no_dont_go
in
damned
Nightshift 54: F21-F30 Hallway
[F21]If Aigis hadn't been there to see it herself she would not have believed it. Martin Landel, the bane of her existence for the past week, was now gone. Replaced. And she didn't know what to make of the new authority put in place. She told herself it was her inaction that filled her with unease. For a moment, he had been there right where
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And of course Damon agreed that they should stay put, she wasn't even shocked by that. It was hard though, having six million questions then being told she needed to sit tight with people she knew wouldn't have any of the answers she needed.
Or did he?
"And you just weren't going to tell me?" Unfortunately, Elena assumed he had also been taken to a little room and experimented on just like she did the night before, and he was only just then admitting it. Maybe she would have realized that that was a pretty ridiculous assumption if she wasn't so distracted by her headache.
"This is a big deal, Damon. What if what you remember doesn't match the same things I do? This could be part of the whole... wanting us to be different people thing. Like why they keep calling me Samantha, maybe they gave me Samantha's memories."
In all her excitement of thinking she was onto something, she moved to stand up, maybe pace a bit or something - but it didn't matter. When she tried to get up, her foot slid forward, like she had stepped on a patch of ice, causing her to sit right back down again. Which would have been fine, really, only the beds in this room must have been ancient because just as she was about to laugh from the clumsy move, the bed collapsed. Completely and utterly fell apart underneath her.
She coughed (after pretending she didn't yelp out in surprise from the fall) from the cloud of dust that flew into the air around her, not even bothering to stand back up right away. "That sucked."
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He only popped back into the conversation when he was dragged into it; he could feel Damon's accusatory stare without even looking up. Unsurprisingly, it was actually there when he did look up, dropping his hand from his face.
"You're getting them too?" This was some crappy compelling, if that was the case. Whatever Damon had remembered, it obviously wasn't the best foot to start on. His curiousity was cursory only in the way that he wondered if it was a memory that echoed on something he'd told Damon earlier so it would check out at least part of the story. Did this mean he was going to start having flashbacks himself? He didn't exactly remember... forgetting anything, but it obviously could have happened (and probably did). He was still confident in the memories he did have now, though.
Just because.
He'd been about to offer some kind of reassurance that the nurse earlier had been insisting he was someone else before he jumped with the sudden collapsing of her bed -
- which was followed with another groan from the one he was sitting on before its legs gave out, sending him about a foot closer to the ground.
It had hurt his ass, yes, but he was going to remain in a similar sitting position and try very hard not to... do something drastic. Like break one of his fingers punching the drawer. "You know, I'm starting to think tonight is just a bad night in general."
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Three things occurred within the space of about four seconds: one, Elena fell on her ass twice over as her bed collapsed (seriously? Was the bed standing on fucking toothpicks?); two, he heard the second bed groan a split second before three, Rick's bed decided to join Elena's on the floor. By that point, Damon just threw up a hand.
Yeah. Understatement, Rick.
He paused for a moment, trying to sort of the tangled threads of what the hell was happening between Elena's questions, the room falling apart, and his own memory episode. Dammit. He'd been hoping to avoid the whole discussion altogether, but while he was perfectly willing to make sure they kept a lid on the subject, misleading Elena was more-problematic. Besides, it wouldn't go very far in keeping her off the trail (which, knowing Elena, she would definitely follow to the end) and with the way the night was going, she'd probably end up getting hurt, and if that happened because he'd lied to her, he was going to be pissed at himself, she was going to be pissed at him, and let's just say he'd prefer to...avoid that particular outcome.
"They're not your alter ego persona they made up for you. As far as I know, they're probably real." There was a precarious creak from the somewhere above. To be fair, not the most ill-timed interruption since it saved him from having to explain just how he knew what he did. Damon glanced upwards, appearing for all intents and purposes merely curious at the noise when he was, in fact, just short of ready to kill something. Or actually ready to kill something.
Whatever. Semantics. Did it matter?
That would be no.
He straightened up. "All right, forget what I said: don't listen to the teacher." He motioned them both out. "Come on. Before the next twitch out of one of you sends the whole damn room caving in."
A perfect way to cap off the night, absolutely. Almost as good as if he spontaneously burst into flames right now.
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And she would have asked Rick if he was alright, but that would have acknowledged that his bed fell too. Which would somehow link back to her bed falling. It made sense.
"I'm starting to actually agree that staying in might have been a good idea. I have a feeling my roommate isn't going anywhere, though." She shifted uncomfortably in her spot, trying to ignore the twinge of pain in her butt and the backs of her thighs were the bed dug in. Tough life.
But Damon suggested they leave, and frankly the room was starting to make her nervous in its state of ..shambles, so she didn't argue.
She half expected the door frame to give out as she stepped through it or something, but she managed to get back out in the hallway pretty easily. Hm!Each end of the hallway was dark, too dark to see, which made her realize she forgot to grab her flashlight on the way out of her room. Typical. Of course, instead of focusing on the room she just came out of or something less creepy, she kept her eyes down at one end of the hallway as she waited for Rick.
It shouldn't have surprised her when she eventually spotted movement, maybe somebody walking down the adjacent hallway, but it did. It startled her enough to send her spinning around to do some more 'pretending nothing happened'... Which essentially brought her crashing right into Damon. "Oof!"
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Whoever came back to this room was going to be so pissed. Alaric didn't blame them, but he was starting to become superstitious. One bed? Bad enough. Two? Yeah, he'd rather not get crushed by a bathtub falling from the second floor or something.
Since Elena had neglected to bring it up, he wasn't either. He was just going to stand up, focus on his center of gravity, say three Hail Marys and hope for the best. He shoved the drawer back into the dresser, swiped up his flashlight (which flickered angrily before righting itself), and made his way out past the door frame. It always kind of weirded him out when he was witnessing the vampire barrier at work, like he should be able to feel something - just a little - once he moved out of it.
He did turn, though, to look at the sad and pathetic image of two collapsed beds. Maybe he should... yeah. Alaric grabbed the door's knob, pulling it closed while he heard Elena's little grunt. Had she tripped again -
The knob slipped out of the door and into his hand; unsurprisingly, he lost his balance and fell backwards - after the metal ball hit him in the face.
Well, now he knew what Elena had fallen on, because now he was on top of both of them. In the back of his mind, he had long ago realized Damon was slowly losing his patience. Maybe he'd just lose it right now and put Alaric out of his misery. This was the world against him. He had never tripped when plastered; there was no reason he shouldn't be able to go an entire night without forgetting how gravity worked.
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His reflexes were still quick enough for him to pivot on his heel in time to catch Elena as she toppled into him. Her weight threw him a half step off balance, easily recovered despite his busted leg. Easily recovered, that was, had a hundred and seventy pounds of history teacher not chosen that exact moment to crash into Elena and thus, by law of domino physics, into him.
He backpedaled in an instinctive attempt to not fall, stepped too fast and too hard. The barely healed gouges flared white hot. Next thing he knew, his hip had slammed hard against the floor and had no less than two people piled on top of him, his uninjured leg crushed in the most awkward angle possible. He grunted, wasted no time hauling himself out from beneath Elena and Rick. A part of him was trying to be gentle about it-he didn't want to send Elena tumbling head first into the ground-but the rest of him was purely interested in getting away from whatever limb was digging into his side, right against where some petri dish experiment had taken a chunk out only last night. It was causing a bit more pain than he would've preferred. Just a bit.
Damon propped himself up on one hand with a wince. Ugh. He looked over at Elena, then Rick, half-expecting one or both of them to have some kind of overkill injury, like a concussion or something, after what was essentially a simple fall that had been nicely cushioned. By him. He just wanted to point that out.
And that was when the images slammed into him without even a flash of warning. Nor without any coherence, it seemed-a slick dark road, the fireplace, a stake in his (Alaric's) hand and a rush of piercing cold water, someone screaming (Elena, he thought, though he distantly realized it may have been him); if he was aware of the hard tiles beneath his hands and knees, it was hazy at best, because out of nowhere, he found himself struggling to breathe, alternately swallowing water and choking on the blood filling his throat. You know, it would've been really helpful here if his body could make up its mind about whether it was drowning in a river or in a pool of blood. Better still if it would realize that nothing was actually happening-which it did, eventually, the flood of memories sparking out.
Oh.
The darkened hallway and the flashlight beam filtered in at a distance. He coughed, his throat rough, the taste of blood still in his mouth. Not in the way he was used to, either. It turned his stomach, left him wanting only to get rid of it. His head spun with a blur of emotions that weren't his, sharpened and magnified. Hardly new-being undead came attached with heightened everything-but he'd long learned to keep them from overrunning him the way they were now. He was never like this. Ever. Any semblance of control was slipping rapidly. It didn't help that the sense that he was going to die at any moment lingered, left him feeling cornered and turning the slightest rustle into a threat. If there was one thing you never wanted to be next to, it was a cornered vampire. He was suddenly very sure that the next thing to disturb him, whether it was Elena or Rick or a splinter, was going to regret having ever existed. He was also very sure that either of them could approach him within the next second or so, and that someone was going to have their heart sent across the hall if he didn't get a damn grip.
It was an effort to even care about that much in the first place. If he'd been with anyone else right now other than Elena...
He breathed in, forcing his attention onto the ground, his hands, something insignificant and concrete. The nail on his middle finger had split halfway down the center. Awesome. Well, why not-since he was apparently starting a collection and all. At least it served as a distraction.
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"Hey. Damon?" She crawled over to and reached out for the flash light, which promptly flickered out as soon as she got her hands on it. And yes, that was a growl of frustration from Elena as she shook the damn useless piece of-, hoping to rattle the batteries into working again. "Come on you stupid thing. Co- ow!"
It was good that it was dark, yes, because Elena sure had smacked herself in the face with the wide end of the flashlight. She dropped it in favor of covering her nose with both hands, whining in pain.
"I can't see anything," she mumbled... Okay no, she was whining still. Her hands muffled her voice still either way, and she'd suddenly sounded much more nasally than just before. "Are you guys okay? Talk to me, I can't- ew, I-"
Her tongue slipped out to lick over her lips before she could stop it, and she immediately winced at the taste. Blood. Her nose was bleeding, and not lightly at that.
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The teacher fumbled his way out of their pile up like someone had lit a fire under him. He stayed on the floor, planting his hand around him in an attempt to find where he'd dropped his flashlight during the fall (big surprise that it had fizzled out once it'd hit the ground). He resisted the urge to hold his nose, knowing it wouldn't stop the dull pain. Once he realized he still had the stupid metal doorknob in his hand, he threw it down the hallway into the darkness with an audible clang against the walls.
Alaric only realized something had changed with the flash he got of Damon's face and the audible, wracked breathing in the darkness, seemingly amplified once the ability to see had vanished. It sounded like he was having an asthmatic attack or something, but that was definitely pain displayed there, just like in the hallway before...
For that matter, Elena didn't sound too good either. "I'm, uh, here," he answered, still groping. He hoped that was the flashlight he had just brushed and not someone's leg. "Are you okay, Elena? I'm trying to - damn it, where did it go?"
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"Elena." She was all right. He'd hear it if she wasn't. From the sounds of it, so was Rick. Okay. Time to get everyone the hell off the floor.
He grabbed the wall and stumbled to his feet. He was still trying to figure out how he should offer Elena a hand without getting slammed with round three (once might've been a coincidence; twice-no way) when both flashlights predictably winked out of existence. Fortunately, his vision hadn't taken as much of a hit as the rest of his senses. Who knew why. Save some batteries. Maybe the good doctor Landel participated in Earth Hour.
Point was, it meant he saw pretty clearly Elena smacking herself with the end of her flashlight. Her blood registered with sharp clarity even before it visibly trickled from her nose. Normally, not much of a problem-he couldn't exactly play nice with the Council if he lost it every time one of them got a paper cut-but now was not a good time for anyone to be bleeding around him. Whatever instincts had gone into overdrive earlier hadn't completely retreated. Fresh human blood? Not helping.
He hesitated, licked his lips, felt the sharp tip of his teeth against his tongue for the briefest moment before it retracted. He obviously couldn't just leave her bleeding. For both their sakes, the sooner they stopped the blood flow, the better. And as for the teacher... Even if Rick wasn't blind as a mole, asking Rick to do anything right now would be like asking him to trip over Elena's foot and break his own neck.
Though the way this night was going, Damon was tempted to actually ask that of him. But he didn't.
"It's two inches to your right," he said impatiently as he pulled his t-shirt over his head, leaving him in the white sleeveless underneath. "Take it and stop moving." He crouched before Elena and pushed the shirt into her hands. For a moment he watched her, concerned. "Anything broken?"
He was sure she hadn't hit herself hard enough to break her nose, but he'd also been sure Elena and Rick knew how to keep their center of gravity in place.
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"I don't think it's broken, no. I'm going to have a bruise to explain though, aren't I?" Which she sounded more bummed about than anything else. She wasn't going to go around telling people she hit herself in the face, that was certain. Elena leaned her head against the wall, sighed, and absolutely looked the part of Troubled Teen.
"Are you okay? You saw something else, right?" She tried not to sound too pushy, but she was reallyreally curious. Her eyes shut as she tried to block out the panic that they were all going to be stuck with random strikes of memory from now on. It had the potential to drive them all insane.
"Have you been seeing anything, Rick?" ... Yeah, it was still weird, calling him that. She was just going to pretend it wasn't though, for now. Because maybe it wasn't weird, maybe it was just something she needed to get used to now. Since, for some reason, she got the feeling formalities could take a back-burner when they were all being held hostage by a crazy doctor who felt the need to make them all wear shirts with big, creepy smiley faces on them.
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Nothing.
Great. He slid to the side of the hallway as well, not exactly ready for someone to trip over him and break either their neck or his own. Luck so far said chances are it'd be his own. "What's broken?" he asked the darkness, trying to squint at the flashlight in his hands as if it'd help him see. After figuring out which way he needed to screw the top lens on, he tried to switch again. Let there be light. His temporary blindness was worth the ridiculous amount of comfort it gave him.
Now that the most obvious problem had been fixed, Alaric could actually focus his attention on the fact that someone was talking in the background - slightly muffled, slightly fuzzy. He swept the hallway for the source, spotting... a radio?
- after you tonight. The bad news? Something funny is definitely going on. All I was able to decipher is that it has something to do with food.
First of all: who? Second: what? Third: why did he bother asking questions anymore? Nothing was going to get answered anytime soon. Or ever.
He popped his attention back to their traveling brigade at the sound of his name. No Mr. Saltzman this time? "Uh, no. I mean, no flashbacks or anything."
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Damon turned his attention back to Elena. At least the bleeding looked like it was slowing down. Apparently, this was a cue for him to take his turn because when he pressed absently against his side, he felt a slight burn and a definite wetness beneath the bandages. You know what? Not even going to comment.
"Time of my life," he replied dryly. He got back to his fee and leaned against the wall, beside Elena. They couldn't all be sitting like shark bait, and since Elena and the teacher were floor-bound unless they wanted another go at Twister... "What I saw was old news. You must've both passed the memories over on contact so I suggest neither of you touch me again or-move at all, for that matter."
Whatever was causing his trip through other people's heads, it couldn't have anything to do with Elena's current...memory quirk. The way it was happening was too different; Elena's memories were her own, not grafted on from anyone else. Compulsion couldn't possibly be responsible for this. Witches? Well, obvious, he supposed. There wasn't much to pick and choose from. Witches, vampires. That was it. And the Lockwoods, but he wasn't taking that one on tonight on top of the rest. Either way, someone was screwing around with them. He'd really like to know who. So he could put their head on a plate.
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Even if they couldn't seem to go five minutes without something annoyingly painful happening, she didn't think the 'sitting duck' tactic was their best shot. But then, she wasn't in any position to be calling the shots. So.
The fact that he wasn't experiencing the same type of memory jumps she was made her a little nervous, if not just because now they had double the amount of things to try and piece together. They knew Elena had been compelled, somehow, but Damon? Vampires couldn't compel other vampires. That was pretty basic.
But this all still went along with the fact that the Salvatores didn't have their full strength here. The same questions that they couldn't seem to find the answers to on their own. How, how, how, how, and how.
"Don't you have a roommate we can barge in on?" Not the time to be a brat, but she didn't seem to care. "I would rather sit-and-don't-touch-anything in an actual room than out here." A pause. "Just not an old abandoned room with defective beds."
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Retrospect, 20/20. Yeah.
Since he was leaning against one of the walls of the hallway, he used it to help anchor himself against the prying hands of gravity to get to his feet relatively incident free. The flashlight didn't spark or flicker or explode in his hands, which was a plus. So far, so good. He even had the balance necessary to kick off the stupid slippers so he didn't have the excuse of slippery footwear anymore. Just good, solid feet on... really cold tile.
Now that his simple venture had been completed, he could go back to having a normal conversation. "When you say passed on, are you saying... those weren't your memories?" He might as well ask a question that there was a chance of getting answered, because asking why touching Damon at all had something to do with his memories wouldn't get him anywhere.
- All I was able to decipher is that it has something to do with food.
Okay, okay. He'd consider it, only because nothing else was making sense, so why start now?
"I think she's right, Damon," Rick said, letting go of the wall and pointing his light at the floor. "If there's - whatever around, a room could be the best bet. Er. An occupied one. If we don't touch anything." It would be a feat, but he was willing to take the chance in case the tribbles-with-teeth decided to come back a second time.
The flashlight flickered off again, emitting an audible sparking noise. Rick rolled his eyes, sighed, then because shaking the damn metal tube in irritation. Big surprise that it slipped out of his hand and hit the floor again, cracking against the tile.
He was never going to live this down.
Placing one hand on the wall, he used his foot to probe the immediate vicinity for the light. No where that close, then. Of course not. He released the wall and took a step forward - big surprise! - finding the flashlight so unexpectedly that his foot rolled off the tube and he slipped forward while still half facing the wall. He didn't have a chance to whip his arms out or do more than grunt before his head cracked against the hard metal of the door as audibly as the flashlight hitting the floor.
When his body slumped to the ground, it was all dead weight.
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