Elena was wakened by shouting. She'd already once awakened to unbelievable bliss. Now she was awake again - but surely that was Damon's voice. Shouting? Damon didn't shout!
Throwing on a robe, she went dashing out the door and downstairs.
Raised voices - confusion. Damon was kneeling on the floor. His face was blue-white. There wasn't a plant in the room that could be strangling him.
Poisoned, was the next thing Elena thought and immediately her eyes darted around the room to see a spilled drink, a dropped plate, any sign that poison had done this. There was nothing.
Sage was clapping Damon on the back. Oh, God, could he have choked? But that was idiocy. Vampires didn't breathe, except for talking and building Power.
But then what was happening?
"You have to breathe," Sage was shouting in Damon's ear. "Take a breath, as if you were going to speak, but then hold on to it, as if for raising your Power. Think about your insides. Get those lungs working!"
The words only confused Elena.
"There!" cried Sage. "You see?"
"But it only lasts an instant. Then I need to do it again."
"But, yes, that is the point!"
"I tell you I'm dying and you laugh at me?" a disheveled Damon shouted. "I'm blind, deaf, my senses are haywire - and you laugh!"
Disheveled, thought Elena, bothered by something.
"Well." Sage seemed to be at least trying not to laugh. "Perhaps, mon petit chou, you should not have opened something that was not addressed to you?"
"I put wards all around me before I did it. The house was safe."
"But you were not - breathe! Breathe, Damon!"
"It looked completely harmless - and admit it - we were all going - to open it last night - when we got too tired - !"
"But to do it alone, to open a present from a kitsune...that was foolish, yes?"
A choking Damon snapped, "Don't lecture me. Help me. Why am I muffled in cotton wool? Why can't I see? Or hear? Or smell - anything? I'm telling you I can't smell a thing!"
"You are fit and sharp as any human could be. You could probably defeat most vampires if you fought with one right now. But human senses are very few and very dull."
Words were swimming in Elena's head...opening things not addressed to you...bouquet from a kitsune...human...
Oh, my God!
Apparently, the same words were going through the mind of someone else, because suddenly a figure dashed in from the kitchen area. Stefan.
"You stole my bouquet? From the kitsune?"
"I was very careful - "
"Do you realize what you've done?" Stefan shook Damon.
"Ow. That hurts! Do you want to break my neck?"
"That hurts? Damon, you're in for a world of hurt! Do you understand? I talked to that kitsune. Told him the whole story of my life. Elena came to visit and he saw her practically...well, never mind - he saw her crying over me! Do...you...realize...what...you...have... done?"
It was as if Stefan had started climbing a series of steps, and that each one lifted him to a higher level of fury than the last. And here, at the top...
"I'll KILL YOU!" Stefan shouted. "You took it - my humanity! He gave it to me - and you took it!"