[fic] a duel at sunrise
fic: a duel at sunrise
fandom: tvd
characters: the whole gang is here vicki, matt/tyler, elena/damon, jenna/alaric, jeremy/anna, bonnie/caroline, stefan(/vicki)
word count: 1600
recipient: for lynzie914 who wanted someone else (known) as the doppelganger, mirrors, fighting fate without character bashing or love triangles
summary: imagine a tvd in which elena isn't the doppleganger
“So do you guys think that like, there’s really such a thing as doppelgängers?” Vicki stumbled into the Gilbert house, held up between Matt and Bonnie on either side.
“You’re drunk, Vick,” Elena shot over her shoulder, dashing through the hallway ahead of the others to start a pot of coffee… or five. “I’m going to kill Tyler this time, I swear,” she muttered under her breath as she entered the kitchen, causing Jenna to raise her eyebrows at her from the kitchen counter, her elbows on a stack of books and papers.
“Did you bring home the whole party?” she asked with a smirk, her eyes full of worry that seemed to be always present these days. Waking up one morning and finding herself the sudden guardian to two teenagers was enough to warrant having a little doubt most mornings, even without the strange things that seemed to surround her niece’s group of friends.
Normal, ordinary teenager weirdness was one thing. Her niece dating a vampire and having a witch for a best friend and a werewolf throwing all the neighborhood parties were a completely different ballgame. Consoling a crying girl through a gay confessional with ice cream was much easier if said girl wasn't a vampire in love with a witch, there's just no guidebook for that scenario. She was going to write a how-to book for parents of teenagers that find themselves embroiled in the supernatural. It would probably have a small but dedicated readership. Maybe she could pass it off as fiction. How to Parent a Teenage Vampire Magnet she scrawled in the upper corner of one of the pages she had cluttered the kitchen counter with and smiled to herself.
“Just the unreasonably drunk half,” Elena rolled her eyes, putting the coffee pot under the tap.
“I resent having to clean up after your friends and their drunk sisters,” Damon quipped as he slid the back door open, a pile of jackets and shoes in his arms. “What is it about drunk girls that shoes are always suddenly unnecessary the minute they get into my car?”
Jenna rubbed her forehead, “I’m the world’s worst aunt. Your mom should never have left me in charge of you. Next time you walk through the door, you’ll be a pregnant crackhead and I won’t even have noticed.”
Damon lifted an eyebrow, “Something you want to tell me, babe?”
Elena flicked him with water and ignored them both.
“If you’re a bad guardian, what does that make me?” Alaric said from the kitchen table, peering out into the living room where Vicki was now dancing on the coffee table as Bonnie and Matt tried ineffectually to convince her to sit down. “Something tells me this is not the way most educators spend their Saturday evenings.”
Damon clapped his hand down on his friend’s shoulder and leaned over to whisper something in his ear that Jenna was very glad no one else could hear. Well… she wasn’t sure exactly what he said, but she already had a headache blossoming over her left eyebrow and there was a nine out of ten chance that anything Damon had to say for Alaric’s ears alone wasn’t something she wanted to hear.
“Have I failed you?” Jenna turned to Elena in desperation. “I mean, should there be more rules? Do you need more boundaries? I’ve failed to provide you with boundaries.”
Elena hugged her aunt and kissed her on the cheek, “You are perfect.”
“Anyway,” Caroline said, strolling into the kitchen, “we’d all still be drinking regardless. At least we have somewhere to bring Vicki when she’s on a bender to get free coffee into her system without getting a lecture about something we’re just going to do anyway.”
“Just think about all the stories you tell about sneaking out when you were our age,” Elena pointed out teasingly.
Vicki took this opportune moment to lean over the back of the couch, with her hands flung into the air, to exclaim, “NO BUT THINK ABOUT IT!?”
They all stared at her, silent.
Except Damon, who was smirking down at his phone.
“Think about what?” Jenna finally asked, wishing the moment she opened her mouth that she hadn’t. There are certain rules in life, don’t feed the squirrels because they definitely will attack if tempted, and don’t ask Vicki Donovan to explain her drunken theories at two in the morning.
Don’t ask any Donovan to explain their drunken theories at any point after eleven pm. Eleven was the Donovan limit. Jenna knew this from deep and extensive experience.
“What if you have a twin - out there, somewhere. And then you MEET them. And you have to like… battle or something to prove which one is the evil one and which one is good.” Vicki punctuated this speech with flailing arms, nearly tipping off the couch in either direction at least twice.
Bonnie wrinkled her nose, “I think doppelgängers and evil twins are two different constructs.”
Vicki slumped, “Okay well. Which one do I have to fight? Because I am too drunk to fight anything and I don’t really want to deal with it tonight.” Which was actually a pretty reasonable and self-aware observation for her to make. Thankfully, she didn’t immediately turn and try to fight Matt instead.
Caroline turned to Jenna, bored with the current conversation, “Where’s Jeremy anyway? Usually this is when he comes down from his dungeon upstairs and interprets Vicki’s crazy ramblings?
“He’s …” Jenna frowned.
“With his new girlfriend,” Alaric called over, before turning back to Vicki and continuing his lecture on just what the specific differences where between doppelgängers and evil twins.
Elena began filling mugs with coffee, a perfect assembly line in front of her on the counter, “Jeremy’s on a date?”
“My brother is coming to town for a visit,” Damon beamed at the room and absolutely no one in particular.
“You have a brother?” Matt called from the floor in the living room, somewhere behind the couch and hidden from view.
“You’ve met my brother,” Elena said gently, as she leaned over the back of the couch and handed him a cup of coffee. “He’s kinda your friend sometimes. When your boyfriend isn't being a dick to him for no reason whatsoever.”
“So…” Vicki wrinkled her forehead and stole the coffee out of Matt’s hands before he had a chance to take a drink. “The weird girl that I saw at the party tonight, am I going to have to challenge her to a duel to the death?”
“Unlikely,” Alaric replied solemnly.
“Wait,” Bonnie held up her hands to silence everyone. “Vicki what are you talking about?” Bonnie could always be counted on to demand logic even when everyone around her was incapable of speaking without slurring or walking without stumbling.
“My evil twin that I apparently have to duel by the light of the dawn,” Vicki explained with the patient solemnity that only the very inebriated could accomplish.
“So what’s the scoop on little Gilbert’s new flame, she a hottie?” Damon said as he sat down next to Alaric. He prided himself on getting to the root of any issue, and at that moment the unknown girl out there in the night seducing the young and impressionable Jeremy Gilbert was the most pressing in his mind.
Alaric pinched the bridge of his nose, “I try not to make it a habit to check out teenage girls, Damon.”
“She’s super cute,” Jenna answered with a grin. “I wish he’d like… actually really introduce us.”
“I’m pretty sure that what you saw was just your reflection, Vicki,” Bonnie was explaining patiently.
“God, Bonnie. Why don’t you ever support me? You can’t be my second if you keep this up.”
“Second for what?”
“Elena you’re scrappy, be my second for my duel at dawn against my evil twin?”
Elena grinned wolfishly, “Sure thing Vick.”
“Why are you taking this seriously?” Bonnie threw herself onto the couch with a huff.
“Because it’s two in the morning and everyone in this room is three sheets to the wind,” Caroline said, curling up on the couch next to Bonnie, resting her head against her shoulder. After a moment, Bonnie rested her cheek against Caroline’s head and relaxed.
“Except me,” Damon said cheerfully, grabbing Elena by the hand as she walked by him and pulling her to his side. “I was a good and faithful designated driver.”
“No,” she countered, her fingers carding through his hair. “You just have a higher metabolism than anyone else. Kinda makes you the asshole.”
Bonnie muttered something that sounded suspiciously like fucking straight people but may have been fucking vampires before tipping Caroline’s head back for a kiss. Everyone very studiously tried not to stare as Bonnie and Caroline began making out. In a little while, Jenna would splash some cold water on them, but if she moved too soon Bonnie was likely to retaliate in a not-so gentle fashion.
At times like these, no one liked to point out to Bonnie that her girlfriend was, in fact, a vampire. It just wasn’t worth the magickal hangover.
“Hey did you know there’s a weird guy making out with Vicki on the front porch?” Jeremy asked, suddenly standing in the kitchen, a small girl with dark hair clinging to his elbow, staring at them with a bemused expression. He looked over at Vicki, “Hey… how did you?”
Damon looked up, “Weird guy on the porch? Did he have a vaguely Clark Kent vibe to him? Dudley Dooright superior air?” He blinked and pointed to the girl on Jeremy’s arm, “Hey… wait a minute…?”
The doorbell chimed.
Everyone looked at the door, Bonnie’s eyes narrowing and Damon’s smile growing suspiciously hard.
“Oh for crying out loud,” Vicki huffed. She tripped wobbly over to the door and flung it open. In the doorway stood a tall man with his arm wrapped around a girl identical to Vicki.
“I CHALLENGE YOU TO A DUEL!” Vicki screamed before anyone could react.
The man in the doorway raised his eyebrows, “That isn’t going to go well for you.”
fandom: tvd
characters: the whole gang is here vicki, matt/tyler, elena/damon, jenna/alaric, jeremy/anna, bonnie/caroline, stefan(/vicki)
word count: 1600
recipient: for lynzie914 who wanted someone else (known) as the doppelganger, mirrors, fighting fate without character bashing or love triangles
summary: imagine a tvd in which elena isn't the doppleganger
“So do you guys think that like, there’s really such a thing as doppelgängers?” Vicki stumbled into the Gilbert house, held up between Matt and Bonnie on either side.
“You’re drunk, Vick,” Elena shot over her shoulder, dashing through the hallway ahead of the others to start a pot of coffee… or five. “I’m going to kill Tyler this time, I swear,” she muttered under her breath as she entered the kitchen, causing Jenna to raise her eyebrows at her from the kitchen counter, her elbows on a stack of books and papers.
“Did you bring home the whole party?” she asked with a smirk, her eyes full of worry that seemed to be always present these days. Waking up one morning and finding herself the sudden guardian to two teenagers was enough to warrant having a little doubt most mornings, even without the strange things that seemed to surround her niece’s group of friends.
Normal, ordinary teenager weirdness was one thing. Her niece dating a vampire and having a witch for a best friend and a werewolf throwing all the neighborhood parties were a completely different ballgame. Consoling a crying girl through a gay confessional with ice cream was much easier if said girl wasn't a vampire in love with a witch, there's just no guidebook for that scenario. She was going to write a how-to book for parents of teenagers that find themselves embroiled in the supernatural. It would probably have a small but dedicated readership. Maybe she could pass it off as fiction. How to Parent a Teenage Vampire Magnet she scrawled in the upper corner of one of the pages she had cluttered the kitchen counter with and smiled to herself.
“Just the unreasonably drunk half,” Elena rolled her eyes, putting the coffee pot under the tap.
“I resent having to clean up after your friends and their drunk sisters,” Damon quipped as he slid the back door open, a pile of jackets and shoes in his arms. “What is it about drunk girls that shoes are always suddenly unnecessary the minute they get into my car?”
Jenna rubbed her forehead, “I’m the world’s worst aunt. Your mom should never have left me in charge of you. Next time you walk through the door, you’ll be a pregnant crackhead and I won’t even have noticed.”
Damon lifted an eyebrow, “Something you want to tell me, babe?”
Elena flicked him with water and ignored them both.
“If you’re a bad guardian, what does that make me?” Alaric said from the kitchen table, peering out into the living room where Vicki was now dancing on the coffee table as Bonnie and Matt tried ineffectually to convince her to sit down. “Something tells me this is not the way most educators spend their Saturday evenings.”
Damon clapped his hand down on his friend’s shoulder and leaned over to whisper something in his ear that Jenna was very glad no one else could hear. Well… she wasn’t sure exactly what he said, but she already had a headache blossoming over her left eyebrow and there was a nine out of ten chance that anything Damon had to say for Alaric’s ears alone wasn’t something she wanted to hear.
“Have I failed you?” Jenna turned to Elena in desperation. “I mean, should there be more rules? Do you need more boundaries? I’ve failed to provide you with boundaries.”
Elena hugged her aunt and kissed her on the cheek, “You are perfect.”
“Anyway,” Caroline said, strolling into the kitchen, “we’d all still be drinking regardless. At least we have somewhere to bring Vicki when she’s on a bender to get free coffee into her system without getting a lecture about something we’re just going to do anyway.”
“Just think about all the stories you tell about sneaking out when you were our age,” Elena pointed out teasingly.
Vicki took this opportune moment to lean over the back of the couch, with her hands flung into the air, to exclaim, “NO BUT THINK ABOUT IT!?”
They all stared at her, silent.
Except Damon, who was smirking down at his phone.
“Think about what?” Jenna finally asked, wishing the moment she opened her mouth that she hadn’t. There are certain rules in life, don’t feed the squirrels because they definitely will attack if tempted, and don’t ask Vicki Donovan to explain her drunken theories at two in the morning.
Don’t ask any Donovan to explain their drunken theories at any point after eleven pm. Eleven was the Donovan limit. Jenna knew this from deep and extensive experience.
“What if you have a twin - out there, somewhere. And then you MEET them. And you have to like… battle or something to prove which one is the evil one and which one is good.” Vicki punctuated this speech with flailing arms, nearly tipping off the couch in either direction at least twice.
Bonnie wrinkled her nose, “I think doppelgängers and evil twins are two different constructs.”
Vicki slumped, “Okay well. Which one do I have to fight? Because I am too drunk to fight anything and I don’t really want to deal with it tonight.” Which was actually a pretty reasonable and self-aware observation for her to make. Thankfully, she didn’t immediately turn and try to fight Matt instead.
Caroline turned to Jenna, bored with the current conversation, “Where’s Jeremy anyway? Usually this is when he comes down from his dungeon upstairs and interprets Vicki’s crazy ramblings?
“He’s …” Jenna frowned.
“With his new girlfriend,” Alaric called over, before turning back to Vicki and continuing his lecture on just what the specific differences where between doppelgängers and evil twins.
Elena began filling mugs with coffee, a perfect assembly line in front of her on the counter, “Jeremy’s on a date?”
“My brother is coming to town for a visit,” Damon beamed at the room and absolutely no one in particular.
“You have a brother?” Matt called from the floor in the living room, somewhere behind the couch and hidden from view.
“You’ve met my brother,” Elena said gently, as she leaned over the back of the couch and handed him a cup of coffee. “He’s kinda your friend sometimes. When your boyfriend isn't being a dick to him for no reason whatsoever.”
“So…” Vicki wrinkled her forehead and stole the coffee out of Matt’s hands before he had a chance to take a drink. “The weird girl that I saw at the party tonight, am I going to have to challenge her to a duel to the death?”
“Unlikely,” Alaric replied solemnly.
“Wait,” Bonnie held up her hands to silence everyone. “Vicki what are you talking about?” Bonnie could always be counted on to demand logic even when everyone around her was incapable of speaking without slurring or walking without stumbling.
“My evil twin that I apparently have to duel by the light of the dawn,” Vicki explained with the patient solemnity that only the very inebriated could accomplish.
“So what’s the scoop on little Gilbert’s new flame, she a hottie?” Damon said as he sat down next to Alaric. He prided himself on getting to the root of any issue, and at that moment the unknown girl out there in the night seducing the young and impressionable Jeremy Gilbert was the most pressing in his mind.
Alaric pinched the bridge of his nose, “I try not to make it a habit to check out teenage girls, Damon.”
“She’s super cute,” Jenna answered with a grin. “I wish he’d like… actually really introduce us.”
“I’m pretty sure that what you saw was just your reflection, Vicki,” Bonnie was explaining patiently.
“God, Bonnie. Why don’t you ever support me? You can’t be my second if you keep this up.”
“Second for what?”
“Elena you’re scrappy, be my second for my duel at dawn against my evil twin?”
Elena grinned wolfishly, “Sure thing Vick.”
“Why are you taking this seriously?” Bonnie threw herself onto the couch with a huff.
“Because it’s two in the morning and everyone in this room is three sheets to the wind,” Caroline said, curling up on the couch next to Bonnie, resting her head against her shoulder. After a moment, Bonnie rested her cheek against Caroline’s head and relaxed.
“Except me,” Damon said cheerfully, grabbing Elena by the hand as she walked by him and pulling her to his side. “I was a good and faithful designated driver.”
“No,” she countered, her fingers carding through his hair. “You just have a higher metabolism than anyone else. Kinda makes you the asshole.”
Bonnie muttered something that sounded suspiciously like fucking straight people but may have been fucking vampires before tipping Caroline’s head back for a kiss. Everyone very studiously tried not to stare as Bonnie and Caroline began making out. In a little while, Jenna would splash some cold water on them, but if she moved too soon Bonnie was likely to retaliate in a not-so gentle fashion.
At times like these, no one liked to point out to Bonnie that her girlfriend was, in fact, a vampire. It just wasn’t worth the magickal hangover.
“Hey did you know there’s a weird guy making out with Vicki on the front porch?” Jeremy asked, suddenly standing in the kitchen, a small girl with dark hair clinging to his elbow, staring at them with a bemused expression. He looked over at Vicki, “Hey… how did you?”
Damon looked up, “Weird guy on the porch? Did he have a vaguely Clark Kent vibe to him? Dudley Dooright superior air?” He blinked and pointed to the girl on Jeremy’s arm, “Hey… wait a minute…?”
The doorbell chimed.
Everyone looked at the door, Bonnie’s eyes narrowing and Damon’s smile growing suspiciously hard.
“Oh for crying out loud,” Vicki huffed. She tripped wobbly over to the door and flung it open. In the doorway stood a tall man with his arm wrapped around a girl identical to Vicki.
“I CHALLENGE YOU TO A DUEL!” Vicki screamed before anyone could react.
The man in the doorway raised his eyebrows, “That isn’t going to go well for you.”