Prompt: "Breathe, okay? Just breathe."
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"So remind me again why I'm here?" He asks, faking annoyance but it's written on his face that he's oh so enjoying this.
"Because I have few papers to hand." She answers with a smile. "Which I've already told you." She titles her head as they turn around another building. He should pay more attention to the place around him, it's his first time in a campus, probably not but for him it is.
"So you have papers to hand, why am I here?" He goes on.
"Because you are my responsibility." She says proudly.
"Huh, so I'm uh, like a case thing?" He raises his eyebrows and watches as she shakes her head with a laugh.
"That's not true! Even before the whole amnesia thing, I was always your sober sponsor." She beams.
"Isn't it supposed to be the other way? Since, you know, I'm older." He smirks.
"You might be older, but I've been always better than you at controlling blood lust, which you taught me in the first place."
"So, I taught you how to control your blood lust even though I couldn't control it myself?" He seems confused as he speaks those words.
"You were a great person." She shakes her head, looking down as they walk. And then she snaps and looks at him with wide eyes. "Are, you are a great person. That's what I meant."
He laughs, and she chuckles nervously.
"No, seriously, how did I do it? How could I teach you something I couldn't do?" He stands in his place, causing her to stop walking as well.
"I don't know." She shrugs, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. "I guess you taught me what you wanted to do, but couldn't do. And you were good at controlling it, you know? You managed to stay on animal diet which is hard to any vampire, so imagine someone with such issues."
He nods, satisfied with her answer but willing to hear more about him from her.
"You, uh, you controlled it very well, but it was always in you… the hunger." She smiles. "And so, every now and then, it took over you. But you always fought back."
"That must be tiring."
"It sure is, but you never got tired, even more, you helped a new vampire to control her hunger. I mean you could've just blown me away, we weren't that close back then and I definitely wasn't your responsibility. Yet, you helped me."
He looks at her eyes, the way she looks at him. He believes that she's thinking about him, and he loves the way her eyes look when she does.
"You really helped me, Stefan." She says, more serious than before. "You know? Sometimes I smell blood, when someone is cut, or when there're heartbeats around me and I haven't fed in a while, and I almost lose control. But then I remember this one time, back when you were teaching me."
She takes a step closer and takes his hand. And at first he's taken back but he manages to hide it. Besides, she's already busy staring down at their hands, apparently stuck in some memory.
"I couldn't handle the hunger, I was panicking and then.. you held my hand, and you told me to breathe. You looked at me and you forced me to breathe. Breath, okay? Just breathe."
She pauses for a moment, smiling down at their hands.
"And it always works, just like that, I control it." She looks at him then, smiling tenderly. "Youare my responsibility, Stefan. We are each other's responsibilities. You pulled me back all that time ago, and I'll do the same for you. Always."
When she pulls back and starts walking, he follows her. But there's only one thing in his mind.What kind of an idiot was I to be just friends with her?