Title: In the event of my death.
Rating: G
Summery: Written for the comment meme hosted by Softly_Me on LJ. Prompt was simply Damon/Elena/Stefan 'In the event of my death'. Warnings for fluffiness and happy endings.
They'd come across the folder one afternoon while looking for sweater. They'd been too lazy to leave Damon's bed, even though Damon himself left hours ago for a meeting with sheriff Forbes. Nestled in the back of the dresser drawer was a manila envelope marked 'In the event of my death'. Stefan had snorted at that. Grabbing the black sweater in front of it, he made his way back to the bed and Elena.
"What's that?" She questioned shrugging on the offered sweater, pleased that it somehow still managed to smell like Damon even when freshly washed.
"I'm gonna guess his will." Stefan said, already pulling the small stack of papers out in curiosity.
"Damon having a will seems slightly too responsible for him…Should we even be looking at this?" She asked, even though she was already leaning into Stefan to read it herself. The first page just had a typed paragraph designating one Stefan Salvatore as the executor of his estate. It seemed pretty standard except for the blurb at the bottom that forbid anyone from cremating him until Stefan had been contacted. Handwritten beneath that was a note that added 'Or Elena Gilbert' and listed her phone number.
Touched that he had included her in this, Elena took the next paper from the stack and read aloud. "I Damon Salvatore being of sound body and mind-yeah right- designate my estate as follows-" She scanned the dollar amount next to it. "Holy crap, I knew he had money, but sweet jesus that's a lot of zeros!"
"Yeah," Stefan shuffled through the next couple of papers detailing his accounts. "And that's not including any of our international accounts." At her raised eyebrows he added "We've been around awhile…and picked up how to work the stock markets along the way." Elena shook her head and went back to reading.
"Let's see, he's leaving fifty thousand dollars to the 'Mystic Falls Historical Society' for the preservation of the Salvatore family name. What does that even mean?" She asked.
"He's buying a lasting good impression. With that amount of money they'll build him a statue or name a park after him." He laughed. "No one will ever know that the new town hero was a vampire they'd been hunting for 3 years. Even dead he still has to find a way to trick the council. What else is on there?"
Elena skimmed through the names. "There's a bunch of people I don't know, some of the have the last name Salvatore, are those cousins are something?"
"More like 6 times removed cousins. But they'll still pretend to remember old Damon fondly when they get their inheritance check." Stefan answered with a roll of his eyes.
"Bonnie's on here, he's leaving her his collection of Jack London novels…including his first edition of Call of the Wild." She racked her brain trying to remember why that sounded so familiar.
"Remember when Bonnie was supposed to 'prove' her magic to Damon?" Stefan prompted, his perfect memory supplying the details on the inside joke. "That was the book she found."
Elena smiled at the memory and continued scanning the list. "Aunt Jenna and Uncle Alaric are getting his collection of 'replicated medieval torture devices'….What the hell is that?" She muttered, wondering if she'd yet to find a 'special' room in the basement filled with those.
"That would be fancy talk for the vampire weapons that Alaric helped Damon make a couple of years ago when we dealt with Klaus. He's just giving them back." He read further down the list. "He's giving Alaric his shot glass collection too. Look, Jeremy gets his journals."
"He's gonna trust a Gilbert with his journals?" Elena teased. "I never thought I'd see the day." She read through another couple of lines and then "Oh my god! Why is he giving Caroline a million dollars?"
"She's his child." Stefan reminded her. "She may not see it that way, but it was his blood that turned her, he would want to make sure she's off to a good start. Looks like she's also getting his apartment in New York too-"
"Why is there a stipulation on there about her not being allowed to buy dog food with the money?" Elena cut in.
"That," Stefan chuckled. "would be Damon's way of telling Caroline he still disapproves of Tyler." He shook his head.
"He is really never going to get over that, is he?" She asked, already searching for more familiar names on the list. "Everything else just looks like small stuff." She flipped to the next page. "To my brother Stefan I leave our Mystic Falls house, my villa in Rome and my wardrobe. With the exception of my John Varvatos tee shirts, as he will not appreciate them."
"You stab someone once, and they just keep holding a grudge." Stefan muttered, going through the remaining documents. "Looks like he left you everything else Elena. The next three pages are just listings for his account numbers."
"Why would he leave me that much money, that's crazy!" Elena said, eyebrows practically up to her hair line. "That should go to you, you're his brother, you're family." She argued.
"Elena, you are our family now." Stefan said, brushing a kiss to her temple before cocking his head to the side slightly. "He's home." He zoomed back to the dresser and hid the folder again, before Elena had time to blink. He jumped back in bed and raised the sheet over both their heads.
"Well, what do we have here?" Damon asked, walking into the room. "It's one O'clock in the afternoon and your both still in bed. Must be nice not having any responsibilities." He jumped onto the bed, hearing Elena's breath pick up. "Me? I just had a campaign meeting. Liz droned on and on and on about how important civic responsibility is. Man, if I knew running for mayor was going to be this hard, I would've thought twice about it." He pulled the covers back, and took in Elena's closed eyes and her attempts to hide a smile. "You. You look guilty. What've you guys been up to Stefan?" He asked, wrapping himself around Elena and getting cozy.
"Shhh!" Elena lectured faux sleepily. " 'M trying to sleep."
"You suck at lying." He glanced over to Stefan to see that he was now hiding a similar smile. He noticed that Elena was wearing a sweater that she hadn't been when he'd left earlier. One of his sweaters. From that drawer he kept an important document in. Putting two plus two together he casually mentioned, "If you tell Caroline how much she's getting, I'm revoking everything you two get."
"Darn," Stefan said, not bothering to open his eyes or hide his smirk at being caught. "And I was really looking forward to fighting for those tee-shirts too."