How can you be so arrogant and glib after everything that you've done?

[MERRY CHRISTMAS colormyspoon! She actually requested this last year and I never wrote it oops? But this goes along with that Sam/Elena PSL that we are edging our way around. Elena is AU from the end of S3 and Sam is pre-series. Also this is becoming an AU where I fix ALL THE PROBLEMS. So deal with that.]

If Jeremy hadn’t coming out to visit her, Elena wouldn’t even be here.

She would have been on a plane already, heading back home to Mystic Falls to try and have a somewhat normal Christmas after a very normal first semester. It’s been nice. Weird, but nice. Klaus isn’t breathing down her neck twenty four hours a day. There aren’t vampires every time she turns a corner. She’s just Elena Gilbert, college student. It’s such a nice change of pace from Elena Gilbert, Petrova doppelganger.

The only downside is that Elena Gilbert, college student, means dressing up in red and green felt at Christmas as part of a community service project. She doesn’t mind, really. It’s for the kids, and Elena likes being able to help. She’d like it more if her brother would stop taking pictures.

“Do not make me take away your phone.”

“Wait, wait, wait. One more.” Jeremy holds up his phone with a grin before snapping a quick shot. “And that one I’m sending to Alaric. We can put it on the pseudo-family Christmas card.”

She laughs a bit, before moving to look over his shoulder at the picture. “How is Ric doing anyway?”

“Good. He and Meredith are good, especially now that his whole … split personality thing is under control.”

“And everybody else?”

“They’re good. They miss you.”

She nods a bit, resting her chin on his shoulder. “I miss them too. But I like it out here.”

“I can tell. It looks good on you.”

( *** )

1019 words

[HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIFA. This is totally not late. Not set to any particular canon point that I can think of yet, but sometime in S3 for TVD and … S5ish for Buffy? Buffy is slay and Damon is compels and everyone else is an NPC. This may have also gone a little cracky but whatever. So there. This was also used for 100_situations prompt 007. Friend.]

Damon Salvatore is the bane of Elena Gilbert’s existence.

Granted, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes there are feelings, and complicated ones at that, but at least seventy-five percent of the time, she’s left wondering if he has any sense of self-preservation at all. Whenever there’s danger around, he has to go and poke at it with a stick.

(Not that she’s really one to talk, but that isn’t the issue at hand.)

Case in point: Buffy, the self-proclaimed ‘vampire slayer.’

It all starts with Drusilla. Apparently she and Damon used to date.

When asked about it, he waves a hand and claims it was the twenties. Given that Stefan had his own affairs in the twenties, Elena isn’t really one to judge, but when the vampire turns up at his front door, clearly very crazy and not really all there, she can’t help but question his sanity, just a little bit. She’s starting to think that Damon just has a thing for older, insane vampires. It also says something that when she breaks up with Spike (again) she comes to Mystic Falls rather than anywhere else she could go. For the most part, however, Drusilla is … nice. Even if it is in an odd, vaguely cryptic kind of way.

The bad part, unfortunately, is that when Drusilla arrives, Buffy follows.

Buffy is forceful and bossy, and only really stays because Klaus is a problem. Not that Elena disagrees with that, but she doesn’t think they needed a vampire Slayer to come in and save the day, especially when there are other vampires (and one hybrid) that could be put at risk because of it. Given the fact that she’s only here because she followed Drusilla, that doesn’t necessarily mean she should stay, but at the same time, Elena is glad that there’s someone who actually might know what they’re doing.

( *** )

1258 words

[MERRY CHRISTMAS wayitcomes! Set in of_thelowlands. Everyone mentioned in here is a member of that verse.]

When you are stuck somewhere without a clock or calendar, it makes it a little hard to figure out how long you’ve been there. The days blend together, weeks blend into months, and you’re not entirely sure how long it’s been since you were home. You just know that it feels like it’s been forever and you’re not entirely sure how much more you can take of this. The days don’t change—it’s the same thing, one after the other, and eventually the monotony gets to you.

The village gets bigger every day. That’s the only thing that changes. There are new people every day, and they have to tell them all the same story—that they have no answers. They are never going to have the answers they’re looking for. It’s depressing, but at the same time, there is only so much they can do. Eventually the village is going to have to expand and they’re going to have to start fending for themselves a little more. But for now, they just need to try and find the way to count the days.

She knows Alaric does. She’s seen the line of tiny marks on the wall of his bedroom—well, now his and Buffy’s bedroom—small rows of seven across, four down, ever since he arrived in the village. Now there are six blocks of twenty eight lines—not quite an accurate calendar, but a calendar nonetheless. She doesn’t know what brings her to the bedroom that day—probably to put something away, but something draws her to stop and look at it. Six blocks. Six months.

God, had it been six months already?

( *** )

1023 words