32. Black Velvet.

Damon said to Mariella after a week, "Darling, we have to get this skeleton feeding. I mean, I can maintain this weight, 20 kilos, but I can't gain any more. We need to put her to sleep and feed her properly. She sleeps but not soundly enough and flinches awake for whatever reason. Now, I don't know why yet."

Mariella sighed. 20 kilos is better than 15 but something was wrong with Mimi.

Damon explained, "She has shielded her thoughts completely, and I will not start bruising; I suspect there have been a lot of fear demons in the clubs, and if we get her to sleep properly, then maybe I'll push through the shields. But I don't want to hurt her, not one bit. I have gotten the Darkness down but I have to do a few measures to secure it fully."

Mariella nodded and said, " How do you want to proceed? Velvet, cocktail?"

Damon said, "Nope, I'll give a blow to the flank, so it'll stun this one pretty good. I've tested, and once I make her feel completely safe, then. Go get the incubator set up with some real soft padding, and I'll let you know when I get there. She is so damn thin, and every bone is so visible so she needs to be padded really well. It'll be on and dim. But I'll have to be around quite a bit. "

Mariella understood perfectly well, and they had moved back to the Chicago house when Damon wanted to take Mimi into the room. He wanted to be with her, reminisce, and regain her trust. Even if it took time, as long as it would take, he would do it.

Mariella went to set up the incubator and everything else. She used novelty, water gel padding, so there was no pressure on Mimi's body. She knew how important this was to Damon and her. Mimi's well-being was important to the entire pack because it affected them all. They were a pack, and every member was important. She made the incubator as perfect as possible, brought oxygen tanks nearby, and put everything as perfect as possible. 

She knew that the whole time they were away from Mimi had affected everyone, and they all wanted to mend their relationships, get their pack together, and then move on with their pack life. She put everything in place and found that sex wasn't on her mind all the time anymore.

She would have some little work on Mimi's tanks as Miss was the strongest siphon, and she used that skill in fight clubs, so according to Damon, there was in her tanks everything from black magic to very rare energies, Damon did not take any energies because he tried to focus to keep Mimi in sleep and safe. 

Mariella had found purpose and focus on herself too. Because now she wanted to power-feed Samuel and Bran for a long time. Not to let those two go anywhere, but to feed them for a couple of weeks so that it would show somewhere. Samuel was about 20 kilos too light and Bran could do 15 kilos more. They were wizards and energy creatures, but food was not their priority.

Damon stroked Mimi. He'd just given her another dose of flank, and this pile of bones was pretty limp. She did not react at all. He got out of bed and gathered her into his arms. He teleported them to the medbay, put Mimi in the incubator, cannulated her, and got the nutrient solutions dripping properly. They did not put yet visceral puree as she had absorbed none of it yet. It would be time for it later on when she would have gotten in a little better shape. 

Then he closed the lid of the incubator and went to the computer to look for a suitable cocktail. It didn't take him long to put the bag in place and adjust the drip just right so the machine would watch the concentration in Mimi's blood. He had placed a special cannula in her artery to measure the concentration in her blood and her vitals too, so there was the monitor that showed her vitals and they would see if there were needed adjustments.

Then he went to eat and laughed as Bran and Samuel were fed by Mariella, and she showed no mercy. None at all. Mariella was up to speed and carried a pretty damn sizeable portion for him too. Well, he had been with Mimi, giving her an energy boost the whole time.

He returned the favor and showed Charles how hard his protégé was working. Oh, the look on Mariella's face when Cornick put her in her place and made her eat. Soon, they would all be fine and well-fed, at this rate at least. They ate, and Damon then went to the medbay to check on Mimi. She slept soundly enough, and Damon then unraveled the protections in her mind.

This would take some time, and soon Mariella came to help and cursed, as this was no straightforward task. Mariella cleaned first her tanks, got all kinds of treats and lots of stuff that needed to be cleaned and then she gave her pure energy and Salvatore energy. Mimi was a goldmine when it came to energy and she would have loaded objects with god knows what if she would not have cleaned her tanks. Mariella made a mental note to remember to do this a little more often. 

They broke the shields with the help of the entire pack, which already told its own story of the lady's powers. Then the repair began, and that too would take time as the fear demons had taken some damage, and the stress and being in that jelly with nightmares had added to it.

Still, there was an entire pack of them working on it, and slowly but surely, Mimi's mind improved, and with it, her body functioned at least a little better, taking in nourishment. Not being under stress all the time. It was clear how intertwined mind and body were. When one of them felt bad other would suffer. They had to do also quite a lot a work to rein the darkness properly, and it was still not 100% if there would be a tough spot she might get it free.

Damon knew it would take time for Mimi to recover and they were in no hurry as such. They made dinner, watched the lady who had fought the anesthetic and tried to wake up, apparently feeling a little more refreshed. But the skeleton only weighed 26 kilos. There was no time to wake up, and Damon had to watch almost daily to make sure there was enough medicine.

A few times incubators had been empty and Miss would be found on the floor, exhausted but trying to stay awake, few puffs from the flank usually did the trick, and the cooled skeleton was put back in the incubator. 

Damon had now put alerts in her mind. He tried to keep an eye if she was more awake and he had just noticed it. So he went to medbay, silently, to see how she was doing it. How she escaped. Damon watched Mimi for a moment. She was moving around in the incubator, and he moved closer. What a clever little creature. She had wrapped the tubing around her fingers so that the medicine didn't come out so hard, and the infusion pump didn't understand this. 

The lady probably also kept the medicine coming out of the sensor, as she could regulate her blood flow. He could hear her abnormally slow and weak pulse as she kept her circulation almost stopped so no drug would affect her so much. Her liver was abnormally warm, meaning she directed blood there to eliminate the drug. She had also moved her hand where that monitor was, so it was not working as it should. She had twisted her wrist, so the sensor was stuck as the artery was a little kinked.

Damon went next to the incubator and said, " Sleepytime, baby." He was amused, but then again, she was in no shape to be awake just yet. 

He pushed twice on the remote control of the flank organ. Mimi groaned and passed out. He took the tube out from between his wife's fingers and adjusted the infusion pump. He put a splint is her wrist, keeping her hand in the correct position so the sensor was operational. Mimi's antics amused Damon, but for the moment, it was safer for her to stay in the incubator and sleep than to crawl around on the floor and hurt herself.

He wouldn't let her wake until she was at least 35 kilos, and even then, she would be taken calmly. He would not fuck Mimi into shape now because he didn't really know where they were. But you'd see when she woke up, or he'd allow her to wake up.

Mariella came to Medbay and asked, " How would you like it if you came to eat now and then too, darling?"

Damon stood up and laughed. He watched the monitor for a moment, then pressed his head, closing his eyes and feeling Mimi's mind, to ensure that she was deep enough.

Then he opened his eyes and smirked at his sleeping wife, saying softly," 1-0 baby, just try. I am all ready to face the next challenge."

He said, " Yeah, now that's getting unconscious enough. She wrapped a tube around her fingers and adjusted her blood flow a little so that the infusion pump was blurred. She slowed her pulse to almost halt, then she twisted her wrist, confusing the monitor, and directed her blood flowing in her liver, eliminating the drug. I gave her a few puffs from the flank organ, and now the medicine works again. I put a splint on her wrist so the monitor was on. "

Mariella rolled her eyes and said, " Really, that skeleton? Glad you noticed. We have some of those new medicines over there if you want to try them, so you don't have to watch her all the time. That AI says they are safe for her and novelties too, so she has no resistance to them."

Damon frowned and said, " Nope, the teeth are making new velvet all the time, but it's not quite ready yet. Violet velvet should work well once I get the formula right. It will be quite a masterpiece. No need to sensitize her to those drugs yet as it might need only seven doses and then the drug is useless. "

Mariella said, " Well, come and eat then, and you'll get the ingredients for your velvet."

They went to eat, and an entire pack was there, too. Damon sent the idea of violet velvet to the other salvatores, and it seemed that everyone's teeth came up with their part of the substance, so it became a masterpiece.

It wouldn't matter if Mimi fought Damon's velvet, but when the lady had to defeat every Salvatore, this drug would keep her asleep and in a deep sleep. It would help, and it would take maybe a month or a little more for the skeleton to recover. But the important thing was that she was in the pack, being cared for, and everything would work out somehow. Soon she would be able to start to receive visceral puree once violet velvet was ready. So no fear of her waking up.

Damon knew that his explosion had changed things between them, but he hoped and kept believing that things would work out. It just took time and patience. The future would tell, and Damon knew that yes, he had changed, and he would change and grow even more, but it wouldn't be easy or quick.

He was impatient with his existence, so it wasn't always as clear and easy as he would have liked. But this was life—a different existence than he had ever known. He, a vampire over a thousand years old, sat at breakfast or whatever meal this was and pondered the deep mysteries of existence.

And then another discovery. He still saw himself as a vampire, but even though he was more than that, the vampire was at the core of him, and that was so different from what anyone could imagine. Damon let his eyes wander around the table, knowing that every Salvatore was the same, so they thought of themselves as vampires first, but the boys, on the other hand, were always cats first, and that's why they had such a damn different approach to things. But how about Adam and Charles? Are they werewolves, then?

What does Mimi see herself as? Damon pondered all this as he ate, and Mariella watched him with amusement. It was not quite the train of thought she'd expected.

After they'd eaten, it was the number two's turn to watch the lady, and he would have the first batch of violet velvet by now. That would get them away from watching her for a while. He and Mariella would go to bed to relax a bit, and later, they would go out into the yard to see if there were any fruits or berries to pick.

They could also make juices and other preserves. The Salvatores were very excited when they found a big batch of Finnish wild mushrooms in Mimi's fridge. They examined and tasted them and found that she wouldn't do anything with them, but they would. So the kitchen was busy.

The wolves had gone out to hunt with the cats in their forms from time to time. It would do the whole pack well, but Damon decided that when the whole pack was fit, it might be time for such a hobby.

But he'd also have some bedroom time with Mimi because she was really strong. He'd have to lay their magic symbol against each other for quite some time to draw strength in all peace and quiet, but he'd planned to do that only when Mimi was almost well enough to wake her up from his arms.