Fics; Devils deals, Words, Upon the waves, The cure and Heritage
Written for softly_me 's comment ficathon
Title; Devil's deals
Pairing/characters; Caroline/Klaus
Rating; PG-13
Prompt; Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
The girl is hardly a baby vampire. The Salvatore brothers- foolishly running around with their chests puffed out- are baby vampires. She is a girl who died and then carried on existing; she is a dead girl who fills dead veins with blood who will in a few years grow into a vampire. She does not yet know what it is to have a face that conveys immediate deceit with its ageless position. Yet she stands before him, with blonde wisps perfectly formed, with confidence he is sure she possessed none of when she was alive. He has hidden himself away for a long while and it has thus been a long while since he has watched a dead being that is still so young- he can almost see her growing before his eyes- tenacity sparking deadened muscles and a voice newly born. She is growing into something irreverently special and he is entranced by her. He wants to mould her, shape her, into all he knows she can be.
He scopes his surroundings cunningly- a watchful glance before focusing his entire being on the little dead girl- readying to charmingly lure her into his world. He sees his vampire foot-soldiers patrolling every road, every cul-de-sac and every building, keenly seeking every living breathing element of the spell. Mystic falls is clearly apropos of its name and he had already decided they would make this place theirs once the spell was done. This girl just cements that plan.
She speaks of the doppelganger in determined tones- she is here for steely negotiation. He supposes the brothers are off protecting the little Petrova girl. Her words are surprising to say the least and he’s no longer sure whether winning this deal will also mean losing. He offers to not bleed the doppelganger girl until she is dead and she agrees even as she pushes for more. By now she has realised he is quite taken with her and is using it to her full advantage, her body moves like the seductress she is. Silver-plated promises slip from her tongue like petals and he decides to let her win just to show her how far a dead girl can fall. He hides his smile inside his vampire heart as he agrees to ensure her friends’ safety and she agrees to stay with him in return- she would’ve never made this sacrifice as a human and this pleases him- mounds of potential yet unexplored. There will be another doppelganger in a century or so anyway and he has all the time in the world. She should be more careful with her deals. Her friends will stay safe even as he rips this town open and watches it bleed.
He takes her to the road wherein lies the beginnings of the old ones’ new nest. In time it will spill and bleed and encapsulate the whole town. It will be filled to the teeth with vampires. Now it is just a gaping bloody hole with vampires dancing with enraptured half-naked humans, decadently drinking from the half-spelled people and a side-walk littered with dead bodies and waking bodies that are newly dead but still existing. Her eyes avert and linger on the red smudges on the gates and brick-work; she is not as shocked by this as she had hoped she would be.
“Why did you bring me here?” She asks evenly.
He has much to show her, to teach her- but first he will enthral her in the magic- he thinks, as he leans her into her first vampire kiss. Pausing before their lips brush he whispers;
“I’m going to show you what it is to be a vampire.”
Title; Words
Pairing/characters; Stefan/Caroline
Rating; g
Prompt; I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
His words fall apart as they meet the air and she isn’t sure what he is saying anymore. He told her once that she would be ok- a long time ago- and he stayed beside her to make sure she was. It was the first time she had been someone’s first- the first time she didn’t feel the idle-ness of someone’s eyes looking for better than their back-up. She felt wanted- she felt she belonged. The entire world was a hay-wire mess that Stefan helped her reign in and curved chaos into calm strength. She supposes Stefan makes everyone feel that way- that’s why everyone wants him- even Katherine. But that was long ago and as she grew into her vampire self and grew confident and strong she thought those thoughts had flown away with the migrating birds.
Then one day he told her she reminded him of his best friend. Then one day he told her he liked the sway of her golden hair. Then one day he told her he loved her. And she was lost forever in words of painted gold.
Stefan has always been more words than actions. More threats than kills, more written than sketched. Sometimes small words tip-toed around the boarding house with large boot-tread meanings and large words floated around to sit on wooden fixtures forevermore. She thinks if he had chosen to be a con-man the world would be doomed. Too often now lucidity comes with pain and his words are just that- words- empty sounds loud against her super-hearing ears. So she slips back into her cocoon, wrapped daintily with news-paper thickened words and listens and lets the words become everything as they drown out the world.
Words. Words. Words. He still writes in his journal and sometimes tells her stories of long ago. Of Damon, of Elena, of Bonnie, of way back when the world made sense and it was insanity that was painful. She can see his words now- maybe it is a vampire thing- though he tells her it is not, the words loop the loop and spin in spirals before the vowels grow and eat the consonants and Stefan just sighs- his sigh looks like a cylinder. He tells her he still loves her but the words look grey and translucent. She watches and listens and smells and tastes the mustard seed scented words with joy- playing with them uncaring of their empty hollow tired tones.
Then the dark drudge of sanity settles back into her bones and she still remembers the words and this is the time actual meaning and understanding set in and her chest is filled with tight pain. Realisation that she will once more have to deal with what Stefan thought would be forgotten words.
Title; Upon the waves
Pairing/characters; Stefan/Katherine
Rating; PG
Prompt; I've murdered half the town, left you love notes on their headstones
The memories float like forgotten flotsam and jetsam and he has only just waded into the strong waves to retrieve them.
Fear and hurt and panic at demonic eyes pulling him in, at demonic teeth tearing through him with a bite.
Thoughts sink without him catching sight and he loses sight of what he had with him when he swam in and what he only found here.
And love, endless careening love, say these words, do these things. Before and after and always.
Seventeen and abandoned at sea- by a father who doesn’t understand, by a brother who hates him and by a woman who has left him paddling wildly to stop from drowning, in a sea of forgotten and confused and mixed-up memories- that don’t fall together into sequence before drifting away- no matter how hard he tries.
I don’t want to and yes I do. I feel this and don’t feel this and do feel this all at once.
But the love has to be real- there is nothing else left. Love and terrible, terrible hunger. And since love is dead, hunger is left- to be played with- to be satisfied. Then one day he sees her, mischievous and playful and wonderfully alive. He wants to show her what he has done, what he has become. What her love has made him.
I’m going to turn you into a vampire, and we’ll do whatever we want. Ok.
He smiles and coaxes and compels them in, one and two and three and four, blood drips every-where and what could it be but animal attacks. Five and six and seven disappear in the dead of night and they are found in pieces. Eight and nine and ten and eleven are spared for weeks- until the panic dies down. 12 and 13 bring the pitch-forks down finally at his door and he laughs as harmless water splashes on his face and then the pitchforks fall to the floor as he makes it 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21.
We’ll drink whoever we want.
He picks flowers for her from their graves. And leaves them at her place with a note saying he took the flowers and replaced them with paper presents.
I love you.
She flits through the cemetery, seeking out the freshly made graves. The last three, 21, 20, 19- the freshest all have a note with the same words inscribed- lest the wind blow them away;
‘I did this for you, you made this of me.’
She smiled and crushed the papers between her fingers and tucked them into the thick weave of her corset. And glides onto graves 18, 17, 16 and 15;
‘Love and hate and hunger are all that’s left of me.’
She smirks at the words and slides them next to the others. She finds the same words on 14, 13, 12, 11, 10 and 9;
‘I’m drowning without you.’
Expressionless she curled up the papers into the dresses on her hair. Seven and six and five have flown away, crumpled edges left in their wake, with the odd word dotted on the border. She moves on. Four and three proclaim in a frantic, messy scrawl;
‘I think you made me love you.’
She smiles a wry smile and her eyebrows quirk a frown. She stands before the grave of the town’s first kill and finds among the shrubbery a hidden engraved silver plaque;
‘I don’t know whether I love you- only you do.’
She laughs until she cries.
Title; The Cure
Pairing/characters; Stefan and Damon
Rating; PG
Prompt; when I came around the next day, my friend had gone and melted all away
Never invite anyone in. That was what mama always said. Gesture or nod but never, ever, say the words. Except they weren’t at home now- they were at a hotel while the pipes were fixed- and that made things different somehow. She gasped as shadows flashed across the room like caged lightning.
He watched as the wolf leaped at him- there was no time to get away- he braced for the bite. It never came. He looked up in time to see saint Stefan jump to the rescue. He felt himself scream but the sound died in his throat. Stefan was bitten.
Mama’s words ran through her head. Don’t drive if you can help it (lest you knock someone over), don’t get drunk in public (lest you get in an unfortunate fight) and don’t let the enemy in. If the enemy gets in; use wood (to their heart) or fire or something sharp (to chop off their heads).
Elena sat curled in Stefan’s embrace- Stefan looked fine- just like Rose had looked fine at the beginning. Rose had died after seven days. Stefan was younger, weaker. He centred his gaze on Elena and let his eyes bore into hers in his trade-mark way. You watch him; I’ll find a cure- he told her- no room for discussion. He was at the end of the driveway before her lips parted in protest.
The creature stood in front of her with wild, desperate, anguished eyes and motions but spoke with a voice practised in coldness and calculation. He told her he wanted a cure for a werewolf bite. He casually threw away the broom she had hidden behind her back. She cursed herself (she had loaned her Vervain bracelet to a friend) as she told him that mama would know a cure and gave him the address.
He returned to find Elena crouched over a lofty tome beside Stefan who was lying on the sofa with his limbs hanging off the sides. For the first time in 150 years his brother was sweating, and not just summer’s day sweating- living in a volcano sweating. It poured off him like slime. It was an odd sight- almost as though Stefan was melting away. He told his brother there was a lead on a cure and he’d be back to scaring squirrels by tomorrow. Stefan’s hollow reply made Damon feel like he was already dead. As always he focused his pain into anger and focused his anger into fixing the situation.
She cast out wary eyes for the creature her daughter had warned her about but she wasn’t going to cower inside her house until the full moon; she had a life to live. She was taking a short-cut through the park when the creature appeared in front of her. Unsurprisingly it was Damon Salvatore; the creature was the bogey-man of her kind; the vampire they referred to when they told their children bed-time stories. He didn’t look like the fierce callous killer her brethren talked of- although he looked wild he also looked vulnerable and broken. She held her head high and wordlessly held out a small bottle to him. He looked back at her with suspicion and she flippantly told him to take it or leave it. She could tell he wanted a confrontation, wanted to throw out threats of consequences of failure but he also didn’t want to waste time.
He raced back to Mystic Falls, with the weight of the tiny purple bottle disproportionately heavy in his vampire-hand. The cure would work. It had to work. No other outcome existed. There was no pain at the thought of losing Stefan, because there was no thought of losing Stefan- his mind refused to process it.
Damon paused as he entered the boarding house, vampire senses heightened, something was wrong. The place was empty- not just devoid of people, items were missing- things weren’t where they should be- the feel of the whole place was wrong. Then he heard Caroline.
“Where’s Stefan!” He demanded. Caroline came towards him with a look of exasperated sympathy on her face.
“You know where he is.” She coaxed gently, as though he was a lost child who had forgotten his last name.
“No! I don’t! Tell me!” He replied, angrily grabbing her by the throat and for some unknown reason tears were budding in his eyes.
“He’s dead Damon, he has been for years.” Caroline says softly before spinning away.
He shakes his head as the memory comes back. He silently collapses to the floor in anguish and exhaustion; he has been fighting this for so long he barely remembers the blurring between a quest for revenge and a quest for a cure. At least he has lost count of the number of werewolves he has killed.
Elena was crying when he got there, he hated to see her crying. A quip about coming to the rescue sunk into his tongue and welded there. ‘Cure’ he simply said shoving the bottle towards Elena- who was so entirely entangled around Stefan he doubted he could’ve gotten the bottle to Stefan’s lips without breaking at least a couple of her bones. She didn’t move in response and he cawed in frustration at her actions. ‘Cure’ He said roughly as her pushed away enmeshed arms. Elena ignored him. He pried the bottle past his brother’s lips but they were cold to the touch- why were they so cold- why wasn’t anyone keeping Stefan warm?
“He’s already dead Damon, he has been dead for hours.”
Title; Heritage
Pairing/characters; Bonnie
Rating; PG
Prompt; she's the ashes of the people that you really meant to be
There was Emily, who was strong and certain even in times of oppression and in times when monsters were bartering for her soul. She moved through life as though on a chess-board- seeing twenty moves ahead- and easily sure of what was right. There was Shirley- Grams- who always played nutty to hide in plain sight, she was wise and pure and the best guide a young witch could hope for. There were a long line of witches, using their magic towards a greater far-off end- knocking down the dominoes that would keep falling for a long, long time. But now there is no long line of witches- there is only Bonnie- and though she knows who she is, and would love to have wise plans of how she will use her strengths to mould the future- she just doesn’t have any. Her plans are to find a way to get everyone through the day, and maybe then she can think of the next day- but the next century is a long way off.
She sits reading the grimoire, there’s a faint coppery scent in her nose from the last time it bled and pondering on the marvels in it makes her feel small and insignificant. The great creative instinct- she wants to be like them but doesn’t know how. It makes her feel detached and alone like she is a left-over of something once made great and now has an inheritance that wasn’t earned and which she squanders. She will only ever be trying to be them, she will only ever be their ashes; she is a remnant falling in the moonlight.
Bonnie sighs, closing the book; she isn’t going to find anything in this state of mind. Instead of wondering what her family would think of her, maybe she should try to find out. She crosses her legs on the floor and effortlessly lights the candles with her mind. For a moment she is startled when the faces appear- they do not look like faces- they are shapes forged in shadows and corralled by her whispers of sound. But she can still feel who they are. Their essences lovingly caress her caramel skin; the touch reaches a part of her soul and it makes her feel like a Goddess, with sparks and shivers of power flowing through her. They say nothing, they don’t need to- the message is clear; you are from us; you are of us; you will be whatever you need to be; you will never be alone.
The room plunges into darkness and this time when Bonnie curls around the Grimoire she does so with a smile. She has barely glanced at three pages when an idea strikes her and she lets out a grin; it might just work. There was Bonnie, who wanted to be everything from those who were before, who wanted to be more than their ashes, who realised she was entirely different but certainly no worse. She didn’t need plans; she would save Mystic Falls- one day at a time.