twenty dollars

IT'S ALMOST COMICAL, THE SCENE PLAYING OUT RIGHT NOW. A teenage girl and a vampire pacing back and forth nervously, with a dead body lying between them.

It would be more humorous if not for the very reason the duo is so nervous– and the fact that their nervousness has absolutely nothing to do with the dead body of Vicki Donovan lying on the ground in between them.

Athena stops briefly in her pacing, making Damon do the same. They both share an incredulous look, and Athena wipes a hand down her face.

"Okay, look," Damon stops, and tears his wringing hands apart. "Maybe you just had a moment, after all, it's not every day you see a dead body."

"It is when I'm your friend," She grumbles, rubbing her forehead frustratedly. "Damon, there's literally no human explanation as to why I just saw an etch-a-sketch of you breaking Vicki's neck! It was gross– her bones were sticking out!"

He throws his hands out exasperatedly. "I never said I was a courteous murderer!"

"You're such a dick, Damon!" She yells, her voice echoing off the tall ceilings, making Damon roll his eyes. "I'm having a crisis! I'm not– I am not a witch, okay?"

"How do you know that?" He raises his voice to match hers, and she shifts her legs to cock a hip out. "We don't know what constitutes a witch. Maybe you're a freaky golden death witch."

"Oh, good," She nods, tone disarmingly pleasant. "That means I could do something like this."

Before Damon can blink, Athena has tackled him to the ground with her hands wrapped around his throat. Damon choked as she squeezed his airways, and Athena looked down at him with a murderous glare.

"You are such," She grunts and tightens her grip, slamming his head down onto the hardwood floor. "A dick."

He groans at the throbbing in his head but regains his senses enough to throw her off of him. She lands on the ground, five feet away, clutching her ribs with a groan. "Dickhead!"

"You're a psycho!" He exclaims, pushing himself up off the ground.

"Says the one with a dead body in their living room!" She gestures to Vicki as she stands, still holding her ribs in pain. She glowers at him, but Damon doesn't falter. "I think you broke my ribs, you asshole. Give me some of your blood,"

"No, you're being rude," He crosses his arms and looks away from her, the actions childish for a centurion.

Athena mentally damns his existence, wincing at the ache in her side. "I'm going to walk through this entire house and open all of the curtains so you can't go anywhere but your creepy torture-sex basement."

"You wouldn't,"

She rips the curtain next to her open, spilling sunlight into the dark room. "Try me,"

He groans in defeat. "Fine! Fine. But you have to make a deal with me."

She narrows her eyes at him as she walks over towards him, silently urging him on.

"If I give you my blood, you have to promise you won't go and get yourself killed in the next 24 hours, no matter how fun and exciting being a vampire seems."

"How about you give me your blood and I let you help me figure out what the fuck is wrong with me, huh?" Athena says nothing else as she takes the blood he'd drained into a glass, panting through the pain ebbing through her side and chest.

"Deal," He quietly agrees, earning a nod from her.

Damon eyes her warily, seeing the panic she's so obviously trying to hide for her own sake. He knows that she's probably scared, but she'll never show it. It appears she's already vulnerable enough. She wouldn't risk something like fear holding her back.

He winces suddenly, eyes drifting to where Vicki Donovan's body is still lying on the floor. "Did I mention that I gave her some of my blood and she's going to wake up in transition?"

Athena sets the glass of blood down on the desk untouched, glaring up at the man. "Are you kidding?"

Before he can say anything in defense of himself, Vicki is startling awake with a gasp. He points a finger at her, grimace deepening as Athena's anger grows. "Great timing, Vicki."

Athena grabs Damon by the wrist and drags him across the room to Vicki, already mapping out every little thing that could spiral from this. The pain in her side disappears after another moment, and she disregards it in her busy state.

The glass of Damon's blood remains untouched on the desk.

──────

"I don't understand why I have to stay cooped up here. Why can't I just go home?"

Athena pinched the bridge of her nose at the incessant sound of Vicki's whining. It's all she'd been doing for the past twelve hours and counting. Stefan said it's because her emotions are running rampant now that she fully transitioned, but Athena's not feeling sympathetic in the slightest.

"I liked her better when she was dead and quiet," She mutters, knowing the vampires would hear her no matter what.

Stefan gave her a scolding look that she mocked instantly, and Damon nodded his head in agreement. Stefan turned his attention to Vicki, already giving up trying to make Athena or Damon see reason. "Because you're changing, Vicki, and it's not something you wanna do alone."

Damon ruffled the newspaper in his hands frustratedly. "There's nothing about that Logan guy I killed in here, not a word. Someone's covering it up."

Athena narrowed her eyes at Damon from her seat a few feet away from him. "Seeing you with a newspaper really ages you."

He glared at her, picking up the Gilbert watch and turning it around in his hand a few times. Vicki rolled her head over in his direction and she furrowed her eyebrows at the sight of it. "What is that?"

"This is a very special, very old compass," He looked at Stefan and Athena. "What was Logan Fell doing with it? Aren't you curious?"

"Well, if you're so worried that somebody's onto you, why don't you just leave town, Damon?"

Damon ignored his brother's very obvious unsaid words, instead smirking at him. "We should all be worried."

Athena rolled her eyes at the brothers, fighting back an audible groan when Vicki spoke again. She'd been on edge since yesterday's meltdown with Damon, but with Vicki wreaking havoc as a new vampire, there'd been no time to focus on anything regarding whatever the hell was going on with her. And, she hadn't mentally prepared herself in the slightest to sit in on Vicki's apparent vampire training that was reading more like an undead AA meeting with the two Salvatore brothers in attendance.

"Hey, um, I'm hungry. Do you have anything to eat?"

"Here," Stefan got up and handed her the cup that had been sitting on his desk, and she frowned at the dark liquid.

"What is it?"

He sat back down across from her, Athena looking over his head from her seat behind him. "It's what you're craving,"

Damon scoffed humorously. "Don't lie to the girl. It is so not what you're craving, but it'll do in a pinch, right, Stef?"

Vicki looked at Stefan. "What is it?"

"Yeah, what is it? Is it skunk? Saint Bernard? Bambi?"

Athena shot a quick glare at Damon. "Do not joke about Bambi like that,"

Damon looked at Athena incredulously, wondering how her thought process worked while being simultaneously frightened at the prospect of ever finding out. He turns his attention back to Vicki, frowning at her reluctance to drink the blood. "She's new, she needs people blood. She can't sustain on that stuff."

Vicki nods in agreement. "Yeah, why can't I have people blood?"

"Because it's wrong to prey on innocent people, Vicki."

"You don't have to kill to feed. You just have to find someone really tasty and then erase their memory afterward. It's so easy."

Vicki laughs at Damon, and Stefan immediately shakes his head in refusal. "No, no, no. There's no guarantee that you can control yourself, okay? It takes years to control that. You could easily kill somebody, and then you have to carry that with you for the rest of your life, which if I haven't made clear, is eternity."

Athena eyed Stefan curiously, silently thinking that his words were more for himself than Vicki. His phrasing sounded like it hit a little too close to home, in her opinion.

"Don't listen to him. He walks on a moral plane way out of our eye line. I say snatch, eat, erase."

"Hey, look at me. We choose our own path. Our values and our actions define who we are,"

Athena narrowed her eyes at the three vampires. "It's like watching the worst game of ping pong ever. Or a really bad soap opera."

Damon stands up, throwing the newspaper down on the desk. "I am out of here,"

Athena props her feet up on the desk, and Stefan looks at her over his shoulder. She raises an eyebrow in a silent challenge, but she's not really sure what fight she's propositioning him with.

The doorbell rings and it echoes, breaking their silent stare-off. Athena smirks, the action making Stefan turn to face her completely. "Twenty bucks says it's Elena."

"You can't possibly–"

"Stefan?"

Athena laughs smugly at the sound of Elena's voice echoing through the house. Stefan's face falls at the sound of his ex's voice, but there's a slight smile in his eyes as she laughs at him.

"Better hope I don't meet her first, I'm not a very welcoming host." Athena shrugs out of her seat, dragging her feet as Stefan gets up to go speak to Elena. He disappears from the room in a blur and Athena mutters something under her breath similar to "stupid vampires and their stupid powers," as she comes down from Stefan's room.

If Elena is surprised by her appearance, she does well at hiding it. Athena just raises an eyebrow at her as she interrogates Stefan about Vicki, which is just another thing to add to the list of things annoying her today.

"If there's a search party, they're looking for no reason," Athena butts in, looking at Elena accusingly. She's got no right to barge in and act like Stefan is doing something wrong when she is the one who couldn't leave well enough alone. "Sheriff Forbes should just call it off and call it like it is– a teen delinquent gone awol."

Elena frowns at her, holding back a scoff. "How can you be so insensitive? You know, Matt was your friend at one point, too."

"Yeah, but you ruined that too, didn't you?" Athena smirks when Elena quiets. "Don't act like you're all high and mighty just because you know something you shouldn't. Stefan is doing all that he can to work with her."

"So, she's a vampire with issues? What am I supposed to do? Because I'm lying to everyone that I care about. What's gonna happen to her?"

"I'm gonna keep her here with me until I know that she's safe."

"How long is that?" The trio turns around at the sound of Vicki's voice, and this time, Athena sees the shock in full force on Elena's face, as if she couldn't really believe until now that Vicki was a vampire.

Stefan sighs. "We can talk about that later,"

"Hey, Vicki, how are you?" Elena's nurturing tone makes Athena cringe and roll her eyes and she turns away from the girl, shielding herself from Elena completely.

"How am I? You're kidding, right?"

Athena scoffs at the entire conversation and turns on her heel, heading for the front door. "Elena, you're only lying because you chose to get involved in something much bigger than you. If you can't handle not being the center of attention right now, I suggest you go elsewhere."

She gives the girl a sickly sweet smile and swings the door open, looking over her shoulder to meet Stefan's eyes. "You owe me twenty bucks."

────── 

author's note;  the edits are taking away a lot of chapters bc im combining so it may seem like their relationship is moving really fast but I promise it's still the same timeline... these idiots are gonna take their time getting together even though they've been in love since day 1

originally published; 11.7.20.

edited: 11.27.20. 

- liz