A Land of Make Believe

By the time she finished, his grip on the glass had tightened enough to threaten the crystal. His anger had nowhere useful to go. Her parents weren’t in the room. Neither were the doctors who had spent years telling a frightened child that her own mind couldn’t be trusted. The only person in front of him was Max, looking like she regretted every word she’d just given him. When she held out her hand, Damon looked down at his bourbon. Then he stepped closer and placed the glass into it without argument. “Fair enough.”

He turned toward the liquor table and retrieved the bottle, pouring himself another drink rather than asking for his first one back. It gave him a moment to get his expression under control. Damon knew what pity looked like when someone aimed it at him, and he wasn’t going to inflict it on Max now. “You’re not crazy,” he said, facing her again. There was no teasing in his voice and none of the cautious softness people used when they didn’t believe what they were saying. “You’ve been seeing things no one around you understood, and instead of admitting they didn’t have an explanation, they decided you were the problem. There’s a difference.”

Damon took a drink and leaned back against the edge of the table. He didn’t close the distance again. Max had spent the last several minutes folding in on herself beneath his questions; crowding her now would only make this feel like another interrogation. “And for the record, if this is a mental break, it’s unusually committed.” He lifted his glass between them. “You invented me, Stefan, Klaus, the vervain, and an entire hidden population of vampires with centuries of deeply irritating history. That’s ambitious, even for you.”

The humor was slight, but it didn’t last long. His gaze settled on her again. “I believe you, Max.” The words came simply. Damon didn’t bury them beneath a joke or demand anything in return. Secrets didn’t simply appear in Klaus’s hands. Someone had seen something, heard something, or gotten close enough to Max to notice what she had spent most of her life hiding. Damon would figure out which one it was. He just wasn’t going to force her to tear herself apart looking for an answer she clearly didn’t have.

“So, Twenty Questions is officially suspended.” Damon turned the bourbon slowly in his glass. “You’ve answered enough for one night.” His eyes dropped briefly to the drink he had handed her before returning to her face. “But you’re right. I asked you to trust me with something you’ve spent your entire life protecting while giving you almost nothing in return.”

The admission came reluctantly, but it came. "I was born in 1839.” Damon took another drink, letting that settle without checking to see how absurd it sounded. “I became a vampire in 1864. I had vampire blood in my system when I died, woke up in transition, and was planning to let myself die for good until Stefan made sure I finished the process.”

His jaw shifted faintly at the memory. More than a century had passed, but some resentment survived simply because Damon had fed it too well to let it disappear. Damon pushed away from the table and moved to the sofa, sitting on its arm rather than pacing through another confession. “Sunlight burns vampires. This ring keeps it from killing me. Vervain burns us, weakens us, and stops compulsion. Wood through the heart, decapitation, and fire are all very effective, in case tonight hasn’t inspired enough confidence in me already.”

He glanced down at the ring on his hand, then back at Max. “I can move faster than you can see. I’m stronger than I look, which is saying something, and I can make people do what I want if I look them in the eye.” His expression tightened. “I haven’t done that to you.” That mattered enough for him to say plainly. Damon took another swallow of bourbon. “There. Several answers, no evasive sarcasm, and at least three pieces of information you could use to kill me.” A faint trace of his usual smirk returned. “I’d call that an excellent show of good faith.”

She took a swig of the alcohol and grimaced at the burn. God, she hated bourbon. Give her wine or a cocktail any day of the week. Hell, even a beer would do in a pinch, but dark liquors weren’t for her. Right now, though? She’d take what she could get.

The stronger the better.

She let out a shaky breath when Damon said he believed her—Max hadn’t realized just how badly she’d needed to hear that. Like a weight lifted off her chest, she felt like she could actually breathe again. Like maybe, just maybe, it was okay that he knew. Maybe things would be different this time.

She still didn’t know how Klaus had found out about her, but that could wait for another day. Examining her entire life, everyone she’d ever met, everyone she’d ever spoken to, was a bit much for today. She nodded, shoulders slumping with relief.

Holding the glass in both hands, she slowly drifted closer to Damon, taking in everything he was telling her, her mind struggling to properly process it all. Vampires weren’t supposed to be real. Someone born in 1839 should absolutely not be alive still. A magic ring that stopped the sunlight from killing him should just be a fairytale.

Her mind wanted to reject his words, write them off as lies, but she knew they weren’t. It was a gut feeling—the type she’d get that were never wrong. Every word out of his mouth was true, and a selfish, frightened part of her wanted to hide her head in the sand and pretend she’d never heard any of it. Wanted to go back to pretending everything was normal.

That they were normal.

But she couldn’t—wouldn’t—do him that disservice. Not when he hadn’t even flinched at her explanation. “…I believe you.” The words were quiet, but she meant them. The thought of some sort of mind control made her shift uncomfortably, but she trusted Damon. If he said he hadn’t used it on her, then he hadn’t.

She took a breath. Nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” For a second, she looked down at the glass in her hands. Then she lifted it to her mouth and tipped it back, drinking the rest of it in one go, nose wrinkled. She made a face when she finished, shaking her head like a dog shaking off water. “I don’t know how you drink that.” It probably sounded a bit ridiculous, considering she was already making her way over to the liquor table and pouring herself a couple more fingers of bourbon.

She had a feeling she was going to need it.

She sat a little ways away from him on the couch, but patted the spot next to her, having only been leaving enough room for him to move off of the arm and join her. “Sharing is caring.” She gave him a small smile. “And questions are how we get to know people,” she teased. “But you know that already.”

Then came the belated please. “That almost ruined it,” he told her. “You were doing so well without the unnecessary manners.” Damon marked his page with one finger, closed the book and adjusted his chair until he was facing her more directly. He hadn’t expected company when he came to the library, but Cass didn’t possess the usual qualities that made strangers exhausting. She hadn’t launched into pointless small talk, asked what he was reading or attempted to explain that she normally never disturbed people.

She had simply occupied the corner and waited to see what he would do about it. “You can stay,” he said. “Technically, I don’t own this part of the library. I’ve just been sitting here long enough that everyone else has accepted that I might.” A chair scraped loudly in the main reading room. Damon’s gaze flicked toward the sound before settling on Cass again. He hooked one foot around the leg of a nearby empty chair and dragged it farther into the alcove, narrowing the view from the busier part of the library. It gave them more privacy without closing them off completely.

“There. Now it’s our spot.” Damon paused. “Temporarily. Don’t get attached.” He opened his book again and leaned back, appearing prepared to return to it's contents. For nearly half a minute, he managed it. His eyes moved across the page, though his attention remained divided between the words and the quiet presence across from him.

Cass didn’t rush to fill the silence, and that alone made her unusual.Most people became uncomfortable when Damon stopped performing for them. They laughed too quickly, shifted in their seats or searched for something harmless to say. Cass seemed perfectly content to let the quiet remain exactly as it was.

Damon turned a page, then another. On the third, he lowered the book again.

“Fine. One question.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms against his knees while keeping his voice low enough not to carry beyond the alcove. His gaze dropped briefly to the book in her hands before returning to her face. “You watched me walk in, sit down and pretend to read while you figured me out.” There was no accusation in his tone. If anything, he sounded entertained. “You’ve barely looked at that page since I got here.” Damon tilted his head, matching the angle she had used while studying him.

The sound of a scraping chair immediately caught her attention, had her eyes flitting towards it. She was not on edge, but something behind her eyes shifted for just a moment. She was alone out here. No backup, and while backup was not something she necessarily required, it was something she had grown accustomed to having if she did need it. Cass knew that searching for League members, for her father’s men, on her own was akin to poking a hornet’s nest with a stick. It was still something she needed to do.

No loose ends.

She also knew that the League would not attack in the middle of a public library full of people. They were not stupid either. That half-second of wariness behind her eyes was there and gone in a flash. Her brows lifted at his declaration, but she did not comment. She simply hummed in agreement and looked back down at her book when he did.

Despite this, her attention remained on Damon. He wanted to speak. Most bodies were terrible at keeping secrets. There were always little signs, movements, that gave their owners away. Tells, as Bruce called them. Cass did what she was best at—she waited patiently. Damon lasted longer than most. Three page turns before he spoke again. Her eyes sparkled with amusement, lips tugging into a smirk.

It fell away when she realized what he wanted. She hesitated. Not because he had figured out she had been dissecting him with her gaze—she had already known that—but because she was unsure that she should divulge her findings. “People…do not like what I see.” A warning, plain and simple. Cass saw what people did not want her to see. It scared them. Made them angry. Self-conscious. Upset.

She did not like upsetting people, especially her friends and family, but she could not help the way she saw the world.

She let her words sink in. Watched him for any sign of hesitation. Any hint that he might change his mind. When she did not see one, she sighed, placed a colourful bookmark between her pages, and closed her book. Crossed her arms on top of it.

He understood before she had to finish. “I’ve got it.” Damon called back immediately, already crossing the hall. There was no teasing in his voice this time, nothing that might make her feel ridiculous for asking. He tried the handle from his side and found it unlocked.

He pushed the door open only far enough to step inside, gaze finding her before anything else. For half a second, Damon just looked at her. Clean now. Damp hair instead of blood-stiffened strands, skin scrubbed free of everything that had been on it when she came through his door. The red around her eyes remained, and there were some things no amount of hot water was going to wash away, but she looked more like Max again. That loosened something in his chest he hadn’t realized he’d been holding tight.

His attention shifted pointedly toward the shower. “See? Still attached to the wall.” Damon walked past her to turn it off himself, taking the handle between two fingers with exaggerated care before glancing back. “Honestly, little insulting that you thought you could take out my plumbing this easily. This house has survived Stefan’s hair products for over a century.” It was a weak joke, but Damon wasn’t trying to get a laugh so much as give her something normal to grab onto.

He’d left clothes folded on the counter while she showered, having gone through his drawers for the softest things he owned that wouldn’t require buttons, zippers, or anything else she could accidentally tear apart while trying to dress. An old black T-shirt and a pair of drawstring sweatpants. Damon picked up the stack and held it toward her. “No buttons. Nothing expensive. And before you start feeling guilty about borrowing my clothes, that shirt has survived considerably worse than you.” He didn’t linger after that. Damon backed toward the doorway, one hand resting against the frame. “Get dressed. I’ll be right there.”

Damon returned to the bedroom but didn’t go farther than the dresser. He opened the small refrigerator hidden inside the cabinet beneath it and pulled out one of the blood bags he kept there, staring down at it for longer than necessary. Max hadn’t asked who turned her again, he was grateful for that. Because while Damon had told her none of this was her fault, he hadn’t managed to extend the same generosity to himself. Somebody had put vampire blood into her system. Somebody had killed her afterward. Maybe it had been random. Maybe there was no grand design at all. He shoved the thought down before it could take root any deeper and carried the bag downstairs.

By the time he heard movement behind him, Damon had already made the thing look as little like a blood bag as possible. He’d poured it into one of the dark glasses from the cabinet rather than hand her plastic filled with something that looked disturbingly clinical. The bag itself had disappeared into the trash beneath several layers of equally unnecessary garbage. He’d even warmed the blood slightly because cold blood tasted awful, and there were certain pieces of vampire knowledge Max did not need to learn through trial and error tonight. Damon leaned against the kitchen island with his arms folded, waiting. The glass sat between them.

“This is the part where I tell you not to smell it first,” he said when she was close enough to hear him without raising his voice. “Which means naturally you’re going to want to smell it first. Don’t.”Damon reached across the island and turned the glass slightly so the rim faced her, then pulled his hand back. “Tonight, you drink this. Tomorrow, we start figuring out everything else.”

Tomorrow. He hadn’t been certain she’d have one a few hours ago.

The thought struck hard enough that Damon looked away, opening the refrigerator mostly so he had somewhere else to put his attention. There were more bags inside. Enough to keep her fed for a while without ever needing to go near another person. He’d get more if he had to. When he shut the refrigerator again, his expression had settled into something easier.

She took the clothes from him carefully, doing her best to keep her movements a normal speed. Moving too fast only made it worse. It only made her feel worse about herself and her situation. “I don’t feel guilty about that. I steal your clothes all the time.” This was just the first time she was actually worried about wrecking them. But she would be careful, and she would hopefully manage to get dressed without tearing anything.

She finished drying off once Damon left the room. Combed her fingers through her hair rather than use the hairbrush that’d wound up mixed in with Damon’s things when, a little while back, Max had grown tired of not having one after showering—a brush was just another object she might break. Then she dressed herself. Slowly, treating the shirt and sweats like they were the most delicate things she’d ever touched. The drawstring on the pants received even more care when she tied it. She let out a breath once she finished, relieved to be in clean clothes, that she hadn’t ruined them. Comforted by the softness of the items Damon had picked out, by the scent of him that lingered in the fabric.

Slipping out the door, she went looking for him. She found him in the kitchen, but her eyes immediately zeroed in on the glass in front of him. This is the part where I tell you not to smell it first. Well, that wasn’t foreboding at all. It definitely didn’t make her stomach churn with anxiety. She swallowed. Resisted the urge to take a step back and away. He was making it pretty damn clear what was in that glass.

Blood.

She didn’t want to be anywhere near it. She wanted it more than anything. She was utterly terrified of it. Her eyes flit up to Damon’s face for half a second before back down to the glass. Slowly, she moved closer. Forced herself to take one step after the other until she made it to the island. Her fingers curled around the glass—it was warm. She wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse. Holding her breath, she lifted it to her mouth.

It was like the first sip of water after being lost in the desert for weeks. The first bite of food after a hunger strike. The sweetest of nectars that satisfied a craving she still didn’t immediately recognize for what it was. Max drank greedily, her other hand coming up to steady the glass. Somehow, she managed not to spill any of the blood. Maybe she didn’t want any to go to waste.

She only breathed again once she finished the last of it, licked her lips as she pulled the glass away, her tongue chasing any stray drops. “That…shouldn’t taste that good.” It was weird. It was wrong. She’d always been squeamish with blood, and now…

Now it was the one thing she wanted more than anything.

“Yeah,” he said when she finally croaked his name, his voice quieter than usual and stripped of its usual bite. “It’s me.” He didn’t go after her. It went against nearly every instinct he had. Damon wanted to cross the kitchen, put himself directly in front of her until she stopped looking around the room like something terrible might materialize in the corner. But considering his hand on her knee had just sent her halfway across the house, he figured forcing his way into her space probably wasn’t the winning strategy. So he stayed where he was and let his eyes follow her instead.

He watched her breathe through it. Watched the wildness gradually leave her face and her shoulders loosen by degrees until she finally slid down the wall and pulled her knees against herself. Then came the apology. Damon’s mouth tightened. And another one. By the time she got to I don’t know why I did that, his eyebrows had drawn together. “Okay, first of all, you can stop apologizing.” There was a little more Damon in his voice now...not sharp exactly, but enough to break through the strange, fragile quiet that had swallowed the kitchen. “ Furniture casualties are minimal.” He glanced at the overturned stool. “I think we’re surviving.”He bent and righted it, mostly because he needed something to do with his hands. Her phone was still on the floor beside it, and Damon looked down at it for a long second. He crouched and picked it up, but he didn’t wake the screen. He didn’t swipe through anything or try to find whatever she’d been looking at. The temptation was there, but whatever had been on that screen had done enough damage without him turning it into an interrogation exhibit. He set it face down on the counter.

Damon leaned back against the counter and folded his arms, giving her more space than he normally would have tolerated. “You’re okay. And before you hear that as me saying nothing happened, that’s not what I said.” His gaze moved over her carefully, catching the stiffness still lingering in her posture, the way she’d folded herself smaller on the floor. “You’re here. You know where you are. You know who I am.” His mouth pulled faintly at one corner. “Which is fortunate, because finding out you’ve suddenly forgotten me would be terrible for my ego.”

Damon pushed away from the counter and crossed only part of the distance between them before lowering himself onto the kitchen floor. He sat several feet away, back against one of the cabinets, one knee bent lazily in front of him. Far enough that she didn’t have to worry about him touching her again, close enough that he wasn’t abandoning her to deal with it alone. He rested an arm over his knee and looked at her.

That part cost him more than he let show. Touch was easy for Damon. Physical reassurance was infinitely easier than sitting across from somebody he loved and watching them hurt when he couldn’t fix it. He knew how to pull her against him, knew how to put a hand at the back of her neck and keep her grounded there until the rest of the world stopped being so loud. Sitting still was harder. Damon tipped his head back against the cabinet and let a few seconds pass before his gaze drifted toward the phone sitting facedown on the counter.

“You were looking at something.” His jaw shifted once before he looked back at her. “You were staring at your phone like it personally offended you, and when I touched you, you looked at me like I was somebody else.” There was no accusation in it. Just the simple collection of facts he had, and he hated how few there were. Damon could handle enemies. Give him a name, a face, a reason, and he knew what to do with it. There was comfort in a problem he could physically remove from the world. This was different. There was something sitting behind Max’s eyes that he couldn’t see, and apparently it had been there long enough to make her body react before she even understood what was happening.

His fingers tapped once against his knee. “So either your phone has become sentient and terrifying, which honestly feels inevitable, or something on it scared the hell out of you.” He let that sit between them without immediately pressing for more. No pressure. At least, not much. Damon was still Damon. When she dismissed it again, saying she didn’t know why she’d reacted like that, his eyes narrowed slightly. “Maybe you don’t know why it hit you that hard.” That, he could believe. “But you know what you were looking at.”

Max looked away. Bit her tongue against the dozens of excuses that threatened to fall out. She wanted to brush it off. Sweep it under the rug and pretend nothing had happened. Somehow force things to go back to normal, back to how they’d been just a few minutes ago. She, unfortunately, knew that wasn’t something she could do.

Damon wasn’t likely to let a reaction that strong go that easily. He wasn’t going to take “it’s nothing,” nod along, and forget about it like she wanted him to. Max didn’t want to talk about it, but she also knew it would be far better if he heard it from her, rather than him going digging and coming to an even worse conclusion on his own.

“It’s not dented,” she grumbled. It could be. She’d hit it pretty damn hard, but she didn’t bother looking up to confirm his claim. Instead, she put all her attention to picking at the skin beside her thumbnail, chewing anxiously on her lip. Considered how she wanted to go about explaining, what exactly she wanted to tell him. Her silence was a thoughtful one.

Taking a breath, she wrapped her arms a bit tighter around her knees and picked a random cabinet to look at. It was easier than meeting his gaze. “He’s just…some guy. Chase.” She started slowly, picking her words carefully. The last thing she wanted was for Damon to look at her the same way everyone else had, by the end of this. “We went to school together. Back in California.”

Her expression tightened. “We moved there the summer before I started high school. So I was the weird new freshman, and he was the senior everyone already knew because they’d all grown up with him. Your stereotypical attractive, popular jock that everyone liked.” She took a breath. “Including me.”

She shook her head, remembering just how ridiculously infatuated she’d been. How there’d practically been hearts coming out of her eyes any time he passed by her in the hallway. How she’d swooned when he smiled in her direction. God, she wished she could go back in time and tell her younger self to stay the fuck away from him.

“I had this massive crush on him, and I didn’t think he even knew my name.” Maybe that’d been part of the reason why she’d liked him. He’d been safe. Unattainable. A guy she’d known she never had a chance with, so there was no risk of getting hurt.

Oh, how wrong she’d been.

“But then he found me in the hallway one day and asked me to go with him to a party someone was having, and I was just…over the moon.” She let out a quiet, bitter laugh. “God, I was so fucking excited. I was just…a dumb kid.”

Old anger and hurt and mortification came rushing back, all at once, and Max swiped at her eyes with a huff. “I shouldn’t have gone. I shouldn’t have drank. But he just…he’d hand me more, and I didn’t want to say no, you know? I just…wanted him to like me. I wanted him to like me so fucking badly. So, when he brought me upstairs, I…we—”

She cut herself off when it suddenly started to get difficult to breathe again. Her expression twisted as her chest tightened. After a few quick, short breaths, she squeezed her eyes shut and swung her fist back into the wall beside her, cursing. “Shit.” She felt her fist go through the drywall—that one was definitely more than a dent—but pulled it out and covered her face with both hands, taking a second to breathe through it. “…Sorry. I’ll pay for that,” she said quietly.

❝  i’m used to people generally not giving a shit about me.  doesn’t mean i can’t still choose to care regardless of whether not people will care back.  ❞

❝  i’m not kind because i expect anything from it.  i do it because i like how it feels.  because people have not generally been kind to me and i don’t want to be that sort of person to someone else.   ❞

❝  why didn’t you ever tell me you were dealing with so much?  you didn’t have to keep this to yourself.  ❞

❝  it’s okay.  i don’t need you to help me…but if you wanna stick around while i fix it myself i wouldn’t mind the company.  ❞

❝  i generally don’t like people as a rule.  but i don’t mind you.  so uh,  don’t fuck that up for me alright?  next time you’re in trouble just call me. ❞

❝  are you sure you don’t want me to stay?  ❞

❝  you know i can tell when you’re lying.  so you can either talk about what’s wrong or we can just sit here together.  either way,  i won’t let you do this alone.   ❞

❝  no,  i don’t need you.  but i do want you.  my life is fine without you,  but it’s great when you’re in it.  i don’t need to be dependent on you for this relationship to be important.  ❞

❝  well,  i already did the ‘kicking their ass for being a jerk’ part.  now i’m doing the whole,  showing up for you and making sure you’re okay now part.  ❞

❝  i don’t want to be like this.  i want to change but i don’t know where to start.  ❞

❝  i see you.  i just wanted you to know that.  i always see you.  ❞

❝  i haven’t really done the whole dating thing in a while but,  do you want to?  we could go to dinner—or coffee?  ❞

❝  we’re having a spa night,  okay?  i already have a bath started and there are face masks on the counter.  no arguments.  we need this.  ❞

❝  don’t start giving me the damn puppy eyes i was already gonna say ‘yes’ okay?  ❞

❝  this is a bad idea but i’m already committed so i might as well not half-ass being a dumbass.  ❞

❝  i always feel better when you’re here.  ❞

❝  i’m going to give you a hug now but if you tell anyone about it i will have to kill you.  ❞

❝  did you just flip off that old guy?  ❞

❝  i know you’ll lie to me if i ask if you’re okay so i’m skipping past that part and telling you to go home and get some rest.  ❞

❝  you know i’m not good for you right?  there’s probably a hundred other people you could be going to right now instead of me.  ❞

❝  can i say something here?  or do you need another minute of rambling before i get to do the part where i say what you need to hear and you realize you’re freaking out over nothing?  ❞

❝  don’t you get that i need you?  you’re always going on about being fine and being able to manage on your own and i’m sure that’s true.  but what if i’m not?  what if i need you in my life.  and i need you to let me help you with your life too? ❞

❝  i know you’ve been having a shit time so i brought some food.  ❞

❝  hey— get your hands off my plate.  i made you your own.  ❞

❝  i know you like the rain,  but it’s getting cold.  you need to come in before you get sick.  ❞

❝  i knew i’d find you here.  ❞

There was nothing graceful about it. One arm locked around her back while his other hand cradled the base of her skull keeping her face tucked against his chest. Her grip crushed a handful of his shirt against his ribs, Damon could feel the pressure of every finger, strength gathered inside hands that had never needed to think about restraint before. Damon did not tell her to loosen her hold. He simply adjusted his footing and let her cling as hard as she needed.

The blood soaking between them cooled quickly. Some of it had already dried, stiffening the fabric beneath her cheek, but fresh tears dampened it again. He stared over her shoulder at nothing, jaw clenched as each broken sound left her. He had spent years learning how to listen to screaming without reacting, but this was different. There was nowhere useful for his anger to go except remain inside him while Max grieved everything she had lost in a single night.

His hand moved through her hair in slow passes, occasionally catching against the dried blood tangled in the strands. He worked around it carefully. Eventually, the room grew quiet, not peaceful, just quiet. Peace required something neither of them possessed tonight. “Devastating,” he murmured. His voice was full of grit from disuse. “This was a priceless artifact from the highly exclusive collection at the back of my closet.” He did not pull away to inspect the damage. He did not make her release him. His palm remained broad and steady against her back, though his attention drifted to the ruined clothes and the metallic scent filling the room. Not because it bothered him. Damon had worn worse from people he remembered far less fondly. But he could imagine what it felt like against her skin. Every dried patch was another reminder, clinging stubbornly when she was already carrying enough inside her head.

“We’re going to get you cleaned up,” he said after a moment. There was no command in it, only quiet certainty. “Not because I’m concerned about the shirt. I’m prepared to make that sacrifice.” Damon eased back only slightly, enough to see her without taking the support of his body away. His hands stayed at her waist, prepared for the possibility that she might move too quickly again. There was no amusement in his eyes when they swept over her now, only careful calculation.

“Everything is going to feel wrong for a while,” he told her. “Too loud. Too close. Too fast. You’re going to reach for something and break it. You’re going to cross a room when you meant to take one step.” A faint curve touched one corner of his mouth. “You may even accidentally assault a devastatingly handsome vampire with a full body tackle. That doesn’t mean you’re dangerous every second you exist. It means you haven’t learned where the brakes are yet.”

His hands tightened lightly at her sides, grounding rather than restraining. “So until you do, you move with me.” Damon looked toward the bathroom, mentally dismantling the next hour into manageable pieces. Shower. Clean clothes. Blood before the hunger returned hard enough to frighten her again. Curtains sealed before sunrise. Questions could wait until she no longer looked hollowed out by the answers.

He returned his gaze to her. “I’ll turn the shower on. You can stay under it until the water stops running red.” His voice remained deliberately even. “I’ll be right outside the door, and before you argue, that is me demonstrating remarkable restraint." His thumb brushed carefully over the side of her waist. The humor faded as quickly as it had arrived.

When he eventually pulled back, it wasn’t far. Just enough for her to look up at him with red-rimmed eyes. He was still holding her, still letting her hold him. She forced herself to loosen her grip. Not by much, almost like she was afraid he’d disappear if she let go completely, but it was probably a step in the right direction.

She could argue. Point out that not knowing where the brakes were was what made her dangerous. Max chose not to. Swallowed thickly and nodded instead. She chose to believe him. It hurt less that way. Made her feel more like someone that could maybe eventually learn the control he spoke of and less like some thing that needed to be put down.

“Okay.” Her voice was a whisper, rough from the lack of use and the crying. Moving with Damon was better than the alternative. She didn’t feel much like leaving his side any time soon anyways. Staying with him had the added bonus of knowing he’d stop her if she tried to hurt someone. If not to save them, then to save her the added guilt.

Teeth pressed into her bottom lip to stop herself from asking Damon to stay in the bathroom with her. The anxiety of being left alone was strong, but she didn’t want to seem so codependent that she couldn’t even manage a shower on her own. That would just be sad. “That’s…yeah. Probably a good idea. I don’t want to break your shower.” She’d been breaking a lot of things recently—something he clearly already knew, given what he’d said earlier.

She reared back at the mention of drinking something, just about pulling away completely, but still too afraid to do so. She shook her head quickly, but Damon clarified before she could fully panic. A bag. She’d drink from a bag. “…You have those?” It wasn’t really something she’d considered—that Damon might have blood bags on hand. The thought of it was still something that unnerved her, that she still wanted to refuse on principle alone. But drinking from a bag would be considerably better than drinking from a person.

Max took a breath. Then another. She nodded. “…Okay. Okay. I trust you.” Not because she had no other choice, but because she was certain he had the knowledge and the ability to help her through this.

Because she knew he would.

Things blurred together a little after that. Another nod and she went with him to the bathroom. Distantly watched him turn on the shower, trying not to disappear into her own head completely. Into her thoughts. It was hard, staying present when she didn’t really want to be, but it grew easier once she was standing under the spray of hot water.

For a long while, she didn’t move. Just stood there, watching the water swirling down the drain change from red to pink. She tried not to think about the faces that colour had belonged to. The water couldn’t do all the work, though. Max moved as carefully as she possibly could to reach out and grab each bottle of product as she needed it. Scrubbed herself down from head to toe until the water ran clear again.

She did it a couple more times after that for good measure.

Ah. The child was not as she seemed. In appearance? She was a human child of nine or ten. Her eyes reflected curious wonder as she moved about among the throng of people on the sidewalk. But when looking deeper-- and a little help from his Sonic Screwdriver-- it became clear that something far more complex was just beneath the surface.

Blinking at the man that stopped her, she tilted her head curiously at him, brow slowly furrowing as he spoke. He sounded like he somehow knew about her, but the only people who knew about her were from The Mountain. He did not look like a soldier.