Chapter Text
Dear Diary,
Two days ago I was preparing for the Miss Mystic Falls pageant, and learning how to dance with my newly cheerful, spontaneous boyfriend. Today I woke up on the Salvatores’ basement floor. Stefan is locked in the cell behind me, unconscious, and I’m the one who put him there. I want to believe in him, I really do, but he’s so lost right now I think this is the only way. He’ll see that, once he’s himself again. I know he will.
Across from her, Damon shifts slightly, and Elena pauses writing to glance at him – he’s sleeping sitting up, his head just barely tilted back against the brick, and sleep hasn’t softened him in the slightest – he’s still wearing his suit jacket for goodness sake, and he looks like he’s gritting his teeth. But he doesn’t wake, so Elena resumes writing.
Stefan is going to be alright, I’m sure of it. He’s strong, and he’s done this before, and now he has Alaric and me and
“Would it kill you to write in pen?”
Elena looks up; Damon’s eyes are still closed, but he’s assumed an expression of long-suffering. “No,” she says, underlining the word “strong” slow enough that the scratch of her pencil is even a little irritating to her, “but this way if you get annoying, I can stake you.”
He opens one eye to glare at her, wounded. “What did I do?”
“It’s still early, Damon, I’m sure you’ll come up with something.” He groans and then abruptly launches himself into a standing position – specifically, standing directly in front of her. He stretches. Elena very assiduously does not look up from her journal, but can’t help asking, “Don’t you have a crick in your neck?”
“Nope.” He peers over her into the cell.
“He’s not awake,” she says.
“Yeah, well,” Damon says, dismissive, “there’s enough vervain in those darts to knock out an elephant, if the elephant was also a vampire.”
“That tomb vampire, the one who kidnapped Stefan, he woke up almost right away,” Elena says.
“Stefan’s a massive lightweight?”
“Ha ha,” she answers.
“You should really get up,” he says, nudging her with his foot.
“Says the guy who was fast asleep five seconds ago.”
“No, upstairs.”
Elena shakes her head, firm. “I don’t want him to be alone when he wakes up.”
“And that’s great, Elena, but there’s stuff we’re actually going to need that you could help me with.”
“Can’t it wait?”
Damon rolls his eyes. “It’s not going to change the fact that you literally stabbed him in the back and locked him in a dungeon just because you’re sitting outside the door.” Elena snaps her journal shut and stands, half-wishing she could vamp-speed into his personal space and startle him for once. He just raises his eyebrows at her.
“What do you need help with?” she bites out.
“We’re gonna need more vervain,” he says. “And I prefer not to handle it myself.”
She winces. “Do we really need to drug him again? It’s so soon.”
Damon shrugs. “That’s what he did with me, and I still got out, so…”
“So,” Elena agrees heavily, glancing over her shoulder into the cell where Stefan is still lying, half propped up against the wall. I don’t know what’s happening to me, he said. I don’t know either, Stefan, but I’m doing the best I can…
“I’ll tell you the moment he wakes up,” Damon says, wheedling. “I have super-hearing, remember?”
“I know.”
He gestures at the stairwell, impatient, and with one look back through the bars on Stefan’s door, Elena allows herself to be herded up two flights of stairs to a guest room which has apparently been repurposed as a greenhouse. Elena turns in a slow circle; there are three grow lamps directed at a dozen or so slightly wilted but still living plants, and bunches of cut flowers hung upside down from the ceiling. "So," she says, conversational, “have you always kept a private stash of the magic herb that can knock you out?”
“Family legacy,” says Damon, hanging back in the doorway. “They used to be in the basement, but Stefan wanted to have a functional prison cell. Wasn’t my idea, if you recall, even if I have been stuck with gardening duty since.” Elena looks back at him, he bobs his eyebrows at her, then admits, “I should probably water more often.”
“Probably,” Elena echoes. “Do we need the fresh or the dry herb?”
“Either one seems to work fine. The dry is easier for me to work with, because the oil doesn’t get everywhere as much, but you can do whatever you want. There’s garden shears over on the windowsill. Go wild.”
“How do you work with it?” Elena asks, combing her fingers through the nearest plant to look for a likely-looking bloom.
“Gloves,” Damon says, “and swearing.”
Elena selects a flower, separates it from its neighbors. “Does this one look good?”
“It looks fine.”
“You didn’t even look.”
“It’s magic, Elena, not floristry.” But he maneuvers his way into the room anyway, pulling his fists up into his jacket sleeves and carrying his arms in front of his face like he’s just washed his hands and is going in to perform surgery. He stops behind her and leans over her shoulder to look at the flower. “It’s fine,” he repeats, snaking an arm around her to grab the shears. She has to resist an urge to push him headfirst into the plant like it’s a snowbank and they’re children, but he manages to brush his wrist against a flower anyway, and drops the shears. “Shit,” he says, snatching his hand back.
“I could have gotten them,” Elena says, picking the shears out of a flowerpot.
“Yeah, you could have. I hope you’re happy,” he tells her. Then, when she’s cut her chosen flower, “You’ll need a lot more than that, you know.”
She obligingly selects another, snips the stem. “I thought I could use a couple fresh ones with some of the dried ones? In case there is a difference of effect?”
He side-eyes her. “You’re trying to make this make sense.” Before she can answer he’s reached up, vampire-quick, ripped one of the bunches from the ceiling, and dropped it on her. “Shit, shit, goddamnit, shit!”
“What are you –”
Damon interrupts her, flatly, “You wouldn’t have been able to reach it.” Elena points at a chair in the corner of the room, he looks up from examining his burns. “Ohhh,” he says, “now you’re all full of good ideas and independence.”
“Are you okay?” Elena asks, for lack of anything better to say.
“It’ll heal as soon as I get something to eat.” He adds, fixing her with a suggestive stare, “Or someone to eat, if you’re still riding that recent wave of generosity.”
His fangs aren’t out, his eyes are…laughing. Elena responds drily, “I will take a bite out of this bouquet right now, Damon.”
He grins at her. “But how would you occupy yourself with both of us drugged?”
“I dunno, I’d probably work on my essay that’s due on Thursday,” she says, then adds, softly, “He’s still out?”
She expects him to roll his eyes at her, maybe say something dismissive like “Yes, Elena, I told you I would tell you”, but he stills, his eyes go unfocused. “His breathing is pretty steady,” he says. “He’s not as far under as he was last night, but he’s still asleep.”
Elena sighs. “It has to work,” she repeats to herself, the litany of the last twelve hours.
“It might,” Damon says, evenly, “but it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.” She nods, ducks her head to smell her armful of vervain so she doesn’t have to look him in the eye. She thought she’d become inured to the scent after weeks and weeks of wearing the necklace, but it’s sharper fresh. “You’re good?” Damon asks. “Happy with your painstakingly-selected magical death flowers? Then let’s get out of here.”
He sets her up with a mortar and pestle at the kitchen table, and she sits quietly, crushing flowers and trying not to brood, while he putters around the room, putting water on to boil and pulling out various dishes and sliding them over to her from a safe distance. The Salvatore kitchen, which she’s only now realizing she’s never set foot in before, is clean, organized, and roomy, which would make sense seeing as it used to be kitchen for a boarding house, but still comes as a surprise somehow. She’s only ever seen Stefan and Damon with water glasses (usually of blood) and tumblers (always of bourbon); apparently they also own frying pans, wooden spoons, and a punch bowl. Who’d have thought. But then, Damon did make an edible meal out of the assorted leftover ingredients he and Jenna found in our fridge that one night not too long ago, so he must be familiar with non-liquid forms of sustenance.
She hears the fridge shut and then, with that now all-too-familiar whoosh, he’s seated at the very far end of the table from her, transferring blood from a blood-bag to a glass. Elena finds herself staring slightly, definitely a little grossed out but also mesmerized. It’ll never get normal, I’m sure of it. Knowing everything that I know, having been fed on by Anna and Vicki and now Stefan, it will still never, ever be normal. He notices her attention and lifts his half-full glass to her in a silent, sardonic toast, but neither of them speaks, and after an almost companionable exchange of eye-rolls, Elena returns her attention to the vervain. This is what she can do for Stefan right now, even if it feels small and pointless. This is what will help him, even if it can only help him by keeping him weak. This is where she has to be, even if she would rather be downstairs, or home, or anywhere else.
She has all the vervain crushed and collected and is starting the complicated distilling process (Damon half explained and then gave up and put a book in front of her), when she sees out of the corner of her eye that Damon’s hyperactive fidgeting over by the liquor cart has ceased. She takes one look at his face and makes for the stairs; he vamp-speeds in front of her, throwing an arm out to stop her. “Damon!” she exclaims, indignant.
He places himself squarely in her way and hunches over slightly so he can look her in the eye. “He’s going to be disoriented. If you want him to stay calm, you need to be calm. Don’t get too close to the bars, he can reach through and grab you.” Elena starts to protest but he raises a single finger in her face and continues doggedly. “His withdrawal shouldn’t have started yet, but I’m pretty sure he’s been over-feeding for at least the last week, and that means he might start experiencing symptoms sooner than normal, and he might still be pretty strong despite the vervain.” Elena nods impatiently and tries to go around him, he steps into her path, says firmly, “Elena, do you promise me you’re not going to do anything stupid?”
She pushes at him ineffectually. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, yeah, you have no idea, Little Miss ‘I can’t wait in the car, I have to throw a wrench in the rescue plan because I don’t like to be left out’? And that’s not to mention the brilliant stunt you pulled to get Stefan close enough so you could tranquilize him. If there’s any danger, you like to throw yourself directly in front of it, so I’m just trying to make sure you don’t waltz into the cell right now and offer Stefan your neck.”
“I’m not going to offer him my neck, Damon, please! I just want to be down there with him, I just need to talk to him.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” But he inches slightly to the side, gestures towards the stairs. “He’s just waking up now. Calm, Elena.”
She doesn’t thank him.