Fall

Chapter 76: The Descent

"You get any closer to me and I will carve you up." I threaten, fingers already going to the dagger under my pillow. There's a hand at my shoulder shaking me awake, that itchy feeling crawling under my skin when a vampire is nearby. I pull the dagger out now, pointing it in the direction of the hand. "I mean it. Unless it's an emergency, let me sleep."

The hand lets go of me and I almost rejoice, letting myself fall back asleep, until the covers get completely pulled off and the cold air rushes in. "What the fuck!" I exclaim, sitting up and opening my eyes to see an angry looking Stefan looming over me.

He crosses his arms over his chest slowly, bushy eyebrow raised. "You made a deal with Elijah?" It's dark in my room and I check my phone to see the time. It's 3 am. He's still in the clothes he was wearing in the tomb. Did he just come here from being released? I'd think he'd at least want a blood bag first.

"Can this not wait till the morning?" I ask him, my voice groggy as I try to rub the sleep out of my eyes with a sigh.

Stefan gets closer to me, eyes narrowing. "No, it can't. You went behind our backs. What kind of deal did you make? How do you know you can trust him?"

I run a hand down my face and swing my feet over the bed, contemplating whether this conversation is going to go on long enough that I need to stand up or if I can stay in my bed. "He agreed to keep all of us safe, everyone we care about, so long as Elena and I stop trying to get ourselves killed. He wants to use us to lure Klaus out to kill him. It seemed a no-brainer. I even leveraged it to get you out of the tomb, which you haven't even thanked me for by the way, after you've woken me up to lecture me at 3 fucking am." I work to keep my voice down, since everyone else in this house is blissfully asleep. I've stood up now, upset by how he chose to do this.

"I'm sorry, you're right. I'm sorry. I just can't help but be suspicious of this, I don't know anything about the guy. I don't trust him. But." He sighs and runs his fingers through his hair, pushing it back a bit. It looks like he's done that a lot since being stuck in the tomb with Katherine. "But I trust you. So I'll respect your decision."

I nod and take a deep breath, rocking on my feet. "Thank you. I already talked to Elena about this, we're in agreement. And in the spirit of keeping things above-board, he wanted an exchange for getting you out of the tomb. So I have to meet up with him and answer some of his questions about being a Valkyrie or whatever." I say slowly, looking up at Stefan from underneath my lashes to see what his reaction is to all of this. 

"Do you want one of us there with you, to protect you?" He asks, lips pressed into a thin line.

It's cold here in my room and I just want to wrap myself in my blankets. Now that I'm no longer as angry, my cheeks heat up at the fact that I'm just in a sleep shirt and my panties. "I, uh, I appreciate that. But I'll be fine. I already helped fight him once, remember?" An awkward chuckle gets forced out of my throat.

"Right, right. Well, I'm sorry again. I was just-"

"You're hangry Stefan, I get it."

A slow, disbelieving smile makes its way onto his face. "'Hangry'?"

"Yeah, you haven't eaten in a while. And you had to be stuck in there with Katherine of all people. It makes sense. Do you want some blood before you finally let me go back to sleep?" I offer, unable to keep some of my annoyance out of my voice.

He sucks his bottom lip between his teeth with a small grin. "Yes, I would like that. Thank you." He sits down next to me on my bed, eyebrow raising again. "So I didn't make that deal, with Elijah. I'm going to reach out to Isobel about Klaus. You should keep your deal though." There's a slightly teasing tone to his words as I take my dagger out and cut along the palm. He watches it with a slight eagerness to him.