A Land of Make Believe

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.

@normaltothemax || inbox meme reply || phee!!

" i wouldn't do that if i were you. "

hands come up, showing her his palms. a sign of a relenting attempt to make her believe he doesn't mean her any harm. "listen. i just need to get a few of these," he nudges his head towards the flowers growing from the grave he hiked all the way here to find. the spot was written in his father's journal. if he couldn't pick them here? it'd be another several hundred miles into the mountains before they'd find the next. the problem they came here to solve? isn't going to wait that long.

"i'm not here to bother you. just wanna help some people back in town. that's all." the spirit wreaking havoc on the women who are acting possessed right before they walk right off their deaths on a cliff into the water below, apparently, wants some kind of homage. or this is its weakness. sam hasn't figured that part out yet. only that he's supposed to come back with no less than nine blooms. or this is all for nothing.

"then i'll be out of your hair."

-- A normal day. A boring day. The Red Hood was out causing problems on purpose, checking in with his dealers, and making sure that the girls and kids in his neighborhoods were still taken care of. It was dull work, but important. They had to see that he still had a presence. Without it, they'd start feeling like they could get away with more things.

He was wandering the streets when he heard a commotion down a side street. He turned to take a look, only to see one of his own men accosting someone. Normally, he wouldn't get involved, but he was bored. So he walked up behind his guy, clearing his throat.

A mugging. It was so stupid, and she had all of Bruce’s lessons so clear in her mind. Her body just refused to listen to her. Which left her trapped there between the man demanding her purse and the wall behind her until somebody else showed up. Some guy wearing a red…motorcycle helmet? Maybe?

God, Gotham was so fucking weird.

His head snapped up. “Stop.” It came out quieter this time. Damon rubbed a hand over his mouth, giving a short, bitter laugh. “Yeah, I know. Pretty fucking rich coming from me.” His jaw tightened. “You want to hate me for what I said? Fine. You want to tell me you don’t trust me? I earned that. But don’t stand there and make yourself disposable because I was enough of an asshole to make you feel that way.” He stepped farther into the room. “You’re not a secret, Max. And I’m not embarrassed that Stefan knows I give a damn about you.” His mouth twisted. “Stefan’s been watching me make humiliating emotional decisions for a century and a half. That ship sailed sometime before indoor plumbing.” The humor disappeared almost immediately. “What embarrassed me was that he knew I was scared.” Damon swallowed, eyes holding hers now. “He knew what you meant to me. He knew exactly what it would do to me if you left, and I hated that he could see it when I couldn’t even say it.” His jaw flexed. “So I did what I’m apparently incredibly good at. I set the whole thing on fire before somebody else could.”

His gaze dropped for a second. “And you heard it.” There was no excuse following it. “That’s on me.” When she went back to the duffle, Damon tensed. His eyes tracked the movement automatically, catching the slight lack of control in it. She was still getting used to being fast. Still breaking things because her hands closed a little too hard, stopping herself a little too late. He’d seen plenty of new vampires go through it. That didn’t make watching Max struggle with it any easier.

His expression softened despite himself. “Strength and control aren’t the same thing. You’ve got plenty of the first one. The second one takes time.” He paused. “And I should be the person helping you figure that out, not the reason you’re accidentally murdering bathroom accessories.” The zipper on the bag moved.

“No.” Damon crossed the room before he could reconsider it, stopping between her and the doorway. He didn’t touch her or the bag. He just stood there. “Look at me first.” His voice sharpened. “Look me in the eye and tell me you actually believe I could replace you. Tell me there’s somebody else whose footsteps I know before she walks into the room. Somebody else whose coffee order I know even though I pretend I don’t pay attention. Somebody else who somehow got into every corner of my life without asking permission.” His jaw tightened. “Tell me I’m going to wake up tomorrow, find someone easier, and forget you Go ahead.”

He stared at her before breaking eye contact first, swearing under his breath. Damon paced two steps away and dragged both hands through his hair. He turned back. “You’re right. I don’t get to say something horrible and then throw three magic words at you and expect everything to be fine.” His voice lowered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said it, and I’m sorry I made you feel like something I would hide when you are probably the least hidden thing in my entire life.”

Damon’s eyes dropped toward the bag again. “I heard you leave, realized you’d heard me, and panicked. Then I got here, saw that thing, and panicked harder.” His mouth twitched without humor. “Apparently panic makes me charming.” The joke faded. “I’m not shocked there are consequences, Max.” His throat worked. “I’m terrified of them.” For once, he let that sit there.

“Tell me I ruined this past the point of fixing, and I’ll hear you.” Damon grimaced. “I’ll argue, obviously. I’m not suddenly becoming well adjusted.” His gaze locked onto hers again. “But don’t leave because you think you’re something I can replace. And don’t think I’m going to use you being new at this as an excuse to make the decision for you.” Slowly, visibly hating it, Damon stepped out of the doorway.

(Dr. Charles “Call Me Charlie” Grant. She’d hated him and his stupid, always calm voice. His it’s-impossible-to-get-a-rise-out-of-me attitude. Max had always felt like an idiot whenever she’d snapped and snarled at him and didn’t get anything more than a raised eyebrow, the scratching of a pen against paper, and the offer to talk about why she felt that way.)

There were no real excuses for what he’d said. He wasn’t trying to make something up, wasn’t trying to talk circles around her, wasn’t playing mind games. He sounded like he was being honest. Baring his soul to her because he was scared of her leaving.

But Damon could be very convincing when he wanted something. Max knew that. That was part of the problem.

He moved between her and the door, and she grit her teeth. The duffle bag stayed on the bed for the moment, her back turned to him. Look at me first. She didn’t want to. Almost kept her eyes averted completely. She’d never been able to resist him for long, though. Not since the day they’d met.

Maybe that made her a sucker.

She caved, reluctantly meeting his gaze. Tears glittered in her eyes. She swallowed thickly, but didn’t look away. “…I don’t know what to believe anymore.” The words were quiet. They almost felt like they were someone else’s. Like Max wasn’t the one speaking. Like she wasn’t even there anymore. Just an observer, watching this train wreck happen in real-time.

It took everything in her to keep her resolve from crumbling when he apologized. Damon was saying all the right things. He was taking responsibility for his actions, explaining his words but not trying to excuse them, basically begging her to stay. She wanted so badly to believe him. She really did.

She also knew she needed him. Control wasn’t something she had, as he’d stated. Especially not when she was emotional. She couldn’t control her speed, her strength, her hunger. If she left, she’d truly be navigating being a vampire on her own. She’d definitely hurt more people, because Max didn’t have a clue what she was doing, and had no way of getting herself blood bags to keep the hunger at bay. She didn’t have anyone other than Damon to help her—to teach her—either.

Even if she decided she never wanted to see him again, she knew logically that she had to.

Yet he was still moving away from the doorway. He was still letting her leave, if she wanted to—which she didn’t. She wanted to stay, hear him say nice things, and let him make it up to her. She wanted him. But the trust that’d been between them was as destroyed as her apartment.

“I don’t…” Her expression twisted, hands balling into fists at her sides. She looked away as a tear finally fell, the indecision clear on her face, in every shift of her weight, in the way her teeth pressed into her lip. “How am I supposed to believe anything you say? How am I supposed to trust you after that?”

Trembling hands pushed through her hair, tugging lightly at it before releasing it. “I’ve been with guys that did that before, Damon. They say nice, pretty things to my face, and then behind my back they say I’m crazy. I’m a slut. I’m convenient. I can’t…” Her voice shook along with her hands. “I don’t want to leave. I don’t. But…I can’t do that again. So…what, I’m supposed to just stay and constantly worry about what you’re saying to people when I’m not there?”

“Damon.”

“Don’t.”

He was gone before Stefan could finish.

Damon didn’t stop to think about what Max had heard. He already knew. Of course she’d heard the worst of it. That was how these things worked. She wouldn’t have caught the hesitation. Wouldn’t have seen Stefan calling him on every lie. She’d heard convenient. She’d heard replaceable. She’d heard Damon reduce everything between them into something cheap because admitting it mattered had been harder than destroying it. By the time he reached her apartment, anger had already swallowed most of the panic. Then he saw the door. Wood was splintered across the floor. The frame was cracked, pieces scattered several feet into the apartment. Damon stepped inside and stopped, gaze sweeping over the damage. Broken glass. A plant on its side. Something smashed against the kitchen wall. There were fresh dents in places there absolutely hadn’t been dents before.

“Max.” He moved farther inside, following the noise from the bedroom, and the second he reached the doorway he saw the bag.Everything in him stopped. Clothes were scattered across the floor. Some torn, some abandoned halfway between the closet and bed. The duffle was open, belongings shoved inside.

She wasn’t cooling off she wasn’t going somewhere for the night she was leaving. “No.” The word came out hard. Damon stepped into the room, staring at the bag like it had personally offended him. “Absolutely not.” He knew he didn’t have the right to say it. He knew that somewhere beneath the anger, somewhere underneath every instinct demanding he stop this before it became real. “You’re not doing this.”

His gaze finally lifted from the duffle. “You heard me. Great. Fantastic.” Damon threw his hands out, voice already climbing. “Then yell at me. Throw something at my head. Break the other half of the apartment if that’ll make you feel better, but you don’t get to hear ten minutes of me being an asshole and decide you’re disappearing off the face of the earth.” The second the words left his mouth, Damon’s jaw flexed. “That came out wrong.” Of course it had, everything was coming out wrong tonight. He dragged a hand through his hair and paced two steps away before wheeling back. “Actually, no. Screw it. You know what? I’m not going to stand here and politely watch you pack while pretending I’m okay with it. I’m not.”

Damon crossed toward the bed, stopping himself just short of reaching for it. His hand flexed once at his side, like it physically hurt not to grab the thing and launch it through a window. “You want to leave because you’re pissed at me? Fine. Be pissed. You should be.” His voice sharpened. “But if you’re leaving because you actually believe that garbage you heard, then no. I’m not letting you walk out believing that.” Damon turned away, jaw tight, staring at the wall rather than anything else. “Stefan kept pushing. He kept saying I loved you, that I was scared you’d leave, that every time you get too close I find some new way to shove you back.”

A humorless smile pulled at his mouth. “And apparently being emotionally eviscerated by my baby brother wasn’t humiliating enough, so I decided to prove him wrong.” He looked back. “By lying. I knew I was lying.” His expression hardened again before vulnerability could settle too comfortably.

“You think I don’t know what you are to me? You think I don’t notice that I know exactly how your footsteps sound in my house? That I know the second you walk into a room whether something’s wrong? You think I don’t notice when you’re gone?”

Damon took another step closer swallowing hard. “And replace you?” Damon scoffed, shaking his head. “Please. With who?” His voice grew sharper. “Tell me, Max. Who exactly am I replacing you with? Should I put out an ad? Looking for one five-foot-four pain in my ass, a smart mouth, absolutely no sense of self-preservation and the inexplicable ability to make me give a damn about things I have spent a century not giving a damn about?” His chest rose hard beneath his shirt. “Yeah. I’m sure there are thousands.” Damon looked at the duffle again, and something in his expression cracked. “I said that because Stefan asked what happens if you leave.” His eyes lifted Damon’s voice lowered, rough around the edges now. “And I didn’t have an answer. I still don’t.”

The fight was draining out of him faster than he could replace it. “That’s the part you didn’t hear. The part where I was standing there trying to convince Stefan you meant nothing because admitting you mean everything would’ve given him exactly what he wanted.”

He pushed away from the bed and paced once, restless, furious with himself, with Stefan, with the destroyed apartment, with that goddamn bag sitting there like a countdown. “You want to hit me? Do it. You want to tell me you hate me? I can handle it.”

His chin lifted slightly as he pointed toward the bag. “But this? Running because I said something designed to hurt somebody else and managed to hit you instead?” Damon shook his head. “No. Fight with me.” The desperation finally slipped through. “Please.” His jaw tightened immediately afterward, but he didn’t take it back. “Stay and scream at me. Tell me I’m a coward. Tell me Stefan was right. Tell me I just destroyed the best thing that’s happened to me because I couldn’t stand saying it out loud.”

Damon stared at her, anger still burning across his face, but there was nothing cold left in his eyes. “I lied to Stefan because I was scared you’d leave.” His gaze flicked to the bag one last time. “And now you’re leaving because of the lie.” A faint, broken laugh escaped him. “So yeah, Max, I’m going to be difficult about this. I’m going to stand right here and make you hear the truth before you decide what the hell you’re going to do with me.” His voice softened, but only barely.

Fuck that and fuck him.

He didn’t get to do that. He didn’t get to say all those awful things and then turn around and be upset that she was leaving. Max wasn’t some toy he could just string along and play with when he felt like it, and then throw in the trash once he was done. She had more self-respect than that.

The hurt swiftly turned into anger. sparks igniting deep within her chest. Jaw tight, she glared at him, eyes burning holes into his skull as he snapped at her.

She threw the shirt in her hands into her duffle bag. “I’m sorry it’s so fucking embarrassing that someone thinks you might give a shit about me.” Her voice shook, anger underlying the words. Not enough to cover up the hurt. Just enough to sharpen it.

She turned on her heel. Stalked back to her closet, only to speed up, jolting forward unexpectedly, skidding to a stop just before she hit the back wall. She swore under her breath, but went back to grabbing clothes blindly from the hangers. It didn’t matter what she took with her. Who cared? Why she was bothering to pack anything, she wasn’t sure—it would have been better if she’d just left without a trace.

The things she’d grabbed were shoved into the bag before she moved on to the bathroom.

The worst part was that she wanted to believe Damon. Desperately. Max wanted nothing more than to take his words at face value and brush his conversation with Stefan off as nothing. But she couldn’t.

“Is this the ‘something halfway sincere’ that you say before we’re fine again?” Throwing his words back in his face unfortunately wasn’t as satisfying as she’d hoped it might be. The mirror on the medicine cabinet door shattered when she slammed it shut, shards falling to the floor, into the sink. She paid them no mind.

She almost threw her hairbrush at his head when he said he loved her.

“Don’t,” she snapped. “Don’t do that. You don’t get to do that.” The handle of the brush snapped in half in her grip, both pieces hitting the floor with a clatter. “You don’t get to say all that horrible shit and then be shocked when there are fucking consequences.”

Her hands trembled, but she didn’t stop moving. If she stopped, the full reality of the situation might catch up and completely paralyze her. Tears welled up in her eyes. She swiped them away angrily. “You know what the worst part is?” She could barely get the duffle bag zipped up, her hands were shaking so badly.

Max finally met his eyes. “The worst part is that I don’t even hate you. I love you. I still do. So fucking much. But I can’t…” Her breath hitched. “I can’t be with someone who can’t even stand to tell his own brother that he gives half a shit about me.”