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scuttling · 7 months

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Devil You Know

Fandom: The Vampire Diaries Pairings: Damon Salvatore/female reader (future) Word Count: 2,107 Tags: Just canon typical violence/blood so far, Episode related 2x14 Crying Wolf Summary: Damon's in love with Elena, would do anything to keep her safe—including forming an alliance with a mysterious newcomer who just might change everything. A/N: I consider this a teaser I guess, as plan to write the rest of season 2's storyline! I hope you like it :)

Keep reading below!

Damon goes to the historical society tea party because he needs to confront Elijah.

It’s absolutely the last thing he wants to do, after blowing off Jenna’s friend Andie, who will almost certainly be in attendance; the last thing he wants to do, knowing that Elena and Stefan are on some romantic getaway to her family’s cabin by the lake. But he needs to protect her, which means finding out more about Elijah and the deal he’s made with her, which means he gets dressed and goes to the party, puts on a smile, charms the pants off everyone like he always does.

It’s not easy, but someone’s gotta do it.

Damon is just walking away from Alaric, heading into the study on Elijah’s heels, when a pretty young woman grabs him by the elbow of his jacket. She fits in at the tea party, in a white sweater, long, tan skirt, and heels, but he can’t remember ever seeing her around town.

“Whatever you’re about to do, don’t,” she says in a low voice. A human wouldn’t have heard it, her lips barely move, but he can and she must know that.

“And who are you?” he asks, cocking a brow. He doesn’t take advice from people he does know, and definitely not from people he doesn’t; all the same, something about her intrigues him, though he can’t quite put his finger on it.

“Someone who’s not about to let you make the biggest mistake of your life — or afterlife, whatever you call it.” She lets go of the fabric of his jacket, then smooths it out where she’s wrinkled it. “Trying to kill an Original is suicide, so don’t.”

She says it with an air of finality, almost authoritative, then turns away from him like she’s going to leave.

He can’t let this girl leave, but he can’t let Elijah go either. He’s torn, feels two warring senses of urgency, looks briefly toward the study and then back to her retreating frame.

“Wait—who are you? How do you know–what you know?” She turns back, hair falling over her shoulder, and shakes her head like she’s frustrated that he’s even bothering to ask.

“I know, and that’s all that matters right now. Look, I have to go; I shouldn't have come as it is.”

Damon grabs her arm to stop her from turning again, to stop her from leaving, but she frees herself with one firm, no nonsense tug and walks out the door without ever looking back.

A mystery for another time. Elijah’s in the study, and Damon’s going to do what he came for in the first place.

He gets stabbed in the neck by Elijah because of course he does; he never claimed to be rational or sensible, to think things through or weigh the consequences like his brother. He acts on instinct, with more emotion than most people probably imagine him capable of, and then deals with the aftermath as it comes.

The aftermath of this situation is a very sore throat, and a growing headache, as he mulls over what little they know, over and over and over in his mind.

“Today was a bust,” he punctuates with a sip of bourbon. He says it to himself, to the room at large, but Ric answers anyway.

“Yeah, that Elijah’s one scary dude. I’d think twice before I trust that dagger and some ashes to do the job. You’re gonna need more info.” Damon frowns.

“But I’m out of sources.” Ric stands to pour another drink, grabs Damon’s glass and does the same. When he hands it back, Damon has a flash of memory from earlier in the day—the tea party, the mystery girl who knew more than she should—and he smiles a little to himself, pleased. “Actually, you know what. There might be one person who can help us out.”

“I’ll take anything we can get,” Ric says, drinking down the remainder of his bourbon in one sip. Damon stands and does the same, grabs his jacket from the back of his chair.

As they head for the front door he starts brainstorming, deciding where they are most likely to find her. Strangers always seem to gravitate toward the Grill, so they should probably start there, ask around, find out if anyone who’d been at the event remembered her.

Those plans are cut short by werewolves. Goddamn werewolves.

“You know what the great thing about buckshot is? It scatters through the body. Maximum damage,” the one he knows to be Jules says, the one he hates with every fiber of his being.

They’ve got him chained to a chair—an antique that’s going to be a bitch to restore after this—with some kind of inverted spike collar on him, and he is leaking blood from a hole in his neck for the second time today. It’s a new method of torture for him, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little terrified of the potential outcome.

This is how he knows he loves Elena, really, truly loves her, he thinks. For anyone else, he’d have given up a long, long time ago, out of both boredom and self-preservation. Damon would kill for almost anyone—he kills mainly for himself, anyway—but she’s the only one he’d die for now that Katherine has fucked them all for the last time.

“Where is the moonstone?” Jules yells, pulling him out of his thoughts with a cock of her gun. One of the wolves pulls on the collar, which hurts like hell, but Damon just shrugs, smarmy as shit. Jules rolls her eyes. “Vampires.”

“At least vampires have the decency not to enter someone’s home without permission,” someone calls from the foyer. Damon can see that it’s his mystery guest, still dressed for the party, as she strolls casually down the hallway and into the parlor, toward the werewolves. Jules takes a good look at the girl, brows tight, as if she’s trying to place her, but the other wolves growl—actually growl—at her, nostrils flaring. It’s clear they know who she is… and that they actually fear her. “If I were you, I’d go. Now. Before another one of you gets hurt.”

Whether she’s referring to Mason or someone else he doesn’t know about, it doesn’t make a difference; the male wolves run out of the house in a blur, and Jules must trust her pack enough to know to follow, because she speeds past the girl and out the front door with the rest of them.

Damon is impressed. Very impressed.

A minute later, when the house is quiet and the girl seems satisfied the wolves are gone, she steps toward Damon; her heels click across the wood floor, and in that delicate skirt, that pristine white sweater, she yanks at the chains that have him bound to the wooden chair. They nearly crumble in her hands, breaking apart and freeing him from captivity.

Now he’s kind of terrified again. Terrified, and a little turned on, and really fucking confused.

“Should have let them kill you,” she mutters as she unlocks the collar, her hands slick with his blood but no less precise. She pulls each wooden stake carefully away from his neck, and he sighs his relief when the device is completely off, discarded on the ground. “Do you always have such a knack for getting yourself into dangerous situations, or have I stumbled upon a no good, very bad day?”

“Hey. They broke into my house,” he reminds her, standing, and what’s left of the chains join the collar in a heap on the floor. The girl lets out a long sigh and puts up her bloody hands in a gesture of irritation.

“Because you’re fucking with, quite literally, the most powerful, ancient beings, things you know next to nothing about, even though I told you not to.”

“No offense, but I have no idea who you are, what you are… Those guys obviously did, and I’m getting now that you’re kind of a big deal, but it takes a lot more than a mysterious girl leaving a cryptic message at a town event to get me to change my mind.”

With another sigh, she sticks out one of her hands, and after a pause he gets what she’s after, reaches out to complete the handshake.

“Hi, I’m the new resident vampire slayer. Happy to make your acquaintance.” He tries not to show that his mind is a little blown at this, that the prim and proper, frankly beautiful girl in front of him is a killer of anything.

“Vampire slayer? Is ‘hunter’ not cool enough this year?” She drops his hand, then wipes the blood from hers against the fabric of his black henley; it’s not enough to clean them fully, but now they’re merely stained red and no longer dripping with the evidence of his prior torture.

“Hunters are usually guys with personal vendettas, who spend too much time shopping at the army surplus store,” she says with a completely unsubtle look at Ric, who remains dead on the Persian rug. Either she doesn’t care, or she’s spotted the Gilbert ring, knows what it means. “Slayers are different; we’re born with innate power, similar to what you develop when you transition—though I guess it’s all the same when you’re on the wrong end of a wooden stake.”

She takes a step back as he takes a step toward her—toward Ric, really. She watches as Damon lifts him up and drops him onto the sofa, so he can wake up with a little more dignity, at least. “So, vampire slayer. Are you from around here?” he asks as he turns back. He grabs their glasses from earlier, and a third, and fills them all with bourbon. He offers her the drink, which she accepts, sips.

“I get around,” she says lightly, carefully avoiding his question. She walks around the room, exploring, as he cleans up, rolls up the soiled rug so he can dump it later on. “This is my first time in Mystic Falls, though I know all about its… rich history.” She takes another drink, this one deeper, like she’s tired after such a long day. He knows he is, so he can understand the feeling. “I’m drawn to where I’m needed, and I wasn’t needed here until the moonstone came into play. Now you've got doppelgängers, werewolves… I’m just fortunate you dealt with the vampires in the tomb on your own, or we’d be in a hell of a lot more trouble.”

“Hey, I’ve changed since then; I was an idiot in love,” he explains, then he fully realizes that’s bullshit; he’s still an idiot, and still in love—or, more appropriately, in love again.

He throws her a playful smirk, but she’s not laughing when she comes closer and locks eyes with him. It’s the first time he’s looked at her and seen what must be her darker, more dangerous side.

“Love is not an acceptable excuse for your actions, and if you ever give me reason to, I’ll put you down without hesitation. It’s important that you know that.” Her eyes flick over his, as if ensuring that he’s gotten the message, that he understands her loud and clear. “Even when I help you—if I help you—my loyalties are to the slayers who fought before me, who fight alongside me. No one else. If any of you harm an innocent person with intent, I will kill you.”

Damon contemplates that for a moment, he really does; there’s no shortage of people who want him dead, so adding one more to the list isn’t really as impactful as she may believe. He can’t help thinking, though, that if she’s on their side—if she’s willing to fight with them instead of against them—they might actually have a chance against the werewolves, the Originals. They might actually have a shot at eliminating the threat instead of outrunning it, at protecting Elena once and for all.

It means giving up human blood, which isn’t his favorite thing to do, but he’s done it before, can do it again. Will do it for Elena, if that’s what it takes.

“You have my word, slayer,” he says, peering down seriously into her eyes. For once, he means it. “You help us keep Elena safe, and we’ll all be on our best behavior, or you get to wipe out every creature of the night that lives in Mystic Falls.”

She nods, after a moment, then drains her glass of bourbon with an exaggerated, satisfied smack of her lips.

“Alright then. First things first: who’s Elena?”

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