RABIES AND SPOTS

A/N This story takes place during Season 2 when Elena and Stefan were together and after the deaths of Jonas and Luka Martin. An odd thing happens to Damon. The story includes Damon, Stefan, Elena, Bonnie and Katherine. This was my first attempt to write a Vampire Diaries fan fiction story, even though I didn't publish it until now.

Chapter 1

"Rabies"

As the sun sank lower Stefan stopped on the porch before opening the front door for Elena. Instead, he slipped his arms around her and drew her up against him. She came willingly, her arms going around him. In a moment their lips met, first in a light kiss and then with more passion as tongues explored.

Stefan moved back a bit and murmured, "Mm mm. You taste of chocolate."

"No surprise there," Elena chuckled. "That hot fudge sundae at the Grill was sinful. By some coincidence, you taste like strawberries." She had watched him consume a strawberry sundae.

"I suppose the burgers, fries and sundaes were not the most nutritious of meals," Stefan said, grinning.

"No. I shouldn't have had the ice cream. I'm the one who has to watch my weight, not you." Sometimes she was jealous that vampires didn't gain fat weight. In addition, Stefan was not a big eater of real food. He preferred fresh animal blood.

"Your weight is just perfect," Stefan said, running his hands down her sides and cupping them around her buttocks. She was slender, but not thin. He pressed her against his pelvis for just a moment. He was saving the intimate stimulation for later, assuming that she would stay the night here at his house for a change. Lately, he had been staying some nights at hers, in her bed.

They turned to the door, which he found unlocked. Judging by the classic Camero parked in the driveway, he assumed his brother was home. Sometimes the front door was left unlocked, sometimes not. He followed Elena into the foyer of the large house, where she set her purse on the antique table there. She had been in the house so often that he thought it must feel like a second home, even though it belonged to the Salvatores, represented by him and his brother Damon. Stefan was right behind her as she moved to the large open doorway to the study. She stopped dead in her tracks and gasped.

Stefan looked over her shoulder and saw his older brother lying on the floor. Alarmed, he moved toward him, coming up behind him, since the young man was lying on his left side and facing the other way. Kneeling down and fearing for Damon, he touched his shoulder and leaned over to see his face. The natural look of Damon's skin told him that he was alive.

"Damon!" he said, shaking his brother's shoulder. Damon took a breath, groaned and shuddered, but otherwise didn't respond or start breathing regularly.

Elena, who had gone around to Damon's front, knelt down, frowned and said, "Why is so much saliva running out of his mouth? I've never seen that before!"

"What? Elena, don't touch him!" He hadn't noticed the pool of wetness on the wooden floor.

About to touch Damon's face, Elena snatched her hand back.

Stefan leaned over his brother and looked at the saliva drooling from his mouth. It was much more than a little normal drool, especially since vampires normally didn't drool.

"What is it? It's not from vervain?" she asked, knowing the herbal chemical knocked a vampire out or made him weak for a period of time.

"Vervain doesn't make us drool. It's got to be something else with all that saliva. Don't touch him until I figure it out." There was a liquor glass on the hardwood floor near Damon and Stefan picked it up carefully. He sniffed it, but could only smell the liquor. Vervain had a very faint odor, which he was sure was not there. Of course, it could have been injected with a needle. But something else was going on here. Was there something else in the drink? Some sort of poison?

"Do you see any blood on him? A cut or scrape or any needle mark?" he asked, and he watched Elena's eye rove from Damon's hair to his shoes. Due to the clothing, there wasn't much skin to see.

"No. None on your side, I take it."

"No," Stefan said as his eyes ran over the back of Damon's shirt and jeans. "There's a disease vampires can get, or can be given, that is a bit like rabies."

"Rabies! My God, Stefan! How could he get that? A rabid dog bite? A rabid werewolf bite?" They both knew there was a werewolf or two in town.

"It's not rabies like a dog gets. Not the same disease, but it's called that because of some similarities. It overcomes a vampire as fast as vervain does. It causes a lot of drooling and 'foaming at the mouth'. It can be transferred from one vampire to another by a bite or a scratch. If it was injected by someone, there should be a needle mark. In any case, the scratch or wound or injection site won't heal. I'm going to see if I can find it. I'll have to take his clothes off."

"Isn't that dangerous for you?"

"I need to be careful if that is what we're dealing with. I'm not sure. I really don't know. I've never actually seen a case of vampire rabies," Stefan said, really worried.

He took a moment to look around the room and to listen carefully.

"What?" Elena asked, looking alarmed. "Did you hear someone?"

"No. Just wondering if Damon's attacker is still in the house," Stefan said. He sniffed the air, but all he would smell was his brother's drink and Elena's blood, coursing through her body. He had learned to shut that fragrance from his mind, but he could smell it now. He looked at Elena and shook his head to reassure her. "I don't think anyone else if in the house now."

"Could this affect me?" she asked, when he turned his attention back to his brother. Stefan, being a vampire, had to be careful, but what about her, a human?

"I don't think so, but just don't get that saliva on you." He laid a hand on Damon's hip in preparation to turning him onto his back.

They both gave a start when Damon's body jerked and he groaned, but then he lay still again. Stefan wished he had a pair of rubber gloves, but he didn't. Normally, there was nothing he could not touch. Except vervain. He started his search by moving his fingers through his brother's dark hair, parting it, looking for a cut or a scrape that had not healed or even a needle stick mark, some point of entry for the disease or a drug. Or some indication that the problem really was the so-called "vampire rabies."

"You look like a monkey looking for lice," Elena said, a twinkle in her eyes. Then she realized the humor was inappropriate for the moment. "Sorry. This isn't funny."

"Well, I don't see any lice or fleas. No scratch either," Stefan said with a snort.

He also felt for any bump that might indicate that someone had hit the young man on the head. Damon had thick, almost-black hair and he often let it get longish. It was much darker than Stefan's own light brown hair with its lighter highlights. Stefan's dark green eyes were certainly different from Damon's light blue ones, but there was still a family resemblance in the brothers.

He did not put his fingers under Damon's head to feel his scalp on the left side because the hair there was wet with saliva. He examined the side of Damon's face that was exposed, but he didn't touch anywhere around the mouth. As Elena had observed, there was a large puddle of saliva on the floor under Damon's face and head.

Stefan touched the edge of Damon's chin and lifted it to get a better look at his neck. Vampire men grew beards, but very slowly, so that they did not shave daily. Damon had not shaved for days and there was short, dark stubble on his skin. There were no wounds, nicks or scratches, however small, on the exposed part of his face or neck.

"I'm going to put him on his back so you can see that side," Stefan said, and he gripped Damon's shoulder and hip and rolled him over. Damon shook all over for a moment, like a shudder, groaned again, and then lay still. He wasn't breathing nor was his heart beating, which was normal when vampires were unconscious or deeply asleep. As quickly as possible, Stefan unbuttoned the blue shirt and exposed Damon's chest and abdomen. There was no sign of a needle stick or wound.

"Do you see anything on that side of his face or neck?" he asked.

"No, nothing," Elena said, looking, but not touching the damp skin or hair. Damon was a handsome fellow, but he looked unusually pale right now. "Is this deadly? For him, I mean."

"I don't know. As I said, I've never actually seen vampire rabies before. I just heard a couple of conflicting stories. I may be wrong about what it is. Watch out!"

Damon jerked, made a gurgling sound, coughed on the saliva pooling in the back of his throat and it sprayed out of his open mouth. Both Elena and Stefan jerked back momentarily. The coughing effort obviously caused pain, for Damon gave a strangled cry as his body spasmed and then lay still.

"He is so touchy. I don't know if he's in pain or his nerves are touchy. Regardless, we need to turn him to look for wounds," Stefan said, frowning with concern, as he quickly rolled Damon onto his left side again, causing another brief spasm. Every time Damon was moved, his body stiffened, which was worrisome, in addition to whatever the underlying cause was. At the moment, he relaxed and became limp again.

"I think you're right, every movement must hurt him," Elena observed. "Or his nerves are super sensitive."

"Yeah. I think it's one of the main symptoms of the rabies."

Stefan gently pulled the shirt sleeve off his brother's right arm. An inspection of the arm and side of the chest showed nothing, nor was there any mark on the area of the back that Stefan could see.

"I'm going to get some towels out of the bathroom down the hall" Elena said and she hurried in that direction.

Stefan sat back on his heels and studied his brother. Although the brothers were similar in size and build, Damon was annoyingly different from Stefan in personality, liking to make a joke of almost anything and often expressing hostile feelings toward his younger brother. As a vampire, he was much quicker to kill than Stefan.

Although his face was now relaxed and expressionless, he normally had a very mobile face and used it to make a lot of mocking or scornful looks. Too often he had voiced anger, even hatred to Stefan's face, and yet they were brothers. They were sharing a house. Damon had come to Stefan's rescue several times. And they were quick to join forces when faced with a common enemy as they were these days. If it were Stefan lying on the floor like this, Damon would seek answers to find help.

"What has happened to you, brother?" Stefan muttered. Damon looked helpless, vulnerable and even innocent in his present state.

Stefan stuffed the shirt under Damon's left side, so that when they rolled him onto his back again, they could pull the shirt free to the other side.

Elena came back with an armful of towels. She knelt in front of Damon again and put the towels on the floor beside her. Picking one up, she carefully slid it into position to absorb the pool of saliva by Damon's mouth.

"I'll lift his head and you can slide that under," Stefan said. He grabbed a fistful of the dry hair, lifted his brother's head and watched Elena shove the towel well underneath.

Damon shuddered even from this small movement and then once again lay still. His eyes were part way open with a bit of the blue irises showing. His mouth was also part way open, showing the edge of his even white teeth. He was drooling steadily.

"He looks so young right now," she said. She was only seventeen herself, a high school student. When Damon was upright and being his annoying self, he seemed much older, but in truth he was just twenty four, plus all the years he'd been a vampire, of course. Way too often he said or did things that angered or embarrassed Elena. He took pleasure in seeing her react.

She looked at Stefan, who tended to look anywhere between seventeen and twenty something, and she thought that he too looked young and vulnerable in his fear over Damon's condition. "What should we do?"

"I still want to see if he has an unhealed wound," Stefan said. He lifted the upper edge of Damon's tight jeans as they curved over his hip. There was no belt. "No underwear."

He looked at Elena and she could see that he wanted to remove the jeans, but not in front of her.

"I won't look if you don't want me to, Stefan, but I know what a man looks like. As you very well know." A hint of a smile touched her lips. She certainly knew that, since they had been sleeping together.

Stefan loved Elena and was possessive and protective to a degree and he did not want her observing the private parts of other men, including Damon's.

"We'll put one of the towels over Damon for modesty's sake," Elena said, and she picked up one of the bath towels. While Damon was still covered with his jeans, she held the towel up in front of her face while Stefan again rolled Damon onto his back. As Stefan undid the jeans and worked them down a bit lower, Elena let go of her towel with her right hand and grabbed a smaller towel. She draped it over Damon's mouth so he wouldn't cough on them again. Then, with a hint of a smile, she again blocked her view of Damon with the larger towel, although she could see Stefan's eyes over it.

"I'm going to check the front first," Stefan said, and he felt odd inspecting his brother's groin area. Seeing no sign of injury, he laid one of the other towels across Damon's hips. "Okay. He's covered."

He knew as well as Elena did that Damon would not have cared if she saw him naked. He was a handsome devil with a good body, including his private parts, and he had no trouble pleasing the ladies. Unfortunately, he sometimes killed them by sucking up too much of their blood.

Despite the fact that Damon groaned and shuddered each time he was moved, Stefan worked the jeans down on the side nearest him, while Elena did the same on her side until they were down around his ankles. There was nothing on either hip or the visible part of his legs. Elena also pulled the shirt from Damon's left arm and looked at the left side and arm. Again, there was nothing except the imprint of his clothes and a crack in the floor boards.

Stefan was about to turn Damon onto his side again for a check of the backside, when Damon started gurgling and coughing, his body spasming at the same time. Stefan flipped his brother over onto his side and all towels fell away.

Elena's eyes were on Damon's mouth. "Oh, God," she said. "He's foaming at the mouth!" Obviously, the saliva that had pooled in the back of his throat was now frothy and spilling from his mouth, bubbling up onto his lips and running down to the floor. He sort of had a "mad dog" look to him.

Stefan tried not to think of how bad the situation was. He reached for the larger towel and dragged it up over Damon's hip. At the same time, he saw what he had hoped not to find.

"Damn. Here it is," he said.

A/N Because I wrote this some time ago, I have the next chapter ready to go, IF anyone out there thinks this might be an interesting story. Please let me know if I should keep at this.