deercountry | ( the dog days are over )

[ she pouts when he pulls away. how dare he resist her! katherine opens her eyes and continues to pout, remaining on her back as she watches him. ]

And to think you could be eating me instead.

[ grabbing her pillow with her hand, she loosely tosses it at him. ]

Hurry back before I miss you too much.

[ see? she can be tooth-achingly sweet. ]

I'm always amazed that you can wake up and be like this.

( he says it lightly before he finally heads to the door, reaching for his jacket on the chair and tugging it on before he steps out of the door.

aleksander zips inside and jumps up onto the bed to take up stefan's space. )

I know.

[ katherine buries her face into aleksander's fur as he settles in stefan's spot. she shifts until she can lie comfortably on her side and rest her head on his back. ]

Papa is so mean to Mama. But he's going to go get us breakfast. Maybe he'll get you a nice treat, too. You've been a good boy, haven't you?

[ best add a dog treat to the shopping list, stef. ]

( stefan rolls his eyes but yes, he makes a mental note to get aleksander a treat. he'd have gotten aleksander a treat without katherine asking him but now he has to come home with something. )

Papa is going to get Mama food. I don't see how that's mean.

( it's cold outside and he's going to go out and get breakfast. that's nice of him. )

[ katherine yells: ] Because you're leaving me alone in bed!

[ but she waits until he's gone before she splays out in bed for a few moments before getting up and showering. while he may be out, she's not going to relax. she's going to shower, get dressed in something suitable for the weather, and open up the house in his stead. she'll even put on a pot of coffee just for him.

see? she's sweet. ]

For a good reason!

( he laughs as he makes his way downstairs and out the door. aleksander will keep her company until then. he has faith in that fuzzy cloud. )

[ with stefan gone, katherine completes the most important chore of the house: she takes aleksander outside and throws his almost collapsed tennis ball around the backyard. he rolls around in the grass, in the dirt, sniffs the garden, bites some grass, and, at times, refuses to give the ball back despite knowing doing so will grant him more fun.

she'll be sitting on the back porch steps watching aleksander bark at the tennis ball as if it's personally offended him when stefan comes home. ]

( stefan expects it to be an easy trip into town and back. at first, that's exactly what happens. he gets to the bakery, buys everything that he needs and makes a quick stop at the general store for something for aleksander and then he's on his way back.

that's when he encounters. stefan doesn't even know what it is but it's big and it stands in his way. stefan takes a few steps back, holding up a hand like that's going to stop whatever this is.

the snake keeps coming and when he spits, stefan manages to dart away but the venom hits the small of his back, burning his shirt and causing intense, surging pain that he hasn't felt in a long time. he hits his knees but gets up, still holding into the baked goods and tries to use his speed to get away.

but the speed doesn't come. the venom does, catching his shoulder this time and nearly knocking him out from the pain. the heat the thing is putting off is so intense and whatever's going on, stefan can't change. where his vampire abilities used to be, there's something.

his heart pounds and he tries to crawl away from the snake.

while still carrying the baked goods. )

[ aleksander rolls around the ball, tossing himself onto the ground and dirtying his white coat. katherine sighs, but her quip that her dog won't appreciate is lost before it even begins to properly form. the ring—the small one that barely looks like anything compared to her large and pretty lapis lazuli bracelet—tingles in an uncomfortable way.

it only means one thing.

she speeds through the house and to the front door. she doesn't think to call stefan. the logic he had followed when the building had collapsed on top of her is lost to her. all she can feel is the ring burn her finger and her desperation to track him and find him and kill whatever's causing him pain.

something's wrong.

turning left based on a gut feeling, katherine walks very quickly, bare feet pounding into the pavement. she keeps an eye out for his thick head of hair, her nose turned upward as she tries to catch that familiar and warming scent of him. despite not understanding it, she tries to use her vileblood to call out for his blood. she thinks he's near, but so are so many other people. she feels like a newborn vampire unable to identify one sole scent. katherine does her best not to panic as she tries to hunt him down.

and when she finds him, he's a good street and a half away. she runs towards him, brows furrowing, her heart in her throat. dropping to her knees on the asphalt, she gropes at his shoulders, moving to roughly turn him around and onto his back. ]

Stef! [ she roughly moves her knees against the ground, tearing skin. she ignores the baked goods as she keeps a hand on his shoulder and brushes on roughly against his forehead and hair. ] What the hell happened?

There's...a snake.

( he knows he's breathing rapidly and what's worse, he knows that he's not healing when he should be. when they'd come to trench, they'd gotten their vampire abilities back but they are not working right now. he pants a bit, gasping when the pain hits him particularly nastily.

darkness swims in front of his eyes and he blinks a few times. )

I can't...I can't stay awake, Katherine. It hurts.

Okay, okay.

[ she nods, although she doesn't quite look him in the eye. she's busy taking him in, looking him over for a bite or some marking to indicate where he's been hurt. pawing at his shirt and groping at his skin, she doesn't allow her own panic to bubble up just yet.

they've got this. ]

You just... [ she exhales loudly, nodding. ] You just need to heal. And then I'll take you home.

Katherine, I'm not healing.

( stefan writhes again, feeling the pain from the venom sinking into his veins and burning him. he nearly screams because it's so, so painful and he rolls onto his side so she'll be able to see the burns on his back and arm where the snake had gotten him. )

Can you see anything? Is there wood in it? Or silver?

( he knows it's not but he doesn't want to think about his healing abilities not working. not again. )

[ katherine remains quiet as she tentatively touches the fabric of his shirt a few centimetres up from where his skin's grossly discoloured. she does her best to try and mask her expression, but the worried pinch to her brows would give her away to even someone who doesn't know her. ]

We're going to have to get you home.

[ she keeps her voice as even as possible. her plan haphazardly falls to place as she shifts and comes to kneel behind him. ]

I'm going to pick you up.

No, no, I can walk.

( he cannot walk but he does try and get to his feet, managing to push himself up onto his knees before he stumbles and just barely stops himself from hitting the dirt again.

so, maybe he can't walk. )

I don't know what's wrong with me, Katherine. Why am I not healing?

I don't know.

[ she does her best to remain calm. katherine doesn't let him get up again; she scoops him up and holds him across her chest. doing her best not to jostle him, katherine quickly walks back the way she had come. it must be a strange sight, seeing a woman carry a man of stefan's bulk. she doesn't pant; he's like carrying a feather. ]

What happened? Do you remember what happened before you felt like this?

There was a snake. A giant...there was a snake. I'm not kidding, I'm not delirious. It shot something at me and I couldn't move fast enough to get out of the way.

( now that he's thinking about it, he should have been able to use his quickness to move. he'd seen the snake coming and hadn't been able to dodge. )

That was it, that was all. I just couldn't get out of its way for some reason and it shot me with something.

A snake.

[ she nods, trying to piece it all together. why wasn't stefan able to sense the snake? surely, he would've heard it slithering, it opening its mouth... he may be a somewhat young vampire, but his hearing was sharp.

she continues to walk, holding him to her. ]

You probably got hit with venom. [ that's the most likely case. katherine doesn't sound panicked despite feeling it. ] We'll either see if you've healed from it or... we get it out.

( there's really nothing else he can say to that because he knows that whatever he does, she's going to insist on doing everything she can to get it out of him.

his breathing grows a little shallow and his eyes flutter shut, an escape from the pain coursing through him. )

I'm not healing. Why am I not healing? I thought this was fixed.

Did you...

[ she doesn't even know what she wants to ask as she turns a corner, doing her best not to jostle him. stefan had seemed fine this morning—as peppy as stefan salvatore could ever be. there hadn't been a wobble to his step or a scent coming off of him that had implied he was unwell.

the last time he hadn't healed quickly, it'd been in deerington when his healing had been smothered. katherine doesn't want to think that's happened again. it can't.

licking her lips, she stops. as calmly as she can, she looks down at him. ]

If you've been bitten, we need to get that venom out of you now.

[ and that means she will need to put him down. ]

It didn't bite me. It just...it shot it at me. And I think it burned my skin so it's inside me that way.

( it felt like acid and he still feels that in his blood. he takes several quick, shallow breaths, trying not to pass out because the pain will not relent. he can feel tears pricking at his eyes but he wipes at them with an uncoordinated hand before he shakes his head. )

It just....it was on fire, Katherine. It was there so quickly and I couldn't do anything about it. It hurts. It feels like I'm on fire now from the inside out.

Okay.

[ it's not okay, but it's the thing to say. she doesn't put him down.s he doesn't want stefan to be on some person's lawn. she'd been treating him as carefully as she could, but she knows now that there's no point to it. she's merely wasting time when she could be trying to alleviate his pain.

it's a good thing that she apparently has proficiency with poisons now, but she doesn't want to fumble in the middle of the street. ]

Close your eyes and focus on me. I'm going to get us home very quickly.

[ super speed. ]

I'm just gonna...close my eyes.

( because he thinks he might throw up if he keeps his eyes open and she goes that fast. he takes several deep breaths and then nods before he closes his eyes. he doesn't know if he's going to pass out but...well, he might pass out. )

I'm fine, you can do what you need to do. Just gonna close my eyes.

( yeah, he was going to maybe pass out. )

[ rather than reply, katherine waits a moment before she's off, super speeding. it's quick. she stops at the front porch and slips in through the open door, aleksander barking as she runs around the room in a frantic fuss.

she takes stefan to the couch and carefully deposits him down so he's on his side facing the cushions. she gently touches his bicep as she sits on her heels.

gently, ] Stef?

( he doesn't want to open his eyes. he wants to sink into unconsciousness and escape what he's feeling but she's not going to let him. he pulls his eyes open and looks at her, shivering a bit. )

It hurts.

( he doesn't mean to whine but he hasn't felt this level of pain in a long time. his back is on fire and he's lost some feeling in his arm from where the venom landed. he clenches his eyes shut tightly and shakes his head. )

I'm not healing. Something's wrong.

I know.

[ she rests her hand gently but firmly against his bicep. katherine looks him over, unsure of what to do. she doesn't know what being a vileblood means but given her perchance for poisons and her ability to pull it from the mushrooms from a couple of months ago, she doesn't want to not use what may be in her arsenal to help him. ]

I'm going to try and get it out of you, okay?

[ sliding her hand beneath his shirt, she tugs it up and away from the small of his back. his skin looks grossly. ]

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