summary: Elena, Damon, Bonnie, Jeremy, Tyler, Caroline, in the weeks after losing Stefan. "The werewolf he had trouble getting used to. The rest of them he just sort of accepted."
title: "Out of the dark that fills my mind, somehow find, you and I collide." ~Collide by Howie Day
They're a motley little group, six people struggling to survive. Six people adrift in the world.
They're mismatched and they're awkward, they're lonely and they're sad, they're just trying to find an end.
(Or find that beginning).
Elena does not want to be the leader of the group. She does not even want to be in the group. She wants to curl into a ball and cry and let it all wash over her, her mistakes and her heartlessness and her worst fears being realized.
She is turning into the one thing she swore never to be. And it starts with a K.
Because some nights she lays awake in bed in her (his our their) big house and remembers the pressure of his lips against hers, his soft, "Thank you," when it was over, and she thinks how he completely missed the point.
She is selfish and bitchy and conceited. She did it for herself, not for him.
She did not do it because he was dying, because she isn't that good of a person. She did it because she would lose him and she needed to feel, needed to have that one memory.
(And then he was still alive the next day and she wants more than a memory).
Damon is not interested in excuses. I'm sorry it was a mistake can we pretend it never happened it doesn't change anything we need to find him you know it'll always be him.
All he wants is to get his brother back; the stupid, stupid guy who made him what he is today, who saved his life because he'd once ruined it.
All he wants is his brother, and he never thought he'd admit that one again.
The werewolf he had trouble getting used to. The rest of them he just sort of accepted. Especially Elena. Elena, three rooms down and across the hall. Elena, who is probably asleep and dreaming of her boyfriend the saint, her boyfriend the perfect, her boyfriend.
And just the word seems to torture him. Probably because now he knows what she tastes like, how she looks when she wakes up in the morning, the way she chews the tips of her pens when she's concentrating particularly hard. He knows all her little girly habits and how long it takes her to brush her teeth every morning and the way her hand feels curled around his when she wants to calm him down.
He can never hate his brother, not really, because yes they're brothers and yes they love each other and all that, but really Stefan gave him Elena, Stefan wanted him to care about Elena, Stefan made his life worth living again.
(All he wants is his brother back.)
Bonnie is not blind.
She sees everything falling apart, everything unraveling and she knows it's probably mostly her fault. Because without her they never would have stood a chance, but without her Jeremy would be fine (well maybe still dead but dead is better than seeing dead, isn't it?) and maybe none of this would have happened.
She twists it in her mind and Caroline spends hours telling her that none of this is her fault, it's actually mostly the vampire's fault because one she is a vampire and two it's her fault that Damon got bit and three everything else leads back to her.
The fault game gets tiring quickly because Elena and Damon take the cake at that, but that's when Bonnie gets confused because when did it ever become Elena and Damon?
And she knows she's judgmental and she knows she's crazy and she knows she's prejudiced but honestly can Elena not see the way she acts around Damon? Can Damon not see the way he acts around Elena? They act like they're a pair and they're the leaders of this little group because they want Stefan back the most (or some similar excuse) but mostly everyone else can tell when Elena gets Damon to stop from ripping things to shreds in frustration and everyone else can tell when Damon is the only one to dry Elena's tears.
They don't talk about him. He's the one subject that is completely off limits. No Damon, ever. No discussing the way she sometimes stares at him like she's trying to memorize his features. No dissecting the things he whispers into her ear when she can't sleep and she begs him to help her. No crossing the path into that uncomfortable little space where they can't ignore reality anymore.
They talk about everything else – best friends do stuff like that – but not him, never ever ever him.
(Sometimes she just wants to stop pretending that this is about Stefan anymore.)
Jeremy has imagined being dead.
He tried to die for Vicki with Anna's blood that one time and then he did die when Damon killed him and then he died again and Bonnie brought him back to life and she neglected to mention those consequences. (She told him she thought they'd be for her, she thought because it was all her fault anyway, but he hates when she thinks things are her fault.)
He asks Damon if he's ever known of anyone being haunted and Damon gives him that little smirk that makes his sister melt and says, "What, now you see dead people? What are we, some melodramatic teen soap?" and he doesn't really have an answer because a lot of stuff has been pointing to the teen soap theory lately.
He doesn't know if he was in love with Vicki. He does know how amazing Anna was. He also knows how much Bonnie cares about him, how they are the first thing that's gone right in his life in so long.
And there's that melodrama again, and if he thinks thoughts like that and then looks at Elena's feet in Damon's lap as he softly massages them, both their eyes trained on the fire and completely unreadable, he thinks he might just explode from all this subtext.
Anna tells him (only Anna's dead) one night that she should have turned him while she could have, she should have turned him when she had the time. Because he is too vulnerable, ring be damned, and she can't let him die.
Vicki tells him (only Vicki's dead) one night that she's so sorry about all the shit that went down and how much she hurt him and how much it sucks. Because he is too vulnerable, relationship be damned, and she can't keep watching him hurt.
Bonnie doesn't like to talk about it (only Bonnie's the alive one) most nights; most nights they just sit together quietly, her head on his chest, and watch Elena and Damon or Tyler and Caroline and just think how fucked up the world has become.
(Sometimes he just wants to stop pretending that this can be solved.)
Tyler has no fucking clue how he ended up in Caroline's bed, across the hall from Damon fucking Salvatore, listening to Elena Gilbert sob her eyes out and that aforementioned Salvatore brother brush away her tears with a tenderness that could break her.
Sometimes these last couple of months are just a blur of finding things out and running away from them and coming back at the last possible second. His father died and Vicki died and his uncle died and he became a fucking werewolf and that Sarah girl died and god there's just so much death. And he almost killed Damon Salvatore, he almost killed him like he'd killed Sarah and like Jules had told him to kill those campers all those months ago in Florida on that hellish full moon.
Blood seems to have stopped running through his veins; instead he feels like it's him who's running through blood. Everywhere, dripping, invading his senses.
And he's not even a fucking vampire, but the blood is everywhere anyway and he's revolted and here he is in the bed of a bloodsucker.
Actually that one makes sense to him. Because Caroline is beautiful and sweet and understanding and loving and he doesn't know how he ever lived without her. Or how Matt could have let her go (but he doesn't like to think about Matt because sometimes that still hurts).
He basically just watches what happens around him because it's less scary than getting directly involved. He watches Bonnie and Damon argue and Caroline step in and Jeremy get defensive and Elena take Damon's side (that's how it happens every single fucking time). He watches Jeremy hold Bonnie close because the demons threaten to get him. He watches Bonnie snuggle in because she hasn't lost him yet. He watches the reverence with which Damon touches Elena, softly, little things. He watches the way in which she responds, blushes back at him, looks at him with so much want and need and even – believe it or not – respect.
He likes watching those two couples. He likes watching Jeremy take solace in Bonnie. He likes watching Bonnie take solace in Jeremy. He likes watching how much Damon adores Elena. He likes watching Elena realize how much she adores Damon. He likes that he's learned how to people watch, after seventeen years and transformation into a wolf. He's finally found something simple and easy.
He especially likes to watch Caroline; how her hair falls across her face as she studies a map with a furrowed brow; how her long fingers trail along the lines of a book as she follows them; how her big smile lights up the room when she finds something, anything, the teeniest little tidbit that helps them. He likes how her joy is infectious, how she makes everyone feel better about themselves and this stupid fucking quest and that stupid fucking vamp who got himself roped into some mission as a – what was the word Damon liked to use? - ripper.
He didn't really know Stefan the Saint, but he's sure as hell gotten to know Stefan the Ripper, who Damon and Elena and Caroline like to fantasize about all the time – killing entire towns, not caring about anything but the scent of blood and how great it feels when he sinks his fangs into someone's neck. He wonders what it would be like to watch either of those Stefans, and maybe that's why he's joined in on this little suicide mission these other five misfits have decided to endure.
(Really he knows he's in on this because Caroline's smile lights up a room.)
Caroline is just trying to make it all easier. She's just trying to find Stefan and understand Tyler and support Elena and not kill Damon.
She reads and studies and stares and tries so hard to just find a way to do it this time. To save them all. To convince them that she's worth having around (because ever since Matt dumped her she wonders if she is, no matter how sweet Tyler is when he touches her face and rubs her thighs).
Every once in awhile she'll find something Damon missed because he's too angry to look hard enough. Every once in a while she'll find something completely new, some take on the same old information that changes everything.
Elena hugs her like the world is going to end, hugs her so hard it forces a smile on to her face that doesn't leave for hours. Damon likes to ruffle her hair because it annoys her and that shows her he's really accepted her, he knows what annoys her and he does it on purpose just to get a reaction out of her. Jeremy looks at her respectfully, quietly, because he's always been Elena's little brother and she's always been Elena's bimbo friend but now suddenly he's Jeremy Gilbert, haunted hero, and she's Caroline the Vampire, trying to save the world, and they're just no longer themselves. Bonnie brushes her hair out and tells her her theories and asks her her opinion and she doesn't feel like Elena's number two anymore, she feels like she's truly Bonnie's friend and she's truly someone special.
And Tyler. Tyler sometimes comes into her room late at night and tells her he couldn't stand the darkness without her. Tyler sometimes sleeps in her (well, technically Damon's guestroom) bed and holds her close through the night and keeps her together. Tyler looks at her like she hung the moon and it doesn't matter that her heart doesn't beat anymore and her idea of heaven is a big blood bag, preferably AB positive because that's just the tastiest for some reason. He doesn't care about any of that and he never has, not from the first second she told him.
She's a little bit in love with him, to be honest.
She's a little bit in love with this life, also. She's found her place in the strangest group of six ever and she wouldn't give it up for the world. She wants to find Stefan – everyone does – but sometimes she worries it will change everything. Because they've made these little pairs, JeremyandBonnie, DamonandElena, TylerandCaroline, and where will Stefan fit in? Will it be StefanandElena again and just change everything?
She's worried about that. She's worried about losing her place because she's never had one before.
(Really she's here because she wants to find Stefan, though. Right?)
Elena wakes up one morning and it's like she's in a different house, because she smells something fucking fantastic and she can't imagine that Damon would allow cooking in a kitchen that's known only blood for the last century and a half.
She gets up and walks downstairs and Damon's eyes light up as she enters the room. She hovers at the doorway for a second, watching as Jeremy dips Bonnie and kisses her hard on the lips and Caroline whoops and Tyler goes, "Gross, cooties," and then they're all laughing and Damon flips a pancake and Caroline shrieks, "You're up! Finally!"
And Damon reaches over and ruffles Caroline's hair and she gives him a glare that melts into a sunny smile as she says, "You better stop touching my hair all the time, Salvatore, I'll rip you to shreds."
Bonnie rolls her eyes and says, "Great idea, kill the one making the pancakes," and Damon grins a big grin that makes Elena take a deep breath to remember how to breathe.
And then Jeremy's setting the table and the six of them are gathering around it and the pancakes smell so delicious that Elena's mouth is watering.
Tyler's pouring orange juice and they're sitting down and Damon raises his glass and says, "To the weirdest fucking people I've ever met, and to pancakes," and there's a general chorus of agreements.
And they're digging into the pancakes and she feels Damon's hand as he softly touches her leg as his own form of good morning and honestly, their motley little group is starting to feel like home.
(This is the beginning.)