Лиза Смит - The Return - Nightfall

“Do you want to come and check?” he asked, turning his head virtuously away.

“Yes, I do.”

He remained with his back to her as she approached the tub, plunged her hand into the warm pink water, and swished the towel a little. He heard her let out her breath in relief.

When he turned around she said, “There’s blood on your mouth.” Her dark eyes looked darker than ever.

Damon was surprised. He hadn’t gone and pierced the redhead out of habit and then forgotten it, had he? But then he realized the reason.

“You tried to suck the poison out, didn’t you?” Stefan said, throwing him a white face towel. Damon wiped the side Meredith had been looking at and came up with a bloody smear. No wonder his mouth had been stinging like fire. That poison was pretty nasty stuff, although it clearly didn’t affect vampires the way it did humans.

“And there’s blood on your throat,” Meredith went on.

“Unsuccessful experiment,” Damon said, and shrugged.

“So you cut your wrist. Pretty seriously.”

“For a human, maybe. Is the press conference over?”

Meredith settled back. He could read her expression and he smiled inwardly. Extra! Extra! SCARY MEREDITH THWARTED. He knew the look of those who had to give up on cracking the Damon nut.

Meredith stood up. “Is there anything I can get him to stop his mouth bleeding? Something to drink, maybe?”

Stefan just looked stricken. Stefan’s problem — well, a part of one of Stefan’s many problems — was that he thought feeding was sinful. Even to talk about.

Maybe it was actually kickier that way. People relished anything they thought was sinful. Even vampires did. Damon was put out. How did you go back in time to when anything was sinful? Because he was sadly out of kicks.

With her back turned, Meredith was less scary. Damon risked an answer to the question of what he could drink.

“You, darling…you darling.”

“One too many darlings,” Meredith said mysteriously, and before Damon could figure out that she was simply making a point about linguistics, and not commenting on his personal life, she was gone. With the traveling bra.

Now Stefan and Damon were alone. Stefan came a step closer, keeping his eyes off the tub. You miss so much, you chump, Damon thought. That was the word he’d been searching for earlier. Chump.

“You did a lot for her,” Stefan said, seeming to find it as hard to look at Damon as at the tub. This left him very little to stare at. He chose a wall.

“You told me you’d beat me up if I didn’t. I’ve never cared for beatings.” He flashed his dazzling smile at Stefan and kept it up until Stefan started to turn to look at him, and then turned it off immediately.

“You went beyond the call of duty.”

“With you, little brother, one never knows where duty ends. Tell me, what does infinity look like?”

Stefan heaved a sigh. “At least you’re not the kind of bully who only terrorizes when he has the upper hand.”

“Are you inviting me to ‘step outside,’ as they say?”

“No, I’m complimenting you on saving Bonnie’s life.”

“I didn’t realize I had a choice. How, by the way, did you manage to cure Meredith and — and…how did you manage?”

“Elena kissed them. Didn’t you even realize she was gone? I brought them back here, and she came downstairs and breathed into their mouths and it cured them. From what I’ve seen, she seems to be slowly turning from spirit to full human. I’m guessing it will take another few days, just from looking at her progress since she woke up until now.”

“At least she’s talking. Not much, but you can’t ask for everything.” Damon was remembering the view from the Porsche, with the top down and Elena bobbing like a balloon. “This little redhead hasn’t said a word,” Damon added querulously, and then shrugged. “Same difference.”

“Why, Damon? Why not just admit that you care about her, at least enough to keep her living — and without even molesting her? You knew she couldn’t afford to lose blood….”

“It was an experiment,” Damon explained painstakingly. And it was over now. Bonnie would wake or sleep, live or die, in Stefan’s hands — not his. He was wet, he was uncomfortable, he was far enough from this night’s meal to be hungry and cross. His mouth hurt. “You take her head now,” he said brusquely. “I’m leaving. You and Elena and…Mutt can finish—”

“His name is Matt, Damon. It’s not hard to remember.”

“It is if you have absolutely no interest in him. There are too many lovely ladies in this vicinity to make him anything but last choice for a snack.”

Stefan hit the wall hard. His fist broke through the ancient plastering. “Damn it, Damon, that’s not all there is to humans.”

“It’s all I ask of them.”

“You don’t ask. That’s the problem.”

“It was a euphemism. It’s all I plan to take from them, then. It’s certainly all I’m interested in. Don’t try to make-believe that it’s anything more. There’s no point in trying to find evidence for a pretty lie.”

Stefan’s fist flew out. It was his left fist, and Damon was supporting Bonnie’s head on that side, so he couldn’t lean away gracefully as he normally would. She was unconscious; she might take in a lungful of water and die immediately. Who knew about these humans, especially when they were poisoned?

Instead, he concentrated on sending all his shielding to the right side of his chin. He figured he could take a punch, even from the New Improved Stefan without losing his hold on the girl — even if Stefan broke his jaw.

Stefan’s fist stopped a few millimeters away from Damon’s face.

There was a pause; the brothers looked at each other across a distance of two feet.

Stefan took a deep breath and sat back. “Now will you admit it?”

Damon was genuinely puzzled. “Admit what?”

“That you care something for them. Enough to take a punch rather than letting Bonnie go underwater.”

Damon stared, then began to laugh and found he couldn’t stop.

Stefan stared back. Then he shut his eyes and half-turned away in pain.

Damon still had a case of the giggles. “And you th-thought that I cuh-cared about one little hu-hu-hu…”

“Why did you do it, then?” Stefan said tiredly.

“Whu-whu-whim. I t-told y-yuh-you. Just wuh-huhhuhuha…” Damon collapsed, punch-drunk from lack of food and from too many varying emotions.

Bonnie’s head went underwater.

Both vampires dived for her, head butting each other as they collided over the center of the tub. Both fell back briefly, dazed.

Damon wasn’t laughing anymore. If anything, he was fighting like a tiger to get the girl out of the water. Stefan was, too, and with his newly sharpened reflexes, he looked close to winning. But it was as Damon had thought just an hour or so earlier — neither one of them even considered cooperating to get the girl. Each was trying to do it alone, and each was impeding the other.

“Get out of my way, brat,” Damon snarled, almost hissing in menace.

“You don’t give a damn about her.You get out of the way—” There was something like a geyser and Bonnie exploded upward from the water on her own. She spat out a mouthful and cried, “What’s going on?” in tones to melt a heart of stone.

Which they did. Contemplating his bedraggled little bird, who was clutching the towel to her instinctively, with her fiery hair plastered to her head and her big brown eyes blinking between strands, something swelled in Damon. Stefan had run to the door to tell the others the good news. For a moment it was just the two of them: Damon and Bonnie.

“It tastes awful,” Bonnie said woefully, spitting out more water.