The Newest Salvatore

Chapter 64

Lexi was awoken roughly by Damon tossing and turning, yet again, his skin beaded with sweat and his breathing panicky and ragged. 

"No, no!" Lexi heard Damon muttering something incoherent, his voice laced with desperation and horror. "Please!" 

"Damon!" she called to him, trying to rouse him from his sleep without scaring him too much. "Sweetie, wake up!" she tried again, a little more forcefully this time, shaking him by the shoulders. 

His eyes shot open and he sat up suddenly, trying to gage where he was. His chest was heaving as he attempted to get his breath back and he haphazardly wiped stray tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. 

Lexi moved to wrap her arms around him, gently stroking his back with one hand and laying the other soothingly over his bare chest. "You're okay, sweetie," she whispered, holding him close to her. 

"I'm sorry..." Damon muttered through gritted teeth, frustration building up that he was still having these dreams. 

"It's okay, Damon, it's not your fault."

"I should be able to stop them, or at least stop reacting like this."

"We will find a way to stop them, Damon."

He sighed heavily, exhaustion now creeping in as the terror from his nightmare ebbed away. 

"Was it the same one?" Lexi asked, knowing that it most like would be, just as the others had been for all these months.

He nodded, unwilling to go into any more detail, to have to tell her the dream's contents and relive it all over again. He'd told her once before, about watching Stefan, her and Ottilie die, and not be able to do anything about it.

There was a quiet knock on the door before it opened and Stefan's head peered around the corner. 

"You okay, brother?" he asked, looking with sympathy at his exhausted brother in Lexi's arms. 

Damon nodded. "I'm sorry I woke you," he said quietly, embarrassed at the attention his nightmares was bringing. 

Stefan just smiled comfortingly and nodded, before leaving the room. He knew the contents of Damon's nightmares, and also knew that it helped Damon when he woke to see Lexi, himself and Ottilie alive and well. Whilst Ottilie had been away for the past year, the nightmares had intensified, and it had become a little ritual that after he woke from one, Stefan would knock on his brothers door, feigning concern for his brother's welfare, but secretly knowing seeing him alive helped Damon recover from them.

The door shut behind Stefan and Lexi reached for Damon's phone, opening it to find the most recent text message from Ottilie. Whilst she couldn't say where she was or who she was with, she kept in contact most days, with either a phone call, video call or plenty of texts. 

"Here," she said, pushing the phone into Damon's shaking hands. "We heard from Ottilie just a few hours ago, and we will hear from her again in the morning. She's okay."