Chapter Fifty-Five: Wicked Game
No, I don't want to fall in love with you
This world is only gonna break your heart
What a wicked game to play, to make me feel this way.
What a wicked thing to do, to let me dream of you.
What a wicked thing to say, you never felt this way.
What a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you and,
I want to fall in love with you
This world is only gonna break your heart
~Chris Isaak
Nilin woke up to someone calling her name softly. She cracked an eye open to see Damon kneeling next to the bed. She turned over, coming face to face with him, and sighed sleepily.
"I have to go," he told her quietly. His fingers swept the hair behind her ear. "I just wanted you to know. You can go back to snoring now," he smirked. He stood up and went to leave. Nilin shot her hand out and grabbed his.
"I don't snore," she mumbled. Damon chuckled, returning to her level. "You can't go," she muttered. "I actually got a decent night's sleep."
Damon looked at her carefully. He kissed the top of her hand that was constricting his. "I know, but I have a council meeting to get to. You know, dead Mayor and all," he paused for a minute. "I do remember our conversation last night, though," he said. "It's not over, just on a hiatus for the time being. We still need to talk."
"Don't ruin it, we were having a nice moment for once," she whined, letting go of his hand and sitting up in bed. She leaned back on the headboard as he took a seat on the edge of her mattress.
"I just wanted to apologize and say thank you," Damon explained. "I could have done something very bad and regrettable last night."
"Like snap my neck?" Nilin wondered, rubbing her sleep crusted eyes.
He chucked a little. "I could never snap your neck," he let know her. "Now, that tween cousin of yours on the other hand…" Damon shrugged.
Nilly just shook her head. "Not funny." She leaned forward towards him, sighing. "If you have anymore impulses, driven by whatever happened between you and Katherine last night, please come to me before you act on them," she asked, looking him in the eye.
He just smirked and stood from her bed. "No promises," he replied. Then he leaned over and kissed Nilin's forehead, hesitating for a moment. "You know, you still owe me a date." Damon reminded her as he straightened up again.
Nilin waited for the puttering of her heart to quite down. "Ah, that's right. The bargain we made with the Gilbert device… didn't that blow up in our faces," she teased.
"Yeah, that one," he said, not finding her very funny. "How about tonight?" he offered.
Nilly flopped back down on the mattress, pulling the covers up to her chin. "What's tonight?" she wondered.
"The carnival, of course," he smirked. "What do you say?"
She eyed him. "We'll see," she responded. Damon just smirked before disappearing from her room.
Nilly sighed and threw the blankets off of her. She was up now, no chance of falling back to sleep. Gently she touched two fingers to where Damon had kissed her. Her stomach did that thing where it tightened up, making her nauseous… but the good kind of nauseous, the kind she liked.
Nilin realized a smile was on her lips, she quickly dropped it and her fingers from her head. That's when she noticed something else. She looked down at her hand. On the one finger still sat the ring Finch had given her for her birthday. The gold wings glinted up at her. Taking a deep breath, Nilin ripped it off her finger and tossed across the room.
It rolled until she lost sight of it. Her eyes were trained on the spot where it disappeared. The knock on her door tore her attention off of it, pulling her out of her own head. "Come in." she called.
Elena walked in, dressed with a bag on her shoulder and clipboard in her hands. "I need your help," she huffed. It was only morning and already she looked stressed to her max.
"Uh-oh," Nilin muttered, standing up and walking over to her windows to open the curtains.
"Caroline is still in the hospital, that means me and Bonnie are left to organize the carnival," she explained. "And I know it's wrong and selfish of me to ask you this, especially with everything that went on yesterday but I'm just overloaded and—"
"Elena, Elena," Nilin cut it. "Breathe before you pass out," she cautioned.
She inhaled and exhaled deeply. "I could really use the hand."
Nilly just shook her head. "Of course I'll help you."
The relief that flooded Elena's face was instant. Then concern replaced it. "I'm a terrible person," she said as a second thought. "You don't have to do this, really. I shouldn't ask you, after everything that happened."
"No, no, Elena, I need this," Nilly explained, already going over and sorting through her closet. "I need a distraction, something to take my mind off things. If I lay here all day, I'll go crazy."
Elena let out a soft sigh as she took a seat on the edge of Nilin's bed. "How are you doing?" she asked, the clipboard tucked to her chest.
"I think I'm okay," Nilin divulged. Her shoulders bounced with a small shrug. "I mean, I just might still be in shock or something. But… I don't know. I made it through the night. I'm all for the minor victories in life."
It was her most optimistic way of putting things. There was one person to thank for that though. Nilin didn't want to think too much into why she asked Damon to stay over. She knew it was wrong, and selfish of her, but she did it anyway. The more she tried to decode her actions, the less anything made sense.
"That's not a minor victory, Nil. You've been through a lot these past few months and the fact that you've been able to make it through every night is awe-inspiring," Elena said, watching her with worry and something of admiration.
Nilly managed a smile. "Yeah, but I'm strong. We both are, I mean look at us," she laughed. "We're like titans, nothing can break us."
Elena started to shake her head. "Not titans, just Gilberts," she corrected.
Nilin let out a groan. "Don't remind me," she mumbled. That only caused Elena to chuckle at her.
"I like the thinking though," she said, standing up from the bed. "Keep that in mind today. If vampires and rouge angels don't kill us, then this carnival just might."
"Oh god, I just realized we're taking on the life of Caroline Forbes," Nilly said with a sour expression. She wanted something to keep her busy today, that's exactly what she was going to get. Nilin would say that whole 'careful what you wish for' thing was at play, but she didn't believe in wishes.
Elena laughed. "Titians, remember," she winked, making her way over to the door and leaving Nilin to get dressed.
Once she had disappeared, Nilly pulled on a pair of black washed out jeans and a plain white t-shirt. Failing to wrangle her bed head, she threw a maroon beanie on top of it, hoping it would hide the unruliness. As she went to grab her bag and a black zip-up sweat-shirt, Nilly caught the shine of something by her mirror.
It was Finch's ring she had chucked. Nilin stared at it, then she quickly swooped down and pocketed it before leaving the room.
Nilly walked down the hospital hallways, searching for the room number she was given. Finally she tracked it down. The room was dark, despite it being a beautiful, sunny day out. Nilin knocked on the door. Caroline was lying on her side, hidden mostly by covers. "Hey, Caroline. It's Nilin, are you awake?" she called into the room quietly.
She heard a snort of annoyance as Caroline started to sit up. When she saw Nilly standing there in the doorway an expression of fear and alarm shot onto the blonde girl's face. It was only there for a moment and in the next instant it disappeared as she fluffed up her hair and said, "I'm not in the mood for visitors."
Nilin sighed, walking into the room with a bag. She placed it at the foot of the bed. "I get it, I was just dropping off clothes for you," she explained. "Elena wanted to, but she's tied up with the carnival. She told me you were being released tomorrow morning."
Caroline grew angry. "Morning? I need to get out tonight."
Nilly shrugged. "Can't help you there." Caroline let out a frustrated growl, flopping back on her hospital bed. "Don't worry, Elena and Bonnie have it all under control."
"Look, it's not about the carnival okay?" she snapped. "It's just that this place is just really depressing."
"You forget who you're talking to." Nilin said, crossing her arms over her chest. Even to this day, hospitals gave Nilly this dizzying feeling. She hated the bright florescent lights, the sterilized smell, and not to mention every sound that floated through the halls. It all gave her angst.
Carline just rolled her eyes though. "Whatever."
Nilly noticed how jittery she was. Her eyes kept darting to the curtain hidden window, to the door and back to Nilin. Caroline's jaw was tight, almost shaking with the force she had it clamped down with. Her cheeks looked like they were sunken in and the pink nail polish on her fingernails was chipped. To see her this unkempt was unnerving.
"Are you okay, Caroline?" Nilin asked, walking up closer to her.
"I'm fine," she spat. "What do you care?" she asked, tucking herself in the corner of the bed, as far away from Nilin as possible.
Nilly took that as a hint, and backed up. "Are you sure? Maybe I should get a nurse in here or something?"
"No," she insisted. "Just leave already."
Nilin looked at her closer. Something wasn't sitting right here. "Look, I'm just the delivery girl. I know you don't like me, so but if you need anything—"
"I don't," Caroline snapped.
She just let out a huff. "Fine, I'll be going then. Feel better," Nilin told her, walking out of the room. Elena had given her a list to do and dealing with Caroline wasn't on it.
"It's the same as the bracelet Elena gave you," Stefan explained, handing Jeremy a vial of vervain extract. He watched as Jeremy looked it over, rolling in back and forth in his palm a few times.
"It protects me from compulsion," he said, pulling his backpack out of his locker.
"Vervain is toxic to vampires," Stefan clarified.
"Like poison?" he wondered.
"Yeah, it's very poisonous," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "It keeps them out of your head."
"But why vervain?" Jeremy asked, closing his locked and leaning on it.
Stefan shrugged. "Don't know, certain natural herbs and roots and other elements are just harmful to vampires."
"Like a stake to the heart?"
"Right, but it has to be wood," he reminded.
A small grin came to Jeremy's lips. "You're pretty confident in yourself telling me all the different ways I could kill you."
Stefan chuckled, shaking his head. "Jeremy, if I thought you wanted to kill me we would be having a much different conversation," he explained.
"Yeah, Damon is the one that deserves it." Jeremy said
Stefan let out a slow breath. He knew this was coming. The kid was a Gilbert after all. "I want you to forget about Damon, all right?" he told him. "He's hundred times stronger than you and right now he's not stable. You got to try to move forward," he pushed, hoping to get to Jeremy.
"He's the reason Vicki's dead. How do you move forward from that?"
"You just have to, you have to try at least," Stefan recommend.
"I don't understand how you guys let Nilly around him," he huffed, shaking his head. "Like you said, he's not stable."
Stefan laughed again. "Trust me, Elena and I have tried everything in the book to get those two a safe distance a part. It either makes it worse or blows up in our face. You can say we've given up," he explained, shrugging a little. Jeremy was just shaking his head, looking unsatisfied at Stefan's answer. "Listen, today we have a nice little distraction courtesy of the slave driver Elena."
Jeremy laughed as his sister walked over to them. "Hello Elena," Stefan greeted, smiling. She was so frazzled she didn't even pick up on the little jab.
Elena was looking at her brother. "Hey, um, did you…"
"Yeah, yeah, I set up the gold fish toss all three hundred gold fish," Jeremy answered before she even finished. "It's gonna be epic," he said sarcastically, smiling before he talked away from them.
Elena let out a groan, leaning back on the lockers.
"He's gonna be alright," Stefan promised her. "He's just been through a little bit of an ordeal."
"I was just hoping that this carnival would reel him back into the land of a high school teenager," she said, looking down at the clipboard in her hands.
Stefan's eyebrows rose. "Oh, that was what we were doing here?" he wondered, a smile on his lips.
"Yes," Elena sighed. "We all are. We're going to be boring high school students who live in a world where the "v" word is not uttered," she demanded.
"Got it," he nodded.
"Then later you're going to take me to the Ferris wheel, we're gonna ride to the very top and then you're gonna kiss me and my heart will flutter like a normal high school girl," she planned. "Do you see a running theme here?"
"Yeah I know, I'm seeing it and I'm liking it," he smiled. "But I have a quick question. Uh, what do we do about Damon?"
Elena's eyes sharpened. "Uh, no "d" word either, okay? That has been deleted from the list of topics that we can discuss."
Stefan sighed, hating to burst her bubble. "Unfortunately, Katherine showing up has been a little bit of an odd place, little off-kilter," he explained. "Kind of dangerous. Who knows what he's up to?"
"I kinda have an idea on that," Elena said, pushing off the locker.
"What do you mean?"
"I was delightfully wakened up last night by Nilin and Damon having a very heated discussion," she revealed. Stefan shook his head, a look of humored disbelief on his face. "It didn't last long, things quieted down. I thought he left until I heard him this morning."
"Oh," Stefan said, amused.
"I may or may not have had my ear pressed against her door," Elena confessed, sheepishly. "I'm not sure if they're good now or it was just a moment of desperation on both their parts after everything that happened."
"Well, let's hope they both make it out of this one okay," Stefan sighed, draping his arm around Elena's shoulders and leading her down the hallway.
After his conversation with Elena, Stefan went back to the boarding house for a little before he returned to the carnival. When he walked into the parlor, he saw his brother, pouring himself a drink.
"Care for one?" Damon asked, not bothering to look at Stefan as he drained a blood bag into a glass.
"No, thank you," he said, walking up to him slowly. "I'm not hungry, just ate."
Damon took a sip before turning to his brother. "Are you worried that one day, all the forest animals are gonna band together and fight back? I mean, surely they talk," he grinned.
Stefan shook his head, ignoring the bait as he took a seat on the edge of one of the side tables. "I'm just happy that's a blood bag and not a sorority girl supplying your dinner," he admitted.
Damon's eyes narrowed at him for a second. He took another drink before placing the glass back down. "I like this," he informed Stefan. "You, walking on eggs shells around me because you think I'm gonna explode. Very suspenseful. Is Elena worried too?" he wondered. "I bet I'm your every conversation." Damon smirked.
"Have you heard from Nilin?" Stefan threw out there, not wanting to get into it with his brother at the moment.
Damon paused but then completely surpassed the question. "I think the Lockwoods have a family secret," he announced, leaning his forearms on the back on a chair. "Because the Gilbert device affected them, but vervain didn't. So they're not vampires, they're something else," he theorized.
"Is this your new obsession?" Stefan wondered.
"You'd rather some unknown supernatural element running rampant upon our town," he shrugged. "Fine, I'll drop it."
"We haven't seen the last of Katherine, you do know that right?" he warned his brother, watching his reaction. "We have no idea what she's up to."
"Pfft, sure we do. She came back to profess her undying eternal love for you," he explained. "So I'm gonna let you deal with her, because I have more important things to do then play her little games… like explode," he smirked, holding out his glass. "Cheers!"
