Brace For Impact

"The wise are so totally detached, pain is for those who are attached."

- Mohit K. Misra

Under Your Skin

Chapter One:

Elena looked out the window of the car dispassionately as Caroline prattled on. "Look, I'm just saying we should present an united front against the people conspiring against us- which is pretty much everyone- and in order to do that, we need to come together. That wasn't fair of you earlier with Stefan. You know how much you broke his heart."

If only the loss of humanity meant she also could lose the irritation that surged inside her. She found that despite flipping the switch, she still felt a lot of the more obnoxious things she did before. She was easily hungry, angry, horny, or irritated and those feelings consumed her most of the time. But the pain was gone, so she let go of that thought.

"Elena, you're my best friend and I'm worried about you. When you turn your humanity back on, it's going to be hard enough with everything, you know," Caroline stumbled awkwardly before recovering with her typical optimism. "So I want to make sure that when you are feeling again, you're not feeling guilty about what you did when you didn't." Caroline smiled sincerely if not a bit hesitantly.

But all Elena could think about was how stupid everything was. Caroline parked the car outside the doors to Mystic Falls' only high school. Caroline turned to her waiting on her response, but Elena just casually unbuckled her seatbelt, grabbed her bag and opened the car door.

"I guess I find it hard to care about Stefan's broken heart when I'm hours away from attending my brother's funeral." And with that Elena slammed the car door closed ignoring the way Caroline's face crumpled. It seemed strange to speak of Jeremy's death when she felt so detached. The tickling sensation returned whenever she thought of it but she easily brushed it aside and entered the building.

Damon had known what he was in for the second Stefan chose to "take care of some things first" instead of leaving with the girls. He briefly contemplated whether two glasses of bourbon was too excessive this early and then decided he did not give a fuck.

His relationship with Stefan was tentatively stable right now. They were balancing on a precipice and anything could topple them down. Damon didn't want to fight with his brother especially when his relationship with Elena was not what it used to be. Luckily, Stefan seemed to be trying just as hard to keep the peace.

"You shouldn't encourage her, Damon. What would she say if she were actually herself?"

Or maybe he was just keeping the peace in front of Elena and Caroline. Damon rolled his eyes. How was he encouraging Elena? And encouraging her to do what?

"Pray tell, brother, what should I have done? You should be thankful I swooped to cover her. I mean I could have just as easily not. Would you have preferred that?" He should not tease Stefan; his brother seemed to be losing his grip on himself. He was not worried about another Ripper appearance since Blondie seemed to be doing a good job stabilizing him. He had noticed that Stefan had been drinking blood bags for weeks without any mishaps. He wanted to help his brother, too, but Stefan did not want his help after everything that happened with Elena.

He brushed those thoughts aside. He knew what Stefan's problem was even if Stefan did not consciously know himself.

"Damon, be serious," Stefan pleaded. "Did you not see how she was acting earlier? She is acting like a completely different person, beyond the changes of vampirism or sire bonds."

Ah, there's that phrase again Damon thought. They almost made five minutes without the dreaded "S bond" coming up again.

"I'm worried. I think we should just make her turn her humanity back on."

"And then what?" Damon asked incredulously, "What's your big plan when she wants to kill herself, superhero?" He paused for a moment and then continued before Stefan had a chance to speak. "Though I suppose we should just let her off herself. It'd be her choice after all, and we should respect that."

"We'll deal with the fallout," Stefan said confidently, ignoring the jab. Damon wished he could share his idealism but reality always crept back in. And the reality was that Elena could not handle losing seven familial figures in less than two years. It was remarkable she held it together for as long as she did. He worried that even if they gave it years, Elena would never be able to handle the pain. He knew he was not enough for her right now, but he worried nothing and no one would ever be enough for her again.

"Anything is better than what is going on now," Stefan continued oblivious to the path his thoughts had taken.

"Really, Stef? Elena being suicidal is 'better'?" Damon was just waiting for the real reason to come tumbling out of Stefan's lips. If he just waited patiently, Stefan would say it.

"We can't be sure that's how she would react. She's had some time to process." Yeah, a week to grasp the loss of the person she loves most in the world, that's enough time Damon though sarcastically. Stefan was grasping at straws and Damon thought even he knew it. "We can't possibly leave her like this."

Fuck it, he never liked patience anyway. "Why? We've kept her from killing anyone, and compulsion is impossible thanks Mister Mayor: Overprotective Dad Edition. What was so wrong with her behavior earlier? We've seen worse- hell, we've done worse. So what's really the problem?"

Stefan was looking at him stunned, but his expression quickly turned disgusted. "Really, Damon, don't tell me you actually prefer her acting like this. She's behaving like Katherine!"

And there it was. If there were anything that Stefan truly feared about Elena, it was not that she could not love him after what he did to her during his ripper binge. It was not even that he worried she had actually fallen out of love with him. Elena acting anything like Katherine was his worst nightmare realized for Stefan.

"Well…" Damon trailed off and waggled his eyebrows suggestively just to get to him.

But Stefan remained clueless to what he had just revealed. And since he looked genuinely terrified that Damon actually preferred Elena the way she was currently, he took pity on him. After all, in Stefan's mind, Damon could control Elena- sire bond mater that he was- and ensure she was without her humanity for all eternity.

"Relax, Stef," he drawled with the appropriate amount dramatization to get Stefan to stop looking at him as he just revealed Christmas had been cancelled.

Stefan immediately reverted to his default mode of beleaguered brother as if the doubt that Damon wanted Elena not to have her humanity had never been there. His forehead lines became more pronounced as he looked at Damon seriously.

"Time has passed, maybe we should just test it. She may be better by now, and Caroline's right. Elena without her humanity is a danger. If she doesn't care about anything, we can't predict what she will do. What happens if she decides to expose herself and all of us while Mayor Hopkins is on his mission? We can't even trust Bonnie to help right now." Stefan was right. Despite his own personal reasons that impacted his suggestion, Stefan, and Caroline, had a valid point. Things could easily get worse even when it seemed impossible.

"Okay, we can test it but only after Jeremy's funeral." Stefan looked relieved but Damon could not help but think that something was sure to go wrong.

But who knows? Maybe he should share his brother's optimism. After 148 years of being shitty, his luck was bound to turn around, right?

Yeah, unlikely.

The stares followed her throughout the hallways. She could feel them as she made a beeline towards her locker but she could not bring herself to care. One gaze, however, caused her to look up.

Rebekah's eyes were leveled on her in assessment for a moment before she grabbed April's arm to drag her to English. April glanced over her shoulder with the more typical, sympathetic look. Elena idly wondered why she bothered, it was not as if April had not helped put Caroline, Stefan and her in a life or death situation two weeks ago.

But perhaps it was because she had genuinely cared for Jeremy. The thought caused goosebumps to break out over Elena's skin but she studiously ignored the reaction and gathered her books.

She turned towards her next class' direction only to find herself face to face with the person she had been ignored more than anyone. "Bonnie."

"Elena, you have to stop the memorial. If you let it happen, how can Jeremy resume his life when I bring him back? They will think he is dead."

"He is dead," Elena stated matter of factly. The goosebumps had increased and the tinkling sensation was back with a vengeance. Elena ruthlessly squashed them.

"Well, obviously he is at the moment," Bonnie said with a careless laugh and Elena noticed for the first time the dark circles under her eyes. Her cheekbones seemed more pronounced as well though it had only been days since Elena had last seen her. This was her best friend; Elena knew that she should feel more concerned over Bonnie's obvious issues. But she did not, so she brushed the thought away.

"So we're in agreement, good," and then Elena sped away before Bonnie could mutter a protest. And every step away from Bonnie caused the tingles to fade until they were nothing more than a memory.

Elena did not like to be around them. Any of them. When she was with the people she knew she should care about, it was harder to concentrate. She felt the welcome numbness start to slip away but also a creeping sensation as if she were being watched. As if she were watching herself from the outside.

It was bad around Caroline and Stefan but if she focused, she could channel the feeling into irritation at their meddling and judgment. Before she could accept that it was only out of love that they acted that way. Now she just found it annoying. Who were they to decide what she could or could not do with her life? If she wanted to kill someone, who were they to judge? They had killed more people than she had. And surely Stefan was not the right person to decide what was morally acceptable. If they all went by his standards, the whole town would be ripped into pieces by now.

She ignored the pang in the back of her consciousness that stated she was being unfair, that Stefan did try, that Caroline wanted what was best for her. They were useless thoughts for hypercritical people.

It was worse around Bonnie and Matt. They were the ones closest to him. And they were the ones who seemed more fixated on him than her. Matt was a tirelessly devoted friend but he stepped back when he found out her humanity had been turned off, out of his element. He still tried but there was a distant feeling that for once she knew was not because of her. Bonnie was zealously determined the bring down the Other Side and though Elena was not as perturbed at the thought as she was a week ago, she knew better than to think all their enemies coming back to life would be anything less than disastrous. At first, she was ambivalent as to whether or not that mattered to her. She decided she cared enough to not want that. And Bonnie's relentless talking about it bothered her anyway.

The worst by far was Damon. If she was bothered by the fact that he always got under her skin before, now she was irate over it. He would not stop bothering her even as he did nothing.

That was why she kept coming on to him. A part of her was hesitant to fuck someone else, it caused her to feel uncomfortable just thinking about it. But she wanted to sleep with someone and it was stupid to care about that anyway.

And the more she thought about it, the more irritated she became. Why should she care? They were not even dating now- if they even had been before everything that had happened- judging by the way he treated her. The way he tried to avoid touching her this morning was ridiculous. As if he had never touched her, as if he had not touched thousands of girls. She never imagined a year ago that one of her problems would be a too prudish Damon. Elena snorted to herself as she entered the classroom.

That was the other thing that bothered her. What was his problem? Why did he suddenly get to act as if sleeping with her was wrong or dirty? He thrived in the dirty and wrong. Elena wanted to make a home for herself there, too, and who was he to disagree?

She wanted to make him snap though. She wanted to get to him the way he got to her. She knew she could affect him, she had seen it, he had admitted it, and she had even used it sometimes to get her way before. Elena could just invoke his feelings for her. And if that plan made unease and discomfort roil her stomach, she swept it away almost effortlessly.

She would just have to get under his skin, too. And she was going to.

Don't worry; the action and plot are going to pick up.

If it's not too much trouble, I'd love to know if anyone's really liking this. It's my first foray into fanfiction and I don't know if I have any talent at writing. A simple "yes" or "continue" would mean the world to me. Thanks. Hope you enjoyed it.