Blood Ties (NaNoWriMo 2015)

Eighteen

Three hours and five paper cuts later, the mess on the floor was cleaned up, sorted by topic, sub-sorted by alphabetical order and away in filing cabinets.

I stood up, neck and back cramping as I survived my handiwork. Damon's desk was still a disaster in my eyes, but it now appeared to be organized chaos. The floor was cleared of papers and no drawers were yanked open, or half closed and stuffed haphazardly with papers.

"Wow," Damon remarked as I set the three-hole punch back on his desk. The slight sound was enough to wake him up from his intense focus on his work. "You don't mess around."

"Nope," I agreed, popping the 'p'. "I don't, you only have some much sand in the hourglass right? Don't have a second to waste doing a job a second time because you screwed up the first time."

"Nice way to think about it," Damon commented. "Thanks for taking care of that."

"No problem." I tried not too look too pleased I flipped through some papers I'd extracted from the mess. Formal request forms, I'd have to fill them out later on, but for now that could wait. My mind was fried when it came to paperwork, still, I looked around what had been a terrible mess a few hours ago and felt a familiar sense of pride and accomplishment settle over me. I was useful again, I was going something productive with my time and abilities. Doing this, it reminded me of Ember pre-vampires.

She never wasted her time binge-watching musicals all day, she actually did useful things with her time. The sense of normality, however fleeting, felt really, really good. "Mind if I ask just what you've been working on?"

"I don't mind," said Damon as he regarded me curiously with his cobalt blue eyes-another feature I hadn't noticed before now. A silent question rested in his eyes so I set my forms aside and folded my hands together before launching into my reason for asking.

"Everything I sorted through had a common denominator," I told him. "Documents that had a list people, sub-sorted under categories that I'm not familiar with. There were elven, you had date and times stashed on another paper, the numbers of several liquor stores and for some reason the Red Cross. That' a pretty bizarre assortment, but it is clearly not confidential so what's up?"

Damon smiled, I wasn't sure, but I thought he looked impressed. "You don't miss a thing do you?"

"I try not to," I said with a shrug. "It helps to deal with things if you notice what goes on around you." I fixed him with a look that according to Stacy made football players afraid, though I think I ruined the effect with my sort-of smile. "Now are you going to answer me or not? I really don't like this whole avoidance thing."

Damon returned my grin, but I saw the corners of his mouth twitch a little. Maybe my infamous glare had frightened him a little. "Not avoiding anything, just paused to give you a compliment, surely that's not a bad thing?"

"No, it's not, but that's passed, do I get my answer or not?"

"You don't seem to beat around the bush either," Damon remarked and suddenly I heard a loud snap that made me jump. When I caught my breath and saw the source of the sound I glared at Damon. He'd slammed a binder shut and he was chuckling a little. "I like that, as for what I'm working on, we have a Gathering coming up, blood moon happens next week, huge religious event and this year the Robur coven-that's us, gets to host."

He made a move to toss the binder on the cabinet behind him and I cleared my throat loudly. He pointed to the shelf above him and I shook my head. "Next one over, next to the red binder."

Damon set the binder in the place I specified. "Happy?"

"Very," I said. "And you're religious?" I would never assumed that about Damon, something about his easy going mannerism just didn't sit with that vague image I'd had in my head. "Why are you the one planning this? If this is a huge event for all vampires, wouldn't the person with the highest need for political alliances within your world, that being your father, put this as his top priority?"