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Chapter Text

Caroline peered over at the almost unconscious doctor curiously. “What did you inject him with?” Katherine shrugged. “I don't know. It just said ‘avoid contact with eyes…’” she looked closely at the bottle, “...and ‘do not ingest.’ Oops.” 

“It's etorphine.” Doctor Maxfield told the girls with a groan. 

“There ya go.”

Maxfield turned to Katherine in confusion. “What are you doing, Elena?”

“We're draining vervain blood out of your system so I can compel you to forget that Elena and I are vampires.” Caroline explained, with a sweet smile on her face.

The doctor struggled against the restraints as he looked incredulously at the blonde. “Wait, what? You'll kill me!”

“Shhh.” Caroline put her hand up to quiet Dr. Maxfield. “I'm just-- I'm trying to do some math. Okay. Uhh. So, if the average male has 5 litres of blood in his system…”

Katherine tilted her head as she thought. “That's about right.”

“...then, carry the 1…” Caroline mumbled, running the calculations with interjections from Katherine, “just round it up…” she told Caroline as she fiddled with the array of diseases before her. “4.7 pints.” The blonde decided. “Round up to 5?” She turned to Wes. “Should I use the right arm or the left arm?”

“Untie me.” Maxfield ordered. “I'll find the vein myself. You’ll kill me.”

Katherine held out a hand to Caroline, making a grabby motion. “Gimme. It's not my first rodeo,” she smirked at the man when Caroline passed her the IV.

After stabbing the needle into the crook of the doctor’s elbow, Katherine hummed in displeasure. Pulling it back out, she turned her attention to Caroline. “Can you hand me one of those tubey things, and, um some tape?” She asked. Caroline walked across the room to retrieve the tube, before rummaging to find the medical tape. The girls put the IV in Maxfield’s arm properly this time, letting the blood drain into the beakers. 

“Oh, my God, it's totally working!” Caroline exclaimed. Katherine wiggled her eyebrows. “Ta da!” She grabbed a scalpel from the table and ghosted Dr. Maxfield’s jawline with it. “So, doctor, you tell me, who else knows about us?” Maxfield scoffed. Narrowing her eyes, the girl just pressed the scalpel to his neck. 

Heart racing, Wes swallowed down his fears. “If you were willing to kill me, you wouldn't have gone through all of this trouble. You should have left when I told you to. They're on to you.”

Caroline paused. “Who's ‘they’? The people you want to expose us to? That secret society thingy that you’re part of?” Katherine swivelled to face the girl, realisation dawning upon her.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me…” She muttered to herself.

“There's a gathering today at Whitmore house. You were going to be invited, but we found out you were a vampire…” He trailed off, before starting back up again. “Of course, what we’re really interested in is your boyfriend,” he admitted, Katherine staring him back in confusion. Oh. Right. He thinks she's Elena. And Elena's dating...

“Damon?” Caroline questioned, horror spilling across Katherine’s face. 

“Precisely,” Maxfield nodded, smiling with a few too many teeth. 

“That… explains so much.” Katherine breathed out. “You want your Augustine back.”

Caroline stayed back while a somewhat shaken Katherine went to prove that Elena Gilbert was not a vampire. Caroline wondered what that was all about. Katherine seemed to know, but she wouldn’t say. 

“You're oddly calm,” the doctor drawled, “which only adds to my complete and utter terror,” he added.

“Sorry. I spaced.” Caroline apologised.

Maxfield scoffed humourlessly. “You spaced? Caroline, I would have bled to death.”

The blonde went to apologise again, but she stopped herself. “You know what? I just broke up with my boyfriend for good. My heart is in pieces, and there’s a secret society that’s apparently after me and all my friends! So sue me for having a moment!”

“My apologies. Is the moment over?”

“Yes. It is. Now answer my questions truthfully,” she compelled him.

“What is the secret society?”

“It's called Augustine.”

“Augustine? I've never heard of it.”

“Well, that's the whole point.”

“What does this society do?”

“We conduct experiments on vampires to benefit humanity.”

“How do you become a member?”

“Most recruits are legacies, but we had to branch out due to the massacres.”

“What massacres?”

“Every generation, all the family members of the Whitmore family are brutally murdered. Except for one child. When that child starts a family, the massacres start up again.”

“Right,” Caroline shuddered. She leaned in to compel the doctor again. “Elena Gilbert and Caroline Forbes are not vampires. They’re just regular freshmen. You’re light headed because you gave blood earlier. Forget everything that happened here today.”

“Elena Gilbert, what brings you by?” Maxfield asked Katherine as she strutted in. She tossed the man his tape recorder, which he caught, wincing as he jolted his arm.

“How'd you get this?” He asked, looking down at the device.

Katherine shrugged. “Mystery. I listened to about half before I nearly blew my brains out from boredom except for the part about your subject's blood being abnormal. That part was mildly interesting.”

“Well, thanks for returning it.” Wes said sceptically.

“Now that subject, 62547, right? Is that the new and improved Augustine vampire?”

The doctor’s expression closed off. “I think you should go,” he spoke in a cold tone.

The girl smirked with a slight cock of her head. “And do what?” She challenged, “sprinkle all of your dirty little secrets across campus, like Augustine and all the vampire experiments that you've been doing? Ooh. I know. I’ll tell Damon. Let him have some fun with you. Maybe call in a favour from New Orleans. I’m sure the Originals would love to play some. Come on, Dr. Wes. Aren't you supposed to be some sort of genius? I'm sure we can come up with some creative solutions for our little predicament.”

Maxfield went pale. “I have to say if I wasn't such a genius, I might actually think you were blackmailing me, Elena,” he said, voice wavering.

“Actually, my name is Katherine. Elena is my doppelgänger, and while I let you chew on that I'll admit there is something that I can't solve on my own.” She pulled a rotting tooth from her purse, and held it out for him. Maxfield peered into Katherine’s hand. 

“Is that a tooth?”

“It's my tooth. I think I'm dying, and I need you to save my life.”

Doctor Maxfield groaned when he found himself tied up in his lab for the second time that day.

“What do you want?” He asked his unknown captor, hearing them rummage through his freezer.

“What I want is to be drinking copious quantities of booze and making out with my girlfriend, but unfortunately, she told me I can't do that until I get a bunch of answers out of you.” A male voice sang out before opening another refrigerator. “Whoa!” The man exclaimed.

“Careful with those!” Maxfield barked as the person - no, vampire - came into view. A vampire he had very desperately wanted to meet. But not like this.

“These?” Damon held up a tray of vials, giving them a careful shake. “These, right here? What? I mean, we're on a college campus, right? Full of students? I mean, I can't imagine an M.D. keeping a bunch of infectious diseases just lying around,” he scoffed.

Wes rolled his eyes. “M.D. PhD. I'm a researcher.” 

The vampire looked over Wes with a scrutinising gaze. “That explains it. I know a lot of people like you. Science over medicine, right? Let me guess. You use these,” he pointed to the diseases, before directing his attention to the neighbouring fridge, “on your little vampire lab rats, don'tcha?” Noticing the doctor’s silence, Damon chose to up the ante. “Not in the mood to talk? Fair enough,” he shrugged, selecting one of the vials that sat on the table.

“We're going to play a little game, where I inject you with whatever the hell ‘necrotizing fasciitis’ is.”

“It's a flesh-eating bacteria,” Maxfield told him, the ‘duh’ implied. Damon grimaced. 

“Gross. So, I'm gonna do that, and then I’m gonna ask you a bunch of questions. If you answer me correctly, I’ll give you some of my delicious vampire blood and we'll heal you on up. If you don't answer me correctly, we're just gonna have to see how much flesh these little guys can eat.” Damon gave him a menacing smile, as he injected the gangrene into the psycho doctor, promptly knocking him out.

Maxfield woke up sweating, vision blurring as he tried to sit up against the restraints. Damon looked over his handiwork, nodding in approval.

“Turning a kid into a vampire so you can experiment on him? Harsh,” Damon tutted. “What is it about this place that turns people into mad scientists?”

“Human trials are a vital part of modern medicine,” the doctor defended.

“Yeah, but don't people usually volunteer or sign waivers? I mean, strippers get paid,” Damon mused, rifling through the diseases.

“Sometimes you have to do what's necessary for the greater good.” Wow. Sounds like something St. Stefan would say.

“I'm not the greatest guy in the world, granted, most of the shit I’ve done is in retaliation to people like you, but that sounds like some Mengele-level crap that you're spouting out. So I gotta ask, what is your greater good?” He asked, pulling the cap from a needle. Maxfield looked at him questioningly, refusing to answer.

Damon's smile turned more menacing, and perhaps the room got a little bit colder as he sidled up beside the doctor.

"Rabies," he explained, showing Wes the vial. "Sounds fun, doesn't it? And, appropriate, you know, given the circumstances," he made a vague gesture with his free hand, the other one directing the needle to the same area as the previous. They waited 5 minutes, but there was no change, much to Damon's chagrin. Oh well. Plenty more diseases in the lab and all.

"Well rabies was a bust," Damon sighed, selecting his next poison. 

"I wanted to turn Jesse into a new kind of vampire."

"Well, that's awfully ambitious of you," the vampire commented.

"I am awfully smart," Wes simpered.

And that was when Damon found the perfect disease.He rolled towards the man on his chair, revealing the small vial with a flourish. Damon looked Maxfield dead in the eye.

"Ebola," he said, revelling in the doctor's expression as the man flinched. "Why?" Damon pressed, loading up the syringe. Wes looked to him in disgust. 

"Your kind is dangerous to humans, because we're your food source. I want to change that."

Damon scoffed, but the 'good' doctor continued. "If vampires don't need to feed on humans, then they're no longer a threat. Human blood will only satiate Jesse for so long before he gets a taste of what he really craves..."

He slammed his hand down on the desk, provoking another flinch from Maxfield. "What does he really crave?"

"Vampire blood."

"Jesse feeds on... vampire blood?" Elena asked fearfully.

"That's what Doogie says," Damon said over the phone.

"The fact that he told you this means he's still alive, right?" 

"As of now," Damon threw the phone onto the table, so not in the mood for one of Elena's lectures right now. Not when the ghosts of his past were rattling their chains at him. One ghost in particular.

"Good. Please don't kill him, Damon." When Damon didn't respond, Elena's voice grew panicked. "Tell me you didn't kill him! Don't you dare kill hi-" Damon hung up. He spun around as another presence entered the room, his back to Wes, who, seeing Jesse enter, formulated an idea. He reached for the scalpel, barely listening to Jesse's accusations. 

"What did you do to me?" He demanded.

"You feed on monsters, Jesse," he said tiredly, managing to grip onto the knife with his fingertips.

The boy then turned to Damon. "Please!" He begged. "I can't take this, man!"

Damon stared back.

"Fix me, kill me, whatever!" Jesse threw his arms up. "Please, do something!"

Through a stroke of luck, Maxfield was able to stab Damon in the arm, drawing blood instantly. Jesse's face immediately changed, and he threw himself at Damon, latching on to the vampire's arm. Damon, caught off guard by the baby vampire's strength, barely managed to push Jesse off before the boy launched towards his neck. 

Elena walked, seeing Damon fighting her classmate while Maxfield was strapped to a gurney. "Damon!" She shouted, trying to call her boyfriend off. When that didn't work, she stood back, attempting to calm Jesse down. As Damon grew weaker, he grew more frustrated at Little Miss Bleeding Heart. Really? Cooing at some random co-ed while he tries to murder her boyfriend? 

"Elena... He's gonna rip my head off!" He warned her, "Elena! Please!" She finally collected her wits, ripping one of the door trims off at top speed, using it to stab Jesse in the heart, just as Caroline walked in.

"No.. No, no no!" She cried, sinking to the ground beside Jesse. "You killed him!" 

"She had to..." Damon groaned. "He was chemically reprogrammed with ten times the bloodlust and none of the control."

Caroline shook her head. "We could have helped him!"

Damon's throat healed just enough to breathe, "he asked me to put him out of his misery, Caroline." The blonde looked at him with teary eyes. "The mutation was attacking his brain. Like a bloodier Evilaric."

Damon slid down the wall while his neck healed. He vaguely heard the screaming match between the two girls, but his head was spinning with the events of the day, the possibility that... No. Augustine was gone. He had made sure of that. But he couldn't help wondering, as the air filled with atomised vervain, and all three vampires gradually lost consciousness. 

Chapter Text

When Caroline woke, she found herself lying crumpled on a stone floor, legs entangled with Elena's, the other girl still unconscious. 

She carefully extracted herself from Elena, and vaguely noticed the smell of rotten blood mixed in with the dust that covered the cell - cell? - as she took in the rest of her surroundings. The back wall was covered in carvings that varied from tally charts to inscriptions of initials, very simple drawings of people - one in the other cell looked like Stefan, Caroline thought with a giggle, seeing the figure that was 50% hair and 10% eyebrows. Her giggle alerted another presence in the room, a man hunched over in the far corner of that cell, shadowed by the dark.

"Caroline," Damon muttered. "Welcome to hell."

"What? Wher- oh..." Caroline went silent as she thought over recent events. "Wes did this, didn't he?"

Damon confirmed with a toothy grin and a dry laugh.

"I woke up a few hours ago," he told her, "he popped me straight back on the operating table. Called it a 'Welcome Home Party'." A sardonic grin glowed in the shadows.

"Wait... 'Back?' You've been here befo- oh..." 

[“Of course, what we’re really interested in is your boyfriend,” Wes admitted. "Damon?" Caroline questioned, horror spilling across Katherine's face. “Precisely,” Maxfield nodded, smiling with a few too many teeth. " That… explains so much.” Katherine breathed out. “You want your Augustine back.”]

"Katherine mentioned something like that... I didn't think much of it at the time, because she was super vague, but..." Caroline trailed off. "What's an Augustine?" She asked - now unsure whether she even wanted to know.

"Your new career as a vampire lab-rat," he cheerfully let her know.

"Urgh..." Elena slowly roused.

"Hey, you okay?" Caroline asked, scooting beside her friend. Damon slowly approached the bars, leaning against them with a hand outstretched to Elena. The brunette grabbed it, smiling gratefully at Caroline.

"Hey, 'Lena? You alright?"

"What's going on?" She asked, wide-eyed as she looked between the two. "Why are you guys here? Why am I here?"

"Wes is carrying out the grand Augustine traditions." Damon said tiredly. "Getting his kicks off vampire torture." Elena looked to Caroline, who nodded in confirmation.

"Did he tell you that?" The brunette asked Caroline, who shut her mouth and gestured towards Damon.

"He didn't have to," Damon dropped his eyes down, "I've been here before."

Damon lost himself in flashbacks as he recited his experiences to the girls at Elena's prodding.

"My great-whatever-nephew, Joseph, sold me to a group of scientists in 1953. Every day, this nut-job, Dr Whitmore, would cut us open, dissect our eyes, perform lobotomies - you name it, he did it. He pushed us to our limits, and then past them. Humiliated us over and over again..." He shuddered, remembering the party when a middle-aged couple requested to 'borrow' him or Enzo for a night. The girls looked at him with pity, which Damon promptly brushed off. "Kept me in this very cell, don't think I haven't appreciated the irony." 

"How long were you here for?" Caroline questioned, mindlessly tracing circles over hers and Elena's legs.

"5 years, give or take."

Elena widened her eyes in what was probably meant to be sympathy, but it really just made Damon's eye twitch. He didn't want pity, didn't want to give either girls any ammunition that could be used against him the next time he 'lashed out', or acted too much like the vampire he was. He had kept this a secret for a reason, and yet here he was.

"Damon," she whispered, stroking his hand, still clasped in hers. "How did you not go crazy?"

Damon grimaced, pulling away, covering his face with the shadows as he held back his tears. "I was never alone," he said wistfully. Believe it or not, he wanted to say, I made a friend. No, not friend. Not brother either. How do you tell your girlfriend that there was someone you would always love more, grieve harder for, someone who knew and loved every part of you (someone you betrayed, someone who spent his last moments rightfully hating you while you spend your eternity missing him because he's lost forever and it was all your fault.) "His name was Enzo," he started quietly, doing his absolute best to stay present, to not slip into the void of his mind as he told this story for the first time.

"He was a soldier in Europe during the second world war."

"How did he end up here?" Caroline asked, and Damon was thankful she kept her tone neutral. Who would have thought - Judge Barbie without her gavel?

"Dr. Whitmore was working in a battlefield hospital when he discovered Enzo was a vampire, so he drugged him, locked him in a coffin to ship him overseas," Damon said flippantly.

Caroline shuddered. "That's awful!" Elena gasped, and she grabbed onto the blonde's hand as it traced circles in her thigh.

Damon laughed weakly. He would always be astounded at the cushy lives the Scooby Gang lived. Enzo hadn't even been phased by the journey - even said he'd never felt more like a vampire than he had in that coffin. It was more of a fond memory to the Brit. "He had been here for 10 years before I joined the party." Judging from their expressions, that had put it into perspective a little bit. Good. They needed that. By the time Damon had met the mysterious man in the other cell, he had undergone one 'examination'. To be reprimanded by a cheery British accent who had undergone possibly 3650 of those sessions... 

"Come on..." Katherine muttered into her phone as she dug through Wes' lab. The man had some really creepy stuff in there - a collection of exotic diseases was only the tip of the iceberg. "Pick up... Damnit!" She kicked a filing cabinet with her heel.

"Katerina," the satin enunciation of Elijah's voice came through the line (Katherine absolutely did not have to remind herself to breathe, nor was she caught off guard by how different he sounded to human ears - so similar to the way he did back then, back when she was Katerina. But Katherine couldn't fool herself. There never used to be such resignation in his tone, those heavy exhales were once sharp inhales woven with sparks of laughter and intrigue. But that was then.)

"I'm dying, Elijah. I have perhaps a week or two left."

The Original took in an even breath, before he answered. "And you are calling to ask for my help."

"No- well, yes, but that isn't my priority," she said truthfully, surprising both herself and the vampire (how pitiful to need no more specifications, and for such a vague characterisation at that).

"What is your priority, Katerina?" 

"Do you recall the secret society operating at Whitmore College in the last century?"

"The Augustine Society." The disgust was evident in his tone.

"That's the one. You might want to get Klaus on the line for this," Katherine crossed her fingers in a silent prayer while she waited. It wasn't long before Elijah had set his phone on speaker so that Katherine could hear the presence of Klaus and one other.

"Hello, Katerina darling, I was most amused to hear of your impending death. What is it you seek?" The cheery tone of the hybrid set the woman's jaw on edge. 

Katherine drew in a breath. "Caroline Forbes is in danger." 

"What?" Klaus growled, as did the other vampire, familiar as a heartbeat just before it slows.

"What are you talking about, Katherine?" Stefan Salvatore asked harshly, and Katherine fought back a smirk at his presence but quickly reprimanded herself - so not the time.

"Damon, Caroline, and Elena have been kidnapped by a vampire-hating torture group at Whitmore College. Don't underestimate these guys. They have leads on all of us - including one Hayley Marshall and her unborn child." Katherine winced at the roar from Klaus. 

"You're lying," the hybrid hissed.

"I'm actually not," she said, tone light despite the gravity of the situation. "Check your messages and get here ASAP." 

Katherine hung up and yawned. Honestly - humanity was pathetic. It was 8am, and she was exhausted. How on earth did these college losers do all of this?

"Damon," Elena started, sensing her boyfriend's discomfort through the bars. "Wes knew my dad. They worked together. He said that my dad was an Augustine, too. I know that my dad was a vampire hunter, but he was also the town doctor. He was kind and gentle and loving. He wouldn't be part of a place that would cut your eyes out," she said adamantly, wiping stray tears from her eyes. Caroline huffed, drawing the brunette's attention.

"My dad was gay and he gave me DIY conversion therapy, Elena. People are full of surprises." Caroline said sardonically.

"Don't even get me started on Giuseppe," Damon agreed, before noticing the heaving silhouette of his girlfriend and Caroline shuffling over to curl herself around the weeping girl. Elena had buried her head between her arms, laying face down on the floor, with Caroline shushing her. He inched closer to the bars and reached through, but the skin he brushed was all wrong; too warm, too skinny, too far away. The occupant of the next cell didn't have the grounding presence he needed as his mind picked at invisible scars until they reopened and healed, leaving unblemished skin in its place.

["What's the first thing you'll do, when we get out of here?" Enzo asked, threading his fingers through the other man's. Damon hummed, leaning against the bars so that both vampire's cheeks were pressed against their respective bars in a mockery of physical contact. "Among other things, I want to find my brother. Ask him why he never came." Enzo nodded, the motion making his hair stand up with static. "What about you?" Damon turned, nose brushing against Enzo's charged-up hair, barely flinching when the static shocked him. "I'll get a dog, for Dr Whitmore's children. Something fluffy for them to get attached to. It's a mighty shame that the doc doesn't have any pets. Gives me twice the work." Enzo chuckled at his own comment, before it turned into a cough. The hand gripping his held on just a bit tighter. "Hey. Look at me."]

"Hey," Damon whispered, reaching out for Elena's hand. "Look at me."

["I promise I'll get you out of here," he murmured into the man's ear, who turned towards the other cell so that their noses brushed through the steel cages.]

"I'll get you out of here," he said, throat dry and voice cracked.

["We'll both get out of here." The other vampire's breath was warm against his as they sat there in that dungeon, hands entwined and faces pressed as close as could be in those cells - noses brushing and breaths mingling, heavy with the weight of their little world.]

"I'll get you both out of here," he amended, reaching his other hand out to Caroline, who took it, almost gratefully. Elena gripped the hand she held with both of hers, giving her friend a teary smile which Caroline returned with a nod.

After the girls had let out all of their sorrows, and Damon had successfully built a dam against the tidal waves of guilt, and grief, and the remnants of a bitter tragedy, Elena sat up, eyeing the cell walls contemplatively. She stood up, arms through the bars that separated the two cells as she peered at the carvings on Damon's wall. "Did you draw that?" She asked her boyfriend, pointing towards the picture Caroline had noticed earlier. In his corner, Damon's eyelids twitched, but otherwise didn't open them as he replied, "yup," with a full pop on the 'p'. Caroline chimed in, "you carved Stefan, right?" managing to chirp so happily Damon could hear her smile - well, as happy as one could be inside a cage in a creepy dungeon, anyway - when Damon nodded and hummed affirmatively. 

"How on earth did you get Stefan from... that?" Elena asked incredulously, rolling her eyes when Caroline scoffed. Honestly, Damon could do without the incoming catfight - something he'd never thought he'd believe - baby vampires and their petty bickering? Not very sexy, if he was being honest. 

"Please," Caroline flipped her hair, "puffed up hair? Brooding forehead? It's a caricature of the Stefan we know, but back in 50s-pompadour-grease lightning land, this is, like, barely an exaggeration." It's pretty obvious to Damon that she's in the mood to fight, but thankfully, Elena doesn't take the bait.

"Oh, my God, Stefan!" She exclaimed after a moment of realisation. Caroline turned to her curiously. "Stefan is gonna figure this out. When you don't come home and no one hears from me or Care, Jeremy’ll call Stefan…he'll- he'll find us." She hiccupped. Damon gave a lazy flick of the wrist that rested on his knee.

"Points for optimism. But unfortunately, Stefan doesn't even know this place exists." Both girls just stared at the older vampire.

"What do you mean he doesn't know?" Elena asked.

"You were here for 5 years, Damon," Caroline pointed out, as if Damon didn't know that. As if his time as Frankenstein's monster wasn't etched into the pitiful remains of his soul.

"Yeah, and in the first year I thought he'd figure it out," Damon clenched his jaw, "but he didn't. And by the time I escaped, there was no point in giving him more to feel guilty about. So I never told him," he said, tone darkening, "I never told anyone."

The girls didn't seem to notice the change in Damon's tone. Or, if they did, they didn't care.

"Yeah, but you did escape. How did you get out?" Elena pressed, despite the many warning signs that her boyfriend was close to pulling up an impenetrable mask.

"It doesn't matter, Elena," he bit out, "it wasn't worth it." 

Harsh. But really, although Damon may have physically survived Augustine, every part of him that was worth something burned into the ash coating that ballroom floor. 

"We don't know that," Elena dismissed, "you can trust us, Damon. How did you escape?"

Well if the lady wishes...

"Every year, on New Year's Eve," he started, void of any emotion, "the Augustine people would have a little cocktail party, complete with a vampire buffet on the side. We were weak from the extra vervain injections and stood for hours locked in a two-by-two cage with vervain coated bars." Caroline winced, but there were no reactions otherwise. "Living on a shot glass of blood a day, sometimes human, sometimes rat - sometimes they 'forgot' - often chained up like the circus bears from when I was a boy, this little annual shindig was the pinnacle of our humiliation. Dr Whitmore would celebrate his 'research' with his Augustine friends and donors - what a treat it was, even the founding families attended! He would demonstrate the 'intriguing healing properties' vampire blood contained, and we would watch as he passed around glasses of our blood for his guests to drink. The Fells always paid a huge sum of money to use these 'resources' as some kind of fucked up fertility treatment," he paused, letting out a dry laugh, "but after the party in 1957, Enzo came up with his plan."

He began to explain the plan to the girls, how Enzo gave Damon his rations, taking a sip here and there so as not to completely desiccate. Both newbie vamps wore similar expressions of hopefulness by the end of it, seemingly eager to give the plan a try.

"And it worked?" Caroline asked him.

"More or less." Damon admitted, throat like gravel as he spoke.

"So how did you do it?"

"It doesn't matter. I got stronger, I got out. It wasn't pretty."

"Is anybody going to tell me what's going on?" Stefan asked the Mikaelson brothers as he slid into the backseat. Neither Elijah nor Klaus had offered any information that was of use to him on the flight to Richmond, but perhaps they would in the privacy of a compelled car.

Klaus sat in the passenger seat, ignoring both travel companions in favour of examining the file Katherine sent through. It seemed to be genuine - the array was far too vast, even for Katherine's impressive network. Rebekah had been texting him constantly, complaining about her role as werewolf babysitter, especially when she was faster than any of her brothers and still had the unassuming baby face of a teenage girl, which made her far more useful than Stefan - a fact none of them, not even Stefan, disagreed with. In the end, after Rebekah had whined about the stupidities of men - Quit being such a misogynistic wanker, Nik! - Elijah had somehow placated their little sister enough for the three men to embark on their journey.

"Nik?" The younger vampire asked, leaning forward on his arms - he had made a lovely little chin rest by propping up his elbows on the front seats (though Klaus had glared back with his hybrid visage on display more than once, causing Stefan to flinch out of his expert positioning).

Elijah finally took pity on the boy, glancing at him through the rearview mirror. "Whitmore College is home to a secret society of doctors and scientists that study the foundations of vampirism. Capturing vampires and enslaving them with torture in the name of medicine. There have been many other groups like these Augustines over the years, but these scientists are a few levels higher, and far more deadly. It was thought that they were destroyed in the 1960s when an escaped prisoner enacted his revenge - Niklaus, you were rather impressed by the Griffith massacre of 1964, if I remember correctly, the bodies were disembowelled and dismembered, before being rearranged into a particularly gruesome mural that was then publicly displayed." Elijah pursed his lips, his disapproval evident at the recollection. Stefan looked at the Original, eyes widened in horror. Klaus just nodded, turning his phone on 'silent' and pocketing it. 

"Oh yes," Klaus said hungrily, "California, right?" At his brother's nod, Klaus smiled in satisfaction. Elijah continued, "over the 20th century, there were many similar massacres across the states, and occasionally overseas. Entire family lines were wiped out, some quickly, others not so, but all of them were connected to Whitmore College in one way or another. The escapee still remains unknown, but Katerina and I have had our suspicions," he tapped at the steering wheel and met Stefan's eyes in the rearview.

"Damon Salvatore completely disappeared in 1953 - the same day Joseph Salvatore was attacked by an animal in his home."

Stefan snorted. "Yeah, I know. Joseph sent me a telegram saying he needed urgent help. Damon attacked him and took off."

Klaus watched the scene with enraptured amusement.

"Perhaps," Elijah conceded, "yet there was not a trace of him until 1959."

Stefan huffed. "I know that. He was taunting me. What are you trying to say?"

Elijah frowned. "I was merely curious as to his whereabouts during that time."

"Who knows. Who cares. It's Damon. He pops up randomly to dish out the eternity of misery he promised. He left my friend Lexi to die on a rooftop in '77 after she tried to help him. We might have a better bond now, but that's all because of Elena. She's changed him for the better," he insisted. Elijah opened his mouth, but was too slow.

Klaus let out a snort. "Alexia Branson, right?" Stefan nodded. "I remember her," the hybrid's smile was fond, "She was quite lovely to look at, though her bossiness irked many of us. Our younger siblings soon grew tired of her judgement, and one day, Kol pushed her down the marble stairs. None of us knew that someone had slipped her vampire blood the night before. She had an older brother, Julien, whom she turned not long after, I believe. Nasty piece of work, that bloke.”

Elijah interrupted, "We are ten minutes from the college," he announced, "Katerina has shared with us her coordinates and the owner of Whitmore House - Aaron Whitmore. We are aiming for speed and stealth over brutality, Niklaus, and only after our allies have been liberated may we proceed in our destruction of the Augustines."

Klaus reluctantly huffed an agreement, and before too long they pulled into the visitor's carpark. "Found her," Stefan said, leaning into the front, pointing at Katherine's figure across the lawn. She was talking rather animatedly with a blonde haired boy - Aaron? Elijah wondered. The woman seemed to be impersonating her doppelganger, except her movements were exaggerated to an extreme. He shook his head, and followed his companions across the green.

Chapter Text

"Elena!" Aaron called, jogging up to Katherine with a manilla folder in his hand.

"Aaron, hey," Katherine greeted him in a cheery 'Elena' tone.

"Your dad was Grayson Gilbert, right?" He asked, panicked.

"Yeah...?"

Aaron looked around before leaning in closer. "You mentioned a secret society earlier, right?" 

Katherine nodded, eyes wide with faux realisation. "So you know..." she trailed off. 

"About the vampires? Yeah. Wes has been using my money for years to fund his research. I knocked him out and took this," he shook the folder. "Turns out, I'm not cursed. A vampire has been picking off my family, one by one, for years. He let it slip that he caught it and locked it up in the basement."

"Oh my God!" Katherine gasped, playing it up as her phone gave a ping! as Elijah came within range, "what are you gonna do? I mean, I can come with you, to question it, if you want..."

Aaron nodded. "Wes is a psycho, though. He openly admitted to killing Jesse and making him into a vampire and everything - my roommate, my friend. He's known for years that I'm the next to get murdered and he's brought my future murderer into my home! He's-" Aaron's rant was interrupted as three men approached them. 

"Uh, hi?" Aaron waved awkwardly at the strangers, instantly cooling off.

"Elijah Smith," the one in the suit held out a hand. 

"Uh... Aaron Whitmore," he shook it nervously. 'Elena' laughed.

"Aaron, this is Stefan, Elijah, and Nik," she improvised, before leaning over to stage whisper, "they're 'in the know' and everything," 

The young one - Stefan - seemed amused at the introduction, but the third one - Nick? - glowered at Elena.

"Elijah's a lawyer," Katherine piped up, deliberately meeting the Original's eye, "maybe he can help with your psycho guardian? I don't know what else we can do..."

Elijah raised an eyebrow at her fluttering lashes, and her, quite frankly, unusually terrible impression of Elena.

Katerina, what are you planning?

Caroline and Elena were sitting opposite each other, leaning with their sides against the bars that split the two cells. The brunette seethed, huffing loudly every time Damon brushed off her questions.

Frustrated, Elena pushed some more. "Wes is gonna come back down here, and we'll all be the newest Augustine experiment. You have to tell me-us how you got out of here, Damon."

"You don't want to know, Elena." I can't bring myself to say it aloud. 

"Why?" Elena asked. "You think I'm gonna judge you? That Caroline's gonna judge you?" Yes. 

"It's likely," Caroline muttered. She was finding that the waiting game was almost as bad as the promised torture. The anticipation, the low morale - it was all mind games.

Damon looked away, his irritation present. Why can't she just let it go?

"Damon, I love you," Elena pleaded. "I love you, and these people tortured you for five years. Whatever you had to do, I don't care. It won't change how I feel about you." It changes everything. 

Softly, Damon said, "alright, alright." He took a deep breath and hoped he could find the right words. But who was he kidding? When has he ever dealt with feelings the 'right' way? "The next party was New Years Eve, 1958."

Enzo leaning against him in their cage, skin greying and seemingly hollow. But he smiles, and though the pair bask in shadows, Damon is sure that smile is responsible for all of the light in the room, just for them. 

"Whitmore pulled me out of the cage, locking Enzo back inside," Damon told the girls, "I was strong enough to break my hand and pull it out of the cuffs," 

Now you see it...

"I grabbed the doctor's face and dug my thumbs into his eyes," Caroline's mouth was agape, "before finishing him and a few other guests off. I felt great, stronger. But, in the guest's panic, someone knocked over a candelabra and next thing I know, the room burst into flames like a slightly more dangerous version of dominoes."

The blonde couldn't help but flinch away from the look in Damon's eyes - the hollow pools of glacial ice that brought back memories of her monster with the very same eyes - big, blue, empty apertures that held far too much grief and sadness but simultaneously housed an emptiness, an absolute nothing. Come out to play, little mouse, those tormented eyes of her tormentor winked - but, also - if you have no emotions, why are you still so sad? -  If Damon escaped this hellhole, why does he still seem so... trapped?

"I rushed to Enzo, but when I tried to pull on the bars, the vervain was too much," he clenched his hands around thin air, phantom burns blistering his skin down to the bone. "Enzo trusted me with his life," his voice cracked, "but I couldn't get the cage open. The fire was out of control, and I had two options: Save myself, or stay and burn."

He could feel Elena's eyes on him, Caroline's were downcast, but the stunned silence more than made up the tension a drumroll would have.

And here's the kicker... 

"I made the wrong choice." He inhaled deeply, suffocating under the weight of his words. "I knew if I was going to save myself, that I had to stop caring about Enzo," Elena peered through the bars, more than disturbed. "So I turned off my emotions." Leaving my soul to die. 

"And suddenly everything was fine," Damon's voice was nothing but a hoarse whisper as he tried to convince himself. "Everything was just fine." Leaving didn't seem quite so scary.

A pair of footsteps came down the hall, and Damon stiffened at the familiar sound. 

"76142," Maxfield drawled, coming to a stop outside Enzo's the girls' cage. "It's your turn, Blondie." Okay. Damon's never calling her that again. Ever. Doctor Weasel just ruined that nickname. 

The 'good' doctor pulled out a syringe of vervain, injecting it into Caroline before she could pull herself from her thoughts. 

Elena looked on in horror. "No!" She screeched, as Wes dragged her unconscious friend out of the cell, "you can't do this! It isn't right!" Ah, yes. Because the psycho doctor cares about morality and wellbeing. Seriously. Sure, Elena's naivety is often sweet and endearing - other times, Damon's sad that Kol's dead, because Baby Brother Mikaelson was seriously onto something with the whole baseball bat operation.

"Quiet 83182, or I'll bring out some of your father's tricks," Maxfield warned, successfully shutting the doppelgänger up as he made his exit. 

As an hour or two went by, Damon knew he had to offer some sort of comfort, but he just couldn't, even as Elena sobbed into her arms at the muffled sound of Caroline's groans and screams and pleas and grunts. Even as Elena softly called his name, he chose to remain in the crevices of his own mind - a cold comfort, but a comfort all the same. 

The dungeon grew darker as daylight faded, but eventually footsteps approached the cells once more. Two pairs? Three? Damon immediately stood up, settling into parade rest as he urged his girlfriend to do the same. Some habits just won't break. He tilted his head at the sound of the new voices - fuck. Guess it's show and tell day for Damon's trauma.

"I'm still confused, you know," Stefan pointed out as he followed 'Elena' and Aaron down the dark hallway. None of this 'mission' was making any sense to him. Granted, Elijah could be a cryptic bastard when he wanted - and he absolutely wanted - but none of it was making any sense. Since when did Damon need help against humans? He was never one to shy away from killing those he deemed 'lesser', and he'd been that way for far too long. And how did these doctors even get information on the littlest Mikaelson? She wasn't even born yet!

"We're questioning the vampire that Aaron's guardian psycho caught, while the others gather intel on said creep-o doctor," Katherine recited, louder than Stefan thought she needed to - what was she planning? Unpredictability was Katherine's nature, but her current charade was just... a lot, even for her. What was she getting out of this?

"Thanks for coming with me, by the way," the blonde tossed over his shoulder, nerves creeping up his spine (or perhaps spiders, they were in a creepy dungeon after all) as they neared a steep set of stairs neatly cut into the rocky foundations. 

"It's the right thing to do," the girl smiled sweetly, a perfect impression of her descendant, "after all, if I was in your position..." She trailed off. "Well, we're here. Stefan, you'll keep super quiet, won't you?" 

Human or not, there was a dark power behind Katherine's words that he couldn't help but obey. She was up to something, of that, Stefan was certain. But if she tried anything remotely Katherine-like or tried to throw a wrench in their rescue, Stefan would show no mercy. It didn't make sense - why would she help? Why was she the one spearheading the plan?

The room they entered was more of a stone void - completely empty except for two cells along the width of the back wall. Stefan gasped when he saw the state of the occupants, but he subtly and expertly masked it as a cough. Elena was in the left cell, pleading at the unresponsive occupant in the right. That occupant was someone Stefan hadn't seen in a century and a half. This Damon was the brother Stefan once knew - his kind-hearted, brave brother; the hero of Stefan's human life (the haunted, war-torn soldier; a ghostly shadow of that hero). A man Stefan had spent his ridiculously lengthy existence missing and mourning (a man he never wanted to see again).

"What the hell is this place?" Aaron demanded, stock-still when he saw the real Elena. "Wh- you..." He spluttered, eyes darting between the doppelgängers. 

"That's my identical grandmother," Katherine jumped in, play along, her glare said her doppelgänger.

"What?!"

Many things could be said about the elusive Katherine Pierce, but there was a reason her escapades were so infamous: She was a phenomenal actress.

"How do you think I know about vampires?" She scoffed, before gesturing to the cages, "behold, Katherine Pierce, my evil ancestress."

Elena raised an eyebrow. Nobody had ever accused her of bad acting, either. "Aaron?" She asked in a sickly seductive tone, playing along almost mockingly, doe-eyes batting like a Disney princess - trippy, Damon absently thought, a Petrova Matryoshka doll.

"Wes said a vampire killed Megan," Mini-Wes said to 'Elena', pulling out a gun with shaky hands. 

Katherine shied away from the boy. "Aaron, what are you doing?!" 

"I want to know the truth." He started to load the gun, with marginal success.

"Slick hands, Cowboy," Damon commented as several bullets dropped, beginning to accept that this wasn't a hallucination - or, it was just a very detailed one. Maybe a new drug Dr. Whitmore Maxfield wanted to try. Odd. He'd have thought he'd tried them all by now.

"Shut up," Aaron's tone wavered slightly. He brought the gun up, aiming at Damon, before flicking it over to 'Katherine'. "I've never killed anyone before. Unlike you," he sneered.

"I don't kill people," the trench coat full of doppelgängers blurted out instinctively, without thinking, like, at all. Stefan rolled his eyes. He really just wanted to grab his brother and ex girlfriend and drop them in a ditch on his way back to New Orleans. None of this made sense, and it was giving him a headache. Why were they pretending to be each other?

"Wes said a vampire killed Megan," the boy repeated, "just like one killed my parents. That was you, wasn't it?" He accused, edging nearer to Elena.

Damon rolled his eyes. "Calm down," he said, "it wasn't her."

Ah, Stefan realised, unsurprised at his brother's upcoming admission. Two more for Damon's tally then, he noted.

"That was all me," Damon grinned, all tooth and menacing pride.

"What did you just say?" Aaron demanded, angling his pistol in Damon's direction.

Damon's grin faltered and his eyes started to glaze over, as if he was, by some slim chance, compelled. 

"Sorry newcomers, you missed a few chapters," he apologised, not sorry in the slightest, "on January 1st, 1959, I had to take my plan solo. Sure, I could have killed everyone involved and destroyed all evidence like that," he snapped his fingers, "but if I was going to honour Enzo, I was going to do it properly, humanity or no." An eternity of vengeance, for an eternity of shame.

Who the fuck is Enzo? Stefan wondered, the prospect of another murderous scheme of Damon's fading in comparison.

"I killed every member of the Whitmore family, except one. I let the youngest child grow up - he got married and built a happy life with 2.4 kids and everything. And that's when I enacted phase two of my plan. I'd kill some more Whitmores, leaving only one to carry on the name. And then I'd take out the generation after that, and so on, and so on." He may have smiled slightly in his retelling, and Katherine possibly hid her smirk in her hand while the other three were left dumbfounded and disgusted - but who knows? 

Aaron was the first to regain his voice. "H-how many did y-you kill?" He echoed Stefan's thoughts - without the imaginary scoreboard, of course. The younger Salvatore may not have a clue of context, but a kill's a kill. No excuses. 

"Since 1958?" Damon seemed to contemplate that. "No idea." Stefan added an estimate of one hundred to the tally.

"When was the last one?" Elena asked quietly, tensing when Damon didn't answer. "Damon!" She said angrily, "when was the last one?!"

"A few months ago," he admitted. "Had to go all the way to Charlestown to find her, made it a little weekend trip." One more for the count.

"My aunt Sara," Aaron whispered.

"But we were together a few months ago!" Elena insisted, voice shrill and reprimanding. 

"Yes, we were," he acknowledged, eyes flickering apologetically at his stoic brother for just a second - Stefan looked happier now, healthier. Stronger, too. 

Disgust marred her face. "I thought we decided you wouldn't kill people anymore, Damon! I had no idea! How did I have no idea?" 

Damon blinked. It's his choice, one he made before she was even born, and it's not like she'd approve it, anyway. Ok, whoa. Maybe Augustine was fucking with his brain, but since when did he obediently abide by the commands of a teenage girl?

Thankfully, he didn't have to answer - no doubt he'd get it wrong if he did - because his senses alerted him to a new presence descending those godforsaken stairs. Great - it's a trip to the zoo for anybody and everyone Damon has ever met. 

"Fuck," he muttered, drawing attention towards himself, "You're letting Elijah see me like this?" He gestured to his blood soaked shirt and dishevelled appearance as he glared petulantly at Katherine. She just smiled sweetly, before giving Stefan the agreed upon signal. It was a shame her human reflexes could only track the blurs as Stefan knocked the gun from Aaron's hand at top speed; he was so beautiful, expression fierce while he twisted the blonde's arms back in a brutal lock, far too quick for Aaron to register. God, she missed being a vampire.

Elijah gave the room a quick once over, grimacing at the gloomy dungeon. "Now, Damon, don't be so vain." He flashed everybody a deceptively pleasant smile as he took his handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped the blood from around his mouth.  

"You're all..." Aaron started, but shut his mouth when Stefan gripped him a little tighter. Good instincts. Poor boy was just given a bad hand.

"Katerina, would you be so kind as to unlock these doors," Elijah handed her a large key from his pocket, nodding to Damon and Elena as they looked at him gratefully. "Niklaus has occupied Dr Maxfield's classroom for the time being, as it seems we have much to discuss. We also have records of several other locations used for research and development purposes, which will no doubt be destroyed as soon as possible. May I ask that Stefan, you take Aaron by his dormitory to pack a weekend bag? We wouldn't want our guest to be uncomfortable now, would we? And perhaps the ladies might like to do the same for the lovely Miss Forbes?" He didn't so much ask, as he did command.

"Yes, of course," Elena said, thanking Elijah profusely. Katherine gave her a cursory glance - not to make sure she was okay or anything, absolutely not - and followed Elena up the stairs. It was only now that she really acknowledged the fact that Elena was family. Truth be told, Katherine wasn't helping out of the goodness that was not in her own heart. These Augustine freaks had something she wanted, no, needed. After seeing the Petrova family tree that Maxfield kept in a file that had every name in the direct line that started with Katherine, followed by an unfamiliar woman. Nadia Petrova. 1490-1517, 1517-current. Nadia, a woman directly below Katherine on a chart that passed through mothers and daughters - Sofiya Petrova, 1507-1565. Milena Ivanov Petrova, 1526-1590. All the way down to Isobel Grace Flemming, and Elena Marie Gilbert. Of course, Katherine had known that Elena was her descendant, but she'd pushed away every thought that begged to know more. It was too painful. Seeing proof, however, that Elena wasn't just her granddaughter, but also her daughter's granddaughter, and her granddaughter's granddaughter - that was... A Lot. And worse, these psychopathic doctors kept pages upon pages, documentations and photographs of her daughter's life, so many records proving that the daughter she had looked for and mourned had followed her to the ends of the earth. Paris, 1749. London, 1850. New York, 1860. Virginia, 1865. Argentina, 1990. If Katherine had stopped just once, for longer than a minute... 

Nadezhda. 

Her daughter was alive.

"Elijah! My brave knight in shining armour!" Damon sassed as he and Elijah walked across campus, having detoured to literally compel a shirt off a co-ed's back. "You just wanted me alone so you could have your way with me, didn't you?" The Original didn't react beyond a slight twitch of his lips, but that was enough to spur Damon on. "Demanding that I strip for you, practically groping me! I'll have you know that I'm a taken man now, 'Lijah," he said cheekily, slipping into the science corridor with a forced ease - the elder Salvatore had a terrible habit of overcompensating whenever he felt emasculated, typically resorting to overdramatic flirting to ease his discomfort. Elijah supposed that they would be seeing quite a lot of that today.

Arriving outside the classroom, Elijah stopped the younger man. "Damon," he said carefully; in that slow, foreboding way that always left warning bells ringing in Damon's ears. "Niklaus and I made a discovery upon finding Miss Forbes. You are, of course, already aware that this... organisation has managed to stay under the radar for half a century, despite any and all rational beliefs that it had ceased to exist." 

Damon swallowed in anticipation. "What are you not saying?" He narrowed his eyes.

"There was another prisoner alongside the Forbes girl."

No. Don't say it. It's not possible.

"It seems that you and he were once well acquainted."

"That's not possible... I checked..." Damon breathed, hesitating for only a moment before pushing his way into the classroom.

He swore undead heart stopped beating when he saw the man seated atop the desk.

"21051,"  the man greeted, arms spread wide as he grinned. "It's been a long time, mate."

Chapter Text

"21051,"  the man greeted, arms spread wide as he grinned. "It's been a long time, mate."

"You're not real."

Those were the first words to come out of Damon's mouth when he saw the dark haired ghost man who had starred in a lifetime of Damon's sweetest dreams and most haunting nightmares. The man's face; the same one Damon had meticulously etched into his heart and his mind, looked back at him incredulously.

"That's the first thing you say to me?" Enzo asked, hopping off the desk so that he and Damon were standing level. "No 'Hello', 'How are you?' 'How'd you survive in that fire I left you to die in?'"

"S-s..." Damon took a breath and started over. "Ho—w-" Enzo just looked at him with a raised eyebrow as Damon butchered every word.

Typical. Speaking had never done him any good, not when it mattered.

There was so much he wanted, no, needed to apologise for, but the right words had hidden themselves in the darkest corners of his mind's vignette, slipping from his grasp before they even reached the tip of his tongue. How do you encompass half a century of guilt and regrets in an apology? It tasted like ash, and pathetic excuses, betrayal, charred mistakes, and torture. God. Damon would go through centuries of experiments and starvation just to get the fuck away from this situation. No. That was wrong. Enzo wasn't a situation, not something that needed to be handled. Enzo was... everything. Is everything. Present tense. He was magnetic, and Damon was so relieved to feel that tug, there wasn’t a better feeling than it (he’d never felt anything worse in his life). How could Damon even begin to unravel that paradox of emotions, let alone express them, out loud, without fucking everything up (again) and running for the hills (again)? 

Well, he could...

Was it a bad idea? Yes. Was it potentially fatal and completely recklessly impulsive? Also, yes. 

But worth it. No matter the outcome - it would be...

So. Fucking. Worth it. 

Throwing all façades of caution to the wind, he let that magnet pull him towards Enzo, with an audible click. Still not satisfied, Damon contented himself by burying his chin into the man’s collarbone, his arms wrapped just so; breathing in that familiar scent of cinnamon, and gunpowder, and leather, with a hint of something citrus-y and so distinctly Enzo. "Sorrysorrysorrysorry," he murmured, mouthing the words into the junction of Enzo's neck. It took a second, but the other vampire eventually relaxed into the embrace, letting his head fall forward onto Damon's shoulder as his hands found Damon's sides. "I hate you," Enzo whispered, voice hoarse and crackly, but the words held no rage, just a tired resignation. "Good," Damon murmured, "I'm a coward." Damon closed his eyes and burrowed in deeper, too tired to even care about his bad boy persona, just letting his few, but persistent tears bleed out and dampen Enzo's already filthy t-shirt. It was grounding. It was right. After so long, after Damon's betrayal...

"Why aren't you killing me?" Damon asked confusedly, pulling away slightly so he could analyse every pore, every freckle he might have forgotten. There were far too many— though even one would have been unsatisfactory. "You should want to kill me," he pointed out helpfully. Hell, Damon wanted to kill Damon. But it was only fair that he gave Enzo the chance.

"Yes," Enzo agreed, "I...I should. Maybe I do? It's hard to tell, anymore." He took a deep breath, hands shifting slightly on Damon's hips. "I'm a bit muddled up in the head at the moment," he admitted, "I feel rather... wonky." His accent had slipped somewhat, regressing towards the Cockney twang of his youth- like he was out of practice, like he'd gone mute. And that guilt hit Damon like a freight train. On fire. With wooden stakes shoved into the cowcatcher. Coated in vervain.

“I should have stayed,” Damon whispered, voice weak and broken. 

“You would have been recaptured,” Enzo pointed out.

”I should have stayed.” His tone was stubborn, determined. His words gripped mercilessly at vervain covered bars, and his voice danced between the twirling flames as they devoured the ballroom. 

“As angry as I was - am - I would never have wanted that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That night, you— your eyes, there was nothing. You didn’t seem very sorry then.” It wasn’t accusatory, not really. Damon sort of wished it was— anger was easy. This? Not so much.

Damon decided to be as blunt as he could. “I flipped the switch.” 

Enzo let out a breath. “I thought so. You had a girl to save and all.”

”Yeah…” Damon grimaced. “About that…”

“Let me guess… When you got her from the tomb, you realised she was manipulating you all along?” Ooh. It was that obvious?

”Close. She was never in there at all, and everything I thought we had was just the product of a sire bond.”

Enzo let out a low whistle, but it was crackly and tuneless. 

Staring at Damon’s grim expression with something like vague amusement dancing in his eyes, the recent escapee gave a huff, to which Damon instantly blinked out of his self-hatred, and found himself staring into those deep, gorgeous, brown eyes. New topic, Damon. You’re gonna do something stupid like wax lyrical about his eyelashes if you don’t change the fucking subject right now—

“Did ‘Lijah come to your rescue?” He blurted out, looking over at the Original pleadingly. Help me out here, man. There’s a swarm of feelings getting way too close for my liking. 

”Oh him, his brother, the pretty blonde— she’s a tough one, that blondie. Reminds me of you somewhat, except— she actually got me out.” Damon winced. 

“Yeah, well, Caroline Forbes is something else entirely,” he admitted, “and we’ve already established that I’m a coward. Now, are you going to let me take you home with me so I can fuss over you the way I should have 50 years ago, or are we gonna have a problem?”

“It’s the least you could do. Just— Damon?” Enzo’s expression turned anxious. 

“Yeah, ‘Zo?”

“I’m not… My mind, it’s all…” He trailed off.

Damon rubbed a hand over Enzo’s arm with a small, sad, smile. “I know, buddy. Let’s get you home," Damon breathed, ignoring the entrance of his brother and co. (and, to nobody’s surprise, Elena was hanging off Stefan’s arm like a koala, but Damon couldn’t bring himself to feel very jealous. Maybe later.) "H-" He stopped, changing his train of thought. "I have a present for you," he smirked, and zoomed towards his brother and grabbed the already-compelled Aaron Whitmore.

"Damon, don't!" Stefan protested, at the same time Elena shrieked, "What are you doing?!" 

Damon just flipped off the two do-gooders as he brought the kid over to Enzo. Standing closer than he needed to, but not nearly close enough, he smirked over at the dynamic duo (plus Katherine). His bet? Neither would move a muscle, despite their oh-so-noble protests. "This is Aaron Whitmore," he introduced, "the very last of the Whitmore line. You should be the one to end it," he said solemnly, tilting the boy's head, neck bared as an offering.

"I am rather starved," Enzo conceded, staring at Damon only a little pointedly, before showing off his vampire visage and plunging his fangs deep into his meal's neck. And fuck, if that wasn't a huge turn on. All Damon had to do was bite into the other side of Aaron's neck, and-

No. Bad Damon. Not yours. Enzo's meal. 

"Stop!" Elena cried, standing stock still by the door, still clinging to Stefan, but even if Enzo would have listened, he was too far gone to care, eyes glazed over yet still boring into Damon's soul. Damon watched, enraptured by the scene before him. It was beautiful, seeing Enzo in the soft daylight for the first time. Angelic, yes - but, also, alive. The way it should have been all along. A warm glow on his sunkissed olive skin - preserved in immortality; he was beautiful. Enzo seemed to catch on to Damon's thought, carelessly dropping the body and licking his lips - he so knew what he was doing. 

"Damon, who is this?" Stefan asked, suspicion lining his already crowded forehead. Between Aaron, Katherine, and Elena, he'd gotten a better idea of the situation - secret vampire torture society who had captured Damon in the 50s, dissecting and torturing him for 5 years before he managed to escape, sans humanity. And he felt awful. Awful for never looking, never caring, never even knowing that something was wrong. Elena had assured him that he couldn't have known, that it was okay because Damon got out and he was fine now. But then Katherine had jumped in, reminding Stefan that if the tables were turned, Damon would have stopped at nothing to find his brother. Even if it was just to obnoxiously insert himself in Stefan’s life. It was actually helpful, having those two play 'Angel & Devil' on his shoulders - except, of course, for the fact that they were both extremely unhelpful, and did nothing to help calm Stefan's inner turmoil. He should have known that something was up. It should have been obvious from the start, when Stefan found Damon’s duffel by the body, or later, when the usual bottle of bourbon wasn't delivered that Christmastime, nor the four that followed, or perhaps that one day, when Damon had reappeared out of nowhere with his emotions turned off. Seriously— 100 years and Damon had always kept his humanity on, proudly so, no matter how many years he spent missing Katherine, or drowning in the heightened mess of the war; the blood-stained trauma that had crippled him in those last years as a human. But then, one day, he just… snapped? But it wasn't the torture that broke Damon, was it? There was something else. Stefan was sure of it. But he couldn't quite figure out what.

"Lorenzo," the unknown vampire said, false bravado masking his wavering tone. "But my friends call me Enzo. You must be Stefan."

That surprised him. "You know who I am?" Stefan asked.

Lorenzo - Enzo? - gave a shaky, but charming smile, and Stefan didn't miss how it was eerily reminiscent of the one Damon was currently wearing - except, his older brother's was directed at Enzo. In fact, all of Damon seemed to be enamoured with Enzo in that moment. "Could guess by the hair. Still a bit of a greaser then, aren't ya? And here I thought Damon was exaggerating."

"Oh yeah," Caroline said sheepishly, stepping out of the storeroom with a blanket around her shoulders and a hybrid at her heels. "Surprise, Enzo's still alive." 

"Good to see you again, gorgeous,” Enzo greeted, “but if you don’t mind…” He trailed off, and Damon quickly got his point.

The pair made their way towards the classroom door, but Damon paused in front of his brother.

“It’s good to see you, Stef,” he said as he patted his brother’s cheek.

“I’m gonna stay the week, I think. Nik and Elijah too, probably.” And we’re gonna have a little chat, Stefan didn’t say.

”Back to Nik, now, hm?” Damon deflected, teasingly. “Tomorrow, brother.” He pointed at a frowning Stefan and followed Enzo out the door, offering Elena a smallish smile, which was not returned. Seriously? It had already been 5 minutes since Aaron died, surely she’d gotten over it, but noo. 
Whatever, Damon thought, with a newfound clarity, the kid was going to die anyway. All that mattered to him right then was Enzo. He had 50 years to make up for, after all. 

Chapter Text

She barely had a moment to react before Wes had her out cold and strapped to a gurney in his creepy dungeon lab—not to be confused with his creepy above-ground lab, of course. When she came to, the blinding lights were flickering madly, like they were laughing at her in morse code, and vervain stung her wrists and ankles from where they were bound to the operating table—there was a brief moment of panic, when she felt another strap across her chest and shoulders, but thankfully, it seemed like she wasn’t going to get her boobs burned off today. Hopefully.

”Subject 76142 is awake after spending 45 minutes unconscious from the sub-baseline injection. Note that this injection is a modified version our baseline, weakened in order to accomodate to the ‘female’ species of vampire, and should only be used as a mild sedative, as neither the original, nor the modified version are designed to render subject unconscious for more than 60 minutes per dose.”

“Ugh, it’s you,” Caroline groaned, still woozy from the vervain. “Fuck you, little weasel man.” Shit. Probably should have kept that mouth shut, huh, Caroline? Apparently Wes agreed, if the scalpel that was suddenly shoved in her abdomen was anything to go by. 

“You’re very chatty today, blondie. I wonder if that’s a sireline trait? 21051 never could keep quiet, either.”

Caroline rolled her eyes. She did not want to have more in common with Damon than she absolutely had to. It was bad enough that she was already feeling sorry for him. She didn’t need anything else to do with her psychotic asshole of a maker. She gave a grunt as the scalpel was removed, only to yelp when Maxfield stabbed her stomach once more.

“Commencing laparotomy on patient 76142, where we will be examining the similarities and differences between our ‘male’ and ‘female’ subjects. Using data collected from this experiment, and existing information regarding 2KM-1AL-3, we will be proceeding with Project:Renesmee.”

“Wait, what?” Caroline pulled on her restraints in shock, making her grimace as her limbs hissed. “You’re going to put a miracle baby in me?” Drugged up or not, this was getting wayyy too unbelievable.

Wes narrowed his eyes. “How do you know what Project:Renesmee is?” 

If she wasn’t handcuffed in a totally not sexy way right now, she would so flick her hair. Men, she thought, with an internal sneer.

”Renesmee?” She raised an eyebrow as she spoke, the ‘duh’ heavily implied. “You’re totally going to Bella Swan me!” At her tormentor’s confusion, she let out a huff. Being tortured was bad enough, but being tortured by an uncultured idiot? That was a step too far. “How have you not heard of Twilight?” She asked, more than a little incredulous. Who doesn’t do their research for secret project code names? Rookie error. God, this guy was such a loser! What she wouldn’t give to rip out his slimy littl— “Aurggh!” She screamed, fighting the vervain and the crippling wounds inflicted onto her for about a hundred years an hour before slowly losing consciousness once more.

The next thing she knew, she was being wheeled into a new, dingy-er lab, complete with a backing track straight out of that superhero-war movie Tyler had made her watch—the one with that really hot guy? And the other really hot guy? And that badass secret agent lady? Not to mention the creepy peely-faced red-skull dude and the drugs that made Chris Evans buff. Wait—did they make him a vampire? Like, one minute he was fighting in WW2, and then he was running across Times Square the next… Oh my god, this was totally a knock-off of that!!!

”Urmngh!” She grunted, as a thick piece of metal was suddenly hammered into her skull. The music - humming, she realised - stopped abruptly.

”My thoughts exactly,” the voice said, absently conversing with her incoherent noises the way Caroline used to talk to her cat when she was five, back when Mittens’ little mewls were very controversial outbursts that sparked numerous heated debates between the pair, and Caroline was practising her presidential (slash princess, slash movie star) campaign. It was strange, she thought, to be finding parallels between a snowy white cat requesting pets (or food or attention), and an 18-nearly-19 year old vampire getting a lobotomy with an invisible British stranger sitting in the peanut gallery.

”12144! Finally speaking again?” Wes said, far too cheerfully for someone drilling into a teenager’s skull—shit. He would have to have shaved her head for this - Caroline had no clue how vampire hair growth even worked—would she even be able to grow it back? Shut up, Caroline, not the—ow—time!! Well, what else was she supposed to do? She needed something to get her mind off the searing, burning, shattering agony of a lobotomy (without any anaesthetic!!) and the only other thing running through her—fuck—head was that Grayson, her mother’s best friend, her best friend’s father, could’ve just as easily been inflicting this type of pain on her. On Elena. Who the hell tortures their own child? Oh. Right. Ohgodohgodohgod no no no don’t let your mind go there Caroline! You’re okay. You’re not burning. Just getting stabbed in the head repeatedly so Frankenstein can take a peek at your brain… FUCK. Oh no, don’t think about your likely shaved head… It’s okay. She had control over the hair growth on the rest of her body, right? A little blood and she’d be good to grow.

Holy shit—why did her wrist suddenly start burning? Was that… a tattoo? Was someone tattooing her?

”All inked up now, love? Welcome to the family then,” the voice said again, continuing his babbling, but Caroline couldn’t hear over the sound of her own screams and the construction work going on in her skull. All she knew was pain. Everything, anything, she hurt. Fuckfuckfuckfuck. She kept trying to reach her happy place— it had to be there, right? It couldn’t just… get up and walk away? Could it? Why couldn’t she find it? Where did it go? God-fucking-damn why wouldn’t it just stop?!

Thankfully, Maxfield went to take a short break sometime after, adjusting whatever neck brace contraption he was using in order to tip Caroline’s head on the side, conveniently placing the other vampire in her view. Strapped to another gurney, was a handsome brunette—well, he would be, but he was starved; his facial features had sunken into bruised hollows, and he didn’t seem very… present. Sort of spacey.

”Who— What’s your name?” She croaked, wincing as she moved her jaw too abruptly. 

“I think—“ He frowned. “I don’t have one,” he said softly, lost in thought. “Not anymore, at least. It was… the fire… burned it out of me…”

”Oh,” Caroline said, because what else was there to say? “I’m Caroline,” she offered.

”Cah-roh-line,” the man repeated, rolling it around in his mouth. “Caroline. I’m— I was— Lorenzo. I had friends, th-they called me Enzo.” Caroline hitched in a breath.

”The Enzo,” she whispered to herself.

”No,” Enzo’s words were solemn. “N-not the Enzo. Another one, maybe.” He spoke, as if in a daze, and Caroline wanted to shake her head.

”He thought you were dead,” she murmured, and Enzo turned to her with wide, fearful eyes. Ones full of… of something— not quite life, but something other than the dizzy fog they had been only moments ago. He opened his mouth to speak, but a large crash interrupted.

”Hello love,” Klaus said, dashing over to Caroline and undoing her restraints. “Fancy a jailbreak?”

“Klaus?” The blonde murmured confusedly, barely holding onto consciousness. Klaus surveyed her condition with a frown. Her head was sloppily shaved and crusted with blood, as was her lower stomach. Instinctively, Klaus bit into his wrist and put it to Caroline’s mouth, wincing slightly as she dropped her fangs and sucked greedily.

He lifted her up, prying his wrist from her lips as he hoisted her into a bridal carry.

”Mmm… no,” she said, dazedly, “gotta get Enzo too. Did you know he’s alive?” She was blood drunk and delirious, but sure enough, there was another vampire there, just quietly watching the pair.

”Niklaus, take the girl to Doctor Maxfield’s classroom,” Elijah commanded, handing his brother a set of keys and shooing him out. “I’ll bring… Enzo, was it?” The other vampire nodded, eyes widening as Elijah strode forward and bit into his own wrist, offering it to the younger vampire.

“Hallucination blood is delicious,” Enzo groaned, licking his lips slightly. “Could I have some more, please?” He looked up at Elijah cheekily. Elijah huffed amusedly and released him from the bindings.

“You’re really getting me out?” Enzo didn’t dare to hope.

“Of course,” Elijah frowned, “Can you walk?”

He nodded. “This is quite an elaborate scenario, even for my imagination,” he noted, grimacing when his legs nearly gave out. Elijah just hummed, and offered an arm for the man. 

“How long have you been held here, Enzo?”

“I was captured in the war,” Enzo explained, “Dunno how long it’s been since then.”

”As in… the second World War?” Elijah asked, dots connecting rapidly. Enzo nodded. 

“It’s currently 2011,” he told the man. “So roughly 70 years. We had thought this… organisation… eliminated.”

Enzo grimaced. “Slippery bastards, Augustine. My… my— there was another. He’s—was—my…He got out. Left me to die. Didn’t have much of a choice, but still…” He trailed off with a sigh.

”Damon Salvatore?” Enzo’s face flashed in recognition. “I daresay I’m quite familiar with the man,” the corners of his lips quirked upwards for a moment. “I’m to release him and another once Niklaus returns the doctor’s keys.”

The younger vampire tensed, emotions flickering across his face so fast that Elijah could barely track them. He quickly schooled his reactions, still leaning heavily on Elijah, and managed to hobble through the storeroom and into the classroom, where he took Maxfield’s seat behind the large desk, with his head in his hands. “Go get him, please,” Enzo muttered, fighting against himself, it seemed. He was worried for the Salvatore, that was certain, but it was like he had to tell himself not to care. Except, he very obviously did.

”In a moment. Would you like your pick of these? After Niklaus has interrogated them, of course.”

Enzo’s face lit up like a child on Christmas. “Would I?” He breathed, “Please.”

He watched, amused and enraptured, as his hallucination checked the compulsions on the doctor and his two assistants - his imagination was very thorough, he had to admit.

”Who are you?” Wes asked fearfully, shuddering when Elijah plastered on a perfectly pleasant smile.

”Elijah Mikaelson,” he grinned when Maxfield tensed. “Good, good, you’ve heard of me, have you?”

”You’re an Original. Klaus’ lapdog.”

”Oh I like that very much,” Klaus commented, re-entering the room.

“Keys, Niklaus,” Elijah said, holding out his hand expectantly.

Klaus grinned maniacally. “Yes, my dear subordinate.” He tossed the keys into his brother’s outstretched palm. “Now, off you pop, my good bitch. Go play heroic knight.”

Elijah rolled his eyes. “I trust you can interrogate these three yourself? Be kind to the boy.” With those parting words, Elijah left the three future corpses and the former science experiment in the hands of his psychopathic brother.

“Can someone compel him?” Katherine whined, weaving her way up the stone stairs. “I’d do it, but unfortunately, I’m human, thanks to my dearest grand-doppel-daughter.” She said this bitterly, glaring at said doppelgänger.

”Fine,” Stefan acquiesced, though he was thinking the same thing. “Act natural,” he told Aaron, “Walk with us, and don’t speak unless one of us tells you to.”

”Are you sure it’ll hold?” Elena asked, fearfully. “You know your compulsion’s weaker…”

Katherine grinned. “Yeah, Stef, munching on bunnies isn’t great for your persuasion skills.” She let out a pleased hum when Stefan blanched. It was fun making men squirm.

“I’m, uh, actually on human blood,” Stefan sheepishly told Elena, who halted abruptly.

(”Here we go,” Katherine muttered.)

”What?!” She shrieked, causing the other three to grimace.

(”God, I do not envy vamp-ears right now,” Katherine commented, rubbing her temples to soothe the headache.)

“Stefan, you can’t be on human blood!” Elena stressed, “You’re a ripper.”

(“Ladies and gents, the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” Katherine announced, quiet as a whisper.)

”Was.” Stefan said, “I was a ripper.” Then he frowned. “That’s if they even exist. I don’t know. But I have total control now.”

”That’s impossible!”

Stefan scratched his head. “Ah, um, apparently not. It seems Damon was right, after all. Ni- Klaus and Elijah, they’ve been helping me.”

Elena scoffed. “Helping you? Stefan, it’s Klaus.”

”Klaus, who used to be Stefan’s BFF,” Katherine added.

”Is your humanity off?!” Elena demanded, searching Stefan’s eyes for a clue. “Because I’ve been texting and calling you for months, with no replies whatsoever, and now I find out you’ve run off with the Originals?! I’ve been worried sick! I started having these dreams, and—“

”Whoa,” Stefan stopped her. “Dreams?”

”Yeah,” Elena nodded along, missing the warning in Stefan’s tone. “I was sure that something was wrong, you know? I started having these dreams about you, and I tried to tell Damon, because I had this really bad feeling, but he—“

Stefan halted suddenly. “Elena, you’ve been dreaming of me while in bed with my brother, that’s… and you’ve told Damon that?” No wonder things seemed tense between those two. 

”Yeah, I—“ But Stefan wasn’t finished. “Elena, I’ve been fine. Damon’s had my location, and I’ve been texting both him and Caroline—“

”Why did nobody tell me? Why didn’t you tell me?”

”Maybe because you’re a nosy, irritating, whiny little bitch?” Katherine supplied. Turning to the silent blonde, she snapped her fingers. “Aaron, some input please?” The human—other human—startled. “Um, well, you’re being kinda bossy, I guess? I’m still a bit hung up on the whole ‘vampires exist’ thing, to be honest.”

Stefan took that as the perfect chance to change the subject. “Yeah, can someone explain what the hell just happened back there? What’s this ‘secret society’ thing?”

Katherine hummed. “The Augustine Society, founded by Doctor Peter Whitmore during World War 2. Elijah had this whole thing about the etymology of the word, but I kinda tuned out, because he was just sitting there shirtless …” She trailed off dreamily.

”Katherine!” Stefan jolted her back to the present. “What was I saying? Oh yeah, so Elijah’s abs— my god they‘re delicious, he’s just so…” “Before that,” Stefan said tiredly. “Hm? Oh, well, this society claimed to be for the ‘betterment of humanity’, but really it was just a concentration camp for vampires. Starvation, torture, you name it - these sick freaks were fascinated by the rapid healing, and used their vampire lab rats to advance all things medicine. There were whispers, in the ‘40s and ‘50s, of parties at Whitmore house; the scientists were putting these ‘beasts’ on display for only the most upstanding members of society. They were just rumours, of course, until they weren’t.” She took a breath.

”As the clock struck midnight, January 1st, 1959, A fire broke out at Whitmore house. The society was believed to have been destroyed, that it was the end of Augustine, until a few weeks later. Family members of those involved were brutally murdered, often displayed in the most horrific ways… but the Whitmore family,” Aaron flinched, “were killed in a very diabolical manner. Each generation, all but one Whitmore would be slaughtered, and the heir would be the one to find the bodies. It repeated, over and over, as revenge for what the first two Whitmores did.”

Realisation dawned upon Stefan, and all he wanted to do was throw up. “That’s what Elijah was saying… Was—“ He swallowed. “Was it Damon?” He asked, barely more than a whisper. “Did they… did they torture Damon?” He already knew the answer. It clawed at his stomach and scratched his throat, tearing him apart from the inside out. 

Katherine nodded, anyway, something akin to sympathy on her face. 

“I didn’t…” He gulped. “I- I never knew.”

”You couldn’t have known, Stefan,” Elena soothed, reaching to rub his arm, but he shied away from her touch. “You had no way of knowing. I never knew my dad worked in a place like this— it’s probably changed since then. You couldn’t have known.”

”But I…” He dragged a hand down his face. “Oh god,” he groaned, “I should have… all the signs were there… I-“

”It’s not your fault,” Elena cooed, “Damon didn’t tell you. Besides, he’s fine - you saw him before. Damon’s okay now, he’s out, and back to normal. There’s no way you could have known.”

”If the roles were reversed,” Katherine mused, opening the door to Elena and Caroline’s dorm, “Damon would have found you.” At Elena’s glare, she continued, ignoring her doppelgänger. “What? Stefan knows that. Granted, it would probably have been to make Stefan’s life miserable, or whatever he promised to do to you, but he would have searched for you. He wouldn’t have stopped until he figured it out.”

She was right, of course. Blunt, but right. Thing was— the roles weren’t reversed. Stefan didn’t know. Didn’t have a clue. He failed Damon, once again.

”That’s not true!” Elena said adamantly as she zipped around the room, grabbing Caroline’s things.

”Yeah,” Stefan sighed, “Yeah it is.” Then, “Oh god.”

”What?” The doppelgängers said in unison.

”That’s when he turned it off,” Stefan breathed. “I hadn’t heard from him in years… then in 1960, he just popped up. Out of nowhere, killing people.” Then he groaned. “Oh, fuck.”

”I’m down,” Katherine said under her breath, getting a glare from Elena. 

“In ‘94… fuck.” His head felt like it was about to split in two. All he could think was— he couldn’t think anything. He had to find his brother. Now. Before anybody could hurt him ever again. Ignoring everything and everyone, Stefan ducked his head down and tracked his way to Maxfield’s room. At some point, Katherine or Elena—he couldn’t tell who, and he didn’t really care—grabbed onto his arm and tried to stop him, but Stefan was on a mission. He wasn’t missing any more of his brother’s life. He caught the scent of Caroline’s blood— Oh god. Caroline. She’d been in there too… No. Klau Nik would have found her instantly. He probably had her wrapped in one of those ridiculously fluffy blankets he seemed to always have on standby— something about Hayley, he’d said, though Stefan had personally seen her refuse that blanket more than once, and yet…

Part of him was a teensy bit jealous, though he was loathe to admit it. Right now, Stefan wanted to be the one wrapped in that criminally fluffy blanket. Caroline and Nik could be there too, if they wanted. It would be rude to kick them out. He went to cross his arms, but…

Oh. The weight on his elbow was still there. Most likely Elena, then. But it could be Katherine… Whatever. He’d just call the koala ‘ex girlfriend’. 

Stefan ignored the pleads of his ex girlfriend —yeah, that worked— for him to slow down and talk to her. The door was right there. He could smell his brother’s… tears? He had to get in there. Come on, Stefan.

Honestly, Stefan wasn’t sure that he was actually seeing what he was seeing. From where he was standing, it looked like his brother was… voluntarily holding hands with a stranger? As in, seeking out physical touch? 

Chapter Text

“Room for one more under there?” Stefan asked the fluffy burrito vampire named Caroline, who was curled up in the backseat of her car, looking out the window with a blank expression. Wordlessly, she unwrapped herself, and held the blanket open for Stefan, who crawled in next to her, positioning them so that Caroline’s head lay on his chest and her arm was pulling at the cloth like a wing, resting over his far shoulder. As she burrowed into him, short tufts of blonde hair, stained and crusted with blood, tickled Stefan’s chin.

Tilting the angle of the rearview, and jiggling the fluffy blue dice hanging from it, Klaus met Stefan’s gaze…. Well, not quite. The hybrid’s eyes were concealed by the lenses of Caroline’s oversized diamanté studded sunglasses, but Stefan got the idea. And a photo to send to Hayley. The caption read: Malibu Hybrid.

“Boarding House?” Nik asked gently, so as not to wake the girl. He’d pushed the sunglasses onto the top of his head, letting his gaze flicker down to Caroline and back up again.

”Yeah.” Stefan whispered. Then, “What did they do to her?”

Klaus stiffened. For a minute, the blinker was the only sound to cut through the blanketing silence that had enveloped the car. When he spoke, his voice shook slightly. “I-I don’t actually know. From what I saw of the wounds, a lobotomy, and possibly a… possibly a hysterectomy or an equally invasive procedure.” Stefan inhaled sharply, nuzzling Caroline’s fuzzy head, just to remind himself that she was really there, not strapped to some gurney still.

“I-I…” Stefan tried to speak. “M-my brother… 

“I don’t think they gave him a hysterectomy, love.” Klaus smirked, easing the tension. Then, he tutted. “Remind me to discuss the most effective methods of destroying a secret society with Damon, won’t you? I do hate wasting potential.”

Stefan nodded shakily. “Who was that other guy? Enzo?”

“Augustine’s subject since the 1940s. Thought to have died in the fires in ‘58. By the looks of it, he’d been very… close with your brother.”

”I could tell.” Stefan responded drily. “I can’t believe I never knew about that place,” he shook his head sadly.

“Why would he tell you?” Klaus asked, genuinely curious. “Damon Salvatore doesn’t exactly strike me as the heartfelt conversations type.”

“He’s not,” Stefan agreed. “But it seems like something he’d say to excuse the horrible things he’s done. It just doesn’t match up with the Damon I know….”

Fingers drumming against the steering wheel, Klaus hummed. “I wouldn’t dwell too hard on it, love. It won’t make you feel any better.”

Reluctantly, Damon tore himself away from the room to get a drink, and face the inquisition of ‘well-meaning’ busybodies gathered in the parlour.

Except, that plan was postponed when he bumped into a fuming Elena, who crowded him the second he closed the door and entered the hallway. Arms crossed around some book, foot tapping, brooding forehead that rivalled Stefan’s…. Fuck. He’d rather compliment Matt Donovan than deal with this right now. 

“We need to talk,” Elena said, craftily blocking Damon’s only escape route. 

Rubbing a hand over his face, Damon groaned. ”Not now, Elena,” he sighed.

”Yes now,” she demanded, “I think I deserve some explanations.” Damon raised an eyebrow.

”You do? I don’t,” came his overly cheerful reply.

”Damon—“

”Leave me alone, Elena.” His voice cracked slightly. “I can’t deal with this anymore.” Huh. That was easier to say than he’d expected.

Elena scoffed. “You mean ‘can’t deal’ with me.”

What was that saying about the best policy?

”Yes.” He said honestly. “So go away.”

tap-tap—tap tap-tap—tap tap-tap—tap.

Damnit. He should have known that wouldn’t work. Elena scowled.

“You can’t just avoid me, Damon.”

With a long sigh, he reached out and placed his hands on Elena’s shoulders, pulling her closer and dipping his head to her height in the way one would reveal Victoria’s secret.

”Watch me.” He spoke firmly, spinning them around so that he had a clear path down the hallway and the staircase. Part of him knew he’d regret it later, taking that tone with his girlfriend—ex girlfriend, Damon reminded himself, proud of the way he handled that break-up speech just then; clear and concise with absolutely no room for misinterpretation— when he knew the army of teenage busybodies would inevitably hunt him down and take him to task, demanding retribution, but right now? Damon couldn’t bring himself to give a shit. He was letting go of the pipe dream that was Damon’s redemption, starring the saintly Elena Gilbert, once and for all. They’d been together for, what? Three months? And Damon had been miserable almost the entire time. They’d fought nonstop, often ending in pretty hot makeup sex, but even the novelty of that wore off too. They just didn’t fit. Her idea of a holiday was a trip to the lake house, all domestic bliss and doing things ‘just like my parents used to’. She hated going clubbing or dancing, and wouldn’t even let him go without her, because he’d had 170 years of all that, and didn’t he want to settle down? He’d gotten the girl, sure, but in doing so, he had driven his brother away. And even when Elena chose him over Stefan, the third? Fourth? Time she’d made up her mind, she was still convinced that something was wrong with the younger Salvatore. They were just so connected like that. Because why wouldn’t her ex boyfriend/ new boyfriend’s brother call her back otherwise? It didn’t matter that Damon and Caroline had both assured her that Stefan was fine. Her dreams had told her the truth. That Stefan needed her. Did she really think that Damon wanted to hear that? He already knew she’d never love him more than Stefan. She was only ever settling. But he didn’t need to hear it from her.

After a month or so, Damon barely felt jealous anymore. He’d become numb to it around the eleventh time she’d said such things.

She may have been dating Damon, but it would always be Stefan.

And he understood that. Better than her, even. His whole miserable human life had been devoted to Stefan’s wellbeing, and giving his baby brother the childhood he never had. He knew Stefan was ten times the man Damon could only dream to be, because he’d practically raised the boy, for God’s sake. He didn’t blame Elena for loving Stefan one bit.

Truth be told, after the tomb, he’d only stayed in Mystic Falls for Stefan. He’d hated Elena back then. Always so pure, so noble, so good. So quick to judge, so whiny, so self-absorbed. But then, she’d seen something good in him. And if someone so… righteous… could think him somewhat redeemable, then surely it had to be true. If she showed him the way, then maybe…

Maybe he could be worth something. 

So he had done his best for two exhausting years, saving life after life, again and again, repressing all his basic instincts and personality traits that weren’t considered human enough. Never mind that those walls had been up since he was a child. Never mind how much pain he went through to do so. He had done it all for her.

And that was love, right?

If he could turn himself into the person Elena wanted, then maybe she’d want him. 

But still, she’d wanted Stefan. Or Donovan. Or anyone but him. Because there was only one person to ever want Damon.

And he was upstairs, sleeping in the second bedroom to the left on the third floor of the east wing. And Damon couldn’t even feel relief, because the guilt just bubbled up and smothered it.

After that less-than-satisfactory conversation with her boyfriend, Elena huffed and went back downstairs, to where the Originals had taken over the living room in her home, along with Katherine, who was lazily drinking her glass of wine beside Elijah—how could the so-called noble Original stand to be near that she-demon?? Elena thought she’d fixed that back when she had no humanity, but apparently Katherine had weaselled her way back in since then—and Bonnie, the witch thumbing through manilla files with a grimace on her face. Caroline, who was not looking too great with all those short chunks of blonde sticking out, was between Klaus and Stefan—Elena’s Stefan—the two men fencing her in protectively. That was not a sight Elena needed, nor wanted, to see. But it only got worse from there. On the edge of the L-seat sat Jeremy, who was staring at the piles of resources, his expression something akin to horror. Damon was nowhere to be found, of course — either he was grabbing blood from downstairs, or had made his way back into the room next door to the one he shared with Elena, the one that had been locked for as long as she’d had known the brothers, with the random vampire he’d brought home. There was something… off-putting about that vampire, she had observed. Everything about him had screamed threat! and Elena’s instincts had told her to get Damon as far away as possible. But she hadn’t done that. She had let her boyfriend bring a dangerous creature into her house, around her brother, and her friends, and Stefan. It was all her fault.

and elena goes to sip tea by the fireplace and read about her dads fav torture methods. then, enzo falls asleep surrounded by floral sheets and mountains of pillows. damon goes downstairs and ends the scene. the next scene is sterolaus/klefaroline whatever its called. elijah brings all the dirt those doc mcstuffins wannabes had on everyone. katherine tracks down nadia. she dies? she doesn’t die? i haven’t decided. she isn’t obsessed with stefan because that was fucking dumb. what drugs was julie plague on???? katherine pierce’s story starts and ends with nadia. her whole bitter tragedy was set in motion the minute nadia was ripped away from her.

Tentatively, they each touched the other as though they were holding something precious, priceless, like the entire world was nothing special when compared to the beauty at their fingertips.

Damon wanted to scream. He wanted this. He needed this. Wanted to feel Enzo’s pulse beat under his skin, perfectly syncopated with his own. Needed to be held and stabilised by the grounding embrace Enzo provided.

But h e didn’t deserve such kindness. Didn’t deserve any of it. How Enzo could still look at him like he was something to be treasured was completely beyond Damon. He wanted to say that, wanted to yell it from the rooftops until Enzo got the idea that Damon definitely didn’t deserve to be touched so gently. Like he was something that could be loved. But then Enzo’s hand was reaching up to Damon’s cheek, cradling it, caressing him so softly. Damon hated it. He hated how Enzo could still bear to look at him like Damon hadn’t stolen  everything from him, just to lose it again. He hated how much he longed for it and craved every moment of it like a starving man in a dungeon, trembling as he gave away his measly rations for a sliver of hope that he’d see daylight again.

”Don’t go,” Damon pleaded.

”Nah, mate,” Enzo said, a mischievous glint in his eyes, “that’s what you do.”

There it is.

Damon smiled.

He still wasn’t entirely used to that—smiles creeping up on him, lips twisting upwards of their own accord, slipping completely out of Damon’s control, peeking through his defences.

“You are all I ever wanted.”

“You’re safe, Enzo.” Damon murmured. “We’re out, we’re safe. You’re okay.”

Enzo glanced around frantically before his gaze finally fell on Damon. And there was no decision in it - he instantly sought out physical contact, relaxing into a starving embrace — trusting so blindly, not even a split second of hesitation.

Damon squeezed back just as hard. Just as hungrily.

It wasn’t something they’d ever really questioned. They hadn’t talked about it or even thought about it. It just… was. Their time in those cells left them with a level of intimacy Damon had never found anywhere else. It was just instinctual. Even after all these years, after all that Enzo had been subject to because of Damon’s cowardice, it was the most natural thing in the world. 

Enzo was a lighthouse on a stormy night, guiding Damon through pillars of soul cutting rocks and skin shredding currents that otherwise would have ripped him apart with no hope for mercy. Enzo was his safe harbour. 

His way home. But also home itself.

“There’s always another way.”

Elena sits by the fireplace, reading her dad's journal with a cup of tea. Damon walks in, stressed, with a stormy expression on his face.

“Why are you in here?” Damon asked, toeing the threshold of that sitting room but not crossing it.

“Klaus keeps glaring at me whenever I try to talk to Caroline, and I had to find a spot to read this,” she held up the journal from before, “so here we are.” Damon huffed. 

”What is that, anyway?” He asked, not daring to enter the room for a closer look.

”My dad’s medical journal,” she answered simply. Huh. Fitting.

”Right…” Damon drawled skeptically. Why would she wanna read that?

”There’s—was—a lab, in the basement of his medical practice. That’s where he worked most of the time.”

Damon gave a noncommittal hum.

“It's weird. Even as a kid, there was something about that basement in my dad’s medical centre. It really creeped me out.”

”Surprise, he was vivisecting a vampire down there. Are you sure you wanna read that here? It’ll give you nightmares.”

”Caroline won’t let me talk to her about it, so I have to go at it alone.” Elena huffed. “I remember my dad talking about saving this little girl. I think he was talking about my roommate Megan. Come look. ‘ January 1999. Saw Megan King today. Megan is seven years old. She suffers from a congenital heart defect with a life expectancy of two months. A single injection of vampire blood appears to be an effective life-saving solution.’  That's why Megan had a picture of my dad on her phone -- because he saved her life. My dad was a hero, Damon.”

Damon rolled his eyes. “A hundred pages of horrific torture, and you find the one happy passage.” Of course Caroline wouldn’t want to hear it. She just spent hours strapped onto an examination table.

She stared at him in disbelief. “My dad used his research to save people, Damon, children, families. How can you act like he’s some… monster?”

“Because he was one! News flash, Elena, you’re a vampire. Your dad would have strapped you to that table himself!”

“You don’t get to speak about my dad like that!“ Then, “I can’t not defend him, Damon. He was my dad. He wouldn’t have tortured anybody! It was for—”

“—The betterment of humanity? The greater good? A worthy cause?” Damon asked with a grimace. “They used to tell me that, you know. Not quite sure what peeling off my skin and dipping me in acid had to do with advancing society, but what would I know?”

”Look, I’m sorry you had to go through that and all, but it was 50 years ago! Don’t blame my dad for what those other doctors did!” She sighed, pausing for a moment. “I can’t help but defend him! No matter what he may or may not have done! That’s just who I am! I defend you of all people!”

”I DON’T WANT YOU TO DEFEND ME! I’VE NEVER ONCE ASKED YOU TO!”

”IF YOU WEREN’T SO HELLBENT ON DOING BAD THINGS, THEN I WOULDN’T HAVE TO!”

Why wouldn’t she just break up with him, then? She never accepted it when he tried, but it sounded like she was just as miserable as him. 

“You don’t have to! Nobody said you did! S top defending me!”

“I can’t!”

Damon faltered. “I-is that the sirebond talking?”

”No!” Elena scoffed. “It’s me talking! Because that’s just who I am! I forgive people. Is that really such a crime?”

Eyebrows raised, Damon took a moment to process. “I don’t want your forgiveness. I don’t want to be with someone that excuses my every action just because they’re so forgiving.” 

“You don’t mean that,” Elena shook her head with a scoff. “This is what you always do. You lash out whenever there’s a bump in the road.”

“Just admit it, Elena! We don’t work! We never have! This whole relationship is toxic!”

“We can make it work! You can’t just… give up every time it gets hard!”

“And you can’t force something to happen by ‘trying harder’!”

“I made my choice, Damon. I intend to stick to it!”

“Well I’m making mine! We’re done, Elena. I’m done.”

“You’re not even gonna try to fix this?”

“I’m done trying! I’ve had to change everything that I actually like about myself just for a chance to be ‘worthy of your love’. I don’t want your love if it’s conditional. I don’t want to be with someone who makes excuses and defends my every move. Who sees me disagreeing as ‘lashing out’. Who can’t take the bad with the good, so they just ignore it. Because no matter what, you’re never gonna love me. Because I’m not enough for you.  I’m sick of being your little pet project, Elena.”

Chapter Text

Reluctantly, Damon tore himself away from the room to get a drink, and face the inquisition of ‘well-meaning’ busybodies gathered in the parlour.

Except, that plan was postponed when he bumped into a fuming Elena, who crowded in the second he closed the door behind him. Arms crossed around some book, foot tapping, brooding forehead that rivalled Stefan’s…. Fuck. He’d rather compliment Matt Donovan than deal with this right now. 

“We need to talk,” Elena said, craftily blocking Damon’s only escape route. 

Rubbing a hand over his face, Damon groaned. ”Not now, Elena,” he sighed.

”Yes now,” she demanded, “I think I deserve some explanations.” Damon raised an eyebrow.

”You do? I don’t,” came his overly cheerful reply.

”Damon—“

”Leave me alone, Elena.” His voice cracked slightly. “I can’t deal with this anymore.” Huh. That was easier to say than he’d expected.

Elena scoffed. “You mean ‘can’t deal’ with me.”

What was that saying about the best policy?

”Yes.” He said honestly. “So go away.”

tap-tap—tap tap-tap—tap tap-tap—tap.

Damnit. He should have known that wouldn’t work. Elena scowled.

“You can’t just avoid me, Damon.”

With a long sigh, he reached out and placed his hands on Elena’s shoulders, pulling her closer and dipping his head to her height in the way one would reveal Victoria’s secret.

”Watch me.” He spoke firmly, spinning them around so that he had a clear path down the hallway and the staircase. Part of him knew he’d regret it later, taking that tone with his girlfriend—ex girlfriend, Damon reminded himself, proud of the way he handled that break-up speech just then; clear and concise with absolutely no room for misinterpretation— when he knew the army of teenage busybodies would inevitably hunt him down and take him to task, demanding retribution, but right now? Damon couldn’t bring himself to give a shit. He was letting go of the pipe dream that was Damon’s redemption, starring the saintly Elena Gilbert, once and for all. They’d been together for, what? Three months? And Damon had been miserable almost the entire time. They’d fought nonstop, often ending in pretty hot makeup sex, but even the novelty of that wore off too. They just didn’t fit. Her idea of a holiday was a trip to the lake house, all domestic bliss and doing things ‘just like my parents used to’. She hated going clubbing or dancing, and wouldn’t even let him go without her, because he’d had 170 years of all that, and didn’t he want to settle down? He’d gotten the girl, sure, but in doing so, he had driven his brother away. And even when Elena chose him over Stefan, the third? Fourth? Time she’d made up her mind, she was still convinced that something was wrong with the younger Salvatore. They were just so connected like that. Because why wouldn’t her ex boyfriend/ new boyfriend’s brother call her back otherwise? It didn’t matter that Damon and Caroline had both assured her that Stefan was fine. Her dreams had told her the truth. That Stefan needed her. Did she really think that Damon wanted to hear that? He already knew she’d never love him more than Stefan. She was only ever settling. But he didn’t need to hear it from her.

After a month or so, Damon barely felt jealous anymore. He’d become numb to it around the eleventh time she’d said such things.

She may have been dating Damon, but it would always be Stefan.

And he understood that. Better than her, even. His whole miserable human life had been devoted to Stefan’s wellbeing, and giving his baby brother the childhood he never had. He knew Stefan was ten times the man Damon could only dream to be, because he’d practically raised the boy, for God’s sake. He didn’t blame Elena for loving Stefan one bit.

Truth be told, after the tomb, he’d only stayed in Mystic Falls for Stefan. He’d hated Elena back then. Always so pure, so noble, so good. So quick to judge, so whiny, so self-absorbed. But then, she’d seen something good in him. And if someone so… righteous… could think him somewhat redeemable, then surely it had to be true. If she showed him the way, then maybe…

Maybe he could be worth something. 

So he had done his best for two exhausting years, saving life after life, again and again, repressing all his basic instincts and personality traits that weren’t considered human enough. Never mind that those walls had been up since he was a child. Never mind how much pain he went through to do so. He had done it all for her.

And that was love, right?

If he could turn himself into the person Elena wanted, then maybe she’d want him. 

But still, she’d wanted Stefan. Or Donovan. Or anyone but him. Because there was only one person to ever want Damon.

And he was upstairs, sleeping in the second bedroom to the left on the third floor of the east wing. And Damon couldn’t even feel relief, because the guilt just bubbled up and smothered it.

and elena goes to sip tea by the fireplace and read about her dads fav torture methods. then, enzo falls asleep surrounded by floral sheets and mountains of pillows. damon goes downstairs and ends the scene. the next scene is sterolaus/klefaroline whatever its called. elijah brings all the dirt those doc mcstuffins wannabes had on everyone. katherine tracks down nadia. she dies? she doesn’t die? i haven’t decided. she isn’t obsessed with stefan because that was fucking dumb. what drugs was julie plague on???? katherine pierce’s story starts and ends with nadia. her whole bitter tragedy was set in motion the minute nadia was ripped away from her.

Tentatively, they each touched the other as though they were holding something precious, priceless, like the entire world was nothing special when compared to the beauty at their fingertips.

Damon wanted to scream. He wanted this. He needed this. Wanted to feel Enzo’s pulse beat under his skin, perfectly syncopated with his own. Needed to be held and stabilised by the grounding embrace Enzo provided.

But he didn’t deserve such kindness. Didn’t deserve any of it. How Enzo could still look at him like he was something to be treasured was completely beyond Damon. He wanted to say that, wanted to yell it from the rooftops until Enzo got the idea that Damon definitely didn’t deserve to be touched so gently. Like he was something that could be loved. But then Enzo’s hand was reaching up to Damon’s cheek, cradling it, caressing him so softly. Damon hated it. He hated how Enzo could still bear to look at him like Damon hadn’t stolen everything from him, just to lose it again. He hated how much he longed for it and craved every moment of it like a starving man in a dungeon, trembling as he gave away his measly rations for a sliver of hope that he’d see daylight again.

”Don’t go,” Damon pleaded.

”Nah, mate,” Enzo said, a mischievous glint in his eyes, “that’s what you do.”

There it is.

Damon smiled.

He still wasn’t entirely used to that—smiles creeping up on him, lips twisting upwards of their own accord, slipping completely out of Damon’s control, peeking through his defences.

“You are all I ever wanted.”

“You’re safe, Enzo.” Damon murmured. “We’re out, we’re safe. You’re okay.”

Enzo glanced around frantically before his gaze finally fell on Damon. And there was no decision in it - he instantly sought out physical contact, relaxing into a starving embrace — trusting so blindly, not even a split second of hesitation.

Damon squeezed back just as hard. Just as hungrily.

It wasn’t something they’d ever really questioned. They hadn’t talked about it or even thought about it. It just… was. Their time in those cells left them with a level of intimacy Damon had never found anywhere else. It was just instinctual. Even after all these years, after all that Enzo had been subject to because of Damon’s cowardice, it was the most natural thing in the world. 

Enzo was a lighthouse on a stormy night, guiding Damon through pillars of soul cutting rocks and skin shredding currents that otherwise would have ripped him apart with no hope for mercy. Enzo was his safe harbour. 

His way home. But also home itself.

“There’s always another way.”

Elena sits by the fireplace, reading her dad's journal with a cup of tea. Damon walks in, stressed, with a stormy expression on his face.

“Why are you in here?” Damon asked, toeing the threshold of that sitting room but not crossing it.

“Klaus keeps glaring at me whenever I try to talk to Caroline, and I had to find a spot to read this,” she held up the journal from before, “so here we are.” Damon huffed. 

”What is that, anyway?” He asked, not daring to enter the room for a closer look.

”My dad’s medical journal,” she answered simply. Huh. Fitting.

”Right…” Damon drawled skeptically. Why would she wanna read that?

”There’s—was—a lab, in the basement of his medical practice. That’s where he worked most of the time.”

Damon gave a noncommittal hum.

“It's weird. Even as a kid, there was something about that basement in my dad’s medical centre. It really creeped me out.”

”Surprise, he was vivisecting a vampire down there. Are you sure you wanna read that here? It’ll give you nightmares.”

”Caroline won’t let me talk to her about it, so I have to go at it alone.” Elena huffed. “I remember my dad talking about saving this little girl. I think he was talking about my roommate Megan. Come look. ‘ January 1999. Saw Megan King today. Megan is seven years old. She suffers from a congenital heart defect with a life expectancy of two months. A single injection of vampire blood appears to be an effective life-saving solution.’  That's why Megan had a picture of my dad on her phone -- because he saved her life. My dad was a hero, Damon.”

Damon rolled his eyes. “A hundred pages of horrific torture, and you find the one happy passage.” Of course Caroline wouldn’t want to hear it. She just spent hours strapped onto an examination table.

She stared at him in disbelief. “My dad used his research to save people, Damon, children, families. How can you act like he’s some… monster?”

“Because he was one! News flash, Elena, you’re a vampire. Your dad would have strapped you to that table himself!”

“You don’t get to speak about my dad like that!“ Then, “I can’t not defend him, Damon. He was my dad. He wouldn’t have tortured anybody! It was for—”

“—The betterment of humanity? The greater good? A worthy cause?” Damon asked with a grimace. “They used to tell me that, you know. Not quite sure what peeling off my skin and dipping me in acid had to do with advancing society, but what would I know?”

”Look, I’m sorry you had to go through that and all, but it was 50 years ago! Don’t blame my dad for what those other doctors did!” She sighed, pausing for a moment. “I can’t help but defend him! No matter what he may or may not have done! That’s just who I am! I defend you of all people!”

”I DON’T WANT YOU TO DEFEND ME! I’VE NEVER ONCE ASKED YOU TO!”

”IF YOU WEREN’T SO HELLBENT ON DOING BAD THINGS, THEN I WOULDN’T HAVE TO!”

Why wouldn’t she just break up with him, then? She never accepted it when he tried, but it sounded like she was just as miserable as him. 

“You don’t have to! Nobody said you did! S top defending me!”

“I can’t!”

Damon faltered. “I-is that the sirebond talking?”

”No!” Elena scoffed. “It’s me talking! Because that’s just who I am! I forgive people. Is that really such a crime?”

Eyebrows raised, Damon took a moment to process. “I don’t want your forgiveness. I don’t want to be with someone that excuses my every action just because they’re so forgiving.” 

“You don’t mean that,” Elena shook her head with a scoff. “This is what you always do. You lash out whenever there’s a bump in the road.”

“Just admit it, Elena! We don’t work! We never have! This whole relationship is toxic!”

“We can make it work! You can’t just… give up every time it gets hard!”

“And you can’t force something to happen by ‘trying harder’!”

“I made my choice, Damon. I intend to stick to it!”

“Well I’m making mine! We’re done, Elena. I’m done.”

“You’re not even gonna try to fix this?”

“I’m done trying! I’ve had to change everything that I actually like about myself just for a chance to be ‘worthy of your love’. I don’t want your love if it’s conditional. I don’t want to be with someone who makes excuses and defends my every move. Who sees me disagreeing as ‘lashing out’. Who can’t take the bad with the good, so they just ignore it. Because no matter what, you’re never gonna love me. Because I’m not enough for you.  I’m sick of being your little pet project, Elena.”