A/N: Thank you so much for all the reviews, favorites, and story alerts on the first chapter! I haven't had a chance to respond to all of them yet, but I really, really appreciate every one. This second chapter took a little longer than I expected, but here it is.
Chapter 2
They pulled into the driveway of the boarding house, skidding to a stop and throwing up gravel in the process. Alaric did his best to cushion Damon against the sudden stop, although he didn't really think that hitting the side of the truck would be the last straw that would kill Damon. The back opened a moment later, and Caroline was there. She held out her arms to take Damon from Ric even as Elena and Bonnie came into view. Ric hesitated. He had an irrational desire not to give up his hold on Damon, but there really was no way to gracefully maneuver both himself and Damon out of the truck.
Caroline didn't wait for Ric to figure out a way to move, lifting Damon effortlessly away from him and heading for the house. Ric had no choice but to scramble after them. Elena opened the door – it was a good thing Damon never seemed to lock his doors – and Caroline deposited Damon on the nearest sofa. Damon's shaking had finally subsided, but Ric didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. At least the shaking had been movement of some kind; now Damon again lay unnaturally still on his back on the couch. Ric could hear Elena's footsteps pounding on the old house's creaky stairs as she raced down to the basement. She was back a minute later with a handful of blood bags.
Ric was kneeling beside Damon by then, and he took the blood bag that Elena handed him. He noticed that her hand was unsteady, and once again, he wished he had any words of assurance to offer. "Thanks," he murmured uselessly. The blood bag had a tube sticking out like a straw, and he awkwardly nudged Damon's mouth open and maneuvered the tube between his teeth. Nothing happened.
"Shouldn't he be drinking or something?" Bonnie asked, voicing what they were all thinking.
Caroline had a little wrinkle of worry on her forehead. "He should smell it and drink," she said. "When you're hungry and you smell blood. . . ." She stopped, apparently thinking better of whatever she was going to say. "Maybe he can't smell it," she continued after a moment. "Although I can smell it from here." She plucked one of the other blood bags from Elena's hands and tore into the plastic. She handed the bag to Ric. "Here try this."
Now Ric was holding a blood bag that was torn open at one corner. He tried not to spill any of the blood as he pulled the tube from Damon's mouth and tried to tilt the blood bag to pour it slowly down Damon's throat. Could a vampire choke to death on blood? Could a vampire choke to death at all? It was messy and awkward, but after a moment he saw Damon swallow. Then with no warning, black capillaries appeared around Damon's eyes and his fangs suddenly descended. Ric jumped and almost dropped the blood bag, spilling a good amount of it. "Fuck," he cursed. Damon hadn't moved, and he hadn't woken up, but apparently the taste of blood had triggered the change on reflex. "I've never seen him do that before," Ric explained as Caroline tried to hide a snicker of laughter. He'd seen Damon's vampire face before, of course, but never with a blood bag involved – usually, in fact, when Damon had bitten him during sex, which he was not about to explain to three of his students.
"Sorry," Caroline apologized a second later, still giggling. "It's just funny that. . . . Never mind. Damon has really good control," she explained as she got her laughter under control. "So just the smell or the taste of blood doesn't usually affect him, but he's obviously kind of out of it right now. He's just operating on instinct, probably."
Elena looked a little shaken, too. "At least he's drinking," she said, and Ric had to agree with that. Caroline tore into a second blood bag since Ric had spilled half of the first one on Damon, and Ric switched them out as he squeezed the last of the blood out of the first bag. "But why isn't he waking up? Or at least moving?" Elena asked quietly.
Ric shook his head. He didn't know, and it was making him really nervous, too. He just wanted Damon to open his eyes.
"Maybe it's the vervain," Caroline said slowly. "If he got a lot of vervain in his body, he might not be able to move."
They all watched silently then as Ric poured a third and then a fourth blood bag down Damon's throat. Other than the change in his visage, Damon still hadn't reacted at all, and he gave no sign that he would wake up any time soon. "Shit," Ric said after the fourth bag, too scared to even worry about cursing in front of his students. "I don't know what to do," he admitted. He brought a hand to his face in frustration, forgetting that his hands were covered with blood.
There was a long pause before anybody answered. Damon's face had shifted back to human now that Ric had stopped feeding him, and his head lolled to the side. Ric felt a weird sort of relief at seeing the more familiar version of his lover. He thought Damon's color looked better now, unless it was a trick of the lighting of the boarding house, but the vampire's complete stillness was unnerving to say the least. Ric wanted to open what was left of Damon's shirt to see if his wounds were healing, but he felt weird doing that in front of the girls. It wasn't like Damon would care, he reminded himself. Damon was the opposite of shy or body conscious – he would happily parade around naked if anyone would let him – but it still seemed somehow too intimate. And Ric was scared of what he would find, scared that Damon might not be healing.
Finally, Bonnie filled the silence. "Maybe he just needs time. I can . . . look for a spell or something."
"The vervain could be slowing down his healing, too," Caroline offered. "And I don't really know how long it takes to heal from that much damage. It would help if Stef. . . ." She stopped in mid-name with a nervous glance at Elena.
"I called him," Elena said. "I don't know why he isn't here. I know he still cares about Damon, even if he doesn't care about . . . anyone else." Her voice was small by the time she finished.
Ric shook his head. This was getting them nowhere. Damon didn't seem to be getting worse, which probably meant that Bonnie and Caroline were right and he just needed some time to heal. "I'm going to take him upstairs and get him cleaned up," Ric declared decisively. "Then we can give him some more blood if he isn't awake by then."
"Okay," Elena agreed, clearly glad that someone was taking charge, and the other two girls nodded as well. Normally, Ric thought guiltily, it was Damon who took charge or came up with a plan in a moment of crisis. Now they were going to have to find a way to help Damon get through this, and he just hoped he was up to the task.
Alaric picked up Damon again – who didn't seem to be getting any lighter – and carried him upstairs to the bathroom. He started filling Damon's deep soaker tub with water as he stripped off what remained of the vampire's ruined clothing. He tried to be as matter of fact as possible, blocking out the way Damon remained unresponsive as Ric maneuvered him into the tub. The water turned red with blood so quickly that Ric had to empty and refill the tub almost immediately, but as he checked the stake wounds on Damon's torso, Ric decided that they were healing, just slowly. The blood staining the water was almost entirely the old blood that had covered Damon's body, along with what Ric had spilled on him. But it wasn't all good news because Damon's face was still slack and his eyes remained closed.
Ric stroked the side of Damon's face gently. "Sorry no bubbles this time, buddy," he said softly, thinking of Damon's inexplicable fondness for bubble baths. "Damn it, Damon," he added when the vampire didn't respond. "You have to wake up. I can't do this alone." Ric could hear the stress and worry in his own voice.
Ric let the dirty water drain out of the tub again and ran a third warm bath to rinse Damon clean. His friend's wounds were definitely healing now. Most of them had stopped bleeding, although they were still raw and Damon flinched when he brushed his fingers over one. Normally Damon healed almost instantly, even from wounds caused by wood, although he would whine about still being sore hours later. Ric had never been sure how much of that was lingering pain and how much was Damon playing up his injuries for sympathy – or more likely seeking a kiss to make it better. He assumed there was only so much that even vampire healing could cope with, especially when Damon had lost so much blood. The vervain was an added complication, and Ric was just glad that Damon finally did seem to be healing.
When Damon was clean, Ric manhandled him out of the tub and dried him off. He found a pair of sweatpants at the bottom of one of Damon's drawers and put them on his friend before finally situating Damon in his bed.
Looking down at himself, he realized that he was covered with blood, too. Unfortunately, Damon's clothes wouldn't exactly fit him, but he used to keep some clothes here. . . . Ric crossed the room to the drawer that Damon had designated as his and opened it. Not only were his clothes still there, but they were folded far more neatly than he would ever have folded them. Damon had clearly been in that drawer since Ric had last opened it, and Ric paused for a moment to wonder what exactly that meant. Then he shook his head to clear his thoughts and grabbed a clean t-shirt and jeans.
He had just finished showering and changing when he heard a knock on the door. "Come in," he called out.
Elena walked in holding another couple of blood bags. "Stefan sent a text," she said quietly.
Ric stared at her. "A text?" he asked incredulously. Stefan's brother could be dying and he sent a text? "What did it say?" he finally asked.
Elena looked down at the floor. "It said 'Damon will be fine.'"
"He hasn't even seen him!" Ric exclaimed angrily.
"I know," Elena said. Her voice was still small. "I guess he must be doing something important."
Ric snorted. "Or he doesn't care. We might have to give up on Stefan, Elena. If he doesn't even care about Damon anymore. . . ." He trailed off.
"How's Damon doing?" Elena asked in an obvious effort to change the subject.
"His wounds seem to be healing," Ric admitted. "But he hasn't woken up."
Elena nodded, her face falling slightly. "That's good that he's healing, right?"
Alaric made a conscious effort to tamp down his anger at Stefan. "It's good," he affirmed. He tried to keep his own doubts from being audible in his voice. "A little more blood and I'm sure he will be fine." He took the blood bag that Elena handed him and carefully opened Damon's mouth. This time he didn't jump when Damon's face changed at the first taste of the blood, even though he had hoped that Damon might be back in conscious control of himself. He supposed that would require that Damon actually be conscious, which he obviously wasn't.
Ric took the second bag from Elena when the first was empty, and he forced that one down Damon's throat as well. Afterwards, he and Elena both stared at Damon for a long time, hoping that he would wake up. Finally Elena turned away. "I'm going to try calling Stefan again," she said. "There must be something else we can do. Even if he won't come, maybe he'll talk to me about it."
Ric just nodded. He heard Elena's light footsteps leaving the room, and then he was alone again, staring at Damon lying still in the bed. He looked small and alone there, and Ric was sorely tempted to just crawl into bed with Damon and hold him. But he reminded himself that just because he had realized that he still had feelings for Damon did not mean that it was a good idea – at all – to act on them. So he just sat there and watched helplessly as Damon slept and, hopefully, healed.
It was perhaps an hour later that Damon's eyelids fluttered, and Ric started into alertness. He saw a trace of blue as Damon opened his eyes partially, looking like his eyelids were too heavy to raise further. "Stefan," he murmured weakly, clearly not seeing the room around him.
Ric felt an irrational surge of disappointment that Damon had whispered his brother's name, not Alaric's own. Then he reminded himself just how ridiculous that was when he had shot down Damon's every attempt to get back together. "Stefan's not here, Damon," he said anyway.
Damon didn't seem to have heard him. "Stef," he repeated, his voice halting. "I didn't tell him. Didn't . . . tell him anything."
"Didn't tell who what?" Ric asked, confused. What was Damon talking about? Then he thought he understood. Damon knew where the coffins were. He knew the information that Klaus wanted so desperately, and Klaus had tortured him – either for that information or simply because he was a sadistic bastard. Ric was leaning toward the latter based on the messages that Klaus had sent to Elena. And Damon had held out even as Klaus had nearly killed him. "That's good, Damon," Ric said reassuringly. "You can rest now. You're safe."
"Hurts," Damon whispered, his eyes closing entirely again. "So tired."
"I know," Ric said. He took Damon's hand and squeezed it. "But you're healing now. You'll be fine in no time." Damon had fallen back asleep, and Ric sighed. At least Damon had regained consciousness, even if he hadn't exactly been aware. Hopefully that meant he was going to be okay. Ric didn't even want to think about any alternatives.
•••••
Alaric thought it had been less than an hour when Damon stirred again. Ric released the hand that he had been holding, occasionally stroking the palm or tracing the length of Damon's long fingers. Fingers that were so fucking talented when they played over his skin or stroked his cock – and Ric was trying not to think about things like that since he was damn well not going to let Damon know that he still had feelings for him. He wanted Damon to recover, yes, but that did not mean he was going there with the vampire again.
Ric thought he had let go of Damon's hand just in time as his friend opened his eyes. This time, to Ric's relief, he seemed to be aware of his surroundings. "Ric?" he said. His voice was still low and rough, but at least it seemed a bit stronger than before.
"Yeah, it's me, Damon," Ric said softly.
Damon tried to move, but he didn't succeed in doing more than shifting slightly on the bed. "Fuck," he muttered. "Klaus really did a number on me."
"Yeah, he did," Ric agreed. "Good thing you're a vampire with super-healing."
"Doesn't feel so super," Damon murmured. He looked puzzled then, as if something had just occurred to him. "What are you doing here anyway? Thought you hated me."
Ric sighed. "I don't hate you, Damon. And besides, someone had to play nurse."
Damon grinned. "Sexy nurse," he said weakly, and that faint hint of the usual Damon sent a wave of relief running through Ric.
"Don't you know it," Ric joked, suppressing an overwhelming urge to kiss Damon. That would be a really bad idea. All his reasons for avoiding Damon were still valid, after all. Damon was still a psychotic vampire who had snapped his neck for no reason, he reminded himself. This was just Damon's uncharacteristic helplessness setting off some fucked up protective instincts. "Don't even think about trying anything," he added, still keeping his tone light.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Damon replied. He closed his eyes with a small smile on his lips.
Ric shook his head, amused in spite of himself. Of course, practically the first words out of Damon's mouth after nearly dying would be flirty comments. Sometimes it seemed like flirting came as naturally to Damon as breathing. Make that more naturally, Ric thought with a snort. But Damon seemed to finally be feeling better. After a moment of hesitation, Ric slowly pulled back the sheet from Damon's chest, and sure enough, Damon's skin was smooth and unblemished. Alaric closed his eyes in relief. He had never been so happy to see the near-miraculous healing ability of a vampire.
