I do not own anything in this story. The CW created the universe, and I just play in it.
This is my first fanfiction. Please rate and review!
"Damon?" Elena ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Damon hadn't been anywhere downstairs, not even at his booze table, and she was afraid that the hallucinations had kicked in and he was already roaming Mystic Falls, unaware. "Damon!"
"Right here," his voice called weakly, and Elena flung his bedroom door open and hurried in.
She'd been in his room before, but not like this. Books, papers, and manila folders were spread across the floor, covering nearly every square inch of the Oriental carpet. The map of the world on the far wall was covered in pushpins and sticky notes. The curtains were thrown back, letting the sunlight stream in through the windows. And lying face down on the bed, fully clothed and nearly unconscious, was Damon.
"Oh my God, are you all right?" Elena sat down on the bed next to him and laid her hand on his cheek. His face was unnaturally hot to the touch, and shiny with sweat.
"Mm fine," he murmured, shifting slightly. "Mm drunk."
Elena rolled up his left sleeve, and gasped. The wound on his arm now spanned from hand to shoulder, and had swollen his arm to nearly twice its size. It was black and blue and purple and red, edged with yellow and green. She gently touched it with her fingers, and he cried out in pain.
"Damon, this is bad, this is really, really bad." Elena turned him over on his back and padded into the bathroom. Running a washcloth underneath the faucet, she brought it back to the bed and began sponging his face. "Have you had any hallucinations yet?"
"Nuthin' so far," he muttered, reaching up to brush a few strands of hair behind her ear. "Mm fine, 'Lena."
"No, you're not, Damon. We have to do something." Elena got up from the bed and started leafing through the pile of books on his nightstand. They were all on supernatural mythology—werewolves, vampires, hybrids. Pages were torn out here and there, and Damon had scrawled notes messily in the margins. "I talked to Bonnie, and she said that while she didn't know any spells or magic that could help, she told me about this—"
"I arredy fix it," Damon slurred.
"You what?" Elena didn't look up from the book. Damon was drunk—he'd had an entire bottle of bourbon earlier, probably to take the edge off the pain. "Anyway, she was telling me all about this waterfall. It's from mythology, and there's no actual proof of it, but there's hundreds of different tales about it and—"
"'Lena." Elena turned around to see Damon looking at her, his eyes half-closed. "G'bye, 'Lena."
"What?"
Damon murmured something else, but his eyes were already closed.
Elena scrambled over to where he was laying. "Damon, what did you say?"
Without opening his eyes, he motioned for her to come closer. She brought her ear closer to his mouth, her long hair falling over his face.
"Sun."
Elena drew back and looked at him, puzzled. Then her eyes fell on his hand. His right hand.
Which was ring-free.
Then her eyes flew to the rays of sunlight, slowly creeping across the bed.
"Damon!" she screamed, grabbing him and shaking him. His left arm jolted, and his eyes flew open in pain and surprise. "Damon, where's your ring?"
"Jes lemme go, 'Lena," he protested weakly.
"Damon, no!" Frantically, Elena tore through his sheets, searching desperately for his daylight ring. It wasn't on the bed, so she dropped the sheets to the ground and began kicking aside his books and papers. "Where's your ring, Damon? Damon!"
By now, the sun had already reached his face. Horrified, Elena watched as Damon's skin, his perfect, white vampire skin, turned red and began to burn, blistering and peeling and blistering all over again. His eyes were squeezed up against the pain, but he made absolutely no sound. "No, Damon, no, no, no!" She tried to pull him out of the sun, but he was too heavy. "Damon, your ring, where's your ring?" Her eyes scanned the mess of his room. "Damon!"
There was a blur, and Stefan appeared in the doorway. "What's going on?"
"Stefan, help!" It took all of a second for Stefan to register what was going on—the sun, Damon dying on the bed, the mess on the floor. In an instant, Damon was lying on the ground, safely in the shade of the bed, and Stefan was crouching down on the floor next to Elena.
"His ring's got to be somewhere here," Elena said hysterically, tossing a book across the room. "He's gone crazy, Stefan, I don't know why he did this."
"He's delusional," Stefan agreed, rifling through a pile of maps and charts. "The venom's gotten to his head, and with the bourbon, he's not exactly thinking straight."
"Here it is!" Elena triumphantly held up the little circle of silver, buried beneath a pile of library textbooks. Stefan grabbed it from her and jammed it back on Damon's finger.
Damon slumped back, the skin on his face a blistering red but already healing itself. "Don't wanna lif like this," he murmured.
"Well, you're going to live whether you like it or not," Stefan snapped. "So are you going to get it together, or do we have to lock you down in the cellar?"
Damon responded by giving Stefan a dirty look and passing out.
"He's down for the count." Stefan turned back to Elena. "So where were you this morning?"
Elena stiffened. She was still angry at Stefan, but they were both working to find a cure. And Stefan had just practically saved Damon's life. "I was at Bonnie's house. Get this: she told me that there's some mythical cure. Supposedly there's some waterfall in Virginia that has the power to cure werewolf bites."
"Then what are we even waiting for?"
"Stefan, hang on. That's not the whole story." Elena grabbed his arm. "Bonnie said that no one living today knows where the waterfall is. No one even has solid proof that the waterfall exists. And not only that...she told me about some Norwegian story. Apparently, there's some monster that lives at the top of the waterfall, and that's why no one has any account. The monster kills them before they can make it back down."
"Elena, we're vampires. We've fought the Originals, including Klaus. There can't be any monster that's worse than Klaus." Stefan turned towards the door.
"Bonnie seemed really scared when she told me. I was all for it earlier, but now I don't know if it's such a good idea. I mean, no one even has proof that it exists." Elena pulled out the book she'd taken from Bonnie's house earlier. "Look, these are all just ancient myths. Who knows if they're true or not."
"Well, it's a start, and it's all we've got to go on." Stefan knelt down and looked Elena in the eye. "We don't really have any other choice, do we? Damon is my brother, Elena, and I'm not going to let him die."
"Yes, he's your brother, but you're putting your life in danger," Elena argued. "I don't want you to die, either."
He stiffened. "Funny, I don't remember you caring that much about me yesterday."
Elena threw up her hands. "Are you seriously going to say something like that, Stefan? What do you want me to say? That I have feelings for Damon? Because I do, Stefan, I do. There, I said it. But you know what? I still love you too. And even though I feel something towards Damon, that doesn't stop me from wanting you to be safe, too."
Stefan was silent. Then he said, "What if it was Jeremy? What if Jeremy was dying? Would there be anything you wouldn't do in order to save his life?"
Elena stared down at the carpet. Stefan had said exactly the right thing, and now there was no arguing with him. "Fine. We go looking for this waterfall."
"That's the spirit." Stefan stood up and headed for the door.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Sorry it took so long to upload, I was on a plane all day. But now I'm home, and I have more time to write! xox
