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Elijah gets a ten second warning that he is to have company.
That is to say: his phone buzzes on the table. Setting aside the newspaper—the television may be a useful invention, but some mornings he could do without the noise—he flips it over to check the screen. One text from an unknown number.
The text reads: otw
He raises his eyebrow at it. Then studies the number for a second longer, before saving it to his phone. Before he has much a chance to pick the paper back up and finish the page he was on, the back door opens.
“Usually,” he says, keeping his voice to its usual volume, “on the way does not mean already here.” He picks his paper back up and turns the page just in time for his visitor to scuff a shoe against the floor. The noise had been entirely on purpose and they both know it.
“I do not over-emote.”
It takes him a second to follow the jump, but he says, “It’s been some number of months since we’ve had that conversation.”
It has, in fact, been long enough for several lives to end and some to begin again—and long enough for the world to have witnessed the birth of hybrids again, for the first time in a millenia.
The silence is near deafening.
Elijah’s smile is politely concerned. “Has this been bothering you?”
Somehow, the silence turns pointed. He waits patiently for a verbal response.
It comes grudgingly. “No.”
Elijah hums in condescending amusement and sets aside his paper to meet Damon’s eyes. The vampire is hovering in the room’s threshold like the spot is a balance beam. Gesturing to the myriad of armchairs in his favorite study, he offers a seat.
Damon eyes him a second longer, then acquiesces. The chair he picks is the one across the heavy wood of the coffee table. It seems like a reluctant surrender, to settle into some of the most tasteful and comfortable furniture money can buy.
“May I ask the reason I’ve the pleasure of your company so early?”
“It’s quiet here.”
Elijah raises an eyebrow at the answer. “This house has been called many things. Quiet is not often one of them.”
Without further prompting—a rarity—Damon elaborates. “Your sister is at my house and your brother is out of town.” There is a certain tension to him that tells Elijah he is worried about why Klaus has quit Mystic Falls.
“Well informed,” Elijah compliments. He offers, “If you share why Rebekah has decided to invade your home this morning, I will tell you why Niklaus has left.”
“Group project,” he says succinctly. Elijah does not sigh, but he does wonder just how much a hand his sister had in arranging those circumstances. He, personally, does not much understand her recent obsession with high-school politics; though, sometimes he thinks she misses the intrigue of court. Every so often, she deigns to let him know what newest cafeteria gossip is making the rounds—and which she helped create. He is still not sure if she’s trying to get the attention of her ex-love or Miss Forbes.
In either case, Niklaus will have to be managed.
Answer for answer: “Niklaus is out on business. There’s been a spate of turnings a few states away. Enough that the locals are growing displeased with this turn of events and have… kicked it up the ladder, as it were. It’s best to… nip these things in the bud.”
Usually, Elijah would do the job himself, but Niklaus has been restless as of late; his sired hybrids rebelling have left him with some aggression to be worked out. Elijah has eyes on the situation, of course, but he deemed it best to let his dear brother spike some heads to pikes as a show of force. Two birds. One irate Original Hybrid.
Damon absorbs that for a second. “Where?”
There are two reasons the man wants to know. The first, and most unlikely, based on past behavior, is that Damon has interests that lie outside Mystic Falls’ borders. The second is that he wishes to know how far Niklaus had needed to travel to better know how long he will be gone. Careful to monitor his reaction without it being overt as to his doing so, Elijah gives him the name of the town.
Damon’s eyes narrow in thought, and then he nods. No relief. No dismay. Inconclusive.
The silence stretches on, Damon seemingly content to sit and enjoy the quiet he’d sought.
Elijah does not break it. He goes back to reading the paper.
After a good ten minutes, paper spent of useful knowledge, he switches over to the book he’d been reading. He invites his guest to avail himself of the house. Damon blinks at him, slowly, then disappears for five minutes before returning with his own book. One, Elijah is amused to note, is a purchase Rebekah had recently made to better understand her schoolmates, but had thrown down in a fit of pique.
For a while, they read. Eventually, Elijah is pleased to see, Damon even relaxes as much as Elijah’s ever seen the man do; which is to say, he is ready to bolt at any given second, but seems less like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs than the standard.
It is not so odd that he can pinpoint the moment the other vampire does relax. He and his family have, after all, often found themselves at odds with Elijah’s. It is perfectly natural to study the tells of opponents turned reluctant-allies turned opponents yet again. No matter what his siblings say. As if they have any room to talk.
At some point, a phone rings. It rings out, then starts again.
“Are you,” Elijah asks, “going to answer that?”
Damon does not so much as glance down at his pockets. “No.” His knees are drawn up, book resting against them, boots on the chair cushion. Elijah makes a mental note to have someone clean that later.
The phone begins ringing again. This time, the ringtone is different.
Damon goes still, then uncurls. He picks up the phone.
“Damon!” comes the voice of young Sarah Salvatore. “Hi! Uh, quick question, totally just out of curiosity. DoyouknowwhereMommovedthefireextinguisher?”
In the background of the call, a voice Elijah tentatively identifies as Elena’s younger brother—if a few octaves higher—calls out, “Sarah! The towels aren’t working!”
Damon stares down at his phone with what, if Elijah was half the artist his brother was and needed a portrait of the expression titled, could be called abject annoyance. The slightest hint of worry in the way he is carefully holding the phone like he’s afraid it will break heightens that. “Under the sink.”
“Great! Thanks!”
The call ends abruptly.
“I suppose this is the end of our quiet,” Elijah notes dryly.
Damon meets his eyes. For the first time since the naked fear and rage of the bunker the werewolves had him in, there is no artifice. Only wry amusement.
Elijah sighs. He sets aside his book, watches Damon carefully note the page he was on then copy him. They both stand.
“I’m afraid the book is not mine, so I cannot lend it to you,”—this is the thinnest of pretenses, Elijah could buy him the book a thousand times over should he like it, and Damon is certainly capable of procuring his own copy—”but you are welcome back anytime you’d like to finish it. Or anytime you would like quiet.”
Damon does not pause on his way out the door, and it takes every one of Elijah’s heightened senses to catch the thanks he throws over his shoulder as he leaves.