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Meredith and Bonnie had both been holding a hand to the side of their necks; Bonnie a trifle absently. Matt looked at his dim arms.
"If there's any kind of fighting tonight I'm going to need these."
"Fine. Sit."
Matt looked at the bed, then the chair. "I have to sit?"
"No. You can fall if you want. Your choice."
"You really are a bastard, you know? You're trying to scare me."
"Yes," Stefan said, with a terrifying lack of expression. He leaned in. "I am trying to scare you because I would rather scare you than hurt you."
"I don't care if you hurt me!" This was crazy. Matt sat on the bed, tipped his chin back, and shut his eyes like someone awaiting lethal injection. He made his mind as blank as possible.
It seemed a long time before Stefan said, in that same clipped, expressionless voice,
"Fine. Your funeral."
"You know something? From a vampire, that isn't funny."
"I wasn't trying to be funny."
Matt felt him sit on the bed. And then cool fingertips were gripping his jaw, adjusting the angle of his head with the precision and unemotional professionalism of a surgeon.
Blank, blank, blank, he thought. His hands were clenched into fists by his sides.
How did Bonnie and Meredith do this? How do you hold still and wait for the snake to bite? Bonnie's frightened of thunderstorms; she cries if she cuts her finger. How could they possibly have been better, stronger, more courageous about this?
God, you're dumb, something in his brain informed him, and then turned its back on him and refused to say anything else.
The pain wasn't nearly as bad as he'd been imagining. Vampire canines were sharp.
And, after all, Stefan knew what he was doing; he did this all the time.
Damn, that's it? I got myself all worked up over that? The last time I had bloodwork it hurt way more than that; that idiot doctor couldn't even find a vein. No wonder . . .
He felt coolwarmth on the side of his neck and the world exploded in agony. He couldn't breathe. His soul was being ripped out of his body while it was still alive.
It stopped.
Matt's mind caught up with the fact that he wasn't dying anymore a few minutes later. He was doubled over, arms wrapped around himself, trying not to sob.
"I . . . told you," Stefan's voice said. Stefan's voice was shaking with anger; he could feel Stefan shaking with anger, and strain—and something else. Grief, maybe. Selfhatred.
But Stefan's hand was still locked in Matt's hair.
"I'll tell you . . . something else," Stefan said, and Matt could hear the diamondbright edge of fury twisted back on itself in his voice. Stefan leaned down to speak directly into Matt's ear, softly and with a venom Matt had never heard before. "It's . . . not good to offer your blood to a vampire and then expect to back out. We are not . . . nice creatures. We get a certain desire to rip your arms and legs off and—"
He stopped. Matt felt the fingers in his hair unclench and let go. Stefan stood.
Stefan was walking away.
"Wait." It was only one syllable, but Matt impressed himself by getting it out.
"I'm leaving now," Stefan said distantly. It was still a voice designed to raise the fine hairs on the back of a human neck.
" Wait." Matt scrubbed his cheeks with a shrug of both shoulders. It didn't hurt to do that. The wound in his neck was barely trickling.
