Chapter 3: Overrefinement
"Klaus." Rebekah said slowly and sardonically, resisting the urge to step forward and knock him away from the vampire he was torturing, "is this really necessary?" She was referring to her brother having his hand buried in Damon's abdomen, making the younger vampire whimper weakly, incapable of more, never mind control.
"You're back too early darling," Klaus commented, peering inside the hole he made in Damon's belly with his head tilted as if he were studying anatomy.
"What are you doing?" Rebekah stalked forward, pursing her lips. Damon's eyelids flickered, his vision unfocused, yet she still felt as if he was giving her pleading looks.
"I seem to have missed the superior mesenteric artery the first time round, but no worries, I'll find it this time," he lifted a handful of bowels into the air and chucked them to the side. His victim shook and twitched, his strength failing his vocals.
"I'm sure he's ready for the compulsion," the blonde gulped, wincing at the sight of her lover's ashen face. This style of Klaus she had been referring to when she had said she could do torture on her own when having had kidnapped Damon not so long ago herself.
"Why don't you try it out then?" Klaus suggested as a way of testing his sister some more whether she was willing to play his game. Rebekah was eager to help, although one could discerningly say it wasn't entirely out of the love of the game. Kneeling by Damon, she lifted his head gently onto her lap, caressing the side of his face soothingly.
Flinching, his eyes opened and as soon as his pained and unfocussed eyes recognised her, his shaking visibly calmed a little. He gulped, grabbing her other hand, "uhgmm," he moaned and the eternal teenager couldn't be certain whether he was trying to say something.
"It's okay," she whispered pacifyingly, not quite feeling entirely at ease in front of her brother to voice her concern for Damon openly, despite how Klaus could hear her whispers all the same, "I'm here."
The werepire rolled his eyes as expectable, "you can pet your ducky afterwards. You know how I can't stick out your lovey dovey," he grimaced, "but I grant," he cocked his head leniently, "if you want to compel him yourself and spare him the additional pain of my compulsion, you should proceed."
Rebekah took control of herself nodding and used the opportunity as Damon was still focusing his attention on her, some part of him hoping that the blonde was really just a girl who loved blindly and recklessly even if it consumed her rather than the seductive woman who liked to hang with the far-famed Ripper and his pitiless "brother" and at this point in time, he was hoping this more for his sake than hers.
The original grabbed her jacket and pressed it to Damon's abdomen, knowing that what was to follow will cause significant damage and pain even so and cupped his cheek fondly with her other hand, "kiss me Damon," she forced the compulsion upon him.
The younger vampire pushed himself up on an elbow without thought, that's how the irresistible impetus of compulsion worked. The impulse of acting however didn't stop the anguish that the nerve endings from his whole maimed midsection sent to his brain. He gagged, spitting out blood, prompting Rebekah to hold her jacket tighter to his form, not being able to resist pulling him up a bit to aid his sitting up a little.
"I see we've got a proper new infatuation at our hands," Klaus commented on her actions, "how long's this one's going to last before you tire of his face and kill him or before he dumps you and you kill him?"
Rebekah didn't reward him with an answer, too concentrated on the struggling vampire instead. Damon leant on one hand, clutching his abdomen with the other arm over Rebekah's hand. Wheezing and with a paleness that made Rebekah fear he was going to pass out and fail the performance despite being compelled, Damon neared her, sweat breaking off his forehead and sticking to his bloodmatted hair. Rebekah pursed her lips, not being able to anticipate any pleasure coming from the kiss, but at least it wouldn't be too painful for Damon. He inched closer, clearly pained by the movement. The blonde braced herself for the impact as the black haired vampire didn't seem in control of his movements and wobbled dangerously, but he stopped an inch away and searched to look into her eyes again, this time deliberately. For a moment, the cloud of pain broke and he gave her a permitting look, one conveying tenderness and forgiveness. Then he closed the remaining distance and pressed his lips surprisingly unwaveringly and tenderly against hers. Rebekah closed her eyes, not fussing over his present condition anymore. He kissed exactly the same way as he always did; alternating gentle, soft and lovesome with fire and unbridled desire and she knew she was lured to him more than ever, stronger than any compulsion could ever impose. None of the encounter seemed forced, awkward or tense, making her forget about her brother for the moment. She brought her free hand round, wrapping it around him, tugging at his hair, pulling him in closer. Responding to his kiss, she captured his bottom lip between hers. He tasted like blood, never a bad thing. But she barely nibbled on it for a second when his body went limp with a low soft moan and tumbled into the original's arms. "Oh shit," Rebekah verbalized her reaction, and then quickly overcoming her startlement she adjusted the position of his body so that he was lying comfortably, with his head in her lap.
Klaus sighed, "What was that to prove again? That he's keen on getting laid?" He swept close, grabbed Damon's hand and pulled his daylight ring off, then pushed Rebekah's hand and jacket away from the gaping wound in his abdomen and dropped the ring inside where it slipped down past the severed bowels and the bloody mess. His sister watched with bottled indignation as Klaus grabbed Damon's head out of her lap by his hair, opened one of his victim's eyelids and compelled him anew, "fish your ring out."
Rebekah forgot to put her hand out not to let the back of her lover's head not hit the ground when the original werepire let go as she was too distracted by being conflicted. "He needs to be awake to be able to do anything, you know," the blonde grumbled, gathering the unconscious man up again. She bit the inside of her lower lip and raised Damon's head so she could kiss him. Gently probing his delectable full lips, she parted them with her tongue so that a small taste of her original blood that still lingered in her mouth after the small wound she made closed quickly could pass into his system, knowing that while it would not make much difference to his physical well-being, it was likely to make him stir enough to be aware of his surroundings and feel while she devoured the tantalizing cavern of his mouth roughly, pressing her body tightly against his. Rebekah backed off however when she heard him moan as it sounded more of coming from pain rather than pleasure.
Damon's eyes began to open slowly and suddenly their eyes were locked in a deep, penetrating gaze that gave away her sympathy for him and his gratitude for it. A second later he blinked, his gaze going downwards when his brain got to the state where it was ready to follow the orders of the compulsion. It wasn't the first time he had to bury his own hand into his abdomen angling for some splinters or bullets, but usually he had more of an idea of the exact location of the foreign objects.
Klaus watched with appreciation as he struggled. Of course the compulsion didn't give Damon any choice in what he was doing, but the werepire expected a lot more screaming, writhing and other manifestations of his anguish. While Stefan might've been master of diabolic eloquence with a rampageous crescendo, Damon had his own elect qualities that made him worthy and entertaining enough as a pet instead of his brother so he decided Rebekah was welcome to keep him once the messy Elena business was done for good.
His sister was firmly hanging to Damon's shaking form as he produced the item requested by Klaus, then let him sag back into her arms teeth clenched, eyes closed. Klaus didn't waste any more time zooming over and prying his eyes open again for the next compulsion, "let's not throw away the very good opportunity of the state you're in, shall we? This one will be a lot easier than the last one. We'll call Elena for you so you don't exert yourself and all you have to do is tell her to come and help you because Alaric wounded you to an extent you can't heal. Then it's just lying here as bait."
"Stefan will never let her come," Rebekah intercepted.
"That is why I'm adding this," Klaus twisted Damon's head to make him look into his eyes again, "you bring me Elena no matter what."
"It is not very characteristic for Damon to ask for help," Rebekah argued again, "I don't think she will fall for it."
"I think she won't resist the heroics of it," Klaus gave his own opinion, "especially if it goes against what Stefan says. Cute little couple. In the end, he'll follow her like a puppy."
"They are so plaguey when it is the whole Scooby gang's on the same ball," Rebekah complained.
"They won't all come," Klaus waved her off, "what a joke that would be. More than one person coming to Damon's aid is already a miracle. Laughable how hard he'd trying to make them like him."
"How does that make him any different than the rest of us?" Rebekah grumbled disgruntled, referring to patterns of her own and Klaus' relationships.
"Just wake him up properly," her brother dismissed any thoughts that could bring him to consider the similarities.
"I'd rather you weren't present when I did that," the blonde bundled Damon back into her arms, loosening the buttons on his trousers, "since I guess you don't want me to feed him so that his voice could sound suitably weak on the phone, I'll need to resort to more intimate measures."
"You're right, I've seen enough dicks in my lifetime," Klaus sighed and collected some of the blood bags Rebekah has left in the corner, "these will do for starters, but given I'm not even in my own skin, I'll need a bit more life in my nourishment to feel alive. Call me about the developments if I'm not back in time," he ordered, not questioning his sister's allegiance.
Rebekah waited till the werepire could not see what she was doing and grabbed a blood bag herself despite what she had previously said. She did not want Damon to hurt any more than he absolutely had to and never seriously considered bringing him to consciousness by sexual stimulation given the circumstances. It wasn't easy to mobilise the younger vampire in her care even so as Rebekah had to realize that quite a lot of the blood she had managed to get past the choking, spluttering sick vampire's lips was seeping out his unhealed stomach. Her jacket that she had previously been using as a compress got soaked through to an unusable extent, so she used her bare hands to slow the bloodflow and thus all the difficulties it took her a number of minutes to get Damon to focus on her somewhat, making her realize she had underestimated the damage Klaus had caused. "It'll be over soon," she soothed him, stroking the side of his face with the back of her bloodied fingers, then took to find his phone as Klaus had suggested so he could get things over with. She didn't need him fully cognizant for that, the compulsion would do its job regardless and maybe this way it was for the best. Bringing up the call log, she easily located Elena's number and held the ringing phone to the younger vampire's ears.
"Damon?" Elena's sleepy, but quickly sharpening voice sounded from the other side, "I tried to call, but you had your phone switched off. I know it was cause you didn't want to speak to me, but why, I thought you understood how I had to come back to Mystic Falls."
"Elena..?" Came the bewildered recognition, something unsettling Damon at the back of his mind to the extent he felt shame.
"Are you back at the boarding house? Something wrong that you call at six am?" Elena listened to her instincts, honed in on supernatural dangers after one and a half years spent dancing around them.
"Elena.." Damon repeated weakly, not sure of anything else.
"Damon, where are you? What happened? Are you hurt?" Elena guessed from the cryptic and enfeabled manner of the man she liked to think of mostly as her friend, "please tell me it is not a delayed reaction and that all your bloodline will be fine," the girl found she could feel like crying at a drop of a hat.
"They'll be fine, promise.." Damon found the strength in himself to reassure the young woman he couldn't stop caring about despite rationalising why he shouldn't, but the energy for the next part of the sentence came from the compulsion, "Ric did a number on me at the storage.." His voice slowly became a painful whisper.
"You still at the storage facility? Is Rick there? Can you get away?" Elena got out of bed.
"No humans.." Came the hardly comprehensible words, but Elena understood he could not heal if there was no blood.
"We're coming right now, but I'm sorry I'm gonna have to hang up to call Stefan. We will be there as soon as possible."
"No Elena, you can't!" His words came in a rush of frenzy that reminded the Gilbert girl how obsessively protective he could get over her. She sighed, shaking her head, "I'm quite sure that's how Stefan would like it too." Elena shrugged, "look, after all we've been through, I'm too tired for disagreements. I desperately need some sleep and if it means so much to you, I won't come. There. How's that for a change and trust in your judgement?" She said huffily. Seriously, how could Damon argue in the state he was in?
"No Elena," the vampire repeated, "to explain..wait..hard to speak," he ground out.
"It's ok. We'll speak tomorrow Damon, about everything you want, there's no need for you to struggle just now," she tried to pacify him.
"Stefan shouldn't come. Ric still out there..maybe close."
"You think it could be a trap?" Elena deduced. "I don't really want to bother Matt again, but I guess it'll have to be. Is that ok? Are you there?..Please indicate that you understood what I said."
"Yea.." Was the whispery, hoarse and tired response.
"Ok. Do you know what is the number of the storage units you're around?..Damon, don't pass out on me, do you hear!"
"Number.."
"Yes, the numbers, should be written around there somewhere."
"A hundred..somethin.."
"Hang on Damon, I'm on my way. Getting my jacket and keys at the moment. Do you want me to stay on the line?"
"My stomach..can't talk.."
"It's ok, it's ok Damon, you don't have to, don't exert yourself. See you in an hour or so, I can get there faster anyway if I don't have to hold the phone," she disconnected, launching into a run without a second thought. Damon would always be the last person to put her in any danger whatsoever at any time.
"I'm so sorry Damon that I can't heal you yet," Rebekah eased his phone out of his hand, trying to make him as comfortable in her lap as possible under the circumstances, "but it needs to look real when Elena arrives," he said to a doubly groggy Damon, still under compulsion, "try to relax, I've got you, I won't let anything happen to you," the original continued, more to herself than to a barely self aware conversation partner.
"It hurts.." Damon mumbled, something in his mind not making it possible for him to understand why he had to suffer without anything being done about his condition.
"I'm here," Rebekah squeezed his hand with what felt like a strong grip to Damon so much that his own comparative weakness alarmed him. "What's going on?"
"Nothing, it's alright," the blonde made sure Damon's eyes were locked into hers questioningly and used compulsion once more, this time to relieve his suffering, "go to sleep Damon," and watched as his eyes closed slowly.
Tbc