Chapter 35: Love Me Leave Me

DAMON

I grab Marian by the first two parts of her I can reach, which turn out to be her neck and her arm. With every hint of vampire speed I can muster, I fling her out of the way of Jeremy's stake.

It's not enough. At the apex of the arc, the speed is too much for her body and her neck breaks with one life-rending snap. But before she hits the ground I can see that I failed twice, because Jeremy's stake is buried five inches deep. In her stomach instead of her chest. That's all I gained with that Hail-Mary throw that just cost me everything.

"Fuck!" I roar, throwing her corpse away from me. "Are you serious, Jeremy? What in the hell were you thinking?"

I can hear Elena shouting at me, but I ignore her and blur across the room to Jeremy, picking him up off the ground by his shoulders and shaking him hard.

"I couldn't stop," he yelps. "I'm sorry. It was supposed to be a trick. I told Marian I'd kill 'her' and she thought I meant Elena, but she made me give my oath before she let me out of the cell. And then I couldn't stop until I did."

"What. The. Fuck." I drop him before my frustrated grip grinds his shoulder joints to powder. "You better hope that hunter's curse is first come first served."

Her neck broke before his stake had the chance to kill her. That's all the hope we have left.

"Does the curse work on humans?" Stefan asks, his voice strained.

"I'll go upstairs and call Kyle," Caroline says, sounding uncharacteristically subdued. "Maybe he knows more about how the hunter's curse works."

I stalk over to Marian's body and fish the keys out of her pocket to unlock Elena's cell, though I'm in the kind of mood where I'd enjoy ripping all the bars out by hand instead.

She streaks straight for Jeremy, her hands going over him to check for injuries as she babbles apologies. He grabs her arms and holds her still.

"You're not healed, Elena. Why aren't you healed already?"

She pulls her shredded shirt up to check the damage. Among the smears of dried blood, there are half-closed bullet holes. I close my eyes against a hot surge of rage that wants me to rip the hunter's dead throat out.

"We need to pull the bullets out," I tell Jeremy, trying to sound calm. "And she probably needs to feed."

Jeremy flinches, but then holds out his wrist slowly.

Elena blurs away from him, ending up with her back pressed against the bars of the cell as she shakes her head spasmodically. "No way. Never again."

"Elena," I protest, but Jeremy shakes his head wearily.

"Leave her alone, Damon. You don't know what Marian did to her."

"You mean what I did to you," Elena says to Jeremy, her voice breaking.

I go to her and pull her into a gentle hug, trying to avoid all our bullet wounds. "Hey, everybody's still alive. Well, almost everybody," I amend. "No harm, no foul. Come on, didn't you guys wrestle as kids? You're both immortal now. You can afford to scrap a little."

"I'm fine, Elena," Jeremy agrees, pushing me out of the way so he can hug her. I let him, even though I still feel like punching him in his overly-impulsive teenage face.

"Careful of the bullets," I warn him and he glares at me over her head as she clutches at him.

"I'm okay," he tells her. "It's over and we're both fine. Stop crying, you're freaking Damon out."

Now it's my turn to glare at him. "You're going to see freaking out when we're hallucinating in the same goddamn cell for the next fifty-two fucking years."

Stefan swallows. "I'm going to go check on Caroline."

"What was wrong with tying her up with barbed cuffs and spending a few pleasant weeks torturing her while we looked for a new hunter, huh?" I ask Jeremy. "Everybody keeps saying I need a hobby."

"Stop it," Elena orders me, pulling away from Jeremy with a gasp. She bends forward, supporting herself with her hands braced on her knees, her face twisted with pain. I ball my fists helplessly. I wonder if we should try to take the bullets out of her now, even with the extra damage it'll cause to do it by hand. I'd rather dig out the one in my side with pliers than my own fat fingers, but the wait sucks.

I hate getting shot.

To distract myself I pull out my phone and text Sheriff Forbes to pick up Marian's body. She owes me a couple dozen on body disposal duty, and we're all about to be real goddamn busy. No time for grave digging when you're running a ward for the criminally insane.

"Thanks for killing my hobby, dick," I tell Jeremy, because he's staring at Marian's corpse now and his eyes are looking suspiciously shiny.

He turns and takes a half-hearted swing at me, but I bat his hand away. "Plenty of time for arm-wrestling when we're cell mates."

"Damon!" Elena warns, her face pale with strain. "Leave him alone. He was just trying to protect me."

I open my mouth to argue that I'd already broken, stabbed and beaten Marian into a satisfyingly unthreatening state, but my righteous tirade is interrupted right on schedule by Captain Killjoy himself, coming back from the woods above the dungeon.

Stefan's got a triple-creased brow and his eyes are locked onto me. I smirk to hide the tingle of nervousness that goes through me at his expression.

"Was Kyle able to manufacture an appropriately musical morality tale for the occasion?"

Stefan ignores my flippancy.

"You never let anybody else win the coin toss, do you brother?" he asks softly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Elena demands.

I lean against the bars, relief raising goosebumps all down my arms. I'm fucked for sure, but at least I won't have to be a psycho with an audience.

"What's the catch?" I ask Stefan.

"Humans can get the curse, but hunters are immune," he says matter-of-factly. "So it doesn't matter who killed her first. The original spell was designed so that if one of the brotherhood went bad, they could put him down without risking the death curse."

"And Kyle couldn't have told us that before?" Elena bursts out. "Why not? Why would he keep that from us?" She's staring at me like she's only now realizing what Marian's corpse actually means.

"Kyle was probably worried Jeremy'd go after Marian for what she did to you with that nail trap stunt. Or he was trying to keep us from using Jeremy against him," I tell her, trying to look like I don't care so I don't upset her anymore. And really, when have we ever learned anything until after we needed to know it?

"Fuck it. It doesn't matter now." I meet my brother's eyes and a look passes between us. His face is dark, and I have to look away.

"We need to get home," Stefan says quietly. "Before it starts."

# # #

I'm getting pretty goddamn tired of pulling poisoned objects out of my girlfriend.

I can't keep my eyes off the bloody hunter-marked bullets sitting on my bathroom counter as I get dressed. Finally, I pull on my boots and give the bullets one more glare before I sweep them into the trash with a hand towel. I'm running out of things that need to be done.

I couldn't let them lock me up until I took care of Elena, as rock-stupid as it is to delay right now. I look up as she comes back from a quick trip to her own room, pulling her wet hair out of the collar of a clean shirt.

My clock is ticking.

She places her hand against my cheek and studies me, probably watching for the first signs of madness.

"Come with me," I tell her, pressing my lips to her forehead with a gentleness I don't feel. She nods and takes my hand, but when we get to the top of the basement stairs she digs in her heels. How could she have thought we were going anywhere else?

"No, Damon. No freaking way."

I kiss her hand and let her go. I don't have it in me to be cruel right now, but this is happening.

I continue down the stairs by myself. She chases after me, grabbing at the sleeve of my jacket.

"Elena, stop it. Klaus was right. The only place to ride out a hunter's curse is locked in a padded room, alone."

Her fingers loosen on my sleeve, then drop away. "Fine. I'll go and get us an air mattress or something, so we can at least have someplace to sit."

I didn't want to throw this in her face but reality is a bedpost in my brother's gut and nobody is going to share that cell with me.

"Have you forgotten what you did to Jeremy and Stefan? You can't, Elena. Nobody can."

She's just staring at me, her arms dangling helplessly. Elena's too brave for her own good, but she knows what's about to happen to me and there's not a scrap of courage left in her expression.

I push that aside and focus on what actually matters. I step close to her and cup her face in my hands.

"Are you okay?"

She shakes her head slowly.

"Look, I'm guessing she made you feed on Jeremy. But whatever you did, Elena, he's alive. She manipulated you and that's on her, not on you. I'm not going to put up with you feeling guilty about this," I warn her.

"Damon, I can't just lock you in a room alone for…that," she says, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. "Don't ask me to do that to you."

Of course. She's spent all day being tortured and probably came close to either killing or being killed by her only remaining family member, though I haven't got the whole story yet, and she's worried about me.

I hug her and roll my eyes at the ceiling. Silly girl. Crazy, beautiful girl. My crazy, beautiful girl.

She hangs onto me fiercely, her arms moving over mine as if she's trying to cover as much of me as she can with her tiny body.

"Come on," I tell her, the clock in my mind ticking louder. I lead her into the cell where we've locked up everyone in our lives who has gone off the rails. The list is dispiritingly long.

Once we get there, I take her face in my hands again, memorizing her beautiful eyes even though they scare the fuck out of me right now.

"Listen to me. We need a hunter, and we need a vampire for them to kill. Go to Kyle and Professor Shane and do whatever you have to do to get their cooperation. Between the two of them I bet they can dig up a hunter." I don't pull the punch. "It might take a while. Professor Shane is obsessed with Bonnie getting her magic back, so use that against him. Hold her hostage if you have to, or get Klaus to do it so it will be believable. He'd love to have another hunter around. Once you get a vampire, disable them so they can't hurt the hunter because God only knows what kind of sap might have gotten imprinted with the mark."

I can't tell if she's listening to me, but I keep talking anyway because I'm not very good at doing nothing and I'm about to do a whole fucking lot of it. It really chafes that I can't find my own hunter, but judging by Elena's experience I'm about to be my own worst enemy.

"You're going to have to take Jeremy if Kyle won't help you, to do the test with the tattoos. Don't trust the hunter any more than the vampire, when you do finally find them."

Elena takes a deep breath. "You need to know about the hunter's curse."

"Bad acid trip, possible suicidal impulses," I summarize, dropping my hands. "Got the memo."

"No, Damon. They're people you know, and they know things…they'll know how to get to you."

I give her a crooked smile. "That's where I have the advantage. You have a whole cast of characters you care about. I don't."

"That's bullshit and you know it!" she bursts out. "Damon, denial isn't going to help you with this. They're incredibly realistic. You won't be able to tell the difference even if they're standing right next to a real person. And they aren't like regular ghosts. They can touch you, hurt you." She presses her lips together and I can see how hard she's fighting to be strong for me.

She's freaking infuriating, worrying about me when she should be curled up in my bed, letting me hold her and tease her and spoil the hell out of her until she forgets everything about today and that fucking pile of broken bones that used to be a hunter. But it still makes me proud.

"They might be real people," she reminds me. "When I stabbed Jeremy, I only saw Connor. I had no idea Jeremy was even in the room."

"I've got this, Elena. I've been mind-fucked by the queen of manipulation. After Katherine, this is going to be a day at the spa. Besides, I have a superpower."

She looks supremely unconvinced.

"I hate people," I explain. "There are only three people in this world whose opinion I give even the slightest hint of a fuck about and one of them is conveniently already invisible."

I rest my hands on her hips, my thumbs stroking the skin just under the hem of her shirt. She's not going to like this part.

"The trick is that I need to get rid of the other two until I'm free of the curse."

She flinches at my words, but I can't go easy on her. Not today. No matter how much I want to.

"If you and Stefan don't come down here until the curse is lifted, I will know that if I see you, you aren't real. Do you understand me?"

She's shaking her head.

"Say it, Elena," I urge her softly, because I know she's not going to admit it. "We don't know where to find a hunter."

"It could take–" she breaks off, blinking furiously against the tears.

"Weeks, months, years," I say flatly. "It takes what it takes, Elena. Promise me. Promise me that you and Stefan will stay the fuck out of the basement until you find a hunter. Make someone else bring me blood. Don't call. Don't check on me when you think I'm asleep. Just…don't. Not until you can end the curse."

The impact of this goes deep in her eyes and I'm afraid for a moment that she might break.

This is how she should have looked when we rescued her from that bloody torture chamber of a cell. This is how she should have looked when Klaus killed her. But she didn't. She always finds a way to keep going. I squeeze her hips in my hands, willing her to find it this time because for once, I can't do it for her.

"Promise me," I demand. "It's the kindest thing you can do for me. It's the only thing you can do for me."

She blinks and her eyes harden. Thank fucking Christ.

"I promise, Damon. I get it, I do, and I swear I'll stay out of this basement until I can find a new hunter to break the curse."

"No matter how long it takes," I remind her. "Stefan too. Vervain him if you have to, but don't let him down here."

She nods, the tears finally gone from her eyes.

"Feed," I growl at her. Her wounds still haven't healed and it's tearing me apart to smell her blood. "A lot, before you leave. And if you're going to try to track down a hunter, don't be yourself."

She frowns. "What?"

"Be like me, Elena," I urge her. "If you get into a tight spot, you can't hesitate to think about what's right, or what's merciful, or if they might be a nice person or not. That is the moment when they kill you. You can send Stefan or Caroline or Kyle or anybody else if you want to. But if you go, don't fuck around. You have to kill first and ask questions later, or you won't get a later." I give her a tight, cold smile. "There's a reason I'm 170, Elena. Most vampires don't make it this long."

"I'm going to bring you a hunter," she promises. "No matter how long it takes, I'll find one. I'm going to save you this time, Damon."

I shrug off my jacket. "Well, if you're going to be the one saving the day, you'd better look the part."

I put it on her and roll up the sleeves so they won't get in her way in case it comes to a fight. "This is my lucky jacket."

"Are you sure it's not you that's lucky?" she says, the barest hint of a smile back on her face as the leather surrounds her.

I grin and pull open the jacket, sliding a stake out of the inside pocket so she can see where it's kept. "Luck # 1."

I open the other side of the jacket, and show her the vervain syringe. "Luck #2."

She ducks around my hand and sneaks a kiss. "Luck #3."

I smile at her. Girl stole my punch line.

"Damon…" She searches my eyes as if she's looking for a way to say something, promise something, but doesn't know how. Instead, she frames my face in her hands, her hands careful as if I'm something important, something she wants desperately to keep.

I cover her hands with my own and kiss her like I'm going to be crazy until I see her again. Because it's fucking true.

The clock is ticking so loudly now that I can barely hear anything else. I finally let her lips leave mine, but it hurts.

She touches the black leather of the jacket sleeve. "What are you going to do for luck?" She wants to know.

I give her a cocky smirk. "I've got a badass vampire chick to do all my dirty work for me. I don't need luck. Now go grab something to eat and hit the road, Jack." I smack her lightly on the backside but instead of taking the hint, she crashes into my chest, knocking me back a step with the intensity of her embrace.

"No matter what happens," she whispers, "remember that I love you. I know what you are and I love you for it, and whatever those ghosts tell you, you can tell them that I called their bullshit."

I close my eyes. I'm never fucking leaving this cell.

I've had a long, long life full of terrible luck and I'm not stupid enough to think that this incredible woman could fall in love with me and I would get to keep her.

So yeah, it makes perfect sense that I am fated for an eternity of miserable insanity in a basement cell she's forbidden to visit. I ought to get a video camera so I can at least get an award from the Sundance Film Festival for this shit. God knows there's nothing else I'm getting out of the deal.

I kiss Elena's forehead gently, because she doesn't need to know any of that. "Go find me a hunter, sweetheart. I'll be fine."

I belatedly catch the scrape of footsteps and I squeeze Elena's shoulders and step away from her.

Jeremy appears in the door. "Elena, we need to find another hunter. Stefan has some ideas and we need to get started as soon as we can."

I smile at her, because her eyes haven't left my face yet and I don't want her to worry. "See? We've all got the same to-do list here. Stop procrastinating." I shake my head at Jeremy. "Teenagers. You're all so irresponsible."

His eyes are dark and steady and I remember that he's had a shitstorm of a day too. Man, it never lets up around here, does it?

"Take care of your sister," I tell him.

"I will," he promises. "Caroline's going to stay here with you."

"Oh God, are you serious?" I complain. "No way. No, you guys need the backup." I turn to appeal to Elena. "Don't leave me with the goddamn pep club captain. Take her with you. Leave me some blood, some bourbon and a book."

"Maybe a Ouija board?" Jeremy asks.

I laugh. "Nice, Jeremy. Nice. Now would you get all the freaking women out of this house? They just can't stay away from me."

Elena punches me softly in the arm. "Ungrateful."

"Hey, I never said I didn't like it," I protest, turning her toward the door and kissing her cheek playfully before I nudge her toward her brother.

"We're not leaving until we get you set up with a bed and some books," Elena warns.

I wave her out and Jeremy catches my eye one more time. I don't make a joke for him, and his eyes waver for a second before he shrugs his shoulders straight again and holds out his hand for a fist bump.

I've always thought that was a fucking absurd gesture, but I knock my knuckles against his anyway because I know what he's telling me, and I needed to hear it.

I nod toward the door and Jeremy closes it without another word and shoots the bolt home.

# # #

ELENA

I stride down the hall, my legs feeling longer than they usually do. My mind is already clicking through everything that needs to be done.

"You should stay here," I tell Jeremy. "Kyle will help us if I ask him to."

Jeremy laughs, but he doesn't sound amused.

"You know Damon would rather have you stay with him instead of Caroline," I attempt. If I'm going to play dirty today, I might as well start right now.

"You know he'd rather be left alone. He won't want anybody to see him like that and it won't help anyway," Jeremy counters. "I'm going with you."

I focus, pinpointing Stefan's voice in the living room and heading that way.

"Where are we going to find a potential hunter?" I ask him before I even clear the doorway. "Can you get us a vampire?"

"Calm down, Elena," Stefan says. "Let's think about how we're going to do this."

I don't alter my stride until I'm close enough to kick him.

"I'm not going to calm down. I'm going to do whatever I have to do to save Damon. Just like you always have, so don't think for a second that I'm going to take any shit from you about it."

Jeremy chuckles. "Must be the jacket."

"Have you forgotten who got your hunter when you needed one?" Caroline snaps at me, getting in between us. "You'd better back off."

"Are you guys crazy?" Bonnie wants to know. I spin around, realizing that we're not alone for the first time. I was so focused on Stefan I didn't even see Bonnie and Matt waiting on the couch. He mouths 'You okay?' I give him a distracted nod.

"You can't just force some stranger into killing another stranger," Bonnie says, staring at me like she's never seen me before.

"You don't get it, Bonnie. He's going to lose his mind," I tell her.

"And not in a fun, talk-to-the-colorful-aliens way," Caroline adds. "More like a Kurt Cobain way."

"Or a David Icke kind of way," Jeremy agrees.

Bonnie stands up. "Damon's half out of his mind anyway," she declares. "I'm not going to have any part of this."

I don't realize I've launched myself at her until Stefan's arms lock around me. I stop struggling and concentrate on making the blood drain from my eyes.

"You're not thinking clearly," he says in a low voice. "You've been through a lot. You need to feed, and you need to get a handle on yourself or there is no way I'm letting you go after a hunter. Take a breath."

"So what, you're going to eat me?" Bonnie says in disbelief. "You've changed, Elena. I know you didn't have a choice about becoming a vampire, but you can choose who it makes you." She turns on her heel and heads for the door.

I go after her, and Stefan stops me. I turn and look him in the eye so he can see that my human face is firmly in place.

"Let me go, Stefan. I'm okay now," I tell him, making my voice as calm as I can so he'll trust me.

He does, reluctantly, even though I catch Caroline giving him a wide-eyed, arm-waving look of disagreement.

I zip around in front of Bonnie before she can leave.

"I am choosing who it makes me, Bonnie," I tell her coldly. "And unlike you, I'm choosing to stand by my friends, even when it isn't easy."

I open the door for her.

She stares at me, her eyes glittering with hurt and disappointment. I steel myself against that look.

Maybe Stefan thinks I'm a monster and maybe Bonnie does too. Hell, maybe even my mom would have thought so. But I'm not. I'm a girl who loves even when it consumes her and I'm doing the best I fucking can.

Bonnie presses her lips together, every line of her body condemning my choice as she stomps out the door. I close it behind her and very carefully release the doorknob before walking back to the living room.

"Jeremy, we need to get Damon set up with whatever he wants in the basement and then go find Professor Shane. We should get some weapons, just in case we run into trouble. What do we have here?"

"Nope," Caroline says definitively. "You need to feed, and I need to get Damon set up in the basement. Stefan's going to find you some nasty creeper of a vampire and I already called Professor Shane to tell him you were coming." She folds her arms. "After you eat."

Jeremy steps forward and I'm already shaking my head at him, backing away a step. "No way, Jeremy. I'm not taking blood from you. Never again."

"You're not taking it," he insists. "It's a gift. It's something of mine that I want to give to you."

"Elena, you're not healing," Stefan insists.

"Yes, I am," I insist.

His eyes drop and I follow his gaze to my shirt. I changed it after my shower and it's already stained with blood. I pull it up to check the bullet holes. Damon pulled out the bullets and the holes mostly closed, but the skin is still pitted and raw, weeping blood. I realize through the adrenaline and my gnawing sense of urgency that they do hurt. Actually, they hurt a lot.

Matt stands up. "Come on, 'Lena. I'm not your brother, and we've done this before. It's no big deal."

Caroline snickers. "You sound like you're trying to talk your way into her panties."

Nobody laughs.

"What?" Caroline asks. "So sue me for trying to break the tension. Quit being a drama queen, Elena. You were a vampire this morning and, spoiler alert! You still are. Screw that little hunter skank, and drink."

Matt moves closer and my throat closes. I can't even remember how to make my fangs descend. It's a reflex and I'm hungry so my fangs should be doing it for me. Instead I feel weak and human and disgusted with myself. I can still feel all the bagged blood clawing its way back up my throat. I can remember looking at Jeremy and not recognizing him.

I don't want it.

"You said you'd do anything you had to do," Stefan reminds me.

"I will," I tell him, my eyes locked on Matt's wrist.

I remember the smell of Jeremy's blood, when I realized the glorious liquid on my tongue belonged to my brother.

"I will," I promise them. But I don't move.