That was one hell of an indigestion...
anyway, it's been quite a long time since I last made those two really banter, no?


Each a monster, part 29: Indigestion

Alaric left the hospital early in the morning, hoping foolishly that his cousin wouldn't have heard of his last injuries.

Foolish hope, indeed, but one had to hope if they wished to escape despair. That was even more true when one's last name was Saltzman, and completely unavoidable when combined with the first name Alaric. He had enough on his plate as it was, and definitely didn't want to deal with Theo. Unfortunately, Theo didn't share this feeling.

The one-eyed Saltzman was waiting for Ric next to his car, that Damon had brought last evening before checking on Elena.

The teacher didn't bother hiding his wince as he came closer to his plague of a cousin.

"Alaric."

"Theodoric."

Neither of them failed to notice their greetings were equally tense. Ric wondered why. Theo wasn't one to be tense about those kinds of things. Actually, the man was more prone to delight when he thought he could embarrass Alaric especially, because the latter usually felt it better to try and remind him of all his inhumanity, and Theo didn't like that at all.

"Something you wished to tell me, perhaps?"

Theo eyed him from head to toes, as if searching for something, and it took Ric a while to figure out he was actually searching for wounds. Good luck with that. The worst one was Elena's stabbing, which was hidden beneath his clothes, and the other, the knife wound on his neck, he had dissimulated with his collar. Besides, the wounds had closed upon his death, as always.

Well.

Not exactly as always.

Sure, the wounds had closed, but they hadn't disappeared. It seemed it was getting worse each time he came back to life.

The doctors had been positively astonished when he had been brought in, apparently unscathed though bloody as hell, and then they had seen that his organs were a mess even though his skin was okay. Meredith had been of great help with that, taking the lead and dismissing the question – that is, how in all hells had he ended up in this state?

He wasn't going to explain to anyone else that he had been brought back to life by a magical ring. To doctors even less. They'd laugh to his face, even if they'd have no other explanation.

"You look alright..."

Ric snorted, trying to control the discussion.

"If I weren't, they wouldn't have left me out."

"True enough. But when I asked the nurses how was my cousin yesterday night, they looked at me as if I had spoken of the Apocalypse. It seems you were a mess, but only inside. As if someone had butchered your intestines, but without actually breaking the skin. They were all rather puzzled, you know. Any explanation?"

"Indigestion."

Theo grabbed Ric's collar, ready to say something, but stopped before the words left his mouth. Two buttons of the teacher's shirt went undone. He stared at what was before his eyes, trying to give it some sense.

Alaric looked at his exposed skin, and remembered that it had also been a thing the doctors had been shocked to see. Thinking about that, Meredith had asked him to pass by her apartment one of these days, so she could get a better idea of what exactly was happening to his shoulder... He was certain it had to do with a ring, a curse, and a seal, so, in short, with magic, but well, maybe she could get him some painkillers.

"What the hell is that?"

Half of his torso was now red with bulging veins, all of which were coming from his scar. Maybe it was becoming worse because of the number of times he had died, or it could be that the short period of time between his last deaths was worsening it somehow. Eitherway, his neck, torso, shoulder and left arm were now affected, and Alaric was really hoping it wouldn't go further and show on his face. His face, he couldn't hide.

Now, five of the points of the star-shaped seal were constantly swollen.

Three left to go.

Wherever it was leading.

"Not your business, Theo. Now let me go, or do you want us to see if, when my scar is acting strangely, I can be as twisted as you, whose seal is already faulty? No? I guessed as much."

Ric drove right back to the Gilbert house.

Elena had insisted to clean up the house, and he could understand that she didn't want to stay any longer than necessary in a blood-soaked place. But it was his blood, and his mess to deal with. He already had a hard time believing he had asked her to finish him last night. Actually, he didn't remember it, but he guessed he had been in too much of a haze for it to be surprising. Still, he didn't want the girl to live too many traumatic experiences. She had already enough of those as it was.

So the teacher had planned to clean up everything that she might have forgotten the preceding night as soon as he'd get out of the hospital. Damon had told him over the phone he had had to force the young woman to quit it and go to sleep over to Caroline's when he had come to visit. The vampire had supposedly stayed at the Gilberts' all night.

Well, they could share croissants and gossip about their favorite murderers while cleaning the remaining blood stains, it'd be lovely.

As Ric parked near the house, he noticed that Damon was already out and waiting for him.

He got out of the car and walked slowly to the vampire. He had this disturbing feeling that his internal organs were some sort of slop boiling beneath his skin, and the upper left half of his body was itching to the point he had half a mind to rip out his skin with his nails. He wasn't going to do anything quickly today.

"You don't look alright..."

Alaric let out a laugh and decided the hell with proprieties. He hugged his boyfriend, and for a second he felt as if his pain was subduing. For a second.

Damon arched an eyebrow.

"To what do I owe this display of fondness?"

"Theo told me the exact contrary not half a hour ago. But that was before he got to see the state of my shoulder, of course. Then, his face told me he was thinking exactly along your lines."

They went into the house, and as soon as the door was closed, Damon started kissing Ric gently. In between two kisses, he somehow managed to ask:

"You showed your degenerate cousin your shoulder? Should I be worried?"

Ric broke away, a disgusted look on his face.

"What exactly are you implying, you depraved vampire? And don't think I haven't registered where your hands were going. You sending the kids away doesn't mean you can do whatever you want to me as soon as I get out of the hospital."

The vampire gave him his best puppy eyes, but the teacher remained unaffected. Finally, Damon threw his hands up in abnegation, muttering about how, anyway, he would have been the one to have things done to him. Matter of perspective, Alaric wanted to argue – but he didn't. The vampire sat on the floor and gestured for his boyfriend to do as much.

The teacher gave the blood-stained floor a critical look, but complied.

"You didn't clean anything after Elena went away, did you?"

Damon grined a damonic smile and started to undress the teacher eagerly. So much for abnegation.

"I thought it romantic to have our breakfast sitting upon your life force, so to say."

Ric rolled his eyes and surmised it wouldn't stop the vampire even if he were to point out that given Damon's actions, they were not likely to eat breakfast anytime soon.

"Guessed as much. It's frightening how I'm starting to find your creepiness predictable."

"That's love for you. Now, about your cousin..."

"Shut up."

"No, but you have to admit, he's good-looking, and we have the same hair color, and almost the same eye color, and..."

"Damon, do you want me to break your neck right now?"

"I don't."

"Then shut up."

And to give more conviction to his point, Alaric leant over his way-too-chatty boyfriend and sealed his mouth with his own. He was aching like hell, and really needed something – or, in this case, someone – to get his mind off the pain. Maybe it wasn't the wisest way, for he was certainly going to strain himself to death, but he needed it, and who had ever said him to be reasonable?

Anyway, it did wonders, seeing as Damon finally shut up.

Later, as they were lying on the floor, the vampire traced patterns with his fingers on his boyfriend's back, trying to get him to relax. He was worried about the scar too, but there was nothing they could do for now. Still, he was starting to wonder...

"Does it hurt a lot?"

"Like hell."

Alaric sat up and looked at the mess they had done. He felt a bit ashamed, and promised himself he'd never lose control like that again. Somehow, he had a feeling this particular promise would be forgotten one day or another, and he didn't like that at all.

"I can't believe we did it right in the entrance, and on the floor at that..."

He gave Damon a stern look, fully aware that his vampiric lover and this lazy smile of his were the true culprits behind his momentary lapse in judgement.

Damon, still lying naked and exposing his sculpted body for the sheer sake of arousal, smirked.

"See the good side of the coin: we already had to clean, we just took a little pleasure before that."

"And what if Elena had come back and found us having sex? Or what if she comes home before we get all... this cleaned up?"

Ric didn't like the look the vampire was giving him as he asked these two questions. It usually meant Damon had done something. And half the time, it wasn't something good, even if his boyfriend maintained it was. The teacher couldn't think of anything bad the other could have done about this in particular, but with Damon, he didn't stop to the thinkable.

"I bribed Vampire Barbie to keep Elena out of the house, and, consequently, out of our hair."

Alaric squinted, searching in the vampire's face a hint that he was joking.

He found none.

"You... bribed Caroline with what exactly?"

"You know, that picture of us kissing in bed."

The teacher stood up sharply and went to the kitchen – not without checking that all the curtains had been drawn, of course. He didn't exactly want the neighbours to see him strolling around the house naked. And he certainly didn't want them to see him naked and taking the bread knife to stab an equally naked Damon Salvatore in the guts until the unsufferable vampire begged for mercy.

Though, wicked as he was, his lover could very well end up enjoying it.

He had finally found the damned knife when Damon joined him in the kitchen and snatched a wooden tray to use as a shield.

"I knew I shouldn't have left you take that picture. I knew it. I just knew it."

"Erm, Ric, calm down and we'll get this breakfast, okay? Then we'll clean the entrance and the stairs, and after that we'll talk a bit, right? It'd be good if we had an idea of your killer's identity, don't you think?"

The vampire had known it was likely to turn out this way, but still, what was the big deal with the picture? It wasn't as if they had been doing things other than kissing, and they weren't even naked... Though the location of his hand had been easily guessable... And Alaric had had his shirt off... and both of them had had some pretty lascivious faces on at the moment... Oh well, he could see why Ric was angry, he knew the guy after all, and their definitions of propriety weren't exactly similar.

He had been so right to hide the camera on timer mode... Maybe he could try filming next time.

And all that – not even Ric's sexiness – didn't change the fact that the teacher had been killed the night before, and by someone who had fled without being seen. If there was someone out there able to outdo the Falkenbach and willing to have his hide...

Damon shuddered. Maybe it was time to ask Alaric.