Some Canon Changes: I'm changing Stefan's 'age' to 19 instead of 17. 19 because in the Civil War the draft age was 20, and I want to keep that dynamic. I'm going to introduce the idea that the vampire change has some physiology effects that ages up/alters them when they transition, but otherwise pretend the characters didn't age.
In this chapter I mess with the lore of werewolf venom. Also, why vampires need to be invited in.
- Previously: Stefan glimpses at a supernatural community and gets to know Casey through observation.
"Suppose [a person] had a basket full of apples and, being worried that some of the apples were rotten, wanted to take out the rotten ones to prevent the rot spreading. How would he proceed? Would he not begin by tipping the whole lot out of the basket? And would not the next step be to cast his eye over each apple in turn, and pick up and put back in the basket only those he saw to be sound, leaving the others? In just the same way, those who have never philosophized correctly have various opinions in their minds which they have begun to store up since childhood, and which they therefore have reason to believe may in many cases be false. They then attempt to separate the false beliefs from the others, so as to prevent their contaminating the rest and making the whole lot uncertain. Now the best way they can accomplish this is to reject all their beliefs together in one go, as if they were all uncertain and false. They can then go over each belief in turn and re-adopt only those which they recognize to be true and indubitable." ― René Descartes
Chapter four: come what may
The plan was to take Stefan home as soon as she woke. After that, she wasn't sure. Would Grayson share Stefan's secret? Let Liz in on the conspiracy? Parts anyway?
Though Liz was Miranda's best friend, they - John, Grayson, and Miranda - shared nothing about the danger Elena was/is in, any plans to protect the town; had treated her like a resource to use, not as an ally. Would Grayson continue that, or without Miranda, would he reach out?
Maybe she had more than one reason to nab Stefan Salvatore, until she can figure out what to tell him, think up the right strategy. Showing up in daylight might not be enough.
She guesses, guesses, that Grayson is thankful for Stefan's assistance, and would be willing to stay mum until the bodies turn up, but the best way to gauge the new situation would be to show up at the Sheriff's station, give her statement, see if her tea or coffee, or whatever they offer tastes floral, and watch for any seeds of distrust, of hidden wariness.
It won't tell her exactly, what she's leaving behind, but it will help her frame her parting advice to Stefan. Thanks for your help, sorry for throwing a spanner into your life. Road to true love never runs smoothly and all that.
The plan gets delayed. First by Charlotte. Then by a gnawing ache for food. Then by Sofia, handing off the only meaningful contents of Marie's vehicle.
Casey's purse.
She didn't leave it behind. Didn't throw it in a dumpster.
Hmm...
She dumps the contents on the floor of her room, spreads the pieces with white gloved fingertips.
Stefan thumbs through one of the journals on her bedside table, her notes tucked in as she tries to piecemeal a remedy for cursed scars. She hadn't looked up but had been faintly aware of him in her peripheral when he moved the chair closer to the bed, so that he wouldn't block the light streaming in from the window, illuminating her little pile.
Nothing new. Nothing missing.
She riffles through her wallet, twisting the little plastic card of her counterfeit ID, between her fingers.
It would be smart, to place a tracking spell on something that stays constant on a mark's day to day.
She had it made, had picked Casey Shannon, long before she made contact with Marie's coven. There's opportunity.
It's not obvious, like a pin, or a piece of jewelry, things that take spells easier. And if it's going to be anything it's more likely that than loose barrettes, chap stick, sticks of gum, as if this is a James Bond novel.
It doesn't feel like anything. So either it's fine, or her relationship with magic is more severed than she imagined, that she can't even feel it in her hands. A void.
Casey pulls the knife hidden in her belt and cuts the seams of the inner lining, just to be sure, wanting to find something obvious.
"This person who attacked you...do you think they'll try again?" Stefan asks her, wondering if that's what's driving her intensity to dismantle her own belongings.
"Unlikely," she murmurs, distracted, the purse now flayed, threads broken and unraveled.
"What is it you're looking for?"
"Something that isn't mine. Something that is but feels off," she purses her lips. "Something that points to how she tracked me so I can at least prevent her, or someone else, doing it again."
He pauses, something complicated she isn't quick enough to grasp in his eyes as he tilts his eyes away. "You didn't kill her."
Her breath stutters, barely a moment, barely noticeable.
The rubber banded stack of money sits between them among the wreckage. An almost wergild for Marie's trespass. A petty revenge. Her retaliation.
"No," she agrees.
Will you ask why I didn't? Ask if I wanted to?
Ask how it felt, to still be bound in ropes when I caught the blade in my hand, how it sliced through my palm instead of my heart, how the blood poured, dripped in red tears.
What it felt like to stand over Marie, knowing that if she had the magic, she could have forced her to confess why, how, who else was behind this. With the right power, turn mercy into leverage, forced Marie to never move against her.
Instead, it's only the upper hand in a fight. One fight. And if she met Marie's rage with her own, if she lived through the poison, she couldn't afford the enmity of a coven - no matter that it looked like Marie was acting outside of their knowledge.
Stefan joins her on the floor, squatting with his elbows on his knees, the sun highlighting dark blond in his hair. He surveys the same pile of seemingly innocuous items, tries to offer a sounding board. "Could it have been a locator spell?"
She stretches her back. "Nope, those won't work on me."
He takes note of her certainty, but doesn't ask how that works, if she's sure it's infallible. Her eyes are brighter when she's drawn into conversation, able to escape being drawn deeper into her own mind. She gives her full attention to everything, sparks through interplay, dialogue, banter. Without it she grows distant, more motionless, more desolate.
"Could she have tracked your phone?"
The burner is dismantled, the battery pulled clean. "Not that I could tell..."
At least there's nothing really there to find. She can easily discard it for another.
There's no pictures, no contacts, no call log. She's still in the crossroads of one life and another, not sure what she can take with her. What relationships would she, could she, hold onto?
Stefan frowns. "How many ways can witches track people?"
How many ways are there to hurt someone? Potentially? Endless. "More ways than I can counter. But if I think like that, I'll go mad," and a little bit of Alice peeks through on the end. Or perhaps she's been the Mad Hatter all along.
Mad with paranoia. Feeling eyes in every shadow, following in dreams, watching from mirrors, windows, corners.
"Then there's the other option," she pulls up her right knee, rests her arm across it so she can drop her chin. She sighs. "It might have just been rumor. Someone saw me, knew who I was, moved it through the grapevine..."
Then, they likely knew she was staying here. Knew her connection with Charlotte, banked on her friendship even.
She drops her forehead against her arm. "I never appreciated how aggravating it is to not know something."
Stefan hums.
She lifts her head, eyes narrowed.
He holds up his hands, lips pressed to hide a smile. "I'm agreeing with you." Completely.
Charlotte looks through the contents of her purse, while Casey distracts herself with weaving a strand of dried lavender through the end of her braid. Weeks ago she could have done it herself, or offered something as Charlotte and her work through the magic together.
She breathes deeply, pulls the soothing fragrance into her lungs. For a while her skin, her scalp, is going to be more sensitive, too sensitive for fragrance in her shampoo, conditioner, soap, lotion, detergent. She already feels itchy from sleeping in her – well Stefan's – sweaty clothes. That had been dumb.
"There's nothing here," Charlotte pronounces, dropping her hands.
A part of her, just a small part, is relieved. If she had gone over her things, found nothing, felt nothing, and Charlotte easily pointed to the culprit, it would have been demoralizing. She had placed her things in Stefan's hands, just to make sure nothing felt off. The rest of her knows not having the answer is going to burrow under her skin.
Why this event? Why Mystic Falls? Why, Marie?
She finishes her braid again without commenting, chooses to ignore this topic altogether. "So, what dietary restrictions am I looking at?"
Charlotte hands the purse back as she glides towards the workbench.
"No sugar," Charlotte reminds her. She nods. Stefan raises his brows at her out of the corner of her eye, not noticeable enough to bust her. The cupcake has already made her queasy, which is why she gave the other one to Rose.
"I gave you the list, so you know what to eat," she runs through the basics, points out the watercress for iron, the packets she's bundled together to pour into a blender for some truly unappetizing smoothies. It will take at least a week to get her body to realign, to make sure it's properly absorbing vitamins and minerals, for heavier fare not to twist her stomach.
"How much water have you had?"
"24 ounces?" she guesses.
"Triple it, quadruple it, quintuple it."
24 x 5... Isn't 120 ounces a day a little much?
"I think they call that drowning." Belatedly, she hears how macabre that joke is, given...
She turns her head, so she won't see Stefan's expression.
Way to be heartless. Way to forget so easily.
"You should be drinking now."
Casey bites at her peeling lips, nodding mutely.
Charlotte squints at the unusual reaction, picking up on the change in mood. Casey pre-empts her so she doesn't sniff it out, drudge up the faux pas she's trying to bypass. "I usually get that urge when in your company."
"Really?" She asks, faking amazement. "That's interesting." She drawls. "I wonder if I have enough lotion for those rashes to spare..."
Casey fights the inevitable fold. "I guess I'll just get calamine at the store."
"If you think it would work just as well," she simmers.
Neither blink.
She wouldn't.
But...
Casey pouts, addressing her defeat to the ceiling. "I'll 'quintuple' it," she repeats obediently.
"You better," Charlotte easily returns to her task, naming the items she's placing in the crate. "Fever reducers. Pain killers. Bandages. Lotion. Soap. You should use it for your hair as well."
"Can't I just pick-up something hypo-allergenic?" She frowns at the end of her braid that Charlotte plaited for her. It's already going to be a pain combing it out with an aching hand, but drying it out with soap as well?
Charlotte waves it off. "You can put up with it for two weeks." Then she hesitates on the last items. "This is to check your vitals," she announces, somber. Charlotte carefully, too carefully, sets them into the crate, the glass faintly tinkling.
"I wrote down the instructions. What you need to watch out for. What normal glomerular filtration rate you need to hit."
"I don't know what that is," she answers slowly, asking Charlotte what's going on.
Charlotte continues to stare down at the inside of the crate.
"For your kidneys," Stefan answers, after a pregnant pause. It's the first thing he's said in Charlotte's company, which up 'til now, she had found strange.
Charlotte turns to him. "And a bilirubin test," she trails off leadingly, testing him.
Stefan's eyes are locked with Charlotte. He's frowning. "To check for enzymes the liver cells release in response to damage."
Charlotte glances at Casey, ruminating over something, a distance falling over her expression, her voice. "She has to watch out for liver damage. Kidneys too. She can't skip meals, even if she has no appetite. Even if the last time she ate made her vomit. Right now, she's starved for nutrition. Fluids are vital. I've written everything I know that could possibly go wrong and what to do."
She doesn't know what Charlotte thinks is going on, but Stefan isn't her nursemaid, or her caretaker, or even her friend. "Char, Stefan met me last night."
"Most people die when they're ill because they dehydrate. Call her out if she brushes anything off. If she's in pain she won't tighten up like most people, she'll try not to move her body, drop her shoulders, keeps her muscles lax. If you grab her hand, and she keeps it loose, then it's bad and you need to–"
"He doesn't need to do anything," she interrupts again, throwing her hands up, purposefully throwing herself into movement to show just how fine she is. That's personal, too personal, things she didn't even know about herself. Is this what I do to people? No wonder people want to murder me.
"And it's not that serious," she glares at Charlotte, though her words are for Stefan.
"It is that serious," Charlotte swings to her, suddenly severe. "Which is my point! You need someone. If they have vampire blood all the better!"
Casey rocks back. The words 'if they have vampire blood all the better' echo through her.
What had Charlotte gleamed from the knife?
Charlotte drops her voice. "How it didn't kill you-" she chokes, bloodless as she tightens her lips from saying more.
Casey unclenches her fists, uncertain how to respond. How it didn't kill her... Is she saying the poison damaged her in a way that only vampire blood might heal?
She worries at her lip. "I've uh, built up a resistance to iocane powder –"
Charlotte glares. "Don't." Don't deflect. Don't joke. "You may not think much of the witch who used that knife against you, but someone gave it to her to kill you. And they gave her a nearly guaranteed killing blow. I studied that fucking knife. The curse hadn't been inlayed more than a week, which means it was for you. And it was dark. Your nerves would have been screaming like you were on fire –"
"I know what it felt like," she grits, low and harsh, telling Charlotte to stop.
"Look," she starts again, heavier, the anger to cover up her worry, draining. "Look at it from my perspective. You were almost killed, were dealt with something that needed urgent attention if you were going to stop it from killing you. And you had her phone. You had a phone, but you didn't call me. You didn't call me to break the curse. Instead, you-" she tosses her hand, waiting for Casey to tell her what she was thinking.
Casey doesn't have a good answer. It's...the magic of Mystic Falls is complicated. Draws you in like a web. She told Charlotte before, not to traipse in it, not to be tempted no matter what she hears. And that was a worry, a distant worry when she had Marie's phone in her hand.
More pressing was not knowing if the wound would kill her in minutes or hours.
She didn't want to call her friend, putting it on her to save her, when all she'd be doing is pointing her in the direction of her body. Unloading that trauma on her.
She also didn't want to drag anyone in if Marie wasn't working alone, if there was going to be someone waiting, watching at the bridge.
And also, if she's being brutally honest, she's used to fighting alone.
Charlotte sighs, wiping her eyes. "I've already shared this theory with him," she gestures to Stefan, who's watching them with his hands fisted in his pockets, an uncomfortable audience to Charlotte's anger and Casey's hurt, Charlotte's anguish, and Casey's guilt. "But...maybe they wanted you to intervene so that you'd break your vow. If he," she jerks her head to Stefan "was supposed to be there, and you were cursed with blood poisoning bound to werewolf venom, then that was to stop you from taking vampire blood. Casey, doesn't that sound...orchestrated?"
She knows she's right.
"You don't even know if this is about whoever you saved, or about you, or both. And you can't..." she bites her tongue, stops herself.
"I can't what?" Casey asks, resigned to whatever is coming, what Charlotte doesn't want to say.
She inhales bracingly, hands reaching out to grip the sides of the work bench. "You can't...pretend you still belong here." Her face crumbles in apology as Casey stiffens her shoulders. She spews the rest out, hating herself for having to say it. In some way, what she's been avoiding saying since Casey underwent her ritual. "You know it's too dangerous. You had to have considered this as your opportunity to pretend you had been taken out. To let Casey Shannon, die, and create a new life where you don't have to constantly look over your shoulder. And instead," she pulls in a hard breath "you came back to Richmond."
Casey stares out the window, hands clasped behind her back, gripping her wrists so tight she can feel the burn of ropes, like an imprint deeper than skin. At least she knows now, where this conversation is headed. Why Charlotte is stuffing everything she can into a care package. Why she wants Stefan to look after her health. Most of Charlotte's time, when she's not apprenticing, is helping people detox. It's how she met Casey.
And Casey still feels that connection, that gratitude for supporting her. But it's a shadow over Charlotte's perception of her now.
That Casey is inviting danger. That she's self-destructive.
That she needs to let go.
And that she needs to leave.
"Where'd you learn about filtration rates and liver enzymes?" She asks Stefan, eyes screwed tight while she fights the urge to vomit, again.
He gently extracts the last duffel bag from her hand, stows it alongside the others, and the crate, into the trunk.
"Do you really want to talk about this?" he asks quietly. This as opposed to something else.
"Ab-so-lutely," she sings, jaw ticking as she focuses on breathing through her nose. Way to show she doesn't need help. Please, something to fill the cobwebs in my mind.
He moves to sit on the edge of her trunk, hands flat and framing his hips.
"I tried medical school, once."
That surprises her. "When was this?"
"1946."
"The GI Bill?" she guesses.
He smiles slightly, self-deprecating. "I thought, after the war, if I accepted my limitations, I could handle it."
She opens her mouth, then closes it again, not sure what to say. He had been an ambulance driver in the war, had seen to wounded. Did he enter med school because, impossibly, he had controlled it for a time? It doesn't compute with what she knows about him.
There's plenty you don't know.
"That was a long time, to still remember it," she murmurs, curious.
She takes the seat next to him in the open trunk, the crate sharp and unyielding against her back.
"Vampires have long memories," he shrugs.
She knows it doesn't work that way. To remember something he couldn't put into practice, so many years later, speaks to passion and yearning.
"Do you think you'll try again?"
He frowns, looking down at his hands. "I don't think that's in the cards for me anymore."
She has the urge to touch him. Her palm between the wings of his shoulder blades.
She doesn't indulge it, in reaching out, but instead leans to knock her shoulder very gently against his. She sways back before he glances over at her, looking up from the daylight ring he twirls against his knuckle.
"I don't know," she declares, considering. "You could apprentice like Charlotte."
His brows furrow.
"It's not a traditional degree, or title, but it is a practice, and there's a plethora of medical knowledge you could learn." He doesn't say anything. "In places like this, in the enclaves, the apothecarist is the doctor. And you could work around the blood. It's mostly knowing remedies, more than actual wounds. Knowing what different curses look like, poisons." She turns over her hand.
He looks down at her hand, the wound hidden by a bandage and a white glove. "Are there any vampire apothecarists?" he asks, like the start of a joke.
She smirks, knowing which one to mention. "Yes. Pearl, from back in 1864."
A memory, or a different time slips over his eyes. "Pearl. Is she one of the vampires in the tomb?"
Maybe she shouldn't have brought it up. "Yes, she is."
He nods absently, weighed now, with the knowledge of one face, one identity, to the circumstances of the tomb vampires.
She turns her gaze back to the road, swinging her feet slightly as the tips of her toes touch the pavement.
"If...you prefer to stay in human society then there are ways you could look like you're aging, with magic. Maybe be a...pharmacist?" her voice turns higher at the end, unsure. "I mean, you don't have to...jump into this," this society he knows little or nothing about, about 160 odd years trying to fit in the human one "to get a version of something you want."
"Something I want," he repeats, muses, brows sardonic, but tone like it's something he barely remembers.
It's a reflection she knows well.
He offers to drive. It's easy to allow him. She might have made the journey, part of the journey, last night, but that was backwards and in the dark. He doesn't need to comment on her wane appearance, though it's there in his offer. She doesn't have to pretend her right grip, and her wrists, don't ache when she touches anything, though it's there in her answer.
"How did I never know about this place?" Stefan wonders, glancing at the boarding house, at the sliver of the apothecary visible behind the alley.
"The apothecary or the boarding house?" she asks as she drops two water bottles in the cupholders.
"Either?" He focuses on the road, doesn't look down at her arrangement, the potential of Charlotte's instruction - to them both - hanging between them if he did.
"Why, thinking about turning the Salvatore Boarding House into the Salvatore's Supernatural Sanctorum Boarding House?"
"Well...I wouldn't name it that," he defends.
"Stefan Salvatore's Super-Secret Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Supernatural Sanctorum?" she offers.
And what would that acronym sound like?" his green eyes dare her before turning back to the road.
"Sssssss." She hisses through her teeth.
He closes his eyes, faking pain and secondhand embarrassment.
She ponders what a Salvatore Boarding House would really be like. Hadn't they opened their door to other vampires, not even knowing why Rose, or Rebekah, or Sage had felt comfortable? Hadn't multiple vampires just assumed?
"Well, you're familiar with some sanctuary magic," she starts with.
He raises his brow at her.
"It's one of the principles of having to invite vampires inside," she explains.
His brows furrow. "I thought it was –" he stops, hesitates "about not inviting evil in."
"What?" She makes a face. "No," she denies vehemently.
He's curious at her reaction. "Then what is it?"
She grabs one of the water bottles, looks down as she twists off the lid while she thinks. "It's older than vampires. It's – well some of it is magic of the hearth and home, but it's to prevent the spirits who linger on from entering a domain they haven't been invited into. Just their presence alone will make the occupants more susceptible to maladies and misfortune. So, it's a sanctuary linked to thresholds. Vampires fall under it because to become a vampire you had to die. Actually die. Not mostly dead or partly dead, dead-dead. You crossed the threshold of the veil, so you can no longer freely cross the threshold of a domicile."
She doesn't say that vampires are basically parasitic spirits inhabiting their own corpse. It's a disturbing way of looking at it, but that's why sanctuary magic acts the way it does.
Stefan runs his hands across the bottom part of the steering wheel, staring out at the road pensively.
"How many people know that?"
She twists her mouth. "How many people care? Where'd you hear it was about inviting evil? A witch?" He nods. "Well it's wrong, but pretty on brand. I haven't met a witch who wasn't at least a little self-righteous. Even when they know they should question their prejudice, there's so much of it they don't realize how much they've built their understanding on. Especially their relationship with magic."
"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things," Stefan quotes Descartes, in-tune with her meaning, something she's tried to explain so many times.
He glances over, feels her gaze just as she skirts it away before they can connect.
"If you used to be a witch, does that mean you fall under the category of...a little self-righteous?" he teases.
"Noooo," she denies, surprised at her own smile. "I try not to be," she answers, much more honestly. "I-"
It's instinct to cut herself off, but mostly, she's rarely felt the urge to try to explain it at all. Not since the ritual. Not even to Charlotte. Her voice drops to a hush, strangled slightly as it stops and starts. "I had the ability to...see through other people, and... see through myself. Let's say the basket of apples were tipped over for me."
He nods in understanding. "I think I'm still sorting through mine," he muses, ruefully.
She huffs on a laugh.
Tip of the iceberg, Stefan.
But then, he's already realized that too.
"There's this place in New Orleans, the St. James Infirmary. Is that magic similar to the boarding house you were staying in?"
"The St. James Infirmary?" she repeats, wondering if the conversation earlier has him reflecting on New Orleans.
He tries to read is she's kidding by repeating it, given how famous the site is.
She waves it off. "I mean, as a sanctuary it's a league above the Brookland. If Marie had been tracking me, when I passed the threshold of St. James, the wards would have dispelled it, distinguished it from..." her throat closes on 'my own magic'. She frowns, rubbing her arm through her gloves to help with the itch. "From innate magic. Like your daylight ring. If you stood in a patch of sunlight, the ring would still work. How does it know which magic to block and which to allow to protect the patrons? That's what's fascinating. Most people call it a 'magic free' zone, but if the wards truly created a magic free zone, then daylight rings wouldn't work. Vampires would die of whatever killed them when they turned as they stepped through the door."
His hands slacken on the wheel. "That's possible?"
Travelers have been trying to create one for two thousand years. Some have succeeded, but the barriers can never stay up for long. "In New Orleans?" She steers her answer, to not get into the travelers. "It would be a kamikaze strategy. Messing with the magic of New Orleans at that level would be...really dangerous. Sink the city level dangerous."
And they don't have the power for it. Not unless they used something like the power of the Harvest Girls, delved deep into sacrificial magic.
"How bad is it in New Orleans?" and there's a weight to his question, as he wonders if the New Orleans witches are in a desperate enough situation that they would attempt it.
She runs her tongue over her teeth as she thinks about it, takes another sip of water to sooth her throat.
"It's...alright. For the average tourists. Marcel keeps the vampires in enough order that they keep their human kills low. They spread flyers in the streets for young people to come to them, ply them with booze, give them a party. Partake. Compel. Send them away thinking New Orleans is the place to be and they should spend their money like it's no tomorrow."
She finishes off the water bottle.
"And for the locals? People like Gab?" He wonders.
"Well...the vampires are like an occupying force. One that doesn't think much of the dignity of the locals. If they contest it, they die. If they keep their head down, they might be left alone. If they profit, they live with it. For witches, he's the boot on their neck. Werewolves in the city, if found out, are killed outright. Marcel has this thing about not killing kids, which allows him to justify the rest. So, when he had the power for it twenty years ago, he went biblical. Killed the adults, the elders, the fighters in the packs, and left the kids. Left the ones that hadn't triggered their curse. He sent the baby of two leaders he killed into foster care." She wonders at that. If after holding her he didn't want to envision ever having to kill the adult version of her. Or if it was just another way of nullifying a future enemy. "A few months ago he enacted a curse for the ones still living in the bayou outside the city, to live as wolves for every night but the full moon."
"Because they weren't kids any longer." His brows pinch. "How did he get a witch to do that?"
"Well, she's a horrible person," she answers blithely. "But I guess the same reason other witches work for him even with what he's done. She found profit in it."
He mulls it over, hands skimming the steering wheel back and forth.
"Are werewolves that deadly to vampires?" He wonders after a thoughtful pause.
Did she tell him the danger of a werewolf bite already? She doesn't think so.
"How did...?"
"What you said about werewolf venom," he stops. "Which sounds ridiculous."
She cocks her head. "That's a witch's doing actually. Ingenious. She literally modified the werewolf curse by bloodline so that the protection would follow hereditarily. She saved the species. It's rare, really, really rare to meet a werewolf who doesn't carry venom. The ones without that defense were decimated."
He shakes his head, looking amused and something else as he smiles. "I feel like every conversation with you is this revelation."
She smirks. "Thank you."
He huffs a laugh, short and quiet, green eyes amused. "Werewolves. Doppelgängers. The comet. The tomb. Katherine. Spinnetods, I don't... I still can't tell if you're joking about dragons, but...venom. Why venom?"
She frowns to herself. "Did you ever ask this before?"
His brow lifts. "Before?" he asks wryly.
"When you found out about werewolves," she closes her eyes, trying to remember. "Damon was... skeptical. Thought if he hadn't seen one yet then they didn't exist. I remember the Don Chaney jokes. You knew someone wasn't a vampire but had supernatural strength and speed and pretty easily accepted the possibility. But...I don't remember you asking questions about venom. Or even caring how the bite worked." She squints, something else occurring to her. "Don't wolf spiders have venom?"
He exhales slowly. "A werespiderwolf?"
She can't believe... "You know," she clears her throat "I'm used to seeing behind the curtain, but do you want to lose all your sense of wonder? To not get moments like this, where you literally just said werespiderwolf?"
He drops his head slightly on a sigh, voice desert dry. "I'll take my chances."
"Fineeee," she capitulates, lips twitching. "It's not...actual venom. It's just something unique to their saliva when they're a wolf. It's actually a modification of the rabies virus that works symbiotically with the host, only effecting vampires." She shrugs. "Werewolf venom became the colloquial."
"So, a werewolf bite can kill a vampire," he taps his fingers against the bottom of the wheel as he thinks it over.
"Yes."
"Does it follow the symptoms of rabies, for the vampire?"
She thinks about Rose, and Damon in particular. "Yes."
He frowns, not needing to imagine far what a rabid vampire would look like.
"Is there a cure?" he looks over at her as he asks.
She hesitates. The answer to that is attached to things he doesn't know yet. Shouldn't know yet?
"Do you think I'm taking something away from you, by telling you? Is it better for you to find this out on your own? I mean, you always seem to investigate when you need to know something, and find the answers for yourself...If I deprive you of the need to do that, maybe you'll miss something important because you didn't know to keep asking."
"Casey," he interrupts, eyes clear and understanding. He shakes his head. "You don't have to tell me." And he says it so finally, that she knows he's talking about all of it, not just cures for werewolf bites. In this moment, he means it. When Damon is bitten, he won't. When he learns about the Sun and Moon curse, he won't.
So, she can't believe him. Sweet now, but with a bitter aftertaste.
She mulls it over, wondering if her worries are right, or if it's just an excuse. A regret after the course has been laid.
What am I letting you return to, Stefan Salvatore? How many ways have I fucked up your life?
If you're going to live, shouldn't you know more, can you survive the crumbs doled out by fate? The bit of fact wrapped in fiction?
She rubs at her thighs, careful not to put too much pressure with her right hand.
"I guess the butterfly has already flapped it's wings. I told you things you wouldn't find out for months." She pauses. "It's just the cold light of day, I guess." A lot has changed, since last night.
She turns sideways in her seat to face him directly. "Yes, there's a cure. Very out of reach at the moment, but...with magic, there's always something that counters something else."
"Like cursed werewolf saliva."
"Or daylight rings," she agrees.
He extends his hand as he looks at the blue stone and silver inlay, voice changing as he recalls something. "Why did your friend Gab call it the original spell?"
She blinks, wondering if the universe is doing this to her. She sedately goes through the motions of twisting off the cap of her water bottle, taking enough gulps to quince her dry mouth before twisting the cap back on. Stefan looks over at her when she finishes, annoyingly patient. "Okay," she wipes the corner of her mouth. "There's original with a lower-case spelling and Original with a capital. Daylight rings are Original with a capital. An Original – hear the capital - spell."
"And what is original," he changes his voice to mimic "'with a capital'?"
"With a capital it means the Original witch who created the Original spell and made the Origin-als. The origin of the modern vampire species, and the paterfamilias, and matriarch of the six sirelines."
"Modern vampires?" he repeats, taken back.
She waves her hand like she's reintroducing herself. "Man behind the curtain."
He shakes his head, this time without ducking his head when he smiles. "So, there is more than one type of vampire?" He asks with interest.
She twists her water bottle in her hands. "Only if you're talking to someone pedantic. Which I am." She admits, ruefully. "It's just - there are other creatures that drink blood to survive, going as far back as Mesopotamia. What characterizes the vampire – your vampire – from creatures before it is," she starts to tick off with her fingers "you don't shapeshift, feed off of energy, or consume flesh. You have a body, not a shade. You had to die to transition. You have fangs that extract. You have the human visage and the vampire one. You have the power to compel, to see into someone's mind. You're hurt or weakened by sunlight and vervain. You're killed by a wooden weapon to the heart. Your blood can heal others. If digested prior to death is triggers the transition. That basically makes up the modern vampire, and those weaknesses and strengths and characteristics come from the Original family. But there are variants that don't click all those boxes, failures and successes that are older, so I just find" she uses air quotes "'the Original family' kind of a pretentious. The Original witch is such an ironic name because she's a plagiarizer."
Stefan's mouth parts, then closes, rethinking the questions that are tumbling through his head. "Okay," he starts slowly, digesting it "but why create vampires?"
She smiles in sympathy, hearing his own feelings in the question. She keeps her eyes on her twisting water bottle. "Because she didn't want to lose any more of her children," she answers in an undertone.
He draws back in surprise. "They were a family?"
"Still are, though the bonds are pretty strained right now."
His brows pull together. "I've never heard of any of this. I mean, I've heard a rumor, a theory that a witch created the spell, but...I thought it was something that had gone wrong."
She nods agreeably. "You might have known more, once," she admits without looking at him. "It's a skill of an Original, to compel other vampires. They have their own reasons, which have likely changed on different whims, to hide their own mythos, to make enemies...even friends, forget them."
He's quiet for a long moment, reading her. "Casey," he hesitates, sighing her name. She feels it sit in her chest.
She tries to smile as she looks over at him, dropping her feet back to the floorboard. "Heard any rumors on where the vampire species originated?"
"Transylvania," he guesses, his brows still heavy, voice not quite meeting the pitch for a joke.
She shakes her head. "Older." As in, older than Vlad. "Think something so ridiculous you wouldn't believe it."
"Somewhere very sunny," he muses.
She gestures for him to make a more substantial guess, so he throws out with the same cavalier, not even trying when he has no idea.
"Australian Outback."
"Less ridiculous."
He thinks on it more seriously, his knuckles briefly touching his mouth as he takes it off the steering wheel to shift in his seat.
"Delphi?"
"Delphi?" she parrots, a bit thrown.
He shrugs. She's staring at him without blinking, waiting for him to say why and how the hell he made that guess.
"It's where Zeus placed the Omphalos stone to mark the center of the world," he smiles wryly. "I thought it would be a hell of a coincidence, given the Oracle of Delphi myth," he looks at her pointedly.
"That's...incredibly intuitive," she admits. It's not...right, but it's not wrong. "Think closer to home."
"Closer to Mystic Falls?" he asks with a touch of sarcasm.
She waits for him to look over and raises her brow.
Notes: The Delphi being the place for the origin of vampires not being a wrong answer is because I'm making that the place where Silas and Amara became immortal. Haven't decided yet if Stefan should be a Silas doppelgänger.
next: mayhaps
Back in Mystic Falls. Zach. The gang goes digging.