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

Comments

[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 despair and tried to commit suicide by starvation. (It never worked, and afterwards he was always left with the foolish reminder that, if he really wanted to kill himself, there were easier ways to do it.) The only reason the hunger was so bad for him right now was because his emotions were running high. Elena was fine. He had to control himself.

"If I have to," Stefan answered mildly. A few squirrels a night sounded manageable. Damon would no doubt sneer in derision at this, but Stefan had learned that just because they could drink three people dry in one go, they only really needed a couple pints to get by. If it had to be squirrels, then Stefan could cope, but he wasn't entirely resigned to small mammals just yet.

Stefan crossed his arms as he regarded his brother. "But from the rumours going around, it sounds like there are plenty of bigger animals in the area." Of course, from what Castiel had said, at least one of the animals appeared to be severely diseased, but... it wasn't as if vampires were capable of catching rabies. "And I don't feel that weak yet either, at least not as weak as I should be feeling after three days without blood. You had to have noticed that too."

[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.

Although it was more the presumptuousness that he was to be fixed that had always grated. Really, he'd have had an easier time letting it go if Stefan had just owned up to doing it out of his own personal issues. It was hardly a secret Stefan hated him. Well, had. Probably still did. Whatever. Who knew these days? He didn't much care either way.

There was a split second pause before he shed the tension, letting it pass as quickly as it'd come. He didn't mention that clearly, whoever had them wanted them alive (ergo, no dried up corpse) and that he had no idea how the hell they were pulling this off, but that he was still leaning towards the witch theory. The implications were self-evident enough, even to Stefan, he was sure.

"You know, what I also don't get is why we-" Damon gestured vaguely between him and Stefan, "-are the only two vampires here. As far as I can tell, anyway. Though there's apparently something up with some of the others."

Well, one other. That girl he'd met, the very first one. He hadn't gotten her name, but he knew her face. The one who'd known, almost without even a second thought, what he was. She'd sounded pretty damn confident when she said the humans were outnumbered, and he couldn't help thinking of the Lockwoods who were neither vampire nor human. If they existed, then what about the people here? How many fell into that category of "something else"? The girl, at least, was abnormal. He wasn't ready to take her word about the rest of the patients, but he'd be an idiot to dismiss it. She hadn't been wrong about him, after all.

He frowned, thinking. Seriously, there was too much doom and mystery going on right now. He didn't appreciate feeling as if he were suddenly sucked into a Stephen King novel.

[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-

Stefan suddenly thought of Zach, Vicki... Lexi... and dozens of others who'd lost their lives in the past year, and felt guilt well up in him for even letting himself think that far. And yet... if he honestly asked himself if he would put Damon - his brother, the one who was sitting with him right now and trying to infuriate him - back in there for fifty years just to reverse those deaths, Stefan found himself unable to answer.

Over a century, and he hadn't changed at all.

Stefan was only starting to drop his gaze when Damon called his attention back to the present. "You're right," he said after a moment, frowning slightly. "And they had to have known we're vampires in order to... alter us like this. John and the Council wouldn't have bothered." Not that he was still seriously thinking that this was the fault of the Founders Council, but the same held true for any normal vampire hunter. He and Damon should be dead. Even their father had been uncompromising on this point. "It's not that they want to keep us from harming anyone either, or else why put humans here with us?"

Were the rumours right, then? Were they in fact here to be experimented upon and studied? But then why choose someone like Elena? There was nothing vaguely supernatural about her at all... nothing except her mirror resemblance to Katherine.

He searched for her again reflexively, but if she was around, it wasn't in the Sun Room with them. Stefan looked back to his brother. "Who else have you met here?"

[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.

"Well, there's your sweet new friend Claire." He ticked off a lazy finger. "Blonde, cute. Probably a cheerleader. I like her," he added thoughtfully. An absent footnote. Did Stefan already know Damon had met her? Probably not, unless she'd caught up to him afterwards in which case she must've mentioned it, no doubt as a way to keep a lagging conversation going. People were predictable.

"Couple of others not worth mentioning. And this one girl, who I'd really like to know what the hell she is. She made me as a vampire with one look. Probably should've killed her right there." He slid his eyes to his brother, half-playful and half deadly serious. "Don't worry, I haven't touched her. Yet. She's...interesting."

As soon the threat level she represented outweighed his interest in her, she would be taken care of. That went without saying. But there was something about her, when he'd spoken to her. The way she hadn't seemed bothered by much of anything. It was odd and more than a little familiar. She had a dismissive arrogance that reminded him of those who lived untouched by the pesky details of mortal life that bogged down most humans. Vampires, in other words. Ones who didn't bother with feelings like Stefan. She clearly wasn't a vampire, though. What was she?

Maybe if they were going to be stuck here for the foreseeable future-something which, as much as he hated it admit, seemed more and more likely as time passed-he should check back in with her. Maybe. Depending on if it would be worth it. She did know what he was and while she evidently had no interest in exposing him-well. That could still change. He'd have to play it with more caution. Otherwise, he'd just end up having to kill her after all and getting sent back to square one would be a waste.