Winds of Change 3/?
Title: Winds of Change
Pairing: Damon/Jeremy
Rating: PG-13 (for now)
Genre: angst, romance
Warnings: none that I can think of
Spoilers: Seasons 1 and 2
Summary: Now that they're both back in Mystic Falls, Damon doesn't know if he can be held responsible for his actions. Future fic.
When Jeremy gets to work the next evening, Damon is already sitting at the bar like he’s been waiting for Jeremy to get there. Which is ridiculous. There’s no way Damon would be waiting for him, regardless of their strange encounter next to the microwave last night. Damon was just playing some sort of game with him, and Jeremy is not interested in any of Damon’s games.
“Aw, Jer, why so frowny?” Damon greets him with his usual charming grin, which Jeremy chooses to ignore, walking around the bar and busying himself with taking glasses out of the dishwasher to avoid having to even look at Damon. The vampire doesn’t take the hint.
“Let me guess,” Damon says, “Sticky and Drooly are driving you crazy.”
“Who?” Jeremy asks before he can stop himself.
Damon smirks triumphantly. “You know. The kids.” He waves his hand vaguely.
“Tucker and Jackson?” Jeremy asks, fighting the urge to grin. “Which one’s Sticky and which one is Drooly?”
“Does it matter?” Damon grins.
Jeremy laughs just a little bit, before catching himself. “You’re terrible.”
“I don’t remember claiming to be anything else.” Damon shrugs, before pushing off the bar.
“Leaving so soon?”
“Of course not. I’m going to circulate. Don’t miss me too much.”
It’s a Friday night, so the Grill fills up quickly with its usual odd mix of teenagers and adults. Jeremy almost forgets about Damon, moving from table to table, charming Carol Lockwood and Sheriff Forbes and any of the other council members present. He wonders briefly if that means Damon’s plotting something, or if it’s just a chance for the vampire to be a shameless flirt, before forcing himself to stop thinking about Damon and his flirting tendencies and focus on work.
It’s easier said than done, with the vampire appearing at the bar frequently for refills.
“Might want to slow down,” Jeremy suggests while he pours Damon’s fifth bourbon. “People will start to think you’re a lush.”
“How sweet, you’re worried about me.” Damon smirks, taking his drink. “But I’m all grown up, Jeremy. I can look after myself.”
Jeremy huffs a annoyed sigh and checks his watch, except it tells him the same thing it did when he checked it before pouring Damon’s drink: he still has four hours to go until he can close for the night.
They’re in the home stretch, though. The teenagers start to leave around eleven-thirty, all probably rushing home to make curfew, and the Grill gets significantly quieter once the tables are empty. The waitresses, two teenage girls, clock out at midnight, and then it’s just Jeremy and Matt left to close later. The bar is still pretty full, although Damon is now noticeably absent. Jeremy refuses to wonder about why the vampire has disappeared, mostly because he’s fairly certain he already knows the answer.
By the time last call rolls around, there are only four people left in the bar. They start to gather their things, two of them coming up to the bar to settle their open tabs. Once Matt closes the door behind the last (fairly drunk) customer, they set to work cleaning up. He keeps pausing to yawn widely, and he looks dead on his feet.
Jeremy knows Matt has to be here in a few hours to meet the beer delivery, so he takes pity on him. “Go home, man. I can handle clean up.”
“You sure?” Matt looks like he thinks Jeremy’s offer might be too good to be true.
“Yeah. Get some sleep. I have tomorrow off anyway.”
“All right. Thanks.”
“No problem,” Jeremy shrugs.
He’s putting the chairs up when he hears someone knock on the locked front door. He figures Matt probably forgot something and crosses to the door. Instead of Matt, he sees Damon standing on the other side of the glass.
Damon grins when he sees him and motions for Jeremy to open the door. Which he does, against his better judgment.
“We’re closed.”
“I know.” Damon smirks. “I’m perfectly capable of reading the sign.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I saw you were all alone. I’m here to protect you from the things that go bump in the night.”
“Besides you, you mean?” Jeremy asks darkly, returning to putting up chairs.
“Obviously. I’m on your side.”
Damon’s voice is closer than Jeremy expects and when he looks up the vampire is putting the chairs up on the next table over.
He feels a sudden rush of gratitude towards the vampire, before squashing it quickly and snapping, “I don’t need your help.”
Damon makes it easy to forget the less savory things he’s done by being charming and witty and too damn attractive for anyone’s good and Jeremy doesn’t trust Damon or his motives for being back in Mystic Falls. He’s tired of Damon’s half-truths, regardless of how entertaining they are.
“I didn’t say you needed help. But I’m bored.”
“Of course you are. It’s Mystic Falls.”
Jeremy realizes he’s not going to get rid of Damon anytime soon, so he lets the vampire continue putting chairs up while he starts pushing the mop across the floor.
“To its credit, this place is much more interesting now than in 1864. It’s all that electricity and indoor plumbing.”
“I’m sure that’s the reason.”
Damon only grins and darts out of the way of Jeremy’s mop.
“You know what I don’t understand,” Damon says after a few minutes of surprisingly comfortable silence. “Why are you here? You’re obviously bored with this whole town.”
“I’m figuring things out.” Jeremy shrugs, wishing he had a better answer, although he’s not entirely sure for whose benefit.
“Okay,” Damon looks skeptical. “But you could bartend anywhere while you’re ‘figuring things out’, ergo you don’t have to be here.”
“Ergo?” Jeremy snorts. “This sounds a lot like the pot and the kettle. You could be anywhere else. You already were somewhere and you came back.”
Damon shrugs. “I’m almost two hundred years old and immortal. I can do what I want. You’re not. You could wake up one day twenty years from now and wonder where your life disappeared to.”
“Are you giving me a pep talk?” Jeremy frowns.
“No. Just having a conversation.”
“Are you sure? Because it feels very ‘the world is your oyster, live your dreams, Jeremy’.”
“If I ever use the phase ‘the world is your oyster’ you have full permission to stake me.” Damon smirks. “And if this were a pep talk, which it isn’t, it would definitely be of the ‘don’t be stupid and fuck up your life’ variety.”
“That’s not a pep talk. That’s common sense.”
Damon shrugs, but doesn’t say anything.
“I’m just getting back on my feet.” Jeremy insists, not sure why it matters so much to him that Damon understands this. “Living here…it’s not permanent.”
“I didn’t realize you’d been knocked off your feet in the first place.” Damon says, and he’s leveling Jeremy with a knowing look that makes Jeremy want to squirm out of his own skin.
Jeremy finishes mopping the floor and stows the mop away in the supply closet. When he returns, Damon is leaning against the bar.
“I’m done here.” Jeremy says. “You’ll have to find somebody else to entertain you, because I’m going home.”
“I’ll walk with you.” Damon offers, pushing off the bar and following Jeremy to the door. Jeremy waits for the joke about the things that lurk in the dark in Mystic Falls, but it never comes. Apparently Damon is in desperate need of company, if he’s willing to walk Jeremy the ten minutes from the Grill to his house.
Damon stands on the sidewalk while Jeremy locks up. Being patient, he’s realizing, is not one of his strong suits. He’s better at throwing caution to the wind than he is at waiting. Waiting is boring and he’s starting to figure out that waiting on Jeremy means he could be waiting for a long time. It seems Jeremy is as lost as Damon is-for very different reasons, but lost all the same. Jeremy doesn’t know what he wants, while Damon knows exactly what he wants but has no idea how to get it.
“Earth to Damon?”
Damon snaps out of his thoughts to find Jeremy staring at him like he thinks he’s crazy.
“Yeah?” Damon frowns.
“Are we walking or are we going to stand here all night?”
Admittedly, Damon would be perfectly happy to do either, but he suspects the same cannot be said of Jeremy. “We’re walking,” he says, falling into step beside Jeremy.
“If this is a conversation, it’s your turn to answer the question. Why are you here?”
“I wish I could tell you.” Damon says honestly. “But I can’t.
“That sounds more like won’t.” Jeremy glances sideways at Damon.
“Semantics.” Damon sighs. “I’ve given you plenty of reasons. Pick one.”
“That’s bullshit, Damon, and you know it.”
“I never claimed it was anything else.”
“I’ve been nothing but honest with you. Would it kill you to do the same?” Jeremy scowls.
“I don’t know. Can’t say it’s a theory I want to test out though,” he quips. It’s not one of his more attractive qualities, but Damon has always enjoyed baiting Jeremy. He likes to see how far he can push before Jeremy lashes out. His fuse is much longer now than it was a few years ago; Damon has to try harder to annoy him.
Jeremy lets out a frustrated noise. “You’re impossible.”
“What does it matter, why I’m back?” Damon challenges. “Why do you care?”
The question seems to stump Jeremy because he falls silent, like he’s trying to work it out before he answers.
“I don’t know yet.” Jeremy says softly. “But I do.”
The answer surprises Damon, mostly because he’d expected a harsh I don’t care instead of the painfully honest admission.
“Tell me the truth.” Jeremy demands, determined now.
“You can’t handle the truth.” The joke sounds feeble to Damon’s own ears, so he knows Jeremy isn’t going to buy it.
“I’m serious, Damon. I want to know.”
“I don’t know, all right?” Damon snaps, confused about how the balance of power shifted. Jeremy is supposed to be the one who’s lashing out, not him. “One morning I was sitting eating breakfast in Ho Chi Minh City and four hours later I was on a plane. The only thing that happened in between was a phone call with your sister.”
Jeremy flinches. “So this is about Elena.”
Damon wants to freeze time, maybe rewind it, so he can analyze that flinch and the slightly injured tone of Jeremy’s voice. It means something, Damon knows it does, even if Jeremy doesn’t want to admit it.
“I should have remembered,” Jeremy continues coldly. “It’s always about Elena with you.”
Damon rolls his eyes. “Of course it’s not about Elena. I would have gone to play third-wheel if it were.”
Jeremy is still making a face like he might like to strangle Elena. It’s the most encouraging thing that’s happened in five years, at least. Definitely better than Jenna’s quiet words of encouragement or Elena’s not-so-subtle hinting about Jeremy’s return to Mystic Falls.
“Then what is it about, Damon? Explain it to me, because I don’t understand.”
Damon has two choices. He could sit down with Jeremy on the porch steps (he wonders idly how long they’ve been arguing on the Saltzmans’ driveway, because he lost track of time much earlier in the conversation) and go the Stefan route, talking about his feelings and explaining everything very clearly to Jeremy, speaking slowly so as not to scare him away like the big bad vampire he is. Or he could do what he’s been dying to since the moment he saw Jeremy behind the bar at the Grill three days ago.
He chooses door number two, stepping closer to Jeremy. He curls his hand around the back of Jeremy’s neck and closes the distance between them, pressing his lips against Jeremy’s. For a second or two Jeremy is kissing him back and then he freezes and the voice in the back of Damon’s head that sounds annoyingly like Stefan tells him he should have picked door number one. Jeremy pushes him, hard, and Damon stumbles backwards.
“What the fuck was that?” Jeremy hisses.
“A kiss. I know it wasn’t your first, Jeremy, although that would certainly explain a lot.”
“You can’t just go around kissing people for no reason.” Jeremy whispers harshly.
Damon isn’t sure why, but Jeremy’s words are like a punch to his gut. For no reason. It echoes around in his head, hurting more with each loop. He knows Jeremy isn’t stupid, that he’s deliberately pushing away what Damon is trying to tell him. Damon isn’t explaining himself well, but Jeremy isn’t exactly trying very hard to understand either, despite all his demands to know the truth.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve here, but I’m tired of whatever mind game you’re playing.” Jeremy snaps.
“It’s not a fucking game,” Damon snarls before turning on his heel and striding back down the driveway. He walks at a human speed, daring Jeremy to follow him. He needs Jeremy to follow him, to demand further explanations because he doesn’t know how to just offer them unbidden. It goes against every instinct he has, but he wants Jeremy to claw the truth out of him, because he’s afraid of what could happen if he never tells.
But Jeremy doesn’t follow and Damon can’t make himself go back.
Pairing: Damon/Jeremy
Rating: PG-13 (for now)
Genre: angst, romance
Warnings: none that I can think of
Spoilers: Seasons 1 and 2
Summary: Now that they're both back in Mystic Falls, Damon doesn't know if he can be held responsible for his actions. Future fic.
When Jeremy gets to work the next evening, Damon is already sitting at the bar like he’s been waiting for Jeremy to get there. Which is ridiculous. There’s no way Damon would be waiting for him, regardless of their strange encounter next to the microwave last night. Damon was just playing some sort of game with him, and Jeremy is not interested in any of Damon’s games.
“Aw, Jer, why so frowny?” Damon greets him with his usual charming grin, which Jeremy chooses to ignore, walking around the bar and busying himself with taking glasses out of the dishwasher to avoid having to even look at Damon. The vampire doesn’t take the hint.
“Let me guess,” Damon says, “Sticky and Drooly are driving you crazy.”
“Who?” Jeremy asks before he can stop himself.
Damon smirks triumphantly. “You know. The kids.” He waves his hand vaguely.
“Tucker and Jackson?” Jeremy asks, fighting the urge to grin. “Which one’s Sticky and which one is Drooly?”
“Does it matter?” Damon grins.
Jeremy laughs just a little bit, before catching himself. “You’re terrible.”
“I don’t remember claiming to be anything else.” Damon shrugs, before pushing off the bar.
“Leaving so soon?”
“Of course not. I’m going to circulate. Don’t miss me too much.”
It’s a Friday night, so the Grill fills up quickly with its usual odd mix of teenagers and adults. Jeremy almost forgets about Damon, moving from table to table, charming Carol Lockwood and Sheriff Forbes and any of the other council members present. He wonders briefly if that means Damon’s plotting something, or if it’s just a chance for the vampire to be a shameless flirt, before forcing himself to stop thinking about Damon and his flirting tendencies and focus on work.
It’s easier said than done, with the vampire appearing at the bar frequently for refills.
“Might want to slow down,” Jeremy suggests while he pours Damon’s fifth bourbon. “People will start to think you’re a lush.”
“How sweet, you’re worried about me.” Damon smirks, taking his drink. “But I’m all grown up, Jeremy. I can look after myself.”
Jeremy huffs a annoyed sigh and checks his watch, except it tells him the same thing it did when he checked it before pouring Damon’s drink: he still has four hours to go until he can close for the night.
They’re in the home stretch, though. The teenagers start to leave around eleven-thirty, all probably rushing home to make curfew, and the Grill gets significantly quieter once the tables are empty. The waitresses, two teenage girls, clock out at midnight, and then it’s just Jeremy and Matt left to close later. The bar is still pretty full, although Damon is now noticeably absent. Jeremy refuses to wonder about why the vampire has disappeared, mostly because he’s fairly certain he already knows the answer.
By the time last call rolls around, there are only four people left in the bar. They start to gather their things, two of them coming up to the bar to settle their open tabs. Once Matt closes the door behind the last (fairly drunk) customer, they set to work cleaning up. He keeps pausing to yawn widely, and he looks dead on his feet.
Jeremy knows Matt has to be here in a few hours to meet the beer delivery, so he takes pity on him. “Go home, man. I can handle clean up.”
“You sure?” Matt looks like he thinks Jeremy’s offer might be too good to be true.
“Yeah. Get some sleep. I have tomorrow off anyway.”
“All right. Thanks.”
“No problem,” Jeremy shrugs.
He’s putting the chairs up when he hears someone knock on the locked front door. He figures Matt probably forgot something and crosses to the door. Instead of Matt, he sees Damon standing on the other side of the glass.
Damon grins when he sees him and motions for Jeremy to open the door. Which he does, against his better judgment.
“We’re closed.”
“I know.” Damon smirks. “I’m perfectly capable of reading the sign.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I saw you were all alone. I’m here to protect you from the things that go bump in the night.”
“Besides you, you mean?” Jeremy asks darkly, returning to putting up chairs.
“Obviously. I’m on your side.”
Damon’s voice is closer than Jeremy expects and when he looks up the vampire is putting the chairs up on the next table over.
He feels a sudden rush of gratitude towards the vampire, before squashing it quickly and snapping, “I don’t need your help.”
Damon makes it easy to forget the less savory things he’s done by being charming and witty and too damn attractive for anyone’s good and Jeremy doesn’t trust Damon or his motives for being back in Mystic Falls. He’s tired of Damon’s half-truths, regardless of how entertaining they are.
“I didn’t say you needed help. But I’m bored.”
“Of course you are. It’s Mystic Falls.”
Jeremy realizes he’s not going to get rid of Damon anytime soon, so he lets the vampire continue putting chairs up while he starts pushing the mop across the floor.
“To its credit, this place is much more interesting now than in 1864. It’s all that electricity and indoor plumbing.”
“I’m sure that’s the reason.”
Damon only grins and darts out of the way of Jeremy’s mop.
“You know what I don’t understand,” Damon says after a few minutes of surprisingly comfortable silence. “Why are you here? You’re obviously bored with this whole town.”
“I’m figuring things out.” Jeremy shrugs, wishing he had a better answer, although he’s not entirely sure for whose benefit.
“Okay,” Damon looks skeptical. “But you could bartend anywhere while you’re ‘figuring things out’, ergo you don’t have to be here.”
“Ergo?” Jeremy snorts. “This sounds a lot like the pot and the kettle. You could be anywhere else. You already were somewhere and you came back.”
Damon shrugs. “I’m almost two hundred years old and immortal. I can do what I want. You’re not. You could wake up one day twenty years from now and wonder where your life disappeared to.”
“Are you giving me a pep talk?” Jeremy frowns.
“No. Just having a conversation.”
“Are you sure? Because it feels very ‘the world is your oyster, live your dreams, Jeremy’.”
“If I ever use the phase ‘the world is your oyster’ you have full permission to stake me.” Damon smirks. “And if this were a pep talk, which it isn’t, it would definitely be of the ‘don’t be stupid and fuck up your life’ variety.”
“That’s not a pep talk. That’s common sense.”
Damon shrugs, but doesn’t say anything.
“I’m just getting back on my feet.” Jeremy insists, not sure why it matters so much to him that Damon understands this. “Living here…it’s not permanent.”
“I didn’t realize you’d been knocked off your feet in the first place.” Damon says, and he’s leveling Jeremy with a knowing look that makes Jeremy want to squirm out of his own skin.
Jeremy finishes mopping the floor and stows the mop away in the supply closet. When he returns, Damon is leaning against the bar.
“I’m done here.” Jeremy says. “You’ll have to find somebody else to entertain you, because I’m going home.”
“I’ll walk with you.” Damon offers, pushing off the bar and following Jeremy to the door. Jeremy waits for the joke about the things that lurk in the dark in Mystic Falls, but it never comes. Apparently Damon is in desperate need of company, if he’s willing to walk Jeremy the ten minutes from the Grill to his house.
Damon stands on the sidewalk while Jeremy locks up. Being patient, he’s realizing, is not one of his strong suits. He’s better at throwing caution to the wind than he is at waiting. Waiting is boring and he’s starting to figure out that waiting on Jeremy means he could be waiting for a long time. It seems Jeremy is as lost as Damon is-for very different reasons, but lost all the same. Jeremy doesn’t know what he wants, while Damon knows exactly what he wants but has no idea how to get it.
“Earth to Damon?”
Damon snaps out of his thoughts to find Jeremy staring at him like he thinks he’s crazy.
“Yeah?” Damon frowns.
“Are we walking or are we going to stand here all night?”
Admittedly, Damon would be perfectly happy to do either, but he suspects the same cannot be said of Jeremy. “We’re walking,” he says, falling into step beside Jeremy.
“If this is a conversation, it’s your turn to answer the question. Why are you here?”
“I wish I could tell you.” Damon says honestly. “But I can’t.
“That sounds more like won’t.” Jeremy glances sideways at Damon.
“Semantics.” Damon sighs. “I’ve given you plenty of reasons. Pick one.”
“That’s bullshit, Damon, and you know it.”
“I never claimed it was anything else.”
“I’ve been nothing but honest with you. Would it kill you to do the same?” Jeremy scowls.
“I don’t know. Can’t say it’s a theory I want to test out though,” he quips. It’s not one of his more attractive qualities, but Damon has always enjoyed baiting Jeremy. He likes to see how far he can push before Jeremy lashes out. His fuse is much longer now than it was a few years ago; Damon has to try harder to annoy him.
Jeremy lets out a frustrated noise. “You’re impossible.”
“What does it matter, why I’m back?” Damon challenges. “Why do you care?”
The question seems to stump Jeremy because he falls silent, like he’s trying to work it out before he answers.
“I don’t know yet.” Jeremy says softly. “But I do.”
The answer surprises Damon, mostly because he’d expected a harsh I don’t care instead of the painfully honest admission.
“Tell me the truth.” Jeremy demands, determined now.
“You can’t handle the truth.” The joke sounds feeble to Damon’s own ears, so he knows Jeremy isn’t going to buy it.
“I’m serious, Damon. I want to know.”
“I don’t know, all right?” Damon snaps, confused about how the balance of power shifted. Jeremy is supposed to be the one who’s lashing out, not him. “One morning I was sitting eating breakfast in Ho Chi Minh City and four hours later I was on a plane. The only thing that happened in between was a phone call with your sister.”
Jeremy flinches. “So this is about Elena.”
Damon wants to freeze time, maybe rewind it, so he can analyze that flinch and the slightly injured tone of Jeremy’s voice. It means something, Damon knows it does, even if Jeremy doesn’t want to admit it.
“I should have remembered,” Jeremy continues coldly. “It’s always about Elena with you.”
Damon rolls his eyes. “Of course it’s not about Elena. I would have gone to play third-wheel if it were.”
Jeremy is still making a face like he might like to strangle Elena. It’s the most encouraging thing that’s happened in five years, at least. Definitely better than Jenna’s quiet words of encouragement or Elena’s not-so-subtle hinting about Jeremy’s return to Mystic Falls.
“Then what is it about, Damon? Explain it to me, because I don’t understand.”
Damon has two choices. He could sit down with Jeremy on the porch steps (he wonders idly how long they’ve been arguing on the Saltzmans’ driveway, because he lost track of time much earlier in the conversation) and go the Stefan route, talking about his feelings and explaining everything very clearly to Jeremy, speaking slowly so as not to scare him away like the big bad vampire he is. Or he could do what he’s been dying to since the moment he saw Jeremy behind the bar at the Grill three days ago.
He chooses door number two, stepping closer to Jeremy. He curls his hand around the back of Jeremy’s neck and closes the distance between them, pressing his lips against Jeremy’s. For a second or two Jeremy is kissing him back and then he freezes and the voice in the back of Damon’s head that sounds annoyingly like Stefan tells him he should have picked door number one. Jeremy pushes him, hard, and Damon stumbles backwards.
“What the fuck was that?” Jeremy hisses.
“A kiss. I know it wasn’t your first, Jeremy, although that would certainly explain a lot.”
“You can’t just go around kissing people for no reason.” Jeremy whispers harshly.
Damon isn’t sure why, but Jeremy’s words are like a punch to his gut. For no reason. It echoes around in his head, hurting more with each loop. He knows Jeremy isn’t stupid, that he’s deliberately pushing away what Damon is trying to tell him. Damon isn’t explaining himself well, but Jeremy isn’t exactly trying very hard to understand either, despite all his demands to know the truth.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve here, but I’m tired of whatever mind game you’re playing.” Jeremy snaps.
“It’s not a fucking game,” Damon snarls before turning on his heel and striding back down the driveway. He walks at a human speed, daring Jeremy to follow him. He needs Jeremy to follow him, to demand further explanations because he doesn’t know how to just offer them unbidden. It goes against every instinct he has, but he wants Jeremy to claw the truth out of him, because he’s afraid of what could happen if he never tells.
But Jeremy doesn’t follow and Damon can’t make himself go back.