Something Wicked

A/N: I make no money off this story. The Vampire Diaries does not belong to me; rights belong to the CW, LJ Smith, Julie Plec, and any other original owners.
Story line diverts sometime in season 3, around episode Homecoming, possible spoilers through then. This doesn't follow along with the story exactly, some details have been altered to create a better fit.
I have no beta, and I wrote this on my phone, so please be forgiving about the minor errors. Please review and enjoy.

Summary: Klaus wants Elena; after all, she's the key to his Hybrids, to his army. He'll do whatever is necessary to have her. Even if it means taking away the man she loves most. Again. This time, however, she'll have to sacrifice so much more to save him. Eventual ElenaxDamon, mentions of ElenaxStefan.

Chapter One: What We've Done

"I know there's gotta be some peace in me, but I can't find it." (Three Days Grace)

The very first night that Damon realizes something is off, he's two bottles of bourbon into a bender. Ric has just gone home, more than half-lit himself. The house is quiet, his brooding brother is off hunting bunny wabbits or Bambie, and Elena is safe in her bed with sugar plums and hero hair dancing in her head. He takes a long pull from the bottle in his hand when his stomache rolls uncomfortably. He gulps down the liquid but keeps swallowing against the nausea rising in his throat. He barely reaches porcelain in a blur before he's spilling up his guts into the water below.
When he's certain he's finished, he falls back against the wall, wiping his mouth with the back of his trembling hand. "That was... unpleasant," he mutters to no one. He's breathing deeply, trying desperately not to think about the last time he puked up the entire contents of his stomache. His gaze drops to the juncture of his elbow in spite of himself. The skin on the inside of his arm is clean and unblemished, with no trace of that nasty werewolf bite anywhere. Still, he rethinks the past few days in his foggy mind.
There's not much outside of the regularly-scheduled insanity of their lives to recall, if he's being honest. There's a failed attempt at killing the Evil, All-powerful Original Hybrid; there's Stefan's torturously slow return to his former brooding and caring self; there's Elena and her ever unrequited love for Damon. But there are no werewolf bites at all. This brings him momentary ease before he actually considers what other logical reason there could be for the sour blood and wasted bourbon in the toilet.
The sound of the front door opening and closing brings Damon out of his reverie, and he moves to flush the toilet, wash his hands in the futile hope they'll stop their insensate shaking, and brush his teeth with entirely more force than necessary. By the time he's done, he still feels... off-kilter and decides maybe he needs a blood bag before he crashes for the night. When he reaches the bottom of the stairs, he finds Stefan waiting for him. He comes up short, muttering a tired, "What, Stefan?"
His brother looks more sorrowful than he's been in months. "I owe you an apology."
One of Damon's brows shoots toward his hairline, but he doesn't speak.
"I'm sorry, Damon. If I'd've let you stake Klaus, then-"
"Then what, exactly? All of our problems would've been over! Elena would be completely safe!"
"And you wouldn't be," Stefan counters softly.
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"Klaus. He commanded his hybrids to kill you if anything happened to him."
"Oh, you've got to be joking," Though Damon still feels nauseous and slightly inept, he's about two seconds from punching his rage into Stefan's furrowed brows. "You need to stop saving me."
"You're my brother, Damon."
He hums in acquiescence and then sighs, "Don't remind me," as he turns to head down the basement stairs.
"Don't do that. Don't pretend like you don't give a shit."
Damon rounds on Stefan again, his hand resting in the cellar door, "Pot, kettle. I'm too hungry for this conversation, so if you'll excuse me-"
"You ate before I left an hour ago," Stefan returns, suddenly suspicious.
"I didn't realize I was on an eating schedule or that needed your permission," he snaps before wrenching open the cellar door. "Go scribble in your diary about your infuriating brother or your doting girlfriend. We can rehash your idiotic inability to repeatedly throw yourself between me and a proverbial stake tomorrow."
"Goodnight, Damon," Stefan says with a roll of his eyes as he heads to his room, but he isn't entirely convinced Damon isn't hiding something from him.
When Damon finally collapses in his bed, his head is pounding, and his mind is reeling, but his nausea is gone. He decides the blood must've corrected the problem. That just leaves his infuriating brother and the girl who will always love Stefan best.

...

The following morning, or, hell, let's be honest; the following afternoon, Damon resolves to tell Elena his brother's dirty little secret as to why he's betrayed them. Though he knows it's something she deserves to be told, it isn't a conversation he's particularly looking forward to. He's absolutely certain that as soon as the words leave his lips, Elena will go bolting directly back into Stefan's waiting arms. He stalls as long as he reasonably can, justifying his selfish hesitation with the fact that he should feed and down the largest glass of bourbon ever before he drags himself to see Elena. It doesn't take nearly long enough.
Before he can change his mind, he finds himself on his favorite doppelganger's doorstep, his fist poised to knock when the door is flung open from the inside. And there she is. Stunningly breathtaking in just her jeans, a Henley and a pair of black Chuck Taylors. He allows himself one single moment to enjoy her before he looks away. "Elena," he greets, watching a car pass by with entirely too much feigned interest.
"Damon. I was just leaving to find you."
"Oh, were you?" He smirks. "What a coincidence."
"Is everything okay?"
"Sure, you could say that," he meets her eyes again. "I know why Stefan betrayed us at the dance."
She clearly isn't expecting this, "Oh, really?"
"He... had a good reason. Well," he amends, "a good reason, according to him. Klaus aparently appointed his hybrids to off me if anything happened to him. So, my idiot brother was just saving my ass. Again. At the cost of absolutely everyone else."
At his tone of disgust, Elena shakes her head, "Well, then I'm glad he did it."
"And I'm not. Klaus and all our problems would be gone," he hisses.
"And so would you," she breathes.
He stares at her for a long moment, loving the impossibleness of this girl. Her astounding, if platonic, love for him constantly bewilders him. "Yep," he agrees after a long, pregnant silence, popping the 'p' on the end, "so would I." He looks conflicted for a moment before he adds, "Before I say this to you, there's just one thing I want to do. Something I have to do."
Before Elena can ask or argue, she's pulled into Damon's arms, gently and tenderly as he brings his lips tentatively to hers. Their kiss is entirely too short for both of their tastes, but it's light and expressive and beautiful. It conveys a sweet, affectionate, and gentle side of him that she only ever seems privy to. She half-expects an untamed eroticism and desire, but he isn't like that with her in this moment. He treats her with a reverence and fragility that leaves her blushing more than any unrestrained passion ever could. When he pulls away slowly, his taste is left across her tongue and in her soul, and it's a long time before either of them can speak.
"I know I shouldn't have done that. And to ease my guilt, or maybe because I'm a hopeless masochistic, I'm going to tell you that Stefan needs you right now. He's so close to the edge. Whether you can pull him back or let him fall is for you to decide, but I'm telling you, he isn't as far gone as I've been trying to convince myself he is."
She considers him for several more deep breathes before she says softly, "I've told you before, his love of you is stronger than his love for me."
Damon laughs and shakes his head, "Oh, I doubt that."
"It's true. And it's obvious. You refuse to believe that anyone can see the good in you. You're wrong, you know."
He laughs again, but this time it's humorless and stiff. "I don't do good, Elena. That's reserved for you and my insufferable younger brother."
"You can keep telling yourself that, but why would you be here, right now, telling me any of this, if you weren't worried about Stefan in the slightest?"
"Well," he concedes, "I can't have him running around all strung out and munching on the townsfolk, now can I?"
"Mm-hmm," she hums sarcasticly. "Like I've never heard that before. Whatever you say, Damon. Now that we have that all cleared up, shall we go visit the 'good brother'?"
Damon smirks again. "After you, m'lady," he says as she grabs a coat and steps over the threshold.

...

Stefan's pen flys across the paper in his attempt to expel his conflicted thoughts. He's angry and guilty and frustrated and afraid. He wonders how long it'll be before Klaus comes back for Elena. He worries Damon is hiding something from him. He's ashamed of how he treated Elena. Mostly, he's frustrated because he has absolutely no solution to any of this beside the thousands of words pouring onto the paper. He's several pages in when he hears the front door slam.
He rises to his feet, stretching, catching his brother's voice as he descends the stairs at a human pace. The moment his eyes fall on Elena, he comes up short.
She murmurs his name, and it's as though the sun has peeked through from cloud cover; as though his world lights and warms at simply the sound of her voice lilting over the syllables of his name. Her smile is slight and tentative, and his heart aches for the way she used to look at him; the way she used to trust him implicitly. He wonders if she still does at all. "How are you?" She says when it becomes obvious he isn't going to speak just yet.
He nods, curtly, unable to force his lips upward. "Fine," he lies, but it's something.
"Damon said," she glances in Damon's direction, only to find he's moved to pour himself a healthy helping of bourbon. She can't help but notice the slight stumble in his step. She frowns slightly, distracted as she turns back to Stefan. "That you," she falters then, unsure of how to finish that sentence.
Stefan raises his eyes brows slightly, glancing at his brother's back. Elena is here because Damon talked her into it. He swallows thickly. He knows what this would've done to his brother, knows the pain he must've endured while forcing Elena back into Stefan's arms. He doesn't want to ruin this gesture by speaking anything aloud to or about Damon, as he knows his brother's snark and sarcasm will remove any gratitude Stefan could try to give him. So, he nods in Damon's direction and offers Elena his arm. "Take a walk with me?"
She hesitates only a moment, but it speaks volumes to Stefan. Whether his own actions have forced her towards Damon or whether she no longer trusts him, he isn't sure. As they make their exit through the front door, he glances back and catches his brother's eyes, something silent but monumental passing between them. Then the emotion fades from Damon's eyes as he salutes the pair with his newly full tumbler. Stefan frowns but refocuses on Elena. "I owe you an apology," he begins, remembering his talk with Damon last night. "Several, if we're being honest."
She watches him, face and eyes gaurded. "I don't blame you, Stefan." She says after a long quiteness. "I've always blamed Klaus." She sighs heavily. "But thank you, for apologizing to me. I know this must be difficult for you. All you sacrificed for Damon."
He clears his throat before breathing out, "You mean I sacrificed you."
Elena shakes her head, but doesn't deny his words when she finally speaks again, "Your life. Your freedom."
"You," he repeats. Then, slowly, "Do you love him?"
"I don't want to talk about Damon right now," she whispers.
"Will you stay with me tonight?" He asks quietly, subdued. He isn't diluted; he knows exactly what her truthful answer would've been. "Just one more night, Elena, please. I need it."
"I came to ask for your forgiveness. I know I don't deserve it. But I need it."
Elena, dispite her effort, gazes back toward the front door they've just walked away from, toward where Damon surely stands still. "Okay," she murmurs, her breath releasing into the frigid air in a cloud. And when she finally drags her eyes back to him, his smile is equally as sad as her own.

...

Damon watches Elena and his brother leave arm-in-arm. Guilt is thick in Stefan's gaze when Damon meets his eyes. He toasts them; he's never deserved Elena. But Stefan? Stefan needs her most now. After all he sacrificed for Damon, the least Damon can do is repay the favor. However, as he already knows well, there isn't enough alcohol in this entire town the dull the agony he feels at letting go of the only woman he's truly, truly ever loved. Again. Though, he concedes, she was never really his to give away in the first place. He empties and refills his glass, glancing into the fire burning brightly in the hearth, before he moves in the direction of his room. His right foot hits the first step as he decides one more glass isn't going to be enough. He hooks two fingers around the decanter and retreats to the silence of his room. He convinces himself the way his hands shake and his vision tilts is related directly to the agony in his chest, right where his heart used to beat. He vows to make travel plans at the bottom of this bottle. He vows lots of things, if he's honest. None of it makes a damned difference in the end.

...

It's dark, wherever she is. The colors are muted in the all consuming shadows. She recognizes this room; she's spent enough time in it. The living room of the Salvatore boarding house is now nearly as familiar to her as the one in her own, childhood home. There's no fire glowing, even softly, in the hearth to her left, which is strange as Damon usually keeps it stoked well into the night during the winter months. The Boarding house has stood here for over a century, and it's sprawling halls and vacant rooms do little to hold in the heat. It's quiet, which isn't all so uncommon in the middle of the night, which she is certain it must be. She rises from the couch on cold, unsteady feet, and the soft, thin blanket spills onto the floor beside her.
Padding barefoot to the bottom of the west staircase, which leads to her boyfriend's room, she murmurs, "Stefan," up into the cold, silent darkness. Though there's no answer, she swears she hears slight movement behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she whisperes, "Damon?" Though she's quiet, she knows he would hear her, wherever she was in the house. The sound comes again, slightly louder this time, a stilted shuffle against old wooden floorboards and something else too quiet to discern. She's certain it's coming from Damon's wing now. Quiet as a mouse, she wisps across the chilly floor and glides as quickly up the stairs as she dares.
She comes to a standstill only feet from Damon's bedroom door. She breathes his name in the darkness broken only by one pale sliver of moonlight further down the long hall. This time, the sound comes again, louder, though still just above a murmur. She thinks maybe it's her name, but perhaps it is distorted in her ears by the deafening pounding of her heart. She reminds herself to gulp in several deep lung-fulls of air before gently pushing open the heavy wooden door which separates her from whatever awaits within. Upon first glance, even in the nearly complete darkness, she can see nothing of immediate concern. The curtains over the large windows are drawn taunt, letting no pale light from the moon escape within. She notes, with some irritation, that she's trembling now.
Because the house was built before her grandparents were born, and inhabited by mainly vampires, it is somewhat lacking in wall-adorned light switches. So, fumbling blinding through the dark room, she searches for the end table she knows houses a dim bedside lamp. As soon as the stick turns in her fingers and weak light floods all around her, she glances around before breathing a quiet sigh of relief. Damon's room is as she's always remembered it; spotless and minimally decorated, with the giant, elegant four poster bed juxtaposed in the right corner. The sheets and comforter, however, which are typically replaced with meticulous precision, are hastily throw askew and rumpled with recent use. Panic seizes her again, squeezing her throat and shooting ice down her spine.
She jumps, startled, burning fear plummeting into her stomache, and turns toward the bathroom, a different, though more alarming noise sounding from within. Scraping, something hard grating against the stone floor of Damon's flawlessly elegant shower, she imagines. She wants to speak his name again, but the fear is clenching her vocal cords fiercely. She wastes no more time, hurries to the bathroom entryway which is just barely illuminated by the bedside lamp.
"No," she hears then, a quiet moan thrown in her direction. It's Damon, she knows, but the tremble in his deep voice doubles her panic.
"Damon?" She exclaims, a hundred different, though equally horrifying, scenarios tumbling over her misfiring synapses. She moves toward the sound of his voice, which comes again.
"Elena," is the breathy sigh. Though she's heard her own name voiced by a thousand different people, a thousand different times, Damon is only person she's ever met who can convey nearly anything he wishes depending on his tone and conviction. This time, it's reminiscent of a night she wishes she could forget, but absolutely never will. It speaks of a deathbed confession, a feverish mind, and pain. So much pain.
She can see his form, hunched against the tile floor not ten feet from her. She can't see very well into the depths of this room, but she's certain now, something is very wrong. "Damon," she murmurs gently, moving slowly but surely toward him, "what's wrong? Are you..." she hesitates, searching for the least terrifying way to end that sentence.
"You can't... You're not..." he's gasping, not making any real sense to her terrified, straining ears. But it's right then, exactly twelve steps into his luxurious bathroom, that the smell hits her. She's far too familiar with it now to mistake it, metallic and sharp. Blood. "You have to... Elena..." his moan breaks off into a pause, where she considers the pros and cons of wasting valuable seconds searching for the lightswitch, then, "Run!"
Even though she wants to run, so very badly, she can't, absolutely cannot, leave him without first knowing what's happened to him. "Damon? What's wrong with you?" She asks gently, her voice breaking on his name.
She finds the damn light, bathing everything in sharp, white light that momentarily burns her retinas. It draws an agonized yelp from Damon, who she runs to, careful to avoid the frighteningly large pool of deep red he's lying in the center of. "No, no, no," he's chanting so quietly she wouldn't have heard if she wasn't right beside him. His eyelids and teeth are clenched. Her shaking fingers roam over him, as she searchs, frantically, for the source of all the blood and pain. She finds it, though it isn't where she expects it to be.
Along the long, white column of his throat, is a deep, knarly tear, oozing dark, nearly black blood. "Damon," she gasps, "who did that to you?! What happened?!"
"K-Klaus. Trap."
Her stomach plummets. Klaus?! "No, but that means..." she moves her hands to his face now, begging him to open his eyes, to tell her it isn't true. That he isn't dying. , finally, after crystalline blue eyes flicker open and she can clearly see the fear burning brightly in them, that she realizes what he'd been trying to tell her before. "He's here?" She breathes, suddenly paralyzed by terror.
"He's right behind you, love."
She can't breathe, can't move, can't scream. Klaus, his tall, sinewy form stalking casually forward until he stands beside them, reaches down and effortlessly picks Damon up, one handed, by his already ruined throat. "I told you you'd make the perfect bait for her, didn't I?" He asks Damon laughingly in that easy accent of his. "But now, I'm afraid," he pauses and frowns with just the right amount of faux sadness before the smirk sneaks back onto his lips and he finishes, "You're of no further use to me, Damon."
As Klaus's fangs sink deeply back into the torn and bleeding flesh at Damon's neck, Elena begins to sob in earnest, Damon's name and please, no falling repeatedly from her lips like prayers. Damon, himself, cries out softly as the last remnants of his unnatural existence slip away. "Run... Elena, run," the last word ends on a sigh, and all the fight leaves his body, reminding her of a marionette whose strings are severed all at once.
Klaus drops him unceremoniously to the cold, stone tile below, wiping at the blood on his chin delicately with one of Damon's expensive hand towels, his expression suddenly bored. She hardly notices. All Elena can see is that those beautiful, half-lidded, blue eyes have gone dim, lifeless. She knows he's gone even before the horrible, grey veins slither across his skin. The scream that tears from her throat builds from her toes and rattles her body to its core, "DAMON!"

"DAMON!"
The vampire chokes on his mouthful of bourbon. Despite being separated by a floor and half the house, Elena's scream of his name reaches him in all its haunted glory. His first, knee-jerk reaction, is that she's in danger. And so, when he finds himself kicking down Stefan's door just a blurred second later, he's puzzled to find she's thrashing under his brother's bedcovers. Stefan, himself, is sitting up, ramrod straight, beside her in bed, shaking her gently and murmuring her name over and over, all while gazing in Damon's direction. Damon, upon realizing there is aparently no immediate danger, is fascinated by the lack of jealousy or anger in his brother's intent gaze. Stefan seems only confused and worried.
When shaking her resolves nothing, Damon stalks to the opposite side of the bed as the younger Salvatore, the bed dipping slightly next to Elena as he perches on the edge, and tries himself to wake her. "Elena," he says firmly, strongly, louder than Stefan had previously. "Elena, wake up. You're having a nightmare- wake up." When she hollers his name again, his hands surge out to her, griping tightly on her arm. "Elena," spoken in a way that only he seems capable; firm, almost-but-not-quite angry, but still deeply concerned.
This snaps her awake. She jumps straight up in the smaller bed, covered in cold sweat, eyes wild and afraid. "Damon?" Her gasp of his name is the only warning he receives before she's launching herself against him, clinging to him as if he was a raft upon treacherous waters.
His eyes meet Stefan's over her shoulder. All raised eyebrows and frown lines. Each brother more confused than the other. "Elena?" Damon questions, as he reaches gently to try to remove her vice-gripped hands from himself. In some dark back corner of his mind, he notes how, in nearly any other situation, he would have wholeheartedly welcomed her embracing him as though she might never let go. Now, however, she's absolutely scaring him shitless.
His efforts, if anything, only goad Elena into clinging to him tighter. "You're alive," she breathes at last.
At this, Stefan's brow furrows even further, an expression Damon would have found amusing if he didn't feel a nearly identical one on his own face. "Yes," he replies lightly, "Well, mostly," he amends. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Klaus, he- he... murdered you!"
Damon takes a breath he hadn't needed in over a century, relaxing minutely, before saying, "I wouldn't want to have afternoon tea with the guy, Elena, but he hasn't killed me yet. Relax, okay? I'm fine." He grabs her left hand and moves it over his unbeating heart. "See?" He asks, smirking, "right where it should be. No holes."
She shakes her head, groaning on a sigh, "That's not how." Moving her hands to his throat, she tries desperately to calm her tears. "He bit you and drained you."
Damon looks to Stefan then, for a solution, feeling more than a little uncomfortable with the way she is stroking the highly sensitive skin at the base of his neck. He swallows thickly, trying desperately not to let the arousal he feels show in his expression.
Stefan takes the cue, moving to embrace Elena from behind. "Let's all go downstairs. I'll make coffee. You can see for yourself that Damon's alright in the better lighting," if he feels at all threatened or jealous by all of this, he manages not to let any of it show on his face or sound in his steady voice.
His hands on Elena's waist seem to bring her to more completely. She blinks twice, nods, and leans back from Damon, her hands falling into her lap. "Of course," she says quietly, "I don't think I'll be sleeping again so soon after that anyway. It just felt so... real."
They move Elena down to the kitchen in silence, and Stefan flicks on the coffee maker. Elena is highly embarrassed by the time her bare feet grace the cold kitchen tiles. Damon is, obviously, his usual smirking, sarcastic self. Any trace of the agonized, terrified Damon of her dream is nowhere to be found on his beautiful face. "I'm sorry," she says, for the fifth time in as many minutes.
"It's alright," Stefan repeats, a monologue they have been reciting repeatedly since she was fully awake.
"Tell us the details," Damon adds suddenly, already weary of the repetition and brooding from the other two.
Elena takes a deep breath and tries to, as quickly and concisely as possible, recall every detail. By the end, Damon looks even more relieved than before. (He's decided that dying, again, isn't high on his to-do list at the moment.)
"It sounds like a nightmare, Elena. Little else."
She frowns, but nods slightly at his tone. "You think I'm being ridiculous." It isn't a question.
Damon's smirk relaxes slightly, "No. I just think it wasn't something we should be panicking over, that's all." He leans his head to the left, letting the overhead lights shine better on his pale flesh. "There's nothing there, not a scratch. If I'd been bitten by the almighty Hybrid, you'd know it. Hell, I'd definitely feel it, and I'm telling you, I'm fine."
Stefan nods now, too, though there's something off in his eyes that Damon can't quite pin down. It's something he remembers seeing there, on occasion, in his brother's eyes. Elena catches it, too, but the difference is, she does recognize it. It's a reminder of the unbreakable bond the Salvatore brothers share, that they, somehow, loath and love each other in equal messure. She knows what glints for a moment, razor sharp, in Stefan's green eyes, because it's the same feeling she has in her chest at the moment. They're worried, about Damon. For neither one will admit aloud, just exactly how much the dark-haired vampire means to them both.

...

Stefan ditches school. Damon knows this because by 10 am, it's all hair gel and brooding in the library of the Boarding House. Damon doesn't bother to read the title of the book his brother is flipping through with little regard to its age or fragility from where he leans casually against the door frame. "Stef," he begins, still debating whether he should be irritated or flattered by his younger brother's obvious concern. "Will you let it go? Even Elena's trudged off to school without a care in the world," That's a lie, of course, but Damon's trying to make a point. "She had a nightmare. Can you blame her? She's barely 18, and has lost more people she loves in the last 6 months than most people do in a lifetime. She's been kidnapped, sacrificed, sold to the highest evil bidder," he ticks off his fingers one by one, "of course there's going to be some residual trama."
Stefan looks up at some point during Damon's rant, his brow furrowing even further. "True," he concedes, "but her dream wasn't about any of that. It was about you."
Damon's eyes widen slightly. "Did you forget about that time you sacrificed yourself to save me from a werewolf bite? A nightmare of me dying from the exact same thing is such a huge stretch of her imagination?"
"No." Stefan murmurs, returning to the book, "but you can't deny you look like shit today."
Damon shoves off the wall, and stalks closer to the other vampire. "Thanks for the ego boost, baby bro, but in case you were wondering, by the time Elena was screaming my name at 4 am, I hadn't exactly been to sleep yet."
His brother narrows his eyes, the book in front of him forgotten once again, "That isn't an unusual occurance for you, Damon. But you're pale."
"Uhm, vampire," Damon interrupts, his eyes rolling to the ceiling.
Stefan closes the book with a snap, moving to stand just in front of Damon. He shoves a hand against his elder brother's chest. Though he had an inkling of what would happen, the result sends chills down his spine. Damon stumbles backwards, his arm shooting out to the wall to steady him. "Tell me the truth, brother," Stefan mutters, "Still going to deny it?"
Damon swallows, his mind churning. "I'm fine." He insists. "Just- no breakfast yet."
"Save it, Damon. How are you feeling? Has anything happened in past few days, out of the ordinary?"
Damon squints, flexing the muscles in his arms, doing his best to cover up the shock in his eyes when he notes, with some detachment, that they're sore. They're actually sore. He can't remember the last time they've felt this way. Maybe his last run-in with some teeth of the werewolf variety. Suddenly, he's coated in a fine sheen of cold sweat. "I haven't even been near a werewolf," he argues. "The last full moon was over two weeks ago."
"Tell me what's going on, Damon," for all his pushing and bravado, Stefan actually looks afraid now.
"I..." Damon clears his throat. He feels... off balance, unsteady on his feet. Which is highly improbable given his unnaturally quick healing time and his diet. "I just need some blood." He turns to head for the fridge in the cellar. "Just- don't get your panties in a twist yet, Stefan. I'm sure it's nothing."
Stefan shakes his head as Damon disappears in search of a bag of AB negative or two, and sighs, "It's never nothing."

...

That night, Stefan lies awake in the bed he shares with Elena. After some tea and a lot of coaxing, he manages to convince her to sleep. He does little to convince himself. It isn't long before the nightmares begin again. Elena is twisting around under the comforter, but this far she's quiet. Needing all the information he can get, Stefan waits as long as he dares before he moves to wake her. A quiet moan that falls from her lips nearly unglues his resolve.

...

Damon wakes up in his own bed to a very strange sensation. His mind feels hazy, it reminds him of the way he would feel after Katherine had used compulsion on him to affect his future actions way back when he was still human. He needed to do- something. Though if he thinks too hard about what, exactly, he needs to do, the fog over his mind thickens. His stomach is churning. He climbs heavily to his feet, heading to his en-suite bathroom before he really even understands why he does it. At the same moment he registers Elena yelling his name, he's bent over the toilet heavung up every last pint of blood he's ingested all day. The heaves continue a few times after there's nothing left to come up, leaving him feeling cold and shaky.
He hears Stefan crash into his room as he wipes the putrid blood off his chin. "Damon," it sounds both like a warning and a plea.
"I'm fine, Stef. Peachy." But it sounds weak even to his own ears.
Stefan comes to a halt at the bathroom enertway, his green eyes moving quickly over Damon, to the bloody toilet, and then over the rest of the room. When they return to Damon, they rove over his entire form, searching for any source of injury. He finds none. "I heard- what happened?"
Damon shakes his head, his resolve depleted because even he can't deny that the second night this week he's thrown up without a serious cause is strange and concerning. He can't even muster the strength to force a smirk to his lips. He falls back against the cool tile of the wall. He's unsettled by how good it feels against his suddenly too-warm skin.
Stefan takes several hesitant steps toward him before he lifts a hand to Damon's forehead. The dejà vu he feels is reminiscent of the late 1850s when they were young and human, and Stefan worried after his older brother even then.
Stefan sighs, "You don't feel feverish."
Damon shrugs, "Bad batch?"
"Maybe," his younger brother agrees distractedly. Though they both know that's highly unlikely what with the amount of testing bagged blood goes through before they can pilfer it from the blood bank.
"I just need a late-night snack and some sleep."
"Sure. Of course. I'll bring it up to you."
"I'm not an invaild, Stefan," he snaps.
Stefan rolls his eyes, "No, you're just a vampire who threw up for the first time in a century."
Damon doesn't mention the other night or the days following Tyler's poisoned nip on his arm. He threw up then, too. But he doesn't remember throwing his arm into the business end of any dog's mouth recently, so he stays quiet and allows Stefan to bring him a mug of warmed blood. He rises gingerly to his feet and walks slowly back into his bedroom.
He nods his thanks from where he sits on his bed when his brother returns. Taking a long gulp, he asks, "How's Elena?" as the black veins under his eyes slither back under the surface of his skin.
"She's fine," hesitates. "Taking a shower," hesitates again, "Can't you hear the water running?"
Damon blinks, frowns. "No."
Stefan sits beside him at that. "I think I'm going to call Bonnie."
"At 3:30 in the morning? This is nothing that can't wait until the sun comes up, at least," Damon agrues, failing miserably at his attempts to ignore the unease he feels.
His brother looks unconvinced. "Come downstairs, at least?"
"Sure. I could use another," he tilts the mug side to side between two fingers and his thumb. Damon leads the way and pretends he doesn't notice the frantic typing of Stefan's fingers across the keyboard on his cell phone behind him.

...
Three days pass in relative normalcy, or at the very least, as normal as their lives ever are. Damon seems back to old self, with no trace whatsoever of the pale, sweaty, ill vampire Stefan had found those nights ago in the bathroom. His smirk is ever-present these days, though the glass of bourbon is ever-full in his hand. Elena, however, isn't even slightly convinced by Stefan's aparently nonchalance. He's still worried. She knows this for sure because she's caught him, more than once, glancing in Damon's direction when he thinks neither of them will notice. Her nightmares have continued. Each night is different but equally terrifying. Bonnie, while worried, has had little to offer them in the way of advice or solutions. All she says is that they should call her if anything at all changes.

The next time something happens, it's the middle of the night again. Elena wakes with a scream she can't help, and she looks frantically around the room to note that Stefan isn't there. Which only means one thing. She rips the blankets off herself and stumbles as fast as she can down the stairs, through the living room and den, and then up the grand staircase towards Damon's room. When she's half-way up, she begins to hear quiet voices and noises of pain.
"-I'd be dead by now," she hears Damon growl. "No, Stefan, don't touch me!"
"Damon," Stefan's voice is even and measured. "I'm trying to help."
"It- hurts- when you touch me."
"What?" This time his voice is less even, more afraid.
"I-I can't explain it. It, I don't know, burns."
"When I touch you?"
"Yes. Look-"
She can only imagine what Damon is wanting him to look at, but it's only a moment before she clears the doorway and sees for herself. Five angry red marks grace the skin of Damon's forearm, exactly where Elena can imagine Stefan's fingers had been. She gasps, and Damon looks up as though he hadn't noticed she was there, which, she realizes with a strange sinking feeling, maybe he actually didn't. "What is that?" She asks quietly, though she already knows what, just not why.
Stefan's eyes are wide as they meet hers. "I've never seen this before," he sounds slightly awed. "Come here," he beckons her gently. She moves to him on unsteady legs. "Touch him," he murmurs gently, with a tone not unlike a scientist in charge of an important experiment.
She swallows, looking into Damon's eyes for permission before doing as she's told. He nods once. She holds her breath as she reaches out, trembling, to grab his arm, closer to his wrist than Stefan had. They don't have to wait long before a sizzling sound takes to the air and Damon involuntarily cries out. She releases him, horrified. "I'm sorry!" She whispers.
Damon winces, staring at his arm. "Is this an episode of The Twilight Zone? What the hell is wrong with me?" Though his tone is incredulous and rhetorical, Elena thinks she can hear fear behind it.
Stefan moves Elena gently to the side so he can stand completely in front of his brother. "I'm sorry," he murmurs before touching Damon all over, his fingers dancing over skin and clothing quickly, trying to figure out the boundaries of whatever is happening.
Damon clenches his teeth, but allows it. However, when Stefan's hand briefly rests against his clothed chest right above his heart, Damon shouts and blurs backward, slamming himself into the bedroom wall. He's gasping, choking almost, as he slids to the floor. "I can't-" he gasps, "Can't breathe."
All Elena can do is stare, frozen. Stefan is kneeling in front of him, but his hands are lingering in the air between them. He's afraid to touch him for fear of making it worse, but he needs to help his brother. He just doesn't know how.
"Call Bonnie!" Stefan exclaims to her. "Or-or- Damon, calm down! You don't need to breathe, just relax."
Damon's muscles go slack as he listens to Stefan. He stops panicking then, stops trying to breathe at all. He tears at his shirt until he can see the skin over his rib cage. There are black veins snaking around and outward from his heart. He moves shaking fingers over the area, eyes wide and afraid. "Dying?" He breathes on what must be the last air in his lungs.
"No. No, no, no, no, no," Stefan gasps. It is in this moment that Elena sees his humanity return completely, the last traces the damage left behind from Klaus's compulsion finally leaving him as he stares, in horror, at his brother's chest. She always knew it would be Damon who brought him back, Elena thinks, detached, as she counts the hollow rings on the other end of the phone line.
"Elena?" Her friend's groggy voice finally bleeds into her ear.
"I need your help, Bonnie, please. Please, hurry. We're at the Boarding house." She hangs up before there can be any protest.
Stefan is whispering to Damon, but she can't quite make out the words, until she realizes he's speaking a different language. It's slightly stilted, but still beautiful. She thinks maybe it's Italian, but she isn't entirely sure; the romantic languages sometimes sound so alike to her, and he's speaking softly and quickly.
Damon's shaking his head, unable to tear his eyes away from the growing spiderweb of black across his chest.
"Damon, Damon," he's chanting his brother's name over and over. He finally touches him, then, one hand over each of Damon's shoulders, as Damon leans his head back against the wall, his eyes fluttering closed. "No, Damon, you have to stay awake. Please." His skin suddenly no longer seems to sizzle under Stefan's hands, and Damon's eyes don't open. "Damon!" Stefan is frantic now, shaking his brother by his shoulders, thumping him up against the wall over and over again. "You can't be dead," he gasps, "You can't, you can't."
Elena backs away until the backs of her knees bump against Damon's bed, and she collapses onto it. She is terrified and devastated, tears streaming unhindered down her cheeks onto her heaving chest. She can't imagine life without Damon, and for the second time this year, she believes she has no choice. She watches the scene before her. Stefan is crying into his brother's hair, and Damon is completely unmoving beneath him and so very pale. She can't see the grey veins taking over him through her blurred, tear-flooded vision, but she's sure they're there.
She curls herself onto Damon's bed, her back to the two men she loves most, her body nearly convulsing with the force of her sobs. She's completely lost track of time when she hears stomping footsteps up the stairs. Bonnie must have finally arrived, if far too late. Elena can't bring herself to even try to find the energy to roll over and face her. Behind her closed eyelids, she can see Damon the way he was just hours ago; all swagger and smirks and that thing with his eyes. The way he loved her so, and she never even told him that she- that she... loved him, too. In that moment, the intensity of her sobs redouble as she finally admits to herself something she's denied for so very long. She loves Damon. She loves Damon. She loves Damon. And now, he's...
"What happened?" Bonnie whispers, going to Elena first. "What's going on?"
All Elena can say is Damon's name. Over and over and over.
Bonnie looks to the brothers then, moving to kneel silently beside Stefan, resting her hand on Damon's unmoving chest. She instantly gasps and jerks away. "Stefan," Bonnie whispers. "He's not dead."
Stefan lifts his head, "What?"
"He's alive. I can feel it. I can feel..."
"What can you feel?" Comes from Elena.
"His pain. He..." Bonnie looks uncomfortable, for all her supposed dislike of the darker-haired vampire, and alomst... sad. "He's screaming," she finishes in a whisper.
Stefan looks at Damon's face, then. It's slack, but there's something different about it. "We have to help him," he pleads. "Bonnie, I'll do anything. Please help him."
She nods, though she looks conflicted. "I'm not sure I can," she says. Then, at the devastation on Elena's face, she amends, "But I'll try. I promise I'll try."

To be continued...

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