Love Bites

"Savannah, wake up." I hear a voice coming into my dreams. "Wake up, Savannah." I feel myself being poked in the side, its Damon. I flick his hand away and turn over. "Savannah."

I try to ignore him but he won't shut up. "What!" I yell, throwing the covers off myself.

"You're gonna be late for school missy."

"Ugh." I groan. "I'm not going." I felt really tired this morning and first period History class was the last thing on my mind. I threw the covers back over my head, that's when I heard Damon's bedroom door open.

"Don't bother. She's not going." I hear him say. Elena must be ready to leave.

I push the covers off a bit and sit up, "I'm tired. Go ahead, I'll see you later."

"Okay. Text me if anything changes with Stefan."

My head hits the pillow again, I'm tired but can't fall back asleep. "Where are you going?"

"I'm hungry."

"No. Lay back down, I can't fall asleep without you." I put on an innocent smile. Its true, I can't remember the last time I slept without Damon, even when I'm at home, he's always there. When he's gone I barely sleep, staying at dad's used to be horrible.

"You would deprive a starving vampire of blood?"

"Oh please, you're hardly starving." I tell him. "Just until I fall asleep. Then you can drink all the blood you want"

Damon gives me a smile before crawling back into bed with me. When I wake up, Damon is no longer next to me. I take a look at the clock and its 11:30, I slept late. I roll out of bed and decide to shower before going downstairs.

"About time you woke up." Damon says as he comes up from the basement

"I'm sure you survived the morning with out me." I grin as Damon wraps an arm around me, "How's Stefan?"

"Broody." he rolls his eyes. "Not eating."

"Why not?"

"Not my problem." We walk into the study and take a seat on the couch. I lay across Damon's lap and he runs his fingers through my hair. "Sleep good?"

"Fine." I answer then get onto my question. "Aren't you going to do something?"

"About what?"

"Stefan! This whole time you acted like you haven't cared and now he's kinda starving, you still don't care."

"That's because I don't, Savannah."

I see right through him. He doesn't want to care about Stefan but he can't help it. He is after all, his brother. I don't know what makes him hate Stefan so bad--besides Katherine that is, but shouldn't that be done with? These two have been around for a very long time, so I can't even begin to imagine everything they've been through. Then I remember something Damon said from a couple days ago. "Damon?"

"Yeah, babe?"

"At the party, when you said you had your reasons. Why did you say that?"

"You wanna know?"

"Of course I wanna know."

"Okay." He takes a breath. "Everybody praises Stefan because he's the 'good brother'. Well, he wasn't always."

"What do you mean?"

"You wanna know how we turned?"

"Yes." I'm not sure if I'm ready for this story, but I've seen enough and been through enough--how bad can it be?

"1864. After the founding families rounded up all the vampires--Katherine included--me and Stefan tried to save her, even though his stupid ass got her caught in the first place." Damon starts. "We were so close to saving her. Then out of nowhere, I'm shot. Killed. Stefan follows behind shortly.-"

Pause. The story he told me...it was them. "The story you told me. About the 'original Salvatore brothers' You and Stefan were killed trying to save Katherine."

Damon just nods. After I found out about what he was, I just thought he made up the story. "I woke up in a field not knowing where I was, we both died with Katherine's blood in our system so we were transitioning. I saw them drag her into the church and set it on fire, I thought she was dead. At that moment, I decided I wanted to die."

"Then explain why you're here now."

"Stefan. I'm here because of Stefan." Damon looks me in the eyes before continuing. "We both decided that we were going to die, Katherine was dead, no point of living. Stefan visits our father--also the one who killed us-"

"Your own father murdered you?" I ask in disbelief

Damon nods again. "We disgraced him once we sided with 'them' as he called it." He continues.. "Long story short, my father comes at Stefan, he didn't know his own strength and wounded him. He couldn't resist the blood and gave in."

Damon and Stefan's father kills them, then Stefan feeds on his own father to complete his transformation. I was wrong, I wasn't ready for this.

"He bragged. Bragged how everything was so much better, how strong he was, how far and clear he could hear. How..the pain, how you could turn it off. He wanted me to turn so badly, he hand delivered me a helpless girl, open wound and all. The blood changed him." Damon continues on. "I told him no, I can't. But he forced me."

Wow. I look at Damon as he stares blankly at the wall, like the whole thing is playing out in his head. "Damon.." I call his name as I run my fingers through his hair. He turns to look at me.

"And that's when I promised him an eternity of misery."

I nod, wrapping my arms around him. "Its too much. I can't handle anymore." Damon gives me a nod and kisses my forehead. "Do you regret it?"

"Not anymore."

After getting a quick snack to eat, I go downstairs to visit Stefan. He's sitting there, sulking. His animal blood in the water bottle still.

"Stefan, you have to eat...or drink."

"I don't want to."

"The human blood has passed out of your system, you're okay now. Everything's gonna be fine."

"No. Nothing will ever be fine, Savannah."

I go upstairs to see Damon on the phone, I take a seat on his lap and the next words out of his mouth are: "Stefan likes puppy blood. Little Golden Retriever blood...with floppy ears. Its his favorite." Then he hangs up the phone, I just stare at him. "What?" He laughs

"You're twisted." I smack his shoulder. "One of these days she's seriously gonna come out swinging."

"Just being helpful."

When Elena arrives, the first thing she does is visit Stefan. When she comes back up, she tells us he wants to die. Poor Stefan has been carrying around this guilt for 140 years, Damon doesn't seem to worried about it, I can understand why now. But...he has to feel a little something.

"Look. Keep an eye on Elena, make sure she doesn't do something stupid." Damon says as I walk him to the door. He's going on an adventure with Mr. Saltzman. Boy, for those two hating each other, they make one hell of a tag team. "And this time actually do it."

"Hey, there's no stopping little miss on a mission. But I'll try." Damon wraps his arms around me tight. "Now you be careful tonight. Try not to kill anybody."

"I can only try."

When Damon leaves, I sit in the living room with Elena. We make small talk, nothing major. But we're both really worried about Stefan.

"I'm gonna go talk to Stefan." Elena says, getting up from the couch

"Okay. Be careful, kay?"

"I will. Hopefully he'll open up to me."

"Hope so. I still have faith that everything's gonna be okay."

Elena gives me a smile before disappearing out of the room. She's down there a while but I know shes okay, so I don't bother checking. Stefan eventually leaves and Elena goes off looking for him. So much for making sure she doesn't do anything stupid.

"Everything go okay?" I ask Damon as he comes into the house

"I didn't kill anybody." He grins. "But your teacher did."

"That's good...I think." Damon sits on the couch and sits me on his lap. "I missed you."

"I missed you too." He says before giving me a kiss. "Where's mission girl and broodiness?"

"Um..."

"Savannah"

"Okay. Stefan left and Elena went to look for him." Damon shrugs his shoulders, blowing it off as if he doesn't care. I sit in Damon's lap as he strokes my hair and tells me about his evening. Then Elena and Stefan walk in holding hands, looks like she got through to him.

"Little boy lost." Damon chuckles. Looks like these two need some privacy. I give Damon a kiss on the cheek before getting off his lap.

"Goodnight Stefan." Elena says goodnight to Damon and we head upstairs. I grab her wrist, stopping her. I put my finger to my lips so she won't make any noise, knowing very well both of them will hear us. We listen as they begin to talk.

"Thank you."

"No Stefan, thank you. You're back on Bambi Blood and I'm the big bad ass brother again. All is right in the world."

I fight the urge to laugh at Damon's comment. This is not a laughing matter at all but Damon's so sarcastic that it adds humor to everything. Then things get serious.

"You brood too much. Everything on this planets not your fault. My actions, what I do, its not your fault. I own them, they belong to me. You're not allowed to feel my guilt."

"You feel guilt?"

"When I want to...its there. But I don't hate you because you made me feed, I thank you for that."

"Why then?"

"Because she turned you. It was supposed to be me. Just me. But I don't hate you anymore because of that."

"Then why do you?"

"Because you brood. I don't know, I'm looking for reasons."

There's complete silence for a few moments. Damon is looking for reasons to hate Stefan? Only because he really doesn't hate him, no doubt. Me and Elena look at each other and smile, there's finally speaking in the room and we hear the words "hey Stefan." and nothing else. Curious, Elena puts her index finger to her lips and I follow her. We tip toe halfway down the steps and and peak into the room. We stare at the scene before us in awe then quickly sneak upstairs, not wanting to get caught.

They were hugging.