'Being a teacher sucks,' Alaric thought as he turned the corner onto that street and heard the ghastly screeching of another bearing going bad in his beat-up, piece of shit car. A disgusting wind blew through the passenger window, scattering the hundreds, no thousands, of essays he had yet to read, correct and grade. The principal was being a real dick-crusher, making them adopt some so-called "proper" marking scheme that he'd pulled out of his ass... along with his brain. Gone were the sweet, succulent days when he could put an "F" on a paper just by the penmanship alone. He'd have to read them all now, and high-school students, it turned out, were even worse at basic English than they were at History. 'Being a teacher sucks, but being a history teacher sucks worst of all.'

Or probably not. Being the English teacher would be worse… Poor Kubrick. Someday there'd be a reckoning and some concerned parent would have his head on a silver serving tray. If the dick-crusher had his way, the day was well drawing nigh.

Poor fucking Kubrick. Boo fucking hoo. Did Kubrick ever get possessed by a vampire-werewolf thing? No. Did Kubrick's wife up and leave him to become a vampire? Did Kubrick's wife have a secret love-child with some asshole with an accent? Did Kubrick end up playing godfather for said secret love-child? Was Kubrick pulling double duty acting as a Noble Guardian of Mystic Falls? No. So fuck Kubrick.

Poor fucking Kubrick was head of the English department, and got a nice little bonus out of that. A good enough bonus to afford him them stupid-ass hair plugs, at least.

Alaric glimpsed his hairline in the review mirror. At least he had his hair. He might not have money, but he had his hair. Not a grey in sight. Thank you very much. Give Damon a chance, though, and he'd be bald by December. The stress. The acid reflux. The skipped meals. The possessions. The general anxiety… all of it was getting to be a bit much… He'd be bald, with an ulcer and a twitch under the eye by December.

I need a vacation.

I'd go on one if I wasn't a fucking history teacher. Whose fucking idea had that even been – a fucking BA in History? When I signed up for that, what the fuck did I think was going to happen?

As if anybody in Mystic Falls needed History. As if they needed anything besides knowing how to count up to ten and sign their names. It wasn't exactly the breeding ground of novel prize winners. Not much going on in the way of libraries. They had one restaurant. One mall. One grocery. One market. One cinema. One park. One restroom in the staff room… One of fucking everything. As hick a town as a town could get without actually having hicks in it. The people knew better… they just couldn't help themselves it seemed. Couldn't resist the idea of parades and open-air movie nights and retarded shit like Founder's Day and Tea Parties and Costume Parties and Costume Dances and… The list goes on and fucking on…

Why in the fucking name of sanity am I still here?

He'd come to track down Isobel and stayed for what?

Jenna?

She was dead and gone now. Dead and gone for a couple of weeks well. Well, not that many weeks… but he was dealing with the grief pretty well. He should be losing it a little probably, but lose one woman to vampirism and you kinda get accustomed to it. In a sick kinda way, he'd sort of expected Jenna to become a vampire… Huh. Interesting, but he could ponder his psychiatric issues in any other state in any other continent; why grow moss in Mystic Falls?

Elena?

Who in fuck's name was Elena? Why should he care? Why should he risk his life for her? Why was he playing guardian and happy house-maker?

Am I possessed by some fucking desperate housewife?

What the general fuck?

He was having an epiphany, he realised and his hands tightened on the steering wheel. 'This is it,' he thought, 'Keep driving.' Go straight home. Pack a bag– No, fuck that. Don't bother going home, keep driving all the way to the airport; get your fucking cunt out of Mystic Falls and never fucking ever return.'

He mashed down on the gas, heard his engine sputter and crank out more juice. Don't even bother going to the airport. You're poor as shit. Just hit the highway and drive till you run out of road or gas. You have enough in your wallet for the fucking gas, right? Just drive. He mashed again, and the cup of half-cold coffee in the holder spilled. And who the fuck cares? Don't stop unless there's a moat of lava stopping you… And there very well might be, so look out for that… Look out for the lava. The motherfucking lava…

An old woman or old man (whatever) was crossing the road about quarter mile down the road and he sped up some more. Move bitch, he laughed in a sick, high pitched voice that sounded batshitty even to his own ears. Move or I fucking run you over. I'm a teacher.

If he hit her, he'd have to leave. He'd have to flee the law and probably head down to Mexico. Then he'd peruse the globe at his leisure until he could find a third world country with a currency exchange rate that would allow him to live like a king on the remnants of his scratchy salary… About fifty bucks. Less after he put in gas.

If you do kill her, rob her. You'll need the gas money. He mashed down a little bit harder. That got him up to eighty miles per hour. Should do the trick… You'll at least fracture her hip. And you can still rob her after. And the police will still come after you so everything still works out fine…

Say twenty-five bucks… Twenty five US dollars would be like twenty-five million yen in Japan, but a cheese sandwich over there was upwards of thirty million yen, so there was that…

Maybe Brazil. He could get into the cocaine business. Some shipping and handling… He'd be good at that…

The old woman (it turned out to be a woman) finished crossing the road before he could reach her.

Damn his luck.

It was never good for anything. Who else in the world could say that both his wife and girlfriend turned in to vampires and died? His luck was the bad, morbidly ironic kind. Ten, twenty years down the road, the grandkid of the old woman would probably run him over. Or maybe the grandkid would be the leader of the Brazilian underground and kill him before he even got started in that entrepreneurship. Or the old woman would turn out to be Elena's grandmother. Some older generation of doppelganger whose death by vehicular homicide was prophesied in a fake prophecy ten thousand years ago. Shit like that happened every day of the week. Shit like–

Well, it wasn't lava… as far as he could tell.

His foot eased off the gas, hovered over the brake for half a heartbeat and the next thing he knew his car was swerving off the road and he was inhaling the lovely, cancer-causing aroma of burning tyre.

Well, what the fuck?

He'd missed it before, but now… well now, it was right there in his face.

The boarding house was on fire.

More specifically, Damon's room in the boarding house was on fire. There were fire-fighters in the driveway… A big, red, unbelievably loud fire truck parked haphazardly… An ambulance… with a girl that looked like a sootier, less posh version of Elena being escorted away by two paramedics…

Caroline… carrying someone… Stefan…

Okay… what is fucking happening here?

He'd opened the door, but he didn't want to get out.

What about Brazil? We're forgetting Brazil? Am I going to run into the fire despite the warning cries of the firemen to look for Jeremy? Or am I going to assume his girlfriend witch has him covered? And speaking of crazy pyrokinetic bitches known to set inanimate objects and vampires on fire…Brazil…

"Hey…" a woman shouted to him, catching him smack in the moment of indecision. She was… black-ish, Hispanic-ish, something-ish… Black? Black… Hot-tish… Is she hot? Kinda…

Witch.

Let's bet she's a witch.

How can she not be a witch?

The one who started the fire?

Are my spidey senses tingling? Am I being enticed by Scooby Snacks? "Hey," he answered, coming out of the car and taking in a mouthful of bitter, smoky, Mystic Falls air. "What's happening here?" And because is inner Nancy Drew was already taking over, he added, "You related to Bonnie, by chance?"

"Racially profile much?" she asked.

"I didn't mean–"

"I'm related to Elena. I'm a long lost sister. From Africa."

"Seriously?"

"No. Of course I'm related to Bonnie. Epic duh." She put out her hand for a shake, "Lucy, the cousin."

"Alaric," he answered. "I'm–"

"The non-magical, high-school History teacher," she cut in. Bitchily.

Did they inherit the bitch gene with the witch gene? "It says all that on my forehead?"

"No. I inferred a lot."

"So…" Alaric took in the heat on his face. "This a case of the magic woo-woo gone wrong?"

She shrugged. "I just got here."

"Huh."

"Came to help."

Yeah, cause she looked real interested in helping. "Yeah, well maybe you can help put that out? Do some anti-fire enchantment or–"

"Anti-fire enchantment…Sounds good, but I'm not exactly in the right frame of mind for that." She looked around her distractedly, her eyebrows knitted up in a frown as Caroline moved passed them with a pale, limp Stefan.

"Something more important got you distracted? What happened? Vision of Klaus ripping us to shreds? The apocalypse is starting in half an hour? A hell-mouth's opening under our feet as we speak? What?" He could relate to something like that. Lately, all his dreams were of being ripped to shreds, or of hell-mouths opening under his feet.

"Yeah… Not really. To be honest, it's the underwear. I thought that it'd be better for appearances sake if I wore underwear. Right now, I'm wearing panties and a bra, and it's super uncomfortable. The panties, I don't mind so much. It's one of those easy, breezy lacy kinds, so it's still nice and airy down there, but the bra… God. Breasts weren't made to be put in bras, agreed?" She sighed… then strutted away from his as though he was as insignificant as a fruit-fly.

Bitch.

Gotta love Mystic Falls. Home to spontaneous fires, vampires, werewolves, ghost, hybrids, poverty-riddled History teachers who freelanced as vampire slayers, and bitches.

AN. I have two consecutive weeks of exams, so updates might be scarce. Forgive. This is part 1 of about three for Alaric. Had to write it while it was fresh. Drop a review if you like/dislike.