Hope was glad that she was able to come on the trip, but she was a little overwhelmed by it too. She’d been in Atlantis a little while now but she still wasn’t really sure all the social stuff was for her. While everyone was chatting and giggling, Hope stole a bottle of bourbon she saw, grabbed her coat and snuck outside to a slightly secluded part of the deck of where they were staying.
Sighing she took a sip and looked out over the slope. She felt a pain in her heart when she watched Josie with Caroline and Stefan. She had so much family here, and sure, Hope had Kol and Marcel but her parents weren’t here and she was starting to get the impression she’d never see them again.
As she took another sip she heard footsteps coming towards her, turning her head she looked up to see Damon Salvatore. “Guess I’m busted.”
“I’m shocked and disappointed,” Damon replied, a grave look on his face as he approached Hope across the deck.
“This,” he said, reaching out to take the bottle of bourbon from her hands. “Is young, cheap and nasty. Fitting for few of your little friends in there,” he added in a cutting undertone. “But beneath you.” He discarded it absentmindedly on a nearby table.
“This, on the other hand,” he carried on, handing Hope the half-full bottle of barrel-aged bourbon that he’d brought outside with him. “Is the good stuff.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms over the wooden railing of the deck, his mouth twitching into a smirk. “If you’re going to sneak away from a Sweet Sixteen to be a rebel and drink underage, you might as well at least make it worth the effort.”
Hope just raised an eyebrow at Damon at first, she'd grabbed what she could without using magic or being seen and it wasn't the best thing she'd ever tasted but it did the job.
Taking the bottle he offered she took a good swig before handing it back. "I hope you managed to pack a few more of those because all the giggling probably requires more to drink," Hope responded finally.
Looking out over the mountain she sighed. "What? You've had enough too?" She asked turning her head towards where the party was going on.
Damon took back the bottle with a chuckle.
“My thinking precisely,” he assured her, lifting it to his lips to take a long sip, savouring the silky smooth taste on his tongue. “Don’t worry; I always travel with a suitcase full of Varvatos shirts and Pappy Van Winkle.”
“Have I had enough?” he scoffed. “Obviously. I’d had enough by the time I finished reading the invitation. But why are you hiding out here?” He turned his face to look at her through narrowed, sly eyes.
“Yes, wouldn’t want a Salvatore skimping on style,” Hope commented with a small smirk.
Laughing, “You too huh?” Hope just wasn’t big on large parties like this and she never felt like she really fit into the girl giggling group thing. “There is just so much of this kind of stuff that I can take,” she admitted. “Besides, I didn’t want to bring down the mood or anything either.”
“Agreed. All this smiling and politeness is exhausting but apparently it’s ‘what good uncles do’.” Damon lifted his free hand to make air quotes with his fingers before taking another drink from the bourbon bottle and offering it back to Hope.
“I’d ask what your uncle does but he’s a psychopath so…” He paused a moment before adding. “Oh, wait, so am I.” He quirked his eyebrows, a smirk riding on his lips. “No wonder the next generation have resorted to drink.”
Hope smirked. “That’s what good uncles do?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Hey now,” Hope said a mild edge to her voice as she took the bottle and took a larger sip. “We resorted to drinking because let’s face it, that’s what our parents did at our age and some of us can handle a lot more than others.”
Damon enjoyed the tone of warning in Hope’s voice. He may be on his best behaviour this trip but he still couldn’t resist winding people up just a little, especially if the joke was at Kol’s expense. Still, he hadn’t come out here to annoy Hope. If anything, he was intrigued by her.
“Ah, parents,” Damon sighed. He almost said, What would we do without them? but stopped himself when he remembered Hope’s situation. She really was having to cope without her parents and, despite the hundred and fifty years that had passed since he and Stefan had found themselves parentless, he still remembered what that felt like. He felt a great deal of empathy for this sad, serious little creature. He was clearly getting soft in his old age.
“So you and Josie are friends at home?” Damon asked, steering the conversation away from the very dark hole it was on the verge of disappearing down.
Nodding as Damon said the word her mind wandered to her own and she quickly shut it out focusing on anything else, she was actually glad for Damon’s switch in topic.
“Yeah, I guess,” she said shrugging. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m kind of a loner.” Hope’s voice slightly lightheartedly. “We get along alright, her sister Lizzie hates me and that can sometimes be awkward, but we are friends, I think.” She really didn’t know sometimes. “I guess Lizzie is a lot like Caroline was when she was younger, at least that’s what I’ve been told.”
Damon snorted.
“Really? You hide it well,” he said, his voice dripping sarcasm.
Damon tried to imagine a mini, second-generation Caroline. Would all the neuroses be concentrated? “Well that sounds terrifying,” he said, his lighthearted tone masking the uneasy feeling he still got whenever he remembered that Caroline’s twins were also related to Kai.
“Why does she hate you?”
Laughing softly she nodded. “Yeah, death by party planning,” she commented with a small shrug. At his question though she tilted her head.
“That’s a really good question. I have no idea,” it was true, Hope really didn’t know why Lizzie hated her so much or what it was that she’d done to Lizzie. “Maybe it’s because Dr Saltzman helps me train?” That was about the only thing that she could come up with.
Damon considered it for a moment before glancing sideways at Hope and studying her face.
“You’re too special. That’s your problem. Everyone wants to feel a degree of ownership over the special little tri-bred.” He shrugged. “Lizzie just owns the role of nemesis.”
Looking down she forced herself not to frown. “Being special, or one of kind really isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.” She couldn’t deny that she was different or special based on what she was but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
“I don’t think of her as a nemesis, or at least I try not to,” there were moments that Hope thought the worst.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Damon sighed dramatically, taking a sip from the bottle of bourbon and once again passing it to Hope. “I have ‘special’ people coming out of my ears and can vouch for the fact that they’re nothing but trouble.” So far in his life he’d had major, life-changing relationships with two doppelgängers and unconsciously grown up alongside another. On top of that, he’d managed to befriend the last remaining Bennett witch and, along the way, alienate nearly every other super-strong supernatural being in the universe. According to the others, he’d even decided to take on the freaking Devil, although, by that point, why the Hell not?
“At least in Atlantis you have an outside chance of not always being the most interesting being in the room,” Damon offered.
“I’d like to think we aren’t trouble, but I know better.” Hope knew she was trouble, her whole life she’d caused some kind of trouble or another, although most of it wasn’t in her control, the parts that were she didn’t let herself think about. It was too painful.
“So, you’d rather sit outside in the snow with a natural born trouble maker than spend time on a sweet sixteen party? And here I thought you were supposed to be the fun brother.” Hope wasn’t serious.
Damon pulled an unimpressed face, although the curve to his lips gave away the fact that he knew she was teasing him. Let no man say that Damon Salvatore couldn’t take as well as he gave.
“At least trouble-makers keep things interesting,” Damon parried with a smirk. Interesting was putting it mildly. Dull moments had certainly been few and far between in the last few years, notably since Elena had exploded in his and Stefan’s lives.
“You realise we’re both going to have to go back in at some point, right?” Damon said after a moment, through a heavy sigh.
“You sound like Uncle Kol,” she rolled her eyes while smiling. “I guess we do though,” she agreed with a give. Hope knew no matter what life would never be boring.
Groaning a little bit she nodded. “I know,” she looked back towards the door. “But I think we’ve got at least three more sips each before someone comes to look for us.”
Damon’s mouth split into a wide, devious smile. He lifted the bourbon bottle in a silent salute to Hope before raising it to his mouth and taking a large mouthful.