was looking at looked like a couple having some fun by themselves, and it would have been if it wasn't for the blood on the victim's neck. "I don't blame you, and I don't hate you."
"I could have prevented all of this if I had shown this to someone earlier. Vicki might have been okay, but instead, she was left for dead," she said as she sat down on his bed.
It was Jeremy's turn to stop her from talking. He crouched down in front of her so that he could look into her eyes, but she seemed more focused on their joint hands. "You don't know that, Miles. There was nothing you could have done to stop this. And if you showed this to Vicki, it would probably backfire. This isn't your fault, so get that thought out of your head," he said while flicking her forehead to get her to look at him.
"I can-"
Jeremy placed his finger on her lips, stopping her from continuing. "Here's what's going to happen. Tonight, you and I are going to sleep because, no offense, you need it. Then tomorrow we'll talk about everything. Okay?"
Miley nodded and smiled against his finger.
"Good," he smiled. He then got up and went to his chest of drawers, pulling out a black T-shirt and sweatpants for her to wear. You can go ahead and get ready, and I'll let Jenna know that you'll be staying over tonight."
Miley walked towards the bathroom, turning on the light and closing the door behind her. She laid down the clothes and looked at herself in the mirror. Jeremy's observation was correct; she appeared tired and in need of rest. Miley was struggling to sleep due to her feelings of guilt, not just for what happened to Vicki but also for the tragedy that struck her best friend's parents.
She needed answers about how she drew Jeremy's parents' car going over the bridge before it happened, and she knew just who to ask.
Edited 01/05/24