Day 53: Sun Room, Morning

[scarefaux]

With breakfast finished and a new acquaintance made, the Scarecrow's mind turned to his other friends. The disappearance of Depth Charge's friend had brought back memories of how he'd felt when Kaiji went missing: helpless, useless, as though he should have and could have done something more to find him. If only he had his brain, then maybe he

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[saviored]

So Stefan wanted to talk to him. Surprise, surprise.

But really, Damon had wanted to talk to Stefan, too. He just never liked acknowledging as such so it was nice of his brother to pave the way instead. An unexpected yet useful outcome of the question he'd posed on the board. And on top of that, he had a tip to follow up on tonight. He wasn't sure who the anonymous helper elf was, or even whether the information was accurate-people, you know (and had it even been a person in the first place? He had to wonder)-but he was getting to the point where he no longer cared as much. He was hungry. Vampires were not made to go hungry.

He was not made to go hungry.

His gaze lingered briefly on the boy across the room. Lunatic from a couple of days ago, wasn't he? So not his usual type, but this was not usual. At the moment, his type was anything with a delicate set of veins he could tear open. He could do it, normally. Devour someone in public and leave before anyone even realize something was wrong

[broodings]

Once again, the nurses insisted that Elena (or "Samantha," as they called her) was fine, and playfully chided Stefan about how sometimes women needed their beauty sleep, although he didn't miss how she looked over his shoulder to a pair of orderlies standing by the door of the Sun Room. Once again, he was certain he could've fought past them, even killed them, weakened or not. For a whole three seconds, the temptation to kill rose high (-if he was fast enough, he could snap her neck, then drag her away from-) but he couldn't. He couldn't. He couldn't become that person again. Stefan had all but fled from the exit, and circled around the room a few times before finally realizing that there was no getting away from people here. He settled into a vacant chair instead, and buried his head in his hands.

What was wrong with him? His control was better than this, at least it had been before he'd been captured by the tomb vampires. And he'd gone this long before without drinking a drop of blood, usually when he was at his most self-pitying,

[saviored]

Stefan was hard to miss when he was circling around the room like a crow with a broken wing. Damon peered at him out of the corner of his eye. Something was up. Something beyond the usual

[broodings]

Damon... stayed in. Somehow, Stefan wasn't inclined to believe that his brother had voluntarily kept himself out of trouble - to give him and Elena some time alone, sure, as shockingly unselfish that might seem; but give them time alone as his primary motivation? Most likely Damon had tried to find blood and failed, and didn't want to admit to it. Which was fine, if Damon's failure meant Claire or someone like Claire was walking around vampire-bite-free this morning. And it wasn't as if Stefan had gotten any further last night, so he let it go.

Stefan sighed and crouched down in front of the couch so he could speak without being overheard. He still didn't know what to think of the nurses - whether or not they knew about the true nature of this workplace, whether or not they knew what he was - but discretion was second nature to him, and he wouldn't be careless with that many doubts on his mind

[saviored]

Ah, that long suffering sigh. Damon inched his feet just the slightest to the left when Stefan crouched down. He could tell Stefan was edging towards a big confession. Any minute now...

There it was. He tipped his head, surprised.

That was a fascinating tidbit of news. He'd seen the weird shadow magic thing last night, obviously. It was kinda hard to miss. But Stefan was describing something completely different. Well, all right, maybe not completely different, but his own shadow hadn't done a whole lot of talking, never mind attacking. Apparently, Stefan's had more pent-up aggression. How so not unexpected.

Perhaps Damon's just hadn't had much to power itself on. His brother had been near Elena at the time. Plus, Stefan was always just in a perpetual state of having a lot of feelings. The way his shadow had manifested couldn't be a coincidence.

"I saw something," he replied mildly. "Nothing special, though, it just sort of...moved on its own. Very X-Files." He crossed one ankle over the other. "But this isn't about me, is it. In

[broodings]

Stefan didn't miss that look of surprise, and mirrored it with one of his own. Last night, he'd seen his shadow do what Damon described, it was what happened just before it stepped out from the wall and started talking to them. Why didn't the same happen to Damon? Why didn't the same happen to Claire, for that matter? Before, he'd wondered if Claire and Elena's shadows had stayed normal because they had no dark sides to them - but how did that same logic apply to Damon, of all people? Unless... it was as that woman had said. Things you don't want to see. Things you've never wanted to face. The only thing his brother ever tried to hide was his humanity

[saviored]

Something flickered across his features-amusement or a knowing look or a little of both-that implied Stefan's reaction was only all too typical.

"Mm-hmm." Damon swung his legs off the table and sat up a bit, slow and lazy. He let the non-committal reply hang in the air with all of its unspoken skepticism attached. Can you, Stefan? What kind of blood? How many people did you think about tearing into this morning alone?Because they both knew better. Certainly Stefan did, or he wouldn't be acting so holier-than-thou over it. The only time his brother carried that kind of confidence was out of denial or when he was riding high on human blood, neither of which was very becoming of him. But it didn't need to be said, either. Stefan knew it, and better than that, Stefan knew that Damon knew it. And that was more than enough to hammer his point home with barely a brush over it. So if his little brother wanted to pretend they were here to talk about his decision to go find a bunny tonight, which was a bit like finding it necessary to announce

[broodings]

Stefan knew exactly what Damon was saying with that pointed silence, but ignored it with the experienced ease of a younger sibling. There were no doubts his brother could voice which Stefan hadn't already agonized over this morning - possibly Damon already knew that, possibly he even thought he knew the reason for Stefan's stubbornness. He didn't care. Elena believed in him, and for that reason alone, he was determined to find a way through this without hurting anyone.

When Damon straightened, so did Stefan, rising to his feet just long enough to reseat himself on the edge of the table. His gaze followed when Damon looked out at the rest of the room, and he didn't have to reach far to guess what was on his brother's mind. Hunger gnawed at him as well, but it occurred to Stefan that, unlike Damon of the Nonexistent Impulse Control, he was at least used to going hungry. Even gorging on a diet of animal blood had taken at least ten years to not feel like voluntary malnutrition, never mind all those times he'd simply given into

[saviored]

As always, Damon contemplated pressing the matter further. Stefan's promise to "do what he had to" was hardly an end to the discussion. But in the end, he decided he'd grant his brother the favour of dropping it. Nothing between them was ever truly finished, anyway. They'd danced around this for a hundred years, they could easily go for another hundred.

So instead, he turned his attention to something Stefan wanted to talk about for once.

"Of course I've noticed, Stefan. I do remember how it feels to starve for a few days." He didn't spare his brother the pointed look. He reserved the right to remain a little pissed over that episode, thank you very much. At the time, he'd always figured Stefan would have another go at staking him somewhere down the road; he hadn't foreseen that. In hindsight he should've

[broodings]

Although his arms were still crossed semi-defensively over his chest, Stefan's stance relaxed a little when Damon moved on from talking about his diet. He held no illusions that the matter was truly dropped - the cabinet full of journals in his room practically documented the unfinished business between them down to the day, year and amount of blood shed. Like... that, for instance. Stefan met his brother's pointed look with two raised eyebrows of his own, no more likely to apologize for that incident than Damon was likely to let it go. At most, he could admit to underestimating his brother, but it wasn't as if Damon hadn't done anything to deserve getting poisoned with vervain and locked in the basement. Of course, if Stefan's plan had worked, then Damon would never have had the chance to show himself to still be capable of compassion. Maybe it had been worth it, everything that had happened since

[saviored]

Yes, the whys of it all was a question that continued to plague. He knew what Stefan meant: they were used to people treating them as a threat because that was precisely what they were. If that was what was going on here, it would've made sense. But it wasn't.

Stefan changed the topic before Damon could say much on it, though. Was his brother worried he might feed on one of his new acquaintances? How Stefan of...Stefan.

For a moment, he toyed with how much he wanted to say. It wasn't some big secret-there was no one he'd met yet that he cared for, definitely not enough to consider going out of his way to hide it-but he wasn't good with volunteering information, no matter how minor. A habit of decades; he'd been screwed over way too many times.

Still, it was Stefan. He wouldn't admit to trusting his brother, exactly, but he couldn't deny that compared to the rest of the people here, he did trust him more. It was on a purely relative scale, that was all