The Slayer Diaries
Chapter 1: Injected

A/N: READ THIS BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE: If you have yet to read the prequel to this fic, The Damsel in Distress Diaries, I strongly recommend you do so now. Although things will be explained to an extent, you are probably going to be very, very lost. Also, the last fic ended on a cliff hanger, so, you know, spoilers. There's also a fuck ton of cursing and mature content in this (sex and death and violence), so read with discretion. That is all. Please enjoy!

Mystic Falls in January had always been, in Damon's opinion, the most magical place on Earth.

It had started at a young age; with sleigh rides with Stefan and their mother, and ferocious snowball fights between the Salvatore brothers and the other boys who lived near them. There was something about the scent of the town this time of year. It smelled exactly like the waterfall it was named for: earthy and metallic and crisp.

Snow was few and far between in Mystic Falls, but somehow, always, always managed to fall. Damon watched it dance to the ground from the windows of the Boarding House, now.

The year was 2013, and this was the first time he had been able to watch snow in Mystic Falls in nearly two hundred years.

Of course, snow had fallen before while he had been in town, but that night, as terrible and wonderful as it had been, Damon hadn't been in a sane enough state to watch it.

That had been the night when the world he created for Katherine and himself had come crashing down around him, and the night when he saw Sidney Gilbert for more than just a snarky mouth and a fiercely protective friend.

Damon had never expected to fall in love with Sidney Gilbert, for the simple fact that she wasn't his type (too plain, too human, too warm), and that he had still been in love with Katherine when he met her.

But Sidney had been there to pick up the pieces when Damon saw for the first time what Katherine had done to him, and he had fallen and fallen hard. Sidney had, too. Damon was sure of it, even if she wouldn't admit it. But why else would she have done what she had for him? Running into a burning building, a cursed tomb, staying by his side even when he had done his damnedest to force her away?

Damon hadn't made things easy for her, but she had stuck by his side, and just a few hours ago, Damon had repaid her for it in the only way he could.

He had kissed her.

"I'm in love with you, Sidney Gilbert," he had said, "and you're in love with me, and I won't let you hide from it anymore."

She hadn't responded, but he knew that she loved him just as much as he loved her. She had shown it, over and over and over again, and now it was Damon's turn. And he wasn't going to let her down. He had done that too purposefully and too frequently in the past, and he had promised himself that he never would again.

There were foot steps in the driveway. Damon straightened in his chair, setting the glass of Scotch back onto the side board. The footsteps were far apart and tight in rhythm; vampiric. Stefan, probably. And if not, Damon had a stake attached to the bottom of the chair he was sitting in.

The door opened half a second later, and Damon's shoulders relaxed once more. It was Stefan, although his hair was rumpled more than usual and there was an apprehensive sharpness to his jaw, a telling sign that what he was about to say to Damon would not be good.

"It's Sidney," Stefan said without preamble. "There's been another attack."

Seeing Elena's face always managed to send a pang through Damon's heart, but it was all the worse that night, big brown eyes blown even bigger with fear and pale face streaked with tears of hysteria.

"What happened?" Damon demanded the minute he encountered her in the hospital lobby.

Elena Gilbert was Sidney's younger sister- and shared a face with Damon's vampiric ex-lover, Katherine. The resemblance was what had brought Stefan and Damon to Mystic Falls in the first place, and what had introduced Sidney and Damon to each other. Sidney had only become a vampire slayer, and an irreplaceable part of the Salvatores' lives, to protect Elena, although now it was her friendship with the brothers that kept her fighting by their sides.

And apparently the reason why she had been attacked once again.

"I don't know!" Elena wailed, and before Damon knew it, her arms were around his waist and she was sobbing into his chest. "I came home- and- and she was just lying on the floor- in a pool of her own blood, Damon! A-an- She's been stabbed, again- And Uncle John's fingers were just- lying on the kitchen counter- and Jeremy just-!"

Elena couldn't finish, overcome with her own tears, and her face disappeared into the cotton of Damon's thin t-shirt. But he had gotten the gist of it.

Only Sidney Gilbert could manage to get herself stabbed two times in just as many months.

For the moment, Damon decided to shove aside the sheer panic of Sidney's condition. He had to, or else he wouldn't be able to think.

John. (Dick-face.)

Jeremy. (Annoying cock-blocker.)

Sidney. (Clueless dumb ass who he also happened to really, really love.)

What did the three have in common?

Aside from their relationships with Elena and the fact that they had all been in the house at the same time (although, by that logic, why hadn't Elena been attacked?), the only similarity was the last name.

"One of the tomb vampires might have escaped the fire and decided to attack the Gilberts in revenge," Damon said slowly, even if the explanation made his blood boil.

The tomb vampires had been responsible for Sidney's last stay in the hospital. Who was to say that they weren't behind this one, as well?

The sentence made Elena cry even harder, and Damon's arms tightened around her automatically. He liked the human girl, although it was impossible not to. She was too warm and giving, although there was a fire to her, as well. Seeing her, utterly destroyed like this, wasn't an enjoyable experience. Elena wasn't supposed to be like this, shaking so hard she was almost falling apart. She was supposed to be bitching at him, or laughing with Bonnie and Caroline, or making goo-goo eyes at Stefan (as gross as that idea was).

"Where is Sidney now?" Damon found himself asking, wondering if he could go to see her.

Elena let out a wet hiccough and blinked up at him. Mascara was running down her cheeks and her eyes were rimmed with red. "ICU," she whispered in a roughened voice. "She already went through surgery. Jenna is talking with the doctor right now."

Damon nodded mutely. He guessed he wouldn't be able to see her the normal way for a few more hours, then. He would have to climb through the window, something Sidney had always complained about. She claimed he looked too much like Spiderman, Batman, Edward Cullen, or some other dumb hero when he did.

A few minutes, or maybe even hours, passed before anything happened. Damon couldn't tell- your sense of time got shaky once you had been alive for as many years as he had. Finally, the door to ICU swung open, and a tired Jenna Gilbert emerged.

"How-?" Elena breached, but Jenna didn't answer. Instead, the red-head flopped down into a chair, put her head in her hands, and burst into tears.

Damon felt decidedly uncomfortable. He had never been good around crying people, and two women in one night was far too much for him to handle.

Tears didn't mean good things, either.

Ice dropped into the pit of his stomach. Was Sidney still alive?

"Jer-" Jenna choked around the waterfall of tears, "Jeremy's al-alive. The doctor's say he was trying to commit suicide, but he healed so quickly... They said it's a miracle."

Elena swallowed so hard Damon could hear it, and nodded quickly, tears retracing their previous paths across her cheekbones and down the lines of her jaw and throat. "And Sidney?"

Jenna breathed in deep, eyes skittering in Damon's direction. She didn't seem to be surprised that he was there.

"Not good," she finally answered. "She- She's in a coma, Elena. They say it's going to be a very long time before she wakes up, if ever."

Elena looked like she was about to throw up. "Oh."

Oh.

Oh?

Not oh! This was Sidney! Sidney who was constantly doing something; taking pictures, playing soccer, biting her lip, kissing, fucking, chopping body parts off of the undead. Sidney who was full of life and energy and warmth, and who loved horror films and the travel channel and Elvis Presley and the Bee Gees.

Sidney Gilbert could not be in a coma.

But, Damon discovered not four hours later, she was. And she looked very much like she was already dead.

Her body just seemed... wrong. Sidney had always been the palest of the Gilbert siblings, but her skin had always had a warmth to it- a sort of honey undertone, but lacking the olive complexion that Elena and Jeremy shared. But like this... Sidney's skin was gaunt and nearly translucent. Damon could see every vein and freckle sticking out with striking vibrancy.

And she was so still. Even in sleep Sidney was constantly moving- kicking and rolling around. By the time she woke up, the sheets were always a twisted mess. Damon had always bitched at her for it, but now it was a habit that he found himself missing.

At least then she hadn't seemed like a corpse.

The hospital was quiet around the two of them, although they weren't the only people in the room. Caroline Forbes shared the space with Sidney, apparently having been involved in a car accident with two human boys they went to school with. Otherwise, Damon was alone with her, as it was after hours and he wasn't technically supposed to be there.

Whatever. Things like visiting hours were for people who were still alive.

Damon frowned down at her, fingers already brushing the ever-present white indents on her too-full bottom lip, evidence of her bad biting habit.

"Wake up, Siddie," Damon growled. "You've got to wake up."

No answer, of course, but he hadn't been expecting one, either.

With a frown, Damon took a seat at the side of the bed. "You can't do this to me, Gilbert," he complained. "I haven't even gotten you to tell me you love me yet, and you decide to take a nap?"

He knew it wasn't her fault, knew it wasn't her intention for this to happen again, knew that she would be upset when (not if) she woke up by all the time she had missed.

But he was good at provoking her, he knew. And he also knew that when provoked, Sidney would react each and every time.

Not this time, though. Not this time.

There was silence, stillness. And as the night stretched on, and as snow swirled outside the window, Damon grabbed Sidney's hand, and fell into oblivion.

A week appeared and disappeared like lightning, and there was still no sign of Sidney waking up anytime soon. Much like the last time she had been stabbed, Damon, Elena, Stefan and Anastasia, Sidney's best friend, adopted a sort of bedside rotation schedule. Damon, as per usual, assigned himself night watch.

In typical fashion, Elena slipped in through the door at dawn and took the only other seat in the room, closer to her sister's side than Damon had been.

An hour or so passed in silence. Elena didn't have to be in first period until around eight, and it was only six, so there was no rush. Damon would stay with Sidney until school let out, as part of their unspoken agreement.

"Did she say anything that night?" Damon found himself asking. "About her feelings for me?"

Elena blinked up at him, clearly confused, before shrugging and responding, "I don't know, Damon. She didn't- doesn't like to talk about it. She changes the subject whenever I bring it up, but of course she loves you. It's kind of obvious she does."

"No, but what about the night she was attacked?" Damon pressed. "When we were kissing and you interrupted us."

A silky brow raised above a dark eye, and Elena frowned at him. "I never saw, or interrupted, any kiss, Damon," she replied petulantly.

"Yes, you did. The night of the attack, I brought Siddie home, told her I loved her, kissed her, and then you came out and told her to come inside," Damon insisted, adopting the kindergarten-teacher-esque voice he used on Sidney sometimes.

Now Elena was scowling, and she reminded Damon so much of Katherine when she made that face that it hurt-

Wait.

Katherine.

Elena stood from her seat, shouldering her backpack, and made for the door, casting a hurting glance at Caroline's prone form as she did so. "I need to get to school," she said, exiting without further goodbye, but Damon wasn't paying much attention to Elena.

He was more concerned with the vampire she shared a face with, and whether or not that resemblance may have been what almost cost Sidney her life.

Suspicions aside, Damon's The-Bitch-is-Back theory didn't gain any clod to it until a few nights later, when Stefan called to say that he had been practically molested at the Gilbert house, and Katherine was the culprit. When Stefan confessed to bodily heaving Katherine through a glass window when she tried to kiss him, Damon was almost proud.

Almost.

It was a bit hard to be proud of his younger brother when said younger brother's girlfriend was screaming in his face.

"You've known Katherine was the one who stabbed Sidney for weeks, Damon," Elena was hissing up at him, "weeks, and you didn't tell us!"

If Sidney was here, she would have told Elena to calm down, smacked Damon upside the head, and then gone on to ask him everything he knew about Katherine being back in town and what she was in town for. But Sidney wasn't present (or conscious) at the moment, so instead, Damon rolled his eyes and said, "More like was suspicious about it for three days, but sure, Elena, we'll go with the whole 'weeks' thing you've got going on here."

If looks could kill, Damon would have been dead- again. Elena, it seemed, wasn't a big fan of the high, falsetto voice Damon liked to use when mocking her.

Well, too fucking bad for Elena.

Stefan was staring at him, plainly curious, and Damon wondered if he knew about the hickey rapidly forming on the side of his neck. Elena would notice it soon, and definitely wouldn't be happy about it.

"Why did you think Katherine was back, Damon?" Stefan asked quietly. "Did she come see you?"

"No," Damon answered automatically, some of his resentment rising in his voice as he did. (He didn't care about Katherine anymore, he didn't care about Katherine anymore, he didn't care about Katherine anymore.)

"Then why did you think she was back?"

Damon sighed dramatically, grinning at the other two, and said, "The night of the attack, Sidney and I got to-" He paused and turned to Elena. "What do you kids call it these days? First base?"

"Fuck you, Damon."

"First base," Damon decided, "and little Miss Elena-"

"Fuck off, Damon."

"-interrupted us. Or at least, I thought it was Elena. She claims not to have interrupted anything."

Elena's arms were crossed firmly across her chest. "Because I didn't," she insisted. "Also, go fuck a trumpet, Damon."

He smirked at her. "Did Sidney teach you that one?"

"I swear to God-!"

With a motherly sigh, Stefan reeled Elena behind his back with an arm and said, "So do you know why she's back?" as Elena glared at Damon from over his shoulder.

"No," Damon answered. "And frankly, I don't want to know, seeing as that reason is probably you, Stefan."

Stefan drew himself up in shock. "What makes you say that?"

Damon gave a petulant eyeroll. "Look at all of her past motivations, Stefan," he instructed. "She turned us because of you. She started all of this because of you. She escaped from the tomb because of you. Who's to say that she isn't back because of you, too?"

That made both Stefan and Elena stop short. Stefan looked faintly ill. Elena's face turned a bright, vibrant shade of red.

"Are you saying," she said in a shakily angered voice, "that the reason this bitch stabbed my sister is because her old boyfriend is in love with me?"

"No," Stefan answered immediately. "That's not the reason. Katherine doesn't love me- she just thinks she does. And furthermore, I can't be the only reason she's here. If she's been free for all these years, why is she choosing now to show up?"

"Because you're hitting a new piece of ass?" Damon suggested crassly, knowing it would piss Elena off.

Predictably, Stefan had to stop her from jumping Damon, once again.

"No," he insisted again. "I'm just a pit stop. She's here for something. We just need to find out what it is."

Damon hated funerals with a fiery passion- mostly because he had been to far too many of them, both before and after his death. There were the gargantuan affairs that had been funerals in Mystic Falls pre-Civil War, and the cold, silent graves, dug by fellow soldiers and sat through with numb toes from holey boots while he had been away, fighting for the Union. Then there was his own funeral- the one he had shared with Stefan. Damon had watched from the tree line as two empty caskets were lowered into the ground, and as his mother sobbed so brokenly that he had thought she would shatter.

Richard Lockwood's funeral was too close to his own for comfort.

Literally. The Lockwood family plot was so close to where Damon's casket had been buried that he could see Stefan's head stone from where he was standing.

About halfway through the service, a man around the age Damon had been when he died slipped into the crowd, and walked up to Richard's son, Tyler, placing a hand on his shoulder. Damon raised an eyebrow at the stranger, curiosity grabbing his bored mind, and leaned over to Sherrif Liz Forbes, standing at his side.

"Who's the man hanging off Tyler's shoulder?"

Liz glanced in the direction of Damon's interest, lips pinching into a thin line, before shrugging and returning her attention to the pastor conducting the funeral. "Mason Lockwood," she answered quietly, "Richard's wayward younger brother."

"I take it he doesn't come into town much," Damon noted, watching the way a dry-eyed Mrs. Lockwood gave Mason a judging stare.

Liz shrugged again. "He went off to college in Hawaii right out of high school," she divulged. "His brother tried to tell him about the Council, but he wasn't buying it. Doesn't believe in the supernatural. He disappeared for a few years and turned up in town again to take a semester off. Left again not long after. This is the first I've seen of him in a year."

Damon made a noncommittal humming noise in response, bored again, and the topic of Mason Lockwood lay dormant until a few hours later, at the Mayor's wake, when Damon and Elena were standing to the side of the room.

"Elena!" a deep voice boomed, and Mason was there, wrapping an arm around her delicate shoulders and giving her a light squeeze. "How have you been?"

Elena just looked at him, forcing a warm smile. "Good. It's good to see you, Mason."

Lies. No love lost there, apparently. How did the two of them know each other?

"How's Sidney doing?"

Wait. Back the fuck up. Why was a somewhat-attractive man who was clearly too old for her asking about Damon's Sidney?

"I'm sorry," Damon decided to butt in. "Who are you?"

Mason turned to him, thick eyebrows raising, and stuck out a hand for Damon to shake. Damon didn't take it. "I'm Mason Lockwood," he said, withdrawing the hand. "Sidney's ex-boyfriend."

Shit.

Fucking shit.

Fucking ass fuck-shit.

Damon squared his shoulders and smirked. "I'm Damon Salvatore. Sidney's-" What the fuck were they to each other again? "-friend."

The smug look on Mason's face made Damon want to rip it off. "Oh. That's nice."

Elena was watching their exchange, thoroughly unamused. "Well," she said, shifting in her high heels. "Mason, Sidney's not doing so well."

"I figured," Mason said with a toothy grin. "Why else wouldn't she be here?"

"She's kind of in a coma."

"Oh," said Mason.

Oh. Again with the "oh". Why was that everyone's reaction to Sidney's condition?

Mason shifted uncomfortably, partly from the way both Elena and Damon were glaring at him. "That's too bad," he said, not bothering to ask why Sidney was in a coma, just sort of accepting the fact like a douche bag. He glanced in the other Lockwoods' direction before saying, "I'd better go. I'll come visit Sidney later."

"Please do," Elena said with a nod, and then let the smile slip once Mason was gone.

"Who the hell was that?" Damon demanded.

Elena's face twisted into an expression of disgust, eyes still fixed on Mason's broad shoulders. "I'll let Sidney tell you that story," she muttered. "It's not really my place."

The "if Sidney ever wakes up", went unsaid.

That night found Damon sitting in the living room of the Boarding House, rather than keeping his usual vigil at Sidney's bedside. Stefan was with Elena, and for the first time in a long time, Damon was alone.

Or so he thought.

He wished he could say that he wasn't surprised to find Katherine sitting on his couch. He really, really did. But he couldn't.

She smiled at him. "Hello, Damon."

Now that she was sitting right in front of him once again, it was easy to see the differences between Katherine and Elena. Both women wore black dresses that day, but where Elena's had been eyelet, girlish, betraying her innocence, Katherine's was velvet, mature, her hair curled and pinned up off of her shoulders. She was smiling, but her eyes were blank.

"Katherine," Damon said, jaw tensed.

He had imagined this moment a million times over. In the lonely years after his transformation, he had dreamed of crashing through the tomb doors like the conquering hero he had joined the Union to become, and sweeping a beautifully pale Katherine into his arms, carrying her back into the sunshine. He would kiss her before dripping blood into her mouth, and she would waken, proclaim her undying devotion for him, and they would live happily ever after. But that wasn't how it had turned out, and her betrayal still left a sick taste in his mouth.

"Why are you here?"

Dark lips curled into a facisimile of a smile, and Katherine set down the empty glass she had been toying with. "Why, I'm here to seduce you, of course."

Something in Damon's throat turned blazing hot and then sunk into the pit of his stomach. "And why would you do that?" he asked, trying to make it sound as if he didn't particularly care, even as his arms trembled from restraint. He wanted to grab her. Wanted to grab her-

And break her.

"I thought you were in love with Stefan."

Katherine grinned at him, so familiar it hurt. "I am. It's all part of my master plan," she said, rising swiftly from her seat and strolling over to him.

"And that plan would be?" Damon prompted, brows raising. He tensed as she leaned over him, firm breasts brushing against his chest.

Katherine hummed in his ear, taking his Scotch and placing it on the side board. "I'm going to seduce you," she murmured. "And you'll fall back in love with me, and forget all about that little human girl, and then the little family you've remade with Stefan will come crashing down, and the both of you will come running back to me."

He couldn't help indulging her.

Damon's hands rose to cradle her thin shoulders, and he drew her in closer, relishing the feeling of her lips at his ear. "You really think that's what's going to happen."

Katherine purred her assent-

And Damon's hands turned to talons where they met her skin.

"You forgot just one thing," he snarled, feeling his blood turn black and his eyes cloud with a hunger for death. "That 'little human girl' is mine. And she's a million times better than you'll ever be."

For the second time that week, a Salvatore brother chucked Katherine Pierce through a window.

"I'm not interested, Katherine!" Damon bellowed, following her into the snow- even if he had gone willingly and she hadn't. "And I never will be again. I've found a new love; and whatever grand plans you had for fucking me over disappeared the minute you hurt her!"

There was silence for a moment, then the supine form in the snow began to move, and then it began to laugh.

"Oh, Damon," Katherine gasped, getting to her feet. "You haven't changed in two hundred years, have you? You think Sidney loves you?"

"Of course she does-"

"Then why didn't she react better to your little declaration?" Katherine taunted, each word an arrow in its own right.

Against his own will, Damon felt his shoulders stiffen. "Shut up, Katherine."

But she kept pressing: "You think she loves you, Damon? Who could ever love you?" Katherine's eyes turned red, veins turned black, words betraying her for the monster she really was. Her mouth twisted into a sick grin, and she viciously bit out, "You are nothing, Damon. You are unloveable. Too dark, too twisted, too evil."

I'm not, Damon wanted to shout. I'm not. I'm not! I'm not!

"Newsflash, darling," he fired back instead, "so are you. Which means miracles do happen, because for a time, I loved you."

"Birds of a feather," Katherine suggested, grin turning amicable.

Damon shook his head. "No," he said. "Pretty lies and inexperience, on my part. As for Sidney, she just needs time."

A pout took over Katherine's mouth, and Damon's blood turned to ice. "Unfortunately for Miss Gilbert, time is something she is running out of very quickly."

And Katherine was gone once again.

By some miracle, Damon reached Sidney's hospital room before Katherine did.

He knew what he had to do, but he also knew that Sidney would hate him for it if she ever found out.

Katherine would, without a doubt, attempt to kill Sidney the moment she got here. She had already tried it once, and gotten very, very close. Damon doubted if Sidney would be able to survive a second effort.

Without help, that is.

Entire body tensing with revulsion for what he was about to do, Damon sunk his fangs into the vein on his wrist, took a deep draught, and then forced the tainted blood down Sidney's throat via his mouth.

A wind passed through the room, and when Damon rose from Sidney's prone form, color returning to it even now, Katherine was standing by the door, staring at him in rage. And Damon just had to laugh.

"Go ahead," he taunted, "try to kill her. Do that, and I'll have her by my side for eternity. You lose, Katherine."

Nostrils flared, blood red eyes took on the color of fire, and with two, decisive movements, Katherine bit open the palm of her hand, forced it into an unconscious Caroline's neck, and closed her fingers over the blonde's nose. Caroline woke immediately, eyes panicked, struggling. Her last breath was spent screaming.

Katherine cleared her throat once the deed was done, and straightened, eyes fading back to their usual brown. "No, Damon," she corrected, adopting another smile. "The game has just begun."

A/N: There it is! Chapter one of The Slayer Diaries. Drop a review down below and let me know what you thought, if you so please, and stay tuned for the next chapter!