Disclaimer: I don't own the Vampire Diaries or its Characters.
Warning: My medical knowledge is vastly inaccurate, so if you somehow notice something that shouldn't be the way it's been portrayed, just remember the fiction part of fanfiction.
Damon woke up slowly. His face scrunched up and he curled up before stretching himself fully and opening his eyes. Alaric couldn't help but chuckle lightly at the scene. Meredith was right. His visible wounds were all healed, even the horrific gash on his head was gone, leaving smooth alabaster skin in its wake. The cast they decided to leave on. If he woke up and it was no longer needed, it will be easy enough to cut it lose. They had also removed the IVs that were feeding him fluids and blood.
Damon startled at the sound of the chuckle. He peered at the owner of said chuckle and instantly felt more awake
"Shit" was the first word he could master
Alaric was tempted to laugh, but resisted. He adopted a stern disposition instead. "Good morning to you too, Damon. How do you feel?"
"Wha… huh?" Damon was confused
"Your leg. Can you stand on it?" Alaric continued the questioning. "How about your arm? Can you move it? Do you feel pain anywhere?"
Damon continued to stare stupefied, until a 'well?' prompted him along. He sighed deeply. "We're screwed, aren't we?" he asked
"Basically" Alaric agreed. "You still haven't answered my question"
Damon huffed and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "I'm fine Ric" he grumbled, then promptly proceeded to hit his hand against the bed violently, cracking the caste open. He tore it from his hand and repeated the process with his leg.
Alaric watched the display with some amusement. "Good. Get dressed and come downstairs. Elijah made breakfast" he said as he started to leave
"I'm not hungry"
"It wasn't a request" Alaric threw back over his shoulder before the door closed behind him. He heard the shower start to run as he started to descend the stairs
By the time Damon made it downstairs, everyone else was seated at the dinner table, Klaus and Enzo looking for the world like they wanted to be anywhere but there in that particular moment. They mirrored his feelings perfectly.
"Damon, you're up. How are you feeling?" Elijah asked, dressed immaculately as usual
Damon resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He knew they had all heard as he took a shower and hence knew that he was awake, but he held himself in check. "I'm fine Elijah. Thanks for asking"
Elijah gave a small smile. "You should dig in" he said, gesturing to the waffles. "From what I hear you haven't been able to get much in the way of sustenance in the last couple of days, needed or otherwise. You must be famished"
Indeed, Damon was starving, and for certainly more than human food, but the waffles felt dry in his mouth as he contemplated Elijah's words. When he had woken up with Alaric by his bedside, he knew they knew but now that Elijah had spoken, he wondered just how much they knew.
Elijah and Alaric watched their charges as they ate, looking anywhere but at the two of them. They were waiting for the other shoe to drop, and they weren't going to make them wait long. Elijah watched Damon as he saw everyone had glasses of blood except him.
"Dr. Fell said you had flu-like symptoms, and your friends here say you have been vomiting a lot. We thought not to risk it until we knew how well you've healed" he explained
"Dr. Fell? Meredith was here?" Damon asked
"Yes" Alaric answered. "And if what she said is true, and it's like the flu, then it would get worse before it gets better" Alaric added. "You would take fluids intravenously until we can figure this out"
"Does that include bourbon?" Damon asked cheekily under his breath, though it was heard clear as day by all in the room
Klaus had a small smile and Enzo hid his chuckle in a cough, but neither Alaric nor Elijah were amused. "This is all funny to you isn't it?" Alaric asked, a hard edge to his tone
That sobered them up pretty fast. "No. No, it's not" Damon answered quietly. He knew when to pick his battles and now was definitely not a good time. "It's just, I don't like needles very much"
"Well, I doubt anyone does, except maybe drug addicts. But you created this mess, and consequences are a bitch now, aren't they?" Alaric said, enraged. "Two weeks! That's all we asked for. And you couldn't not get yourselves in some kind of trouble during that time"
"Oh, I'm very sorry my being cursed got in the way of your little getaway!"
"It wasn't really our fault. We go out all the time. How were we supposed to know this time was going to be any different?"
"We are not children. If we wanted to go to a bar, why shouldn't we?"
"And that old hag was downright creepy. Who knew what…"?
"ENOUGH!" Elijah bellowed as he looked to restore some semblance of order. "You will shut your mouths until you have something sensible to say. You want to make an argument about not being children, yet you go around starting fights and getting into trouble just because you thought someone looked 'creepy'. What is more childish than that? And then to top it off, you foolishly decided to keep it a secret that one of you was grievously injured enough to need a human hospital. You still want to go around defending your maturity?"
That cowed them into silence, and Alaric picked it up from there. "You think we were on some vacation? Really?" he levelled at Damon. "And we know you are not children, Klaus, and you can go to a bar any time you damn well please. But hiding that a witch was involved in Damon getting magically sick? That was foolish. You are vampires. Your speed and your strength are amazing and all, but the boost to your immune system? That is what enables you to get out of most of your harebrained stunts unscathed. Compromising that can be very dangerous, and the fact that you don't get that or you just don't care about it makes me think maybe you are children after all" Alaric spoke, incensed. "Do you have any idea how it felt to have been on the receiving end of that kind of call?"
Damon turned to Enzo and Klaus. All this while, he'd thought Alaric and Elijah just came home early. To think his own friends were responsible… "You called them? What happened to figuring it out on our own?"
"You got hit by a car" Klaus replied without pause
"And fell into a coma" Enzo added just as fluidly
"Bonnie is at a boarding school in Switzerland, Damon, in case you've forgotten. You don't have the leisure of quick fixes anymore. We have enough people coming after us on an almost daily basis, you three are not going to add foolishly hiding being cursed and grievous injuries to that. I even want to know if you have a papercut" Alaric continued. He cut off Enzo when he opened his mouth to say something. "I'm not done. Since you seem incapable of not managing to almost get yourselves killed in the shortest possible time without supervision, Elijah and I spent all night coming up with solutions"
"Solutions? To what? Are we problems to be solved now?" Enzo finally got his say, frowning in bewilderment
Elijah didn't skip a beat. "Yes" he answered plainly. "Now…"
"No way. You can't be serious" Damon interrupted. "You want me to sit here and watch you give me rules on how to lead my life?" he chuckled humorlessly. "Whatever they served you on that plane must have messed you up really good for you to think that will happen" he added
"Damon…"
"What, Ric? I'm the victim here, and you want to punish me again? Not happening"
"Really?" Alaric said chillingly as he stood from his chair and stared Damon down. "The only reason you can sit somewhat comfortably in that chair and mouth off to us right now is because of your being a victim. So, if I want to give you an encyclopedia worth of rules that are meant to keep you out of trouble and alive, you will sit quietly and listen. But if you want to snark and whine, I can give you something to really be pouty about. Do you want that?"
Damon's head jerked up as the meaning behind the words finally caught up to him. "You wouldn't" he expressed, shocked
Alaric stood and pulled his leather belt from the loops. He slammed it hard onto the table, rattling the dishes and cutlery, and minus Elijah, startling the three errant beings at the table. "Try me" the words dripped with venom as he stared Damon down. Even Damon Salvatore had some measure of self-preservation, and he ducked his head in silent surrender. "Do either of you have anything you want to get off your chest now, hmm?" he asked Klaus and Enzo, who shook their heads quickly in unison
"Good" Elijah continued. "Now, first things first. I went to the bar last night to find the old witch who did this, but apparently, she was just passing through because no one has seen or heard of her before or after that night. That means she can't reverse whatever is happening to you Damon. I have a theory, but it would require us to observe you for the next couple of days to authenticate. If I'm wrong, we'll bring Bonnie back from school so she can fix it…"
"If you're wrong? Why can't Bonnie come now? Do you know how much it has hurt these past few days hurling my guts out?" Damon cut in, infuriated
"… Until then, Dr. Fell wrote a prescription for human flu drugs that we are yet to fill. You will take them. I'm not sure how much it will help, if it will even, but I'm certain it will not make you any worse" Elijah continued like he hadn't been interrupted
"I'm not gulping down any pills" Damon said firmly
"They come in suppositories too, let me point out" Alaric said matter-of-factly, the look he was giving Damon clearly stating which he would prefer
Enzo and Klaus couldn't help the chuckle that bubbled forth from them at the priceless look on Damon's face. He gawped at Alaric in shock, a faint blush tinting his cheeks. He then sniffed and ducked his head.
Elijah continued. "As soon as you are fine, Alaric and I have to go back to complete the meeting you pulled us out of, and you are coming with us"
"What?! Why?" Enzo screeched, unbelieving
"Because the meeting is important, and since you have proven your inability to contain yourselves and not cause a nuisance or get in some form of trouble without supervision, you are coming with" Elijah explained calmly
"But…"
"No buts Niklaus. Its final" he said. He dropped a piece of paper onto the table. "Now, this is the prescription Dr. Fell left. I'd like you to get it filled at the pharmacy. And Lorenzo, you pick up some more blood bags at the hospital" They both stared at him, uncomprehending. "Was I unclear? Go!"
Both young men scrambled to get out of the house and run their errands respectively. Being cooped up in a house with a seething Alaric and Elijah was not good for people's health. They felt a swell of pity for Damon as they split at the entrance.
Elijah turned his attention to Damon as Klaus and Enzo left. "You look a bit pale. You should head back upstairs and lie down"
Damon groaned. "Come on, I just woke up and I feel much better. I don't need to go back to bed"
"Alaric may be the strongest of us all but he's been a vampire for considerably less than either of us have. He still remembers the flu, so if he says you'll get worse before you get better, I'm more inclined to believe him" Elijah stated calmly. "And I've seen the signs. Blood makes you queasy, and until you can look at blood and see food and not a reason to vomit, bed is where you're going to be"
"But I'm not even tired" Damon came close to whining. "Ric, come on. All I've been looking at for the past couple of days are the four walls of my room. If I spend one more unnecessary second up there, I'm gonna kill myself" he added dramatically
"Fine" Alaric conceded. "You can stay on the couch and watch tv or play some games or read, I guess.
Damon practically gave a whoop of joy before settling down on the couch. Elijah frowned at Alaric's decision. He didn't understand why Alaric wouldn't agree with him to let Damon rest; the boy looked positively exhausted. He made to ask why when Alaric shook his head and shushed him surreptitiously before disappearing at vamp-speed and reappearing a few seconds later with a blanket. Elijah raised an eyebrow before realization slowly dawned on him. He chuckled as he joined Alaric at the dining table to wait. Sure enough, barely fifteen minutes later, the sound of a remote hitting the floor reached their ears. Alaric winked at Elijah as he stood up and moved towards the couch.
"You see, Elijah" he begun as he laid Damon more comfortably on the couch and draped the blanket over him. "Sometimes its easier to just give in and let nature run its course"
Alaric had a smug look as he poured himself and Elijah a glass of scotch, both of them sitting back and waiting for the return of two-thirds of their troubles.