Madness • The Vampire Diaries [1]

THIRTY-FIVE

|35.| BOURBON STREET

ELENA CHOOSES TO STAY AT THE BOARDING HOUSE as her little brother is now on the verge of killing her willingly. Her ex, Stefan chooses to stay somewhere else knowing the pain and angry he has once he sees Elena: pain being they no longer are together and anger being it is Damon's fault of their departure. Just as the two are now home alone, they take things to the next level and end up naked in Damon's bed—willingly.

At the boarding house, Damon helps Elena get ready for her to leave for school acting as if they're a married couple. Stefan had picked up Cora from Jade's house to go back home and on the car ride home he tells her the new piece of information about Elena. From what he and Caroline discovered, it is possible that Elena is sired to Damon but they don't have concrete proof for their brother to believe them yet.

"So, she's staying here for how long now?" Cora asks as they walk towards the front door.

"Until Jeremy can have full control over his hunter side," Stefan answers. The front door opens before they can open it themselves to see Damon and Elena in front of them.

"Hey," Elena says to the younger siblings.

"Hey," both Stefan and Cora say awkwardly.

"See you in history?" Elena looks at Stefan and he replies with a 'yeah'.

The doppelgänger walks between the siblings, avoiding Stefan's gaze. Cora shakes her head, glad that the awkwardness is over and walks inside her home. The two finally say hello to their older brother and Cora nudges Stefan to spill what he needs to say.

"Listen, we need to talk."

Stefan tells everything he discovered with Caroline about the sire bond to Damon. They sit down on the couch facing each other and Cora stands beside Stefan, holding her glass of bourbon in hand.

"Sired? Really Stefan? That is the most pathetic nonsense I've ever heard come out of your mouth, and you've said some crap in your day," Damon states, thinking Stefan is reaching too far.

"It was your blood that turned her, right? I mean, she's been different from day one because of you. You can't deny that," Stefan says.

"Sure I can. I finally got Elena to a good place about being a vampire. You two idiots can't stand that she's happy because of me," Damon nods towards both of his siblings.

"All right then, Mr. Know it all. Prove us idiots wrong," Cora sets down her glass and crosses her arms. "Tell her it's okay to drink from a blood bag."

"She can't. Her weird doppelgänger body rejected the blood from the bag," Damon points out.

"Right, because you told her to. You said she had to drink warm human blood straight from the vein. She almost died to make you happy," Stefan states a bit too boldly and Cora places her hand on his shoulder.