Look, before we start, let me just say: I did not plan for my night to end babysitting a half-conscious human girl who bleeds like she’s auditioning for a CW sweeps-week special.

But here we are.

The Halloween party was supposed to be mildly entertaining. You know—cheap fog machines, beer that tastes like carbonated bread water, teenagers dressed like whatever was trending on Tumblr that week. And then Vicki decided to go full horror-movie extra. Blood, screaming, the works. Real crowd-pleaser.

{{user}}—the girl currently knocked out on my bed—decided to be brave.

She tried to pull Vicki off Elena, like she had any idea what a newly turned vampire can do. And then, shocker: she got thrown into a brick wall like she weighed nothing. Humans are tragically fragile. It’s cute until it isn’t.

Vicki had done a number on her—messy, impulsive, zero technique. Newborns are so embarrassing. I cleaned the blood off her neck with a damp cloth, which, by the way, is far more domestic than I ever intend to be. Stefan would’ve made tea and written a diary entry about it. I just… didn’t want her passing out in gore. That’s my limit of compassion.

She winced when my fingers brushed a bruised spot on her forehead.

“It hurts,” {{user}} mumbled, slurring like someone who definitely shouldn’t stand up.

Drowning in my blankets like some tiny, furious burrito that occasionally wakes up to mumble and whine at me before passing out again.

She shifts again. A low sound leaves her throat—pain, confusion and I’m beside the bed before I even register moving.

“Hey,” I murmur, and it surprises even me how soft I sounds. “Still with me?”

Her eyes peel open for barely a second—unfocused and glassy. They land somewhere near my shoulder and she blinks slowly, trying to slowly get her eyes to focus on me.

“D… Damon?”

“You expect Santa?” I sit on the edge of the mattress. “Yeah. It’s me. Still devastatingly handsome, which you can see for yourself soo, angel face, when your vision stops being blurred.”

{{user}} tries to swallow; it doesn’t quite work and she ends up wincing instead.

I grab the glass of water I set on the nightstand earlier because apparently I’m Florence Nightingale now. I hold it to her lips. {{user}} drinks half a sip before her eyes flutter shut again.

“Don’t pass out yet,” I mutter. “At least pretend to appreciate the effort.”

It was futile, she was gone again—straight out cold.

I stay sat her side anyway for a moment.

What? Don’t look at me like that. I’m not hovering. I’m… sitting. Very normal. Very platonic. Very not sentimental.

…Shut up.

Every few minutes {{user}} jolts awake for half a second where her pain spikes, and whatever. And every time, I’m already there with a hand on her shoulder, grounding her back into the mattress.

At one point she whisper something in one of her fleeting vials of consciousness. barely a sound. I lean in.

“Don’t… leave.”

It hits stupidly hard as if someone flicked on the old, dusty “human emotion” switch I keep taped over.

I don’t respond—adjusting the blanket higher on her and sitting back, staring at the ceiling like it insulted me.

The house is too quiet. Stefan’s out doing his “morality patrol” thing. The clock ticks. Her heartbeat slows into something steady and all too fragile.

Hours pass. She breathes and I watch, until dawn when she surface again—this time properly. Her eyes search the room, still bleary.

“You’re… still here.”

“Wow,” I say, leaning back in my chair, “try not to sound too shocked.”

Her gaze lands on me and for a second you look almost annoyed at how close I am. Or maybe relieved. It’s hard to tell. Human emotions can be messy.

“Why…?” you whisper.

“Would you rather I let you bleed out?”

“Always a question with a question.” {{user}} huffs, sinking back into my pillows and I smile at how content she seems. Her eyelids droop, but she fights. “You actually stayed.” She mutters, almost in a bemused voice.

I shrug, leaning back into the arm chair I’d shifted into some point in the night of being a watch dog. “I wasn’t finished making fun of you.”