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Matt straightened up, hands open on his knees, and tilted his head. He felt again the precise, unemotional fingers on his jaw, but they weren't as cool as before.
And he could feel the almost imperceptible shaking.
Matt's thoughts, already, confused and in conflict, were now jumping from idea to idea like a frog in a redhot frying pan.
I was right. I knew I hurt him. More than it hurt me, maybe. And I don't know any way to make him understand about humans . . . why doesn't he already know that? I bet Damon knows it. No, I'm stupid. Human blood; he doesn't drink human blood. And maybe a vampire wouldn't get it anyway. To them it's feeding, it's eating. How are they supposed to understand the stuff it gets mixed up with in a human brain? Or that it's different with a guy than a girl, that the whole thing sets off some kind of panic impulse with guys? Here he's trying to save Bonnie and Meredith and everybody, when I'm completely useless, and the only way I can help him is to make him stronger so he has a chance. Not even a chance of living, but a chance of stopping that monster. And what do I do? I hit him. All I needed to do was relax and not hate him, but I couldn't even do that. The girls could do that, but not me.
He opened his eyes. Had he missed it? No, Stefan was just sitting there.
"What now? I told you I was sorry. You still think I'm gonna back out and make you rip my arms off?"
Stefan let go. "No, but . . . "
"I told you, I get it. Come on; it's getting late." He could hear the difference in his own voice; he was still embarrassed, but he was talking to a friend, not a demon.
Stefan was shaking his head. "Humans . . . "
"Will you just—"
This time, when he felt the doubleneedle sting, he pushed away thoughts of snakes and scorpions. He thought about the first time he'd seen Stefan, standing up to old Tanner to defend Bonnie. He thought about the alwaysshadowed, alwayslost look in Stefan's eyes back when Matt had invited him to join a team of humans, and the doubt and confusion turning slowly into belief there. Stefan had wanted to join the human race, but he hadn't expected anybody to welcome him into it. Matt had been the first one to do that.
He kept thinking the same way when he felt Stefan's mouth on his neck, drawing out his blood. He tried not to think of Elena because that was something that hurt uniquely—his own pain was bad enough, but seeing Stefan's eyes afterward . . . God, nobody should be hurt like that. Matt didn't want to imagine what it took to make somebody's eyes look like that. Back in the days when they tortured people, maybe, there were lots of eyes, on the rack, on the Wheel—no, don't think about that. But to see that in somebody you cared about . . . and not to be able to do anything . . .
He heard his own breath break. What was . . . This wasn't . . .
He was breathing as if he'd been running hard. He could feel his heart, too, but it wasn't from the fear that had made him so angry when he'd walked in here.
Wait . . .
You won't like it any better if you do it right.
The world exploded differently.
There was still pain, sharper pain in a way, but it was mixed with an even sharper feeling, that was totally unfamiliar. Stefan was sucking his blood out hard, and holding him in place, too, or Matt might have fallen right off the bed. He was pierced to the soul. But somehow that was what he wanted, and all he could think was that he wanted to give more even than he was giving. He didn’t want to stop giving and he was aware, vaguely, of the feeling of not being able to breathe. He knew he was flying, and then soaring, and then everything went still, and he writhed like a victim on a sacrificial altar, pierced by a thousand little vampire teeth. And then a single ray of light pierced him body and soul, and he was giving everything he could, everything he was, pouring himself in a greedy frenzy into the darkness of the vampire. And then darkness took his vision.
Stefan
Stefan was waiting for the backlash.
He knew it would come. Matt had been in no way ready for this, and, despite his assurances, wouldn't be able to distinguish it from sexual activity. And Stefan had in no way planned to tap Matt's veins. Even in the end, when Matt had proved so stubborn that Stefan's vampire anger had been provoked to teach him a lesson, he hadn't expected Matt to last beyond the first stirrings of pleasure.
But Matt was . . . stubborn. And a born giver, and all he'd been thinking about when Stefan had pierced him was giving. And about Stefan.
And I'm . . . not myself, Stefan, thought, licking his lips and probing for copper sweetness around his canine teeth. It's been so long, and I was so careful with the girls . . .
Through the mindlink that sharing blood always enhanced, he had been swept back through Matt's visions of the old days, Matt's perception of him. And that . . . had been a mistake. The deep, illogical fondness Matt had for him, the—the caring, had been something that Stefan had needed more than he realized it. He'd been shaken by how much . . .
Can't say it? Too wrapped up in human prejudice? Or is it just the lingering cedarsalty edge of testosterone you've drunk? His mind was a chorus of mockery.
It made him angry in turn, and angrier to realize that he'd drunk more of that testosteronelaced blood than he'd ever meant to, even when basking in the sunlight of Matt's feelings for him.
I can say it, he told the voices coldly. He loved me once. I had a friend. And now . . . I've made my friend hate me. When he wakes up, he's going to despise me, and himself, and it isn't going to matter a bit that he's got all his clothes on, and not even a mortal stain except on his neck. He's going to loathe me . . . and himself . . .
That hurt, a lot. Stefan fumbled for his sunglasses, even though the evening light was no threat to his now hypersensitive eyes. The room was almost dark, but he could hear Matt's breathing perfectly, changing from the slow regularity of sleep to the lighter, quicker, sounds of a sleeper about to waken. He could turn on the light, leave Matt alone to recover, to—react to this. Maybe that would be kinder.
And certainly a lot more convenient. You really are a coward, aren't you? his mind scoffed. Sometimes his subconscious sounded a lot like Damon.
He already had his strategy in line. Sit, don't stand, but at least a couple of bodylengths away. Out of punching distance, not because Matt could hurt him, but because the automatic lunge that Matt was going to make as soon as he woke would hurt Matt. He might even pass out, from rising too quickly—and from lack of blood, Stefan's mind added guiltily.
