Clair de Lune - K.M.

c h a p t e r t h i r t y s e v e n

I wake up with a pounding headache. Soft late afternoon light streams in through the windows as I sit up with a groan as I try to remember where I am.

I'm laying on top of a made bed with an extra blanket spread out over me. As I look around, I notice pictures of Elena and the rest of the Gilberts set up around the room. There's a stuffed bear on the bed next to me and I pick it up with a sigh, straightening the red bow around it's neck.

This is Elena's room at the lake house. I've only been here once before, when Bonnie, Caroline and I came up with Elena and her family for the weekend when we were kids. The only thing really I remember about that trip is Elena trying to teach the three of us how to dive off the dock. She was a terrible teacher, I think each of us bellyflopped about fifteen times before we finally figured it out.

I shake my head, way too much going on in my brain to drag up forgotten memories, and a wave of nausea passes over me. I'm not sure who decided that vampires can still get hungover but I'd like to have a word with them.

Ignoring the pounding in my head the best that I can, I slide off the bed and rummage through the bag that I brought. Apparently my drunk self thought it would be necessary to bring eight pairs of underwear, four t-shirts and one singular pair of pants. I hold up the jeans and examine them with a sigh.

At least I remembered a toothbrush.

Thankfully the bathroom is stocked with everything I need to take a shower. Elena must keep extra stuff here for when she has the chance to come up. I head down the hall and start the shower, allowing it to heat up as I remove my clothes and set them aside. The hot stream of water helps to soothe some of the tension in my muscles but I still feel tight with stress and anger. Even though the couple hours of sleep I got helped, they still didn't change how I feel.

Because it's my first shower in days, I take the time to thoroughly wash and condition my hair. I wash the rest of my body the best I can to get the stink of alcohol off my skin and eventually end up just standing under the steaming stream of water for a while. A part of me doesn't even want to get out. Everything got so fucked up so fast and I'm not sure it's ever going to go back to normal.

Eventually, when nearly all the hot water is gone, I step out of the shower and wrap a towel around myself. When I get back to my room I slip on some clothes, choosing one of the ratty t-shirts I brought and the only pair of pants. A thought occurs to me as I get dressed that I'd give anything to be wearing one of Klaus' shirts right now. I shake the thought away as quickly as it comes.

My phone is still turned off so I chuck it in my bag before I head down the stairs of the house. In the kitchen I hungrily suck down a blood bag and wash it down with a beer before grabbing a couple extras and heading outside where the guys are.

Matt is nowhere to be seen but Damon and Jeremy are down by the lake at one of the picnic tables. The young hunter is practicing loading a gun with wooden bullets while the vampire watches. As I make my way down the hill towards them, Damon grabs the gun from Jeremy and flicks the bullets out back onto the table one by one.

"Good. Now do it like your life depends on it. Because it does."

"Don't act like you care about my life. You only care about the Hunter's mark and curing Elena so that she's not sired to your ass."

"Both of which require you to be alive. Which is why I've updated our relationship status to 'it's complicated.'"

"I thought that's what our relationship status was," I interrupt, approaching them and setting the rest of the beer minus the open one in my hand down on the table.

"Actually last time I checked, ours is 'I piss you off and you threaten me,'" Damon says to me.

"Sounds about right," I say, taking a swig of my beer and hopping onto the table next to Jeremy.