38. how to open a bar (2/3)
or how not to, as is Matt and Jeremy's case.
Matt, Jeremy, Kol, and what happens when they decide to take a break from the supernatural and have a few beers instead.
+ matt, jeremy, kol, ensemble
+ T
+ 3400~ words (so far)
+ no major spoilers. pretty much AU after because nobody's dead for once.
PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE
Matt Donovan to Jeremy Gilbert, 8:29 PM EST
dude i cant find it
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Jeremy Gilbert to Matt Donovan, 8:29 PM EST
What do you mean you can’t find it??? Have you checked back in the woods??
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Matt Donovan to Jeremy Gilbert, 8:45 PM EST
ya
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Jeremy Gilbert to Matt Donovan, 8:46 PM EST
You just went to check, didn’t you?
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Matt Donovan to Jeremy Gilbert, 8:46 PM EST
ya
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Jeremy Gilbert to Matt Donovan, 8:47 PM EST
And?
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Matt Donovan to Jeremy Gilbert, 8:48 PM EST
wasnt there
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Jeremy Gilbert to Matt Donovan, 8:48 PM EST
Have you checked your truck?
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Matt Donovan to Jeremy Gilbert, 8:56 PM EST
ya
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Jeremy Gilbert to Matt Donovan, 8:56 PM EST
AND??
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Matt Donovan to Jeremy Gilbert, 8:57 PM EST
not there either
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Jeremy Gilbert to Matt Donovan, 8:58 PM EST
How did you not think to check your truck first dude wtf like are you sure you’ve looked everywhere?
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Matt Donovan to Jeremy Gilbert, 8:59 PM EST
ya so what do we do now
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Jeremy Gilbert to Matt Donovan, 8:59 PM EST
Have you checked your room?
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Jeremy Gilbert to Matt Donovan, 9:08 PM EST
Dude?
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Jeremy Gilbert to Matt Donovan, 9:14 PM EST
Dude
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Jeremy Gilbert to Matt Donovan, 9:39 PM EST
DAMMIT MATT
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Matt Donovan to Jeremy Gilbert, 9:39 PM EST
ya
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Jeremy Gilbert to Matt Donovan, 9:40 PM EST
Nvm
“Hey, asshole.”
Matt slams shut the locker that Kol is about to close, and despite his third finger throbbing (almost as if to say Bad idea danger abort abort), shoves Kol against it. “What’d you do with it?”
Kol raises his hand and Matt finds himself sliding ten feet across the floor on his back with an oof. Okay. He’d been expecting that.
There’s a dangerous glint in Kol’s eyes as stands over Matt. “Care to try again?”
Matt glares back at him, getting back on his feet. He steps closer, his voice lowering. “I said-” Matt reaches out a hand to push Kol’s shoulder just the slightest, “what did you do with it?”
Kol’s eyes darkens considerably. “Did you just push me?”
“I did. You may scare the rest of them with your oh so high and mighty badge of Original glory, but you don’t scare me, alright?” Matt steps even closer. “You think you’re the only one who’s died and come back changed?”
There’s a question at the tip of Kol’s tongue, but he doesn’t say it. Instead, he says, “Well, I’d love to talk about this, but I have other important things to do, like, say, use my high and mighty badge of Original glory to get us unlimited access to liquor tonight.” Kol shoulders Matt as he walks past-hard. “If there’s anything you want to discuss, I’m sure you can text me.”
Matt gapes at Kol’s retreating back. “Unbeliev…” Matt mutters. He still hasn’t let that go.
“Are you that desperate for friends?” Matt calls after Kol, but only after he’s made sure that the Original is well out of earshot.
“Why so glum, chum?” Caroline appears next to Matt with a clap on his shoulder.
He winces. “Not there.”
In true Caroline fashion, she’s all over it. “Did you hurt yourself? What happened?”
“Nothing,” he says gruffly, tossing his knapsack into the back of his truck. He looks back to where Caroline’s standing, in her bleached shoes and cheer outfit. “Do you need a ride home?”
“Nah, Bonnie’s bringing her car around.” Caroline tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear, studying his expression. “You seemed a lot more cheerful in your flyer.”
“In my wh--?” Before bewilderment can even settle on his face, Caroline’s already smacked a piece of paper in it.
“I knew it had something to do with Kol!” she says triumphantly, poking the paper into his face for added effect.
“Kol?” Matt rips the paper away and scans it. His hands crumples its corner almost on instinct as he growls, “Kol.”
When Kol had suggested methods of advertising, Matt had silenced him with a glower, and Jeremy had said, “Yeah, dude? We already got that down.” And by got that down, he meant scrawled Loski’s abandoned farm ---> woods 8 PM for BEER!! on pieces of paper.
“Multicoloured,” Matt had said, “to catch people’s eye.”
“Your idea, I’m sure,” Kol said drily.
Now, their flyer featured a smirking Kol holding up two Jack Daniels in each hand, flanked by Jeremy (chugging straight from a keg) on his left and Matt (red-faced and beaming) on his right. It looked shoddily photographed. Everything looked garishly photoshopped. Judging by the photos, from Tyler’s kegger last summer when all of them had gotten very, very, very wasted. Which would explain the way Matt appeared to be swinging his beer around in the flyer.
“I’m going to kill him,” Matt declares.
Caroline raises an eyebrow.
“I’m going to hurt him very badly,” Matt says pointedly, and Caroline shrugs. Matt sees Bonnie’s car come crawling from around the corner.
“Why is he even in on this thing, anyway?” Caroline asks as she watches Matt wave at Bonnie.
“Jeremy insisted-and besides, the only reason we got saddled with Kol is because you guys didn’t show up to our first pop up bar.”
“Wait, hold up. First pop up bar?”
“Yes, first.” Matt scowls sullenly. “We got flyers and everything. I made mini pizzas.”
“Flyers?”
“Mini pizzas, Care.”
“I never got your flyer.” Caroline smacks her forehead. “Wait, was it the night of the Halloween dance? Was that why you and Jeremy weren’t there?” She doesn’t wait for an answer; his glare is more than sufficient. Bonnie honks, and she raises a finger, Just a sec.
“Are you sure you handed them out? Because this is supposed to be all super secret and a-”
“I’m sure.”
Bonnie honks again, and Caroline shoots him an apologetic smile. “Gotta go. Text me!” she calls over her shoulder as she scampers away.
Text her.
Text.
Matt Donovan to Kol M, 4:59 PM EST
i know u did it
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Kol M to Matt Donovan, 505 PM EST
Ah, IC you’ve finally found a way to text LOL is there something you need BTW?
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Matt Donovan to Kol M, 5:06 PM EST
ur the one who so insisted anyway i know u were the one behind all of them not getting our flyers
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Kol M to Matt Donovan, 5:14 PM EST
ORLY what of it?
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Matt Donovan to Kol M, 5:14 PM EST
what do u think jeremys gonna say when i tell him
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Kol M to Matt Donovan, 5:19 PM EST
Is this about the damn toaster oven SMH
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Matt Donovan to Kol M, 5:19 PM EST
ya its about the damn toaster oven
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Matt Donovan to Kol M, 4:19 PM EST
and jfc could u type any slower
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Kol M to Matt Donovan, 4:27 PM EST
IDEK what you’re talking about but WTV if it means that much to you I’ll figure SMTH out just TACP :-@
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Matt Donovan to Kol M, 4:28 PM EST
whatverer man just be at my place by 8 what are u planning on doin anyway
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Kol M to Matt Donovan, 4:36 PM EST
Can’t say here NSFW
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Matt Donovan to Kol M, 4:37 PM EST
do u even know how to use that term
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Kol M to Matt Donovan, 4:45 PM EST
LMFAO OFC HMU L8R B-)
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Matt Donovan to Jeremy Gilbert, 4:46 PM EST
i fuckin hate u
From: elena_g@gmail.com
To: eat_my_meat12@yahoo.com
Subject: (no subject)
Jer, why aren’t you answering any of my calls or texts. Anyway where’s our toaster oven???
For all of Damon’s cryptic texts-“Yo so you going tonight?” “Isn’t that the question, little Gilbert?”-he showed up all the same, Black Label Jack Daniels in his flask and scepticism in the set of his lips.
Damon’s sitting at the very edge of the clearing, where not even the dancing light of the bonfire could reach. Perched on his mossy, night-damp log, Damon eerily reminds him of a bat. He almost shudders at the irony of it all. He focuses on the flask in Damon’s hand instead.
“Are you mourning something?” Matt asks.
“Too early to tell,” Damon says, eyeing Kol, who’s scattering dried leaves into the bonfire. He turns back to Matt. “That, and my social life.”
Matt steers clear of him after that. It didn’t really matter, anyway, because Damon seemed to melt right into the darkness when more people start to arrive.
Elena brings guacamole, to go with the jumbo bag of plain Doritos that Bonnie drops into Jeremy’s lap. Jeremy brings the dip and the chips to the mini pizza station, which just a log covered with a blanket next to Kol’s sleek mini oven contraption. Elena had squinted at it for a good three seconds, before Matt hurriedly steps in to talk about how pine-y the woods smelled that night.
Kol is crouched next to his mini oven, fiddling with the nobs and buttons despite, just ten minutes ago, had rebuked Jeremy when he’d commented, “Cool oven.”
“It’s not just an oven.” Kol sniffs and holds it close to his chest. “It has an auto-eject rack, nine preset cooking functions, a digital display, and an internal sensor to maintain consistent heating temperatures. And,” he adds, “it can make smoothies.”
Okay, Jeremy concedes, that’s pretty rad. But that aside, did Kol even get the things he’d just said?
“Huh.” Kol rubs the back of his head, balancing his mini toaster oven in his other hand. “Not really. I just know that there shall and will be no fiddling with the buttons later.”
And yet here he was. Fiddling.
“Need help?” Jeremy offers, but Kol just waves him away.
Alright then.
He makes the rounds, getting drinks, stoking the fire, making sure everyone’s having a good time. Caroline had put in some good tunes in the mix she’d made, which she insisted be played over the speakers Matt had lugged here (which were also hooked up to his generator). Bonnie was laughing loudly over something Tyler was saying, almost knocking a can of beer right into Caroline’s boots had Stefan not swooped in to flick it out of the way. It ends up hitting Elena in the shoulder, but all she does is giggle and throw a marshmallow at his head. Damon is still skulking around somewhere (Jeremy could’ve sworn he saw Damon perched in a tree some two hours into the … he doesn’t exactly know what to call it. It’s not a party. It’s a pop up bar.
He swells up with pride. His pop up bar.)
“Our pop up bar,” Matt says, coming up next to him. Jeremy nods absently, taking a swig of his drink. He must have said that last part out loud. They’re back by the mini pizza station. Kol was trying to coax Damon out of his tree with the lure of mini pizzas topped with blue cheese and bacon bits.
“Things are going great,” Matt says again. “Look at that, Stefan’s kind of smiling.”
Jeremy squints. Stefan’s talking with Caroline about something or other, and sure enough, there’s a lilt to the corner of his mouth. He catches Jeremy’s eye and raises his bottle.
Jeremy raises his right back, and Kol’s toaster oven auto ejects a mini pizza right into his waiting hand.
People start leaving in a happy drunken haze around 2am, with lots of one-armed hugs and whisper-screaming into ears involved.
“Where’s the next pop up bar?” Damon asks as he drops out of his tree.
I’ll let you know, Jeremy says, his chest chuffed because he knows Damon wouldn’t bother asking if he’d had a less-than-good time. He watches Damon watch everyone leave, and the dark-haired vampire doesn’t start to gather his bearings until he’s seen the last of everyone’s back. In the back of his slightly hazy mind, Jeremy wonders if the only reason Damon was here was to watch over everyone.
He narrows his eyes and wonders how much of all of this Damon had told Alaric. He made a mental note to look alert in class tomorrow (today?). Probably take jot notes down as well.
Kol helps them clean up, picking dented cans out from under logs and shaking dried leaves off of blankets. Matt heaps the throw pillows into the back of his truck, catching whatever item Jeremy tosses at him, but steering clear of Kol whenever possible.
Nobody is allowed to touch Kol’s toaster oven, but that’s alright with the both of them.
For someone who so insisted to be a part of this pop up bar venture, Kol had barely said a word to them all night, except for the occasional snarky comment, all of which were directed to Matt.
Of course, when everything’s packed and the three of them are settled in his truck, it refused to start. As luck would have it.
“It’s your damn toaster oven,” Matt gripes, slapping a hand against his steering wheel. “Bled my truck dry.”
Kol holds it to his chest defensively. “Don’t you talk shit about my toaster oven.”
Matt looks like he certainly could and would talk shit about Kol’s toaster oven, so Jeremy quickly works out a plan. Of course, everyone he calls refuses flat out, mostly because Kol would be there. Damon went as far as to suggest (read: loudly express his frustrations) that Kol could just walk. “He’s an Original for Chrissake, it’s not like it would exhaust him,” but upon hearing this, Kol refuses point blank to even budge from his spot. Matt sticks out a petulant tongue at him.
Which is why the three of them end up waiting for Elijah to come pick all of them up. He waits by his car while they load their things into his trunk; stares down unblinkingly at Kol’s modified SUPER SECRET POP UP BAR flyer, raises an eyebrow at the way Kol is clutching his toaster oven, but says nothing.
“My truck…” Matt starts to say when they’re snug and comfortable in Elijah’s Mercedes, but all the Original says is, “I’ll have it taken care of.”
The ride home is silent. Kol sits shotgun, with his toaster oven in his lap. The soft leather feels impossibly good against his cheek, and Jeremy is nearly dozing off when Elijah asks, “So how was your night?”
“Fine,” the three of them chorus.
And that was that.