[visual / location: don's apartment] (way backdated)

[verylittlesugar]

It's been a couple days since the attack and her phone call to Don, and Mattie's feeling better physically, but still a little wrung out emotionally. Mostly that manifests in being very quiet and trying convince Don to let her cook meals for him, and a noticeable absence of tiny sternfaces. There's a lot on her mind, however, and one or two

Comments

[location: Don's apartment]

[selfmadman]

Don knocks softly at the bedroom door before letting himself in. His shirt is crisp and bright, his hair combed with customary severity and face freshly shaved. And yet it doesn't fit together as it should--there's no ironing out or washing away the restlessness of his movements, the way his expression will drift into remoteness.

"You sure this is a good idea?" he asks, waving a cigarette at her tablet.

[location: Don's apartment]

[verylittlesugar]

Don has temporarily won the battle of wills that ended with Mattie taking over his room, but she's considering broaching the subject again, as soon as she's gathered some information on what she might expect to happen with this vampire bite situation.

"You do not know anything about vampires, and I do not know who would be best to ask. And I feel that this is a much better use of my than fretting."

[location: Don's apartment]

[selfmadman]

"I won't argue with that," he concedes, although his eyebrows climb a notch. He drags on his cigarette, taking little pleasure in it, and wanders to the window. "Jason Stackhouse and...Agent"--he lays sardonic emphasis on the title--"Smecker can be trusted. They know about vampires."

Don peels his eyes from the window--he couldn't tell you a thing about the view--and directs his attention to the bed. "How is it? Any change?"

[location: Don's apartment]

[verylittlesugar]

Mattie nods, making sure to remember those names, and trust the information they offer.

At Don's question, she raises her hand to the bandage. "I believe it is healing, and may not cause any ill effects." Whether there's already something in her system causing ill effects itself is another question, but that was the point of her tablet entry.

[location: Don's apartment]

[selfmadman]

With a grimace Don crushes the cigarette in the tray still on the nightstand. The act should be casual, practiced, but it leaves him inexplicably tired.

"Can I take a look?" he asks, a discordant note of uncertainty in his voice.

[location: Don's apartment]

[verylittlesugar]

It's much easier to let Don check the wound than to do it herself, so Mattie sets her tablet aside and sits up straight, pulling the neck of her nightgown a little looser so he can take the bandage off.

"I do not think it is bleeding too much anymore."

[location: Don's apartment]

[selfmadman]

The bed gives a little as he plants a knee on it and reaches to brush away the strands of hair--real or imagined--that have strayed near the wound. "Try to hold still." He says it because he needs to say it, not because she needs to hear it.

Don peels back the bandage, inspects the twin punctures--the skin pale and puckered. Tries to reduce them in his mind to two marks, the canvas irrelevant. "Doesn't look infected," he says, replacing the bandage. "That's something."

He twists around, lets his head fall back against the headboard before turning to look at her. "How do you feel? Be honest."

[location: Don's apartment]

[verylittlesugar]

Mattie is very good at being still and not fussing, and she nods her understanding once Don has put the bandage back in place.

"Then I do not think there is need to worry." Something she's been telling herself over and over, although the confirmation from everyone she's spoken to about vampires helps her believe it.

She leans back against the headboard next to Don and looks as solemn as always. "I feel tired. And...I find I do not know what to think about it."

[location: Don's apartment]

[selfmadman]

"So don't," Don says. The words short but somehow expansive, inviting. "There'll be time for that later."

His eyelids droop shut--he's been snatching sleep where he can get it, aches for a drink--then, seconds later, wrench open. "I can leave you alone if you need to sleep."

[location: Don's apartment]

[verylittlesugar]

Don's fight against sleep doesn't go unnoticed, but Mattie doesn't say anything obvious about it. Instead she shakes her head and sets her tablet down next to her.

"I do not feel like sleeping, but I think I will take some time to be quiet with my thoughts."

[location: Don's apartment]

[selfmadman]

Don gives her a look of appraisal so frank it nearly topples into parody. Then, slowly, he smiles. "Okay." In one quick motion--swept up in some nameless impulse--he presses a kiss to the top of her head.

He half-rolls, half-slides off the bed, crosses to the door before looking back over his shoulder. A moment goes by; with reluctance he says, "When I went by your apartment I found a package on the doorstep. From Mr. Salvatore." He waits for the words to sink in, spreads his hands. "Say the word and it gets thrown out."

[location: Don's apartment]

[verylittlesugar]

That's a surprise, and Mattie looks up at Don with a look that's have shock and half gratitude. She's neither interested in nor trying to replace her own father, but for just a moment it feels a little bit like being home again.

She frowns then, not angrily but just from confusion. "Which Mr. Salvatore, there are two? Although I cannot think why either of them would-" Oh... "Oh surely he would not really do it. No, please, I would like to see."

[location: Don's apartment]

[selfmadman]

"Two?" he repeats, eyebrows arched, worry and fatigue stifling a disbelieving laugh. "Are there really?"

Without waiting for an answer Don leaves the room, opens the narrow coat closet in the hall. He grabs the box with the note off the untidy pile, skims over the message once more on his way to the bedroom.

Expression unreadable, he holds out the package to Mattie. "When you're ready there're more."

He makes no move to go.

[location: Don's apartment]

[verylittlesugar]

"Yes, I believe they must be brothers, as they are very close in age." Or they could be cousins, Mattie's only guessing. She takes the box and reads the note, and then looks up in surprise at Don's words. "More?"

A gift as a joke, to prove that she was wrong when she said Damon would do it, is one thing. More than one though, Mattie's not even sure how to interpret that. She opens the first box, pulling out a simple but pretty dress in a suitable period style, and revealing another underneath it. "Oh."