Cristian chuckled. "Meredith," he said. "I'm a vampire now. I'm pretty sure I've gotten stronger, too. "
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, his face fell. "A vampire," he repeated, rubbing one hand across his mouth. "It's hard to believe, you know?" He shook his head. "I've become the thing I'm supposed to hate. " He raised his eyes to meet Meredith's, and his face was bleak.
A pang of pity swamped Meredith. She could remember how she'd felt, before the Guardians changed everything, when she'd learned that Klaus had left her wrong, a living girl with kitten vampire teeth and a need for blood.
It had gone away. But now Cristian was changed, and desolate.
"There are good vampires, you know," she told him. "My friends Stefan and Chloe, they fought with us against Klaus. Stefan's saved a lot of people. " Cristian nodded, acknowledging her words, but didn't speak.
"Okay," Meredith said, mimicking her father's time-to-train, no-nonsense tone as best she could. It wouldn't help Cristian to dwell on his misery. "Enough flapping of the lips. Show me what you've got. "
Cristian grinned, welcoming the change of mood, and stretched back on the weight bench, his hands on the racked barbell overhead. "Load me up," he said. "I want to see how strong I am now. "
Part of this achingly reminded her of Samantha, Meredith thought, of how they'd trained together, goading each other to fight harder, longer, better. Maybe, Meredith thought as she added weight plates to the bar above Cristian, he'd want to try sparring later.
Meredith started Cristian at about two hundred pounds, which he pressed easily, his mouth giving a wry twist. "Come on," he said. "I could press this when I was alive. "
There was no one else in the weight room, and so Meredith didn't have to be subtle about loading on the weights. Cristian handled as much as she could give him, his muscled but thin arms moving up and down like pistons.
"I'm so strong," he said giddily, smiling up at her.
Meredith recognized his smile. It was the smile she'd seen in the mirror on her own face when she was suddenly, startlingly happy. When she'd gotten her black belt. The night after Alaric had kissed her for the first time.
Maybe they could get past all this, become a team. Meredith let herself picture hunting with Cristian, fighting beside him. He was a vampire - a good vampire, she told herself fiercely, like Stefan - but he was a hunter, too. A Sulez.
"Your turn," Cristian said, clunking the bar back up into its support. It was so heavily loaded with weight plates now that the bar itself was bending.
Meredith laughed. "You know I can't lift that much. You win, okay?"
"Aw, come on," Cristian said. "I'll cut you some slack since you're human. And, you know, a girl. " Meredith looked up to snap at him that being a girl had very little to do with how much she'd be able to press, and caught a teasing glint in his eye. Right then, she could believe he was her brother. Cristian started taking the plates off and putting them back in their racks.
"All right," Meredith said, and fastidiously, showily wiped off the bench, although it wasn't actually sweaty: apparently sweating was one of those things vampires didn't do.
Cristian started her off at a hundred and fifty pounds, heavy but manageable, and watched as Meredith began a set of reps.
"So," she said, keeping her voice casual and focusing on raising and lowering the bar. "What's it like?"
"What's what like?" Cristian asked absently. She could just glimpse him out of the corner of her eye, examining the weights, picking what to put on next.
"Being a vampire. "
"Oh. " Cristian moved across the room, just out of Meredith's sight, but his voice was clear and thoughtful, a little dreamy. "It's a rush, really," he said. "I can hear everything and smell everything. All my senses are heightened, like, a million percent. They say I'll get more Power, I'll be able to turn into animals and birds, make people do whatever I want. "
He sounded excited at the prospect, his tone losing the bitterness it had held when he talked about becoming something he hated, and Meredith wished she could see his face.
"More?" he said brightly when he was right above her, extra weight plates in hand. His smile was bland, giving nothing away.
"Okay," she said, and instead of helping her get the bar back onto its support, he simply steadied it with one hand and slid more weight onto each side. Meredith grunted as he let go: it was heavier than she usually made it now, but still manageable. Almost too much, but she didn't want to let Cristian know that. In a funny way they were still competing despite his vampire strength, and she was going to take as much as she could.
Cristian was still really close, spotting her as she lifted, and Meredith's arms shook and strained after a couple of reps.
"The details are sharper, you know?" Cristian said suddenly. "I can even hear the blood rushing through your veins from here. "
Meredith went cold and breathless. There had been something almost hungry about the way he spoke about her blood. "Take the bar," she ordered. "This is too much. " She needed to get up.
Cristian reached for the bar, but instead of guiding it back into its support, he carefully added still more weight to each side.
"Stop it," Meredith croaked. It was far too heavy now, and Cristian must know that. She was in trouble here, real trouble, but she needed to stay calm, needed Cristian not to realize that she was scared.