round eight: the people on their knees (elena&dawn)
title: the people on their knees
fandom: btvs/tvd
characters: dawn, elena, and some alaric
rating: teen
word count: 1300ish
recipient: Kelsey, who wanted; dawn & elena (saltzman-sisters or not), lipgloss vs. stilettos, trade secrets
a/n: I hope you like this and it resembles something like what you wanted. also just under the wire. didn’t think that was going to happen. i’m so behind I think i’m in august or something.
Their new school is private, all plaid skirts and ties and knee socks.
(Dawn chooses green knee highs to pull over her long leg.
Elena chooses blue.)
Everything else is up to them, although they’re warned not to push the leniency the school allows. They’ll be consequences, the principle says, as if he can see something about them that no one else can. They smile and politely nod.
It’s not their first new school, it’s not their first time being the new girls, its old hat, never staying in one place for too long. Alaric says one year is too long to stay in one place and they nod their heads in agreements, like good daughters do.
(They are not his daughters. They are not related, not the Saltzman Sisters, they are not his little girls.
They are not girls at all, in any sense of the word. Not anymore. Maybe never.
They are a found family, made of blood and energy and want and loneliness and too many other things to count.
They are a family though. They’ll be one forever.)
“It’s a new day, a new life.” One of them says.
Alaric probably. He doesn’t practice at positivity.
All the things he’s done, he has never set anything on fire. Never burned his life (what was left of it) to ash.
He runs from it instead, one of them says when they’re in a particularly bitter mood.
(They don’t take it back.)
They enter their new school, hand in hand, Elena and pink lip gloss shining and Dawn’s long legs made longer by the stilettos that she wears over her green knee socks.
They attract attention and the two turn to each other and smile.
Lights shift and the crowd takes them in (the new girls, they are always the new girls, even when they’ve been there for months), one glance and you can see an angel and a devil hanging onto one another, giggling and conspiring over things to come. Things only the two of them know. Secrets and smiles melding together.
But the light shifts and it’s hard to tell which is which.
Dawn and her coal lined eyes and her black stilettos that look like they could kill. Or Elena and the way that her lips shine and her eyes shine a little darker, each drawing you in, begging to be kissed. Begging for more.
The lights shift and one is an angel and one is a devil and someone whispers ‘the devil was an angel before he fell from grace’.
Elena and Dawn don’t try to make new friends.
(Why try when they stumble towards you anyways? When their eyes follow your every move?)
They don’t need to. They never need to.
The other students flock to them. To the new girls. The Saltzman Sisters and their mysteries. Their dark eyes and dark hair and the way Dawn’s eyes turn green in the right light and Elena’s teeth look a little sharper.
They flock to them, offering up flyers for parties, numbers to get all the latest gossip and party info, and ‘call me and we can…’ and the ‘we should totally…’ and both girls smile.
Not pretty smiles.
Pretty smiles don’t belong to girls like them.
They belong to girls that really would be the Saltzman Sisters and not the made up ones, pretending to be them. Pretending that Alaric is their father and not their friend that just looks older than them.
(They are a family you see, but a found one.
Two girls who are forever stuck at the age of eighteen and vampire who pretends he’s a man but will never stay in one place for more than a year.
They are a family. They run once every year and they have one rule. Never get too close to anyone outside of these walls.)
One of the girl’s from their new school texts and texts until she convinces Elena and Dawn to come out to the newest club nearby.
“It’s all the rage.” She says like that’s not something they’ve heard before. Usually it’s not.
They switch; colors, shoes, lip gloss.
Elena is in green, her short skirt paired with her black top, and her sister’s stilettoes on her feet. (They bought them in Pairs she thinks.) Her eyes are not lined in coal because she can’t manage it like Dawn can.
“It’s a secret.” Dawn winks (again and again over the years), as she applies it to her eyes.
She wears blue that night, a dress too tight for Alaric’s liking, and so dark in the right light it looks black, and a shimmering lip gloss that entices and draws others in.
They go out and dance. The thumping music in the background more interesting than the inane chatter that comes from around them.
(“God, we’re total snobs.” Elena says once years ago.
“I would have hated us when I was in high school.” Dawn says, “Though, I also would have hated the popular crowd that wants to be our friends now too…”
“So we’ve always been snobs?”
“But with hearts of gold.” Dawn grins and she looks nothing like the sister from her past, all blonde hair and pink lips and a heart of gold that really existed under all that armor she wore before there was no longer a reason to wear it.
But then Elena promises that she’s nothing like the brother that Dawn has never met. That dark hair and a pension for dying was all the two shared.
Now she had Dawn to share that with.
“Snobs with hearts of gold,” Elena smiles, “No wonder everybody wants to be our friend.”)
They dance and they dance, mostly with each other because rule number one, but they both wander, find other dancing partners, hips swaying and grinding and lip gloss shining and dark eyes enticing.
They lead their dance partners away, giggling and pretending to be the eighteen year old girls they look like, and take them out to the back of the club.
“Why are we out here?” One of the girls asks before Elena sinks her fangs into her neck and then suddenly there is only silence as the girl’s heart rate increases in fear and everything else shuts down.
Fear does that sometimes. It stops everything but the heart, and Elena will finish feeding before that stops too.
Dawn is somewhere else in the alleyway, hidden behind boxes and trashcans. It’s not a romantic setting but Dawn can only imagine the things that have happened there.
“You know what’s interesting about people?” Dawn says, playing with the cross that the other girl was wearing.
Catholic school, she remembers, they were in Catholic school this time.
“I…”
“It’s that everyone, everything, is made out of matter, out of energy.” Dawn continues, “Every single one of you.”
She opens her mouth, her mouth lingering close to the other girl’s, as slowly a green energy comes through. Dawn takes it in and it swirls around and it makes her feel full, makes her feel right again.
Two thousand years old energy in the form of a girl and still she needs more to live on. Once she had an anchor, something that kept her going, now she needs more. If she wants to stay Dawn, if she wants to stay a girl, wants to be human, wants blood in her veins.
“Done?” Elena asks and she’s wiping blood off her mouth and it shouldn’t look so normal.
But Dawn has seen it hundreds (maybe more) times before.
“Yep,” Dawn says looking at the slumping girl in front of her. “Do your thing.”
Elena smirks and saunters in front of the other girl, Dawn’s stilettos click, click, clicking across the pavement.
She places her finger under the other girl’s chin and forces her to look her in the eye.
“You won’t remember any of this. You’ll remember the new girls from school and you’ll remember drinking too much and then you’ll remember going home.” She says, “Everything else is just a haze.”
“Everything else is just a haze.” The girl repeats and then she starts out of the alley and on her way home.
Elena grabs Dawn’s hand, tugs at it. “I’m still hungry.”
She drags her sister back inside to hunt.
fandom: btvs/tvd
characters: dawn, elena, and some alaric
rating: teen
word count: 1300ish
recipient: Kelsey, who wanted; dawn & elena (saltzman-sisters or not), lipgloss vs. stilettos, trade secrets
a/n: I hope you like this and it resembles something like what you wanted. also just under the wire. didn’t think that was going to happen. i’m so behind I think i’m in august or something.
Their new school is private, all plaid skirts and ties and knee socks.
(Dawn chooses green knee highs to pull over her long leg.
Elena chooses blue.)
Everything else is up to them, although they’re warned not to push the leniency the school allows. They’ll be consequences, the principle says, as if he can see something about them that no one else can. They smile and politely nod.
It’s not their first new school, it’s not their first time being the new girls, its old hat, never staying in one place for too long. Alaric says one year is too long to stay in one place and they nod their heads in agreements, like good daughters do.
(They are not his daughters. They are not related, not the Saltzman Sisters, they are not his little girls.
They are not girls at all, in any sense of the word. Not anymore. Maybe never.
They are a found family, made of blood and energy and want and loneliness and too many other things to count.
They are a family though. They’ll be one forever.)
“It’s a new day, a new life.” One of them says.
Alaric probably. He doesn’t practice at positivity.
All the things he’s done, he has never set anything on fire. Never burned his life (what was left of it) to ash.
He runs from it instead, one of them says when they’re in a particularly bitter mood.
(They don’t take it back.)
They enter their new school, hand in hand, Elena and pink lip gloss shining and Dawn’s long legs made longer by the stilettos that she wears over her green knee socks.
They attract attention and the two turn to each other and smile.
Lights shift and the crowd takes them in (the new girls, they are always the new girls, even when they’ve been there for months), one glance and you can see an angel and a devil hanging onto one another, giggling and conspiring over things to come. Things only the two of them know. Secrets and smiles melding together.
But the light shifts and it’s hard to tell which is which.
Dawn and her coal lined eyes and her black stilettos that look like they could kill. Or Elena and the way that her lips shine and her eyes shine a little darker, each drawing you in, begging to be kissed. Begging for more.
The lights shift and one is an angel and one is a devil and someone whispers ‘the devil was an angel before he fell from grace’.
Elena and Dawn don’t try to make new friends.
(Why try when they stumble towards you anyways? When their eyes follow your every move?)
They don’t need to. They never need to.
The other students flock to them. To the new girls. The Saltzman Sisters and their mysteries. Their dark eyes and dark hair and the way Dawn’s eyes turn green in the right light and Elena’s teeth look a little sharper.
They flock to them, offering up flyers for parties, numbers to get all the latest gossip and party info, and ‘call me and we can…’ and the ‘we should totally…’ and both girls smile.
Not pretty smiles.
Pretty smiles don’t belong to girls like them.
They belong to girls that really would be the Saltzman Sisters and not the made up ones, pretending to be them. Pretending that Alaric is their father and not their friend that just looks older than them.
(They are a family you see, but a found one.
Two girls who are forever stuck at the age of eighteen and vampire who pretends he’s a man but will never stay in one place for more than a year.
They are a family. They run once every year and they have one rule. Never get too close to anyone outside of these walls.)
One of the girl’s from their new school texts and texts until she convinces Elena and Dawn to come out to the newest club nearby.
“It’s all the rage.” She says like that’s not something they’ve heard before. Usually it’s not.
They switch; colors, shoes, lip gloss.
Elena is in green, her short skirt paired with her black top, and her sister’s stilettoes on her feet. (They bought them in Pairs she thinks.) Her eyes are not lined in coal because she can’t manage it like Dawn can.
“It’s a secret.” Dawn winks (again and again over the years), as she applies it to her eyes.
She wears blue that night, a dress too tight for Alaric’s liking, and so dark in the right light it looks black, and a shimmering lip gloss that entices and draws others in.
They go out and dance. The thumping music in the background more interesting than the inane chatter that comes from around them.
(“God, we’re total snobs.” Elena says once years ago.
“I would have hated us when I was in high school.” Dawn says, “Though, I also would have hated the popular crowd that wants to be our friends now too…”
“So we’ve always been snobs?”
“But with hearts of gold.” Dawn grins and she looks nothing like the sister from her past, all blonde hair and pink lips and a heart of gold that really existed under all that armor she wore before there was no longer a reason to wear it.
But then Elena promises that she’s nothing like the brother that Dawn has never met. That dark hair and a pension for dying was all the two shared.
Now she had Dawn to share that with.
“Snobs with hearts of gold,” Elena smiles, “No wonder everybody wants to be our friend.”)
They dance and they dance, mostly with each other because rule number one, but they both wander, find other dancing partners, hips swaying and grinding and lip gloss shining and dark eyes enticing.
They lead their dance partners away, giggling and pretending to be the eighteen year old girls they look like, and take them out to the back of the club.
“Why are we out here?” One of the girls asks before Elena sinks her fangs into her neck and then suddenly there is only silence as the girl’s heart rate increases in fear and everything else shuts down.
Fear does that sometimes. It stops everything but the heart, and Elena will finish feeding before that stops too.
Dawn is somewhere else in the alleyway, hidden behind boxes and trashcans. It’s not a romantic setting but Dawn can only imagine the things that have happened there.
“You know what’s interesting about people?” Dawn says, playing with the cross that the other girl was wearing.
Catholic school, she remembers, they were in Catholic school this time.
“I…”
“It’s that everyone, everything, is made out of matter, out of energy.” Dawn continues, “Every single one of you.”
She opens her mouth, her mouth lingering close to the other girl’s, as slowly a green energy comes through. Dawn takes it in and it swirls around and it makes her feel full, makes her feel right again.
Two thousand years old energy in the form of a girl and still she needs more to live on. Once she had an anchor, something that kept her going, now she needs more. If she wants to stay Dawn, if she wants to stay a girl, wants to be human, wants blood in her veins.
“Done?” Elena asks and she’s wiping blood off her mouth and it shouldn’t look so normal.
But Dawn has seen it hundreds (maybe more) times before.
“Yep,” Dawn says looking at the slumping girl in front of her. “Do your thing.”
Elena smirks and saunters in front of the other girl, Dawn’s stilettos click, click, clicking across the pavement.
She places her finger under the other girl’s chin and forces her to look her in the eye.
“You won’t remember any of this. You’ll remember the new girls from school and you’ll remember drinking too much and then you’ll remember going home.” She says, “Everything else is just a haze.”
“Everything else is just a haze.” The girl repeats and then she starts out of the alley and on her way home.
Elena grabs Dawn’s hand, tugs at it. “I’m still hungry.”
She drags her sister back inside to hunt.