get your words out { 2022 } yahtzee tracking

[iluvroadrunner6]

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Running Score: 260 (8/8)
Word Count: 36,156

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you took the blue out of the sky | buffyverse/tvdverse | 1,878

[iluvroadrunner6]

[Prompt]

There’s a lot Buffy really likes about Mystic Falls—a lot of the east coast, really. The homey little hovels, the cozy woods and quiet villages—they all have a warmth and welcoming air to them, she appreciates. It’s only when you get closer and look at what’s really happening under the surface that you see the cracks in the façade.

Like vampires. These little towns have so may vampires.

“Take a left up here.”

She points to the turn in question and Matt obediently follows, making the left before glancing back at her again. She trussed up “Damon,” as Matt calls him, in the bed of Matt’s truck, chained, muzzled and covered in canvas just in case he wakes up before they get there. Usually broken necks take a long time to heal, but if someone gets their neck broken often—and she senses Damon might—they might heal a little faster, so better safe than sorry.

Matt swallows hard. “So. Vampire Slayer?”

“Right. Explanation time.” It’s always the thing she finds the hardest to explain, really. What she is tends towards the long and complicated, and she doesn’t want to alienate him. But she owes him one, so she starts from the beginning. “A long time ago, when the Originals were first made and started terrorizing their way through the world—you know about the Originals, right? The first vampires?”

Matt nods, grimacing. “I’ve met a couple.”

Her eyes widen. “And you lived?”

His face falls slightly. “I wasn’t what they wanted.”

“Right.” Only not right, that means someone he cared about did die. “I’m sorry.”

He’s silent at first, before shaking his head. “You were saying. About the Originals?”

“Right. So vampires go against nature and the Originals, being the first and being neigh unkillable even more so. But witches can only do so much, so while the spirits were trying to force compliance out of the Original Witch—”

“Original Witch?”

“Not the first witch. The witch of the Original family. The one who turned them into vampires.”

“Got it.”

“Other witches knew they needed to have a more proactive course of action, especially when they started turning other humans into vampires. So they took their preferred prey of choice—” She gestures to herself. “—and turned them into magical sleeper agents. Stronger, faster, unable to be compelled, and trained with the tools to take them out.”

“So you’re still supernatural?”

“Kinda?” Buffy shrugs. “We’re all magical constructs in the end. Even things like werewolves have an origin in magic somewhere. Anyway. It’s a chain of power passing. When one of us dies, the next one is awakened, and so on and so forth. But there are Slayers all over the world trying to fly under the radar.” She pauses and then points to the right. “Up here on the right. Just pull in on the dirt driveway.”

Matt nods before doing as asked, turning into the space and pulling up to the abandoned warehouse where she and her team have been making camp. Faith sits on the second floor and Buffy can see the way she tenses at the unfamiliar car, but Buffy climbs out quickly, giving her a wave.

“Give us a hand?”

Then an eyebrow arches as Faith slips through the window and lets herself fall to the ground. She lands easily and strides closer, giving Matt a once over as he climbs out of the truck. “Bring us a new friend?”

“This is Matt. He goes to school with me. Be nice.” Faith grins, showing that she intends to do no such thing, and Buffy rolls her eyes. “Matt, Faith. Take everything she says with a hefty grain of salt.”

“Hey, now. I don’t exaggerate that much.”

“You exaggerate enough.” Kendra’s soft Caribbean accent trills as she appears in the doorway, looking annoyed—whether it’s because Buffy brought an outsider into the situation or Faith and Buffy’s general banter is unclear. Probably a little of both. Still, she’s polite as she extends a hand to the newcomer. “Kendra.”

“Matt,” he shakes her hand firmly. “So—are you all Slayers?”

“Yep,” Faith grins. “What are you?”

There’s an awkward pause as he swallows. “Human.”

“Huh. That’s a break from B’s usual type.”

Matt looks confused as Buffy rolls her eyes again. “Enough about Matt. I brought you guys an actual present.”

She leads the way to the back of the truck and reaches for the canvas blanket, pulling it back to reveal the trussed-up vampire underneath. His bright blue eyes are open and Matt is right—he looks pissed—but he’s not going anywhere but into their personal vampire holding cell, so she’s not too concerned about it.

“Damn. Why do they always have to be hot?” Faith comments, shaking her head, and both Buffy and Kendra give her a look. “What? It’s true.”

Kendra crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Who is he?”

“Damon Salvatore,” Matt supplies helpfully, still lingering by the driver’s seat and Faith’s eyes go even wider.

“No shit?” Faith inches closer, getting a better look at him. “Is his brother in town, too?”

“Stefan, yeah,” Matt nods. “But he’s…it’s a long story that I only know part of.”

“Whatever you don’t know, I’m willing to bet that he knows the rest.” Kendra jumps up onto the bed and reaches for the chains. “Let’s get him inside and find out.”

* * * * *

Once they get him inside, Buffy snaps his neck again so that when they get him in their magical, witch-blessed holding cell and unchains him without worrying about him pulling a fast one. When Damon is settled, Matt fills them in on the parts of the story that he’s aware of, and as he says, it’s not much. He knows Stefan disappeared shortly after the funeral of his girlfriend’s aunt. He’s been gone all summer, and apparently was with Klaus, the Original hybrid. There are a few alarming parts of the story that Kendra catches hold of, always being the one of the trio that’s a bit more book sharp than the rest, paying attention to the details.

“He turned your friend into a hybrid?” she frowns, and Matt nods. “He must have broken the curse.”

“What curse?”

“The Sun and Moon curse. Originally thought to be a curse that would free the wolves from the moon or the vampires from the sun, depending on who broke it first, it never was that. It was a curse placed on Klaus specifically, binding his werewolf side. He would have needed a doppelgänger for that, though.”

“Yeah,” Matt swallows awkwardly. “My friend Elena is the doppelgänger.”

“Shit.” Faith shakes her head compassionately. “And I thought our gig sucked sometimes.”

“So the curse is broken,” Kendra shifts and leans back in her seat. “And the Ripper of Monterey went with him, but he’s here now doing what, exactly?”

“Whatever Klaus tells him to.” The four of them all turn at the sound of Damon’s voice. He still looks pissed, but it sounds like he’s almost concerned about what would happen to his brother if they went too far into this conversation with just Matt. “Klaus is compelling him.”

“The whole time?” Buffy asks, and from Damon’s stony silence, the answer to that seems to be no. “When did he compel him?”

“At the gym, when Klaus was trying to turn Tyler.”

“So not even a week ago. Which means all the bodies that he and Klaus were dropping over the summer, all the werewolf packs he tore through—he did that of his own free will.”

“He’s a ripper.”

“And it’s not his first time at the ripper rodeo. So unless you’ve got some clearly interesting reason that he went on a murder spree…”

“He did it to save me.” Buffy raises her eyebrows at that, unsure what to believe, and Damon sighs. “A werewolf bit me. Klaus’ blood is the cure, and he would only give it to Stefan if he went full ripper.”

“And as much as that lovely brief story might have worked on the people who actually care about you, I don’t.” Buffy tips her head to the side. “You really shouldn’t have tried to compel me. I didn’t even know what you were until you did.”

Damon glares daggers at her. “What are you? Witches? Werewolves?”

“Vampire Slayers.”

“Bullshit. They’re just myths.”

“Unfortunately, all the people who think that are myth-taken.” Buffy grins, and while Faith laughs and Kendra rolls her eyes at the pun, a flicker of a smile crosses Matt’s face and she smiles even wider. Damon seems less than impressed.

“Doesn’t matter. When I get out of here? I’m going to kill all of you.”

“That’s a witch-blessed cage, designed to keep vampires in,” Faith points out. “And last I checked, there were three of us, one of you. So temper your expectations there, buddy.”

Damon grits his teeth before looking at each of them. “What do you want?”

“We want Klaus, and the rest of his family,” Kendra replies simply. “We want your brother off the chessboard. We want people? To stop dying.”

“You realize the hypocrisy of the fact that you’re going to do that by killing a bunch of people, right?”

“People who are murderers.” Buffy points out.

“Eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

“At least we’re trying to do something about it.” Buffy gets to her feet, before looking over at Matt. “C’mon. I’ll walk you out. I think everything here is going to be a while.”

Matt watches her with a grim expression before nodding and getting to his feet. “Let’s go.”

* * * * *

“There are people who are going to be looking for him.”

“I know,” Buffy sighs. Likely people that Matt cares about, and she doesn’t want to get him into trouble with his friends. “Look, you don’t have to lie to them. If they want to know about Damon, you can tell them to come talk to me.”

Matt seems almost relieved at that, before nodding in agreement. “I appreciate that. But you realize that telling some of these people might make things get a little messy.”

“I can handle messy. I’ll be okay.” They reach the driver’s side of the truck and she smiles. “I really had a great time tonight. Until the vampire interference, anyway.”

Matt’s face softens into a smile and she feels her heart flutter a bit. He really is cute, and she hates she got him in the middle of this. “Yeah. I did too.”

“I’d get it if you wanted to keep your distance.”

“No!” It explodes from him a little too sharply, and she blinks in surprise, but eventually it fades to a smile as he laughs awkwardly. “Sorry, I mean, no. I’m good at staying friends.” He rubs a hand against the back of his neck. “It was nice to have someone really stick up for me for a change.”

“Happy to do it,” she smiles before he opens the door and climbs inside. “See you at school on Monday?”

He nods. “Yeah. See you then.” And with that, he drives off into the night, leaving the Slayers to their vampire captive.