Chapter Text
Caroline and Bonnie observe Maxine at lunch.
"God, she’s still going with that?"
"It happened two weeks ago, Caroline." But even Bonnie felt like it was a bit much.
Maxine had been putting up posters around the school for her missing sister and her sister's boyfriend. (She hadn't actually gotten along with Tommy, Brooke's terribly influenced boyfriend of only a few months, but that didn't mean she wanted him missing, let alone possibly dead.)
Bonnie tells Maxine she's sorry to hear about Brooke. Maxine hands her a poster to take with her, even though all Bonnie does is half-slip half-crumple it into her sling bag.
"There's going to be another search tonight. It'd be great if you could make it."
Bonnie smiled and it looked genuine enough, but instead of really responding she just cupped Maxine’s elbow as she passed by.
-
Maxine's mom isn't handling Brooke's disappearance well. Maxine stays strong, not quite willing to let herself feel the grief of losing a sister because it was important to stay vigilant so early on.
Her mood turned around after she got a good half of her coffee down, and she wondered about caffeine dependence. Seemed like the least concerning addiction to have, but even still there was a sense of Catholic guilt.
God and his all-knowing guilt could give her a pass just this once. He’d probably depend on coffee to function if his sister disappeared, too.
-
Stefan runs into her and he’s a little surprised because he really hadn’t noticed her coming, unlike his planned stint with Elena.
"Jesus," she exclaimed, swinging her open travel mug up and away from their bodies.
"I apologize," he started.
Maxine’s eyebrows furrowed for a split second. There was something off about his cadence.
"It's okay. It's your first day, right?" He gave a small smile of confirmation. His teeth, his smile. Both were picture perfect, wide and smooth and clean. "Well, welcome to Mystic Falls High. Sorry that I almost compromised your jacket."
She pulled her travel mug of coffee - still hot after three hours, blessed be thermoregulatory technology - closer to her chest as if spilling into him was still an active concern.
He smiled again, a forgiving one. "Do you mind pointing me in the direction of the cafeteria? I'm still getting used to the layout around here."
Maxine pulled her hair from under her bag strap. "Definitely, but if you’re actually wanting edible food for lunch then I’d recommend sneaking off campus with me."
She was turning out to be bold, and it wasn’t new considering the two other girls who’d approached him in the four hours he’d been at school, but it didn’t feel like a come on. It felt like a friendly offer. Stefan wasn’t used to getting those, so he felt he couldn't be blamed for his anticipation.
"Lead the way."
-
They eat lunch at her favorite outdoor picnic table. The Virginia weather was tolerable enough to sit outside but still off-putting to Stefan since he’d forgotten how muggy east coast air felt. The girl - Maxine, he'd come to know - didn’t seem to mind, even though her hair was starting to frizz up.
"So," she started after swallowing a bite of her taco. She was balancing her lunch basket on top of her Mathematics II textbook and a smaller thinner novel, one he couldn’t catch the name of. "Is it too early to ask how your first day's going? Any new rivalries or girlfriends you wanna tell me about?"
He gave a half laugh. "It's been dull by those standards. Check back in at the end of the day and maybe I’ll have something."
She raised an eyebrow, amused, happy. "Does that mean I’m your first friend here? Or is that title reserved for someone else?"
"Only for you," he said easily. Smooth. Stefan Salvatore was proving to be very smooth.
-
Later, 26 minutes after fifth period, he actually does catch her before she leaves, and she’s wrangling with her overworked stapler. It's jammed and no amount of frustrated shaking is fixing it.
A hand adorned by recognizably crested rings gently pried her fingers away from the stapler. Stefan caught her eye by dipping his chin down.
"May I?"
Maxine sighed, letting go fully. He looked to his right and saw the poster that was folding over on itself where she propped it up with her left hand.
"This is my last one for the day," she said quietly. He picked out the problematic staple with ease and decided to just staple the right corner himself. "Thanks."
He nodded, shifting back so it was simpler to meet her eye.
"Is she your sister?" His voice was pitched nearly as quiet as her own, low and mysterious, like earthquake tremors.
"Yeah. Yeah." She wiped a hand over her forehead. "She’s been gone for a week or two."
Feigning casualty was getting harder by the day, so much so she was considering dropping her entire act because Stefan didn’t look the least bit convinced. Might as well go for it.
"There’s going to be a search party tonight if you want to join."
She was trying to figure out how to sweeten the deal, but there wasn't much to give. Good karma, possibly? That felt too grim.
"I…"
Maxine prepared herself for the worst, which was him remembering that he had an engagement at the exact time the search party was happening, how unfortunate.
"I have a thing right after school, but it shouldn’t take long."
Oh.
"What time do you guys usually meet?"
Oh.
Maxine’s voice was positively gone now, robbed because he was actually saying he could help. Not that they’d find anything, but community support was getting harder to come by. So... It was a big deal. At least to her.
"Maxine?"
He’d never even tried to shorten her name. He was so attentive. Such a good listener.
"S-six thirty." She rustled with her fliers. Anything to distract from how permanent his presence was beginning to feel. It's been a day. One day. Chill.
"Okay. I’ll be there," he asserted before pushing away and walking down the hallway. His pace created the slightest of breezes that brushed her neck. Were his jeans True Religion? Maybe she should believe their advertisements, because his butt looked fucking impossible.
-
He’s staring at Elena, not really paying attention to what Maxine is saying, and it’s awkward.
Yeah, she wasn’t talking about the most interesting thing ever (Environmental Science and school lunches capable of festering a colony of bacteria rarely are) but it was still rude. It’d be better if he just fake-excused himself for a cup of Hamish’s garage brewed punch and pulled Elena into the hallway to, "get away from the noise".
Her annoyance didn’t last long though. She knew it was because he didn’t want her to feel ignored. It was coming from a good place. That just wasn’t enough.
“You should go.” She knocked her head in Elena’s direction, accidentally catching her eye because Stefan wasn’t the only one ogling. He seemed to finally focus on Maxine, swallowing visibly. He didn’t want to give her the polite, "it’s okay I’ll talk to her later," because talking to someone later always felt like an eternity when you were a teenager, especially when you had a crush on someone, but he also had the decency to know that saying that would be… a lie. “I’ll be fine.”
She would be. She’d probably leave soon. Maybe after finding Hamish’s bathroom. She’d run through three bottles of water already.
“Are you sure?” He said, eyes flicking to Elena so quickly that she believed it to be instinctual at this point. He probably didn’t even know he’d done it.
“Yes. You’re both annoying me.” She sucked in a small breath. Her bitterness had snuck into that last sentence and he’d definitely noticed. Maxine gave a mostly genuine smile (and if it was genuine out of guilt she hoped it was convincing anyway). “Seriously. I’m tired anyway. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
His eyes searched her face. He was closer to her than he ever normally was, she assumed out of necessity to hear because Hamish was an EDM nut. She could smell his aftershave, see the chain he always wore tucked under the collar of his shirt. His dark bottom lashes. The curve of his lips.
“Okay. Lunch tomorrow.” Like always.
Her smile this time had teeth, and she secretly celebrated because that seemed to get him to finally relax. The last thing she saw before she saw the line for the bathroom and decided to hold it until she got home was Stefan leaning into Elena just as close as he'd done with her, but this time wearing a kind of smile she’d never seen him have.
-
Stefan doesn’t want to tell her about Damon at first, but feels scummy when he joins her search party to look for bodies he already knows the whereabouts of.
Stefan knew it'd be stupid to care so much about two people with such distinctly short lifespans, but it felt inevitable when they were the way they were: vulnerable, caring, living.
He was envious, something that others of his kind rarely understood. Self-hatred ran rampant inside him, and humans - flawed as they were - often felt the same way.
Being around Maxine and Elena made him feel more like the person he sought to be. The person he wished he was and never could be. It made him long for the life he never had. He wanted friday night games, a beautiful cheerleader girlfriend who looked at him like something dangerous and new and sexy (for different reasons than she currently did), a friend who smiled and laughed and brushed his arm when he said something particular.
He wanted it to be real and sincere and solid. And damon was ruining that. He owed it to Maxine to be completely honest.
If he thought about it all, Stefan knew he'd lied to Maxine in hopes that if she believed his facade, maybe it'd - come true, or something - that if he was convincing and tangible as a human teenager then maybe he could stay there like a snapshot stuck in time, a safe space for a monster like him.
Instead, he lived in the skin he did, loathing his very existence almost as much as his own blood brother. He'd continue to live off of stolen blood bags and animal carcasses and pray that if there was any kind of god out there, they'd show him mercy they'd never had before.
(Having such macabre thoughts were almost a requirement for being undead. So was depression, because didn’t life just fucking suck all the time.)
-
The day he tells her.
“What’re you even saying?”
She wanted to laugh. It called for a laugh. What he'd just fucking said, it - no. It was impossible. More plausible as a lie. A joke.
He saw the look on her face.
“I’m not lying, Maxine.”
His voice was tired, eyelids at half mast, knuckles somehow white with hands fully relaxed. He was tense, visibly so. Like he was bracing himself.
“There’s something else?” Her tone was fearful.
He wasn’t kidding. And if he wasn’t actually a vampire - because of course he wasn't, that didn’t exist - he at the very least believed he was one. That possibility seemed scarier.
It was like Stefan was looking through her. Unable to focus on her. "My brother, he…”
It wasn’t the way he’d wanted to start that sentence, but he couldn’t backtrack. He couldn’t reword it because he’d already given away the most incriminating piece of information. And there was no going back from that.
-
She'd been lucid enough for him to explain, gray as ash and still as a statue with unshed tears pooling. It was not possible. None of it was. Brooke was simply missing. They'd never found her body, and they wouldn't, because, well because...
-
"You’re ruining me," she lashed out, throwing a pillow at him. He let it land - the next one, and the next one. Damon brother would always be his responsibility. Her face was cried pink, neck streaky with running tears.
With a voice so tissue paper thin that a nearby breeze could fracture it -
"You deserved to know, Maxine."
He left.
-
Maxine avoids Stefan in school, always going ghostly pale and darting off down the nearest hallway branch.
It's a thought that often runs through her brain, what he could do and what he doesn’t do.
He could suck her dry.
He could kill her and her entire family.
He could use compulsion to suck her dry and kill her entire family and she’d never know.
He could also easily follow her, although that was more due to slow hallway traffic and the sound of her not-broken-in sneakers. But he never did, and she hoped he never would.
-
He catches her one day, outside on the front lawn and surrounded by other students with a simple, "hey".
Stefan knew to mince words because of course it was him, neither of them needed her to turn around. And it was obvious what he wanted to talk about because what the hell else could it be?
The entire time Maxine is struck with the fear that he could snap her neck, bite her so quickly that no one would notice, drain her of her blood in less than ten seconds and leave her dead and shriveled like a past-prime grapefruit.
"Maxine," he ventured, like he’d been talking the whole time and noticed that she wasn’t paying attention. Pleading. Chiding.
Deadly.
"I won't tell Elena. Or anyone. You know I won’t." And we both know why I won’t. Her voice was brittle, shaky and uneven. She didn’t want it to be, but she also didn’t blame herself. He wasn’t anything like he said he was.
(And yeah, maybe he didn’t exactly lie and say, "I'm a charmingly quiet, red-blooded human, you can trust me!", but it was a lie of omission - if you’re going to make friends you should probably tell them you might eat them for breakfast.)
"That’s…" He blew out what would be a frustrated sigh if it was anyone but him, focused on something behind her for a moment. "Okay. But you and I are good, right?"
He was trying to catch her eyes, and whether it was just to add meaning behind his words or to mind control her, she didn’t care. Both would be equally terrible.
Thank god - someone was calling her name.
"I have to go," she choked out, leaving Stefan behind and making a beeline for the person who called her name, someone she was paired with for a group project.
As intimidating as he was - and unlike him - she didn’t like lying to people. It was sort of a way to protect herself from sharing blame in a situation. She didn’t want to say they were good because it’d be a definitive lie, but she did miss him. He was unlike anyone else who’d come through Mystic Falls. (Now she knew why, but still).
She wanted him back the way he’d been.
-
She comes up to him after a week or so.
Stefan can smell her coming and it's blissful, like orange neroli and honeysuckle. He just stands there for a minute, something close to lightheaded. She’d changed her perfume.
Maxine stopped in front of him, clutching her textbooks against her chest like a makeshift shield. It mirrored her position the first time they’d met. He doesn’t look down and acknowledge it because doing so would twist the dagger in his heart at the reminder that she was scared of him.
"Your brother," she starts in lieu of a greeting. "How do I get to him?"
Stefan snapped out of his reverie. What is she...?
"No," he started slowly, shaking his head. It was so good to see her. "No, Maxine. You can't see him."
Her resolve flickered. "You're protecting him?" Her tone was acidic, disbelieving, and it gave him the slightest bit of hope. But he had to be quick at cutting down her misunderstanding. His chin dipped - and he knew how she felt about eye contact, but she wasn’t shying away this time.
"I wouldn’t dream of doing that."
His voice was quiet and firm. no room for give. His eyes finally flickered down. Familiar book flags stuck out of one of her copies. When they'd shared a textbook for class, his were always blue, hers purple.
Oh, Maxine.
When he met her gaze again, he was softer. It was disarming and she felt tears of frustration, betrayal, and grief build against the back of her eyes, a dam threatening to spill at any moment. She yearned to curtain her face with her hair. Anything to add to her shielding. She cleared her throat and tried to sniff silently.
"What's his name?" A grip readjustment. "I tried looking it up but there’s not much about the two of you."
Which was probably their doing.
"Damon Salvatore. Middle name Francesco." He was casual. Calm. Still fucking soft. It was wrong, unfair. All of it was. Maxine couldn’t breathe. She needed space. But he’d helped her and it would eat away at her if she didn’t, so—
"Thanks." It wasn’t as clear and unforgiving as she’d hoped it would sound, but it serviced, because he gave a small nod back.
-
Stefan tells Damon that she’s looking for him. It's a warning.
"I’m not hard to find," Damon grinned, already excited about someone coming willingly. Hunting was fun for a quick thrill, but if anyone asked him he preferred seduction to anything else. Vicious bloody attacks weren’t his style - he didn’t like to waste. An environmentalist.
Damon plans to kill Maxine because he finds her sense of justice annoying, but Stefan tells him not to touch her.
"Steffy. Elena I understand, I mean - she's a classic. But Maxine, she's, well, a pest. And not much of a looker, if we're honest."
Stefan stepped closer, itching to knock his teeth in.
"She’s a friend. A good one."
Damon laughed, practiced. "You’re sure you can keep it that way?"
He couldn’t stop himself from asking. "What do you mean?"
Damon’s brow raised. Never a good sign. "Please, Stefan. Don’t let me beat you at your own game. Again."
"Do not touch her, do not speak to her, do not so much as look or breathe in her general direction, or so help me Damon -"
Damon's eyes flashed in challenge. "You'll what? Chomp my head off? Brother, the worst you could do is lock me out of the house, and even that would sort of be doing me a favor." He stepped closer. "I’m going to do what I want, when I want. And you’re going to watch me. Because there’s nothing you can do about it."
He pivoted to leave before calling over his shoulder, a gleeful smile slicked onto his face. "When will you learn, Stefan? I live to spite you."