Hello, my lovely readers. This chapter is about 50% angst and 50% humor with tons of Nik/Damon friendships moments with even more growing pains because they're getting closer and closer to being teens. Oh, my. On with the show.

Chapter 47: Out of Control Damon

Damon paced back and forth across the floor of our room as Marcel, Enzo and I watched in awe. He was dressed in a black buttoned down shirt, black dress slacks and a pair of slick black shoes. His footwear was not the only thing that was slick. Damon's hair was combed back from his face and glowed from the product that he had rather liberally placed there. The phone that we had come to believe was now attached to him was also slick and black.

"Damon," Marcel called quietly.

"It's no use. He's too far gone," Enzo whispered back, shaking his head.

I looked at our roommates. "No, that's not true," there was no way that I was going to lose my best friend to this… this thing that he had become a part of.

At first I had not thought that it would not be a problem when Katherine declared that Damon would become her manager. It didn't seem like a big deal. For one it would allow Katherine to focus on a project so that she could nurse her broken heart and allow my brother the space that he needed. That had seemed reasonable to me. There was also a small part of me that was grateful to Katherine for distracting Damon from Caroline which was a ridiculous concern of mine. Damon and Caroline were friends. They would never be more than friends. Of that I was certain. However, that did not help the quiet part of me that questioned this belief.

When the new Damon and Katherine bond had become a concern to me was when Katherine sent Damon a cell phone. 'It's so that we can keep in touch," Damon had reasoned as he dialed her number to inform her that he had received the gift and they stayed on the phone for three hours. Then there was the way that Damon began to present himself. He stopped dressing like the rest of us, in t-shirts and jeans when we were not in uniform. He began to favor the clothing that Katherine would send him that usually came in shades of black and were overpriced in my opinion. Then there were the letters. Damon never wrote to anyone unless I cajoled him into it. Now, he would spend hours writing to Katherine about their planx for her career.

At this point I had to agree with my friends, Damon had a problem. This hobby had become an obsession and I was not going to lose my friend to Katherine freakin' Gilbert. "DAMON," I shouted, earning an eye roll from Damon as he whispered into the phone and then placed his hand over the receiver.

"Yes, Nik," Damon replied in a bored tone as he looked at his fingers nails. Dear, God. He was looking at his fingernails.

Thinking quickly, I looked around. "The room is on fire," I shouted and then grabbed a blanket from my bed, I dashed toward my friend and covered him with the fabric. "We have to go. Now! Leave everything," I ordered him, hoping to see the phone drop to the floor but it did not.

"Nik, I don't smell anything burning," Damon called and I watched as he inhaled, sucking the blanket closer to his nose and then breathing outward. "But your blanket needs to be washed, man. Can you get this thing off of me? It's making it really hard to talk to Kat." I groaned and yanked the blanket off Damon who looked angry.

"Holy shit, the room is on fire," Enzo shouted and I looked over and my eyes widened in horror. Kol had brought my candle that I had received on Bonnie's six birthday and I had placed beside my bed. At that very moment it had apparently tipped over and was in the process of pouring wax onto the floor. My pillow was on fire. I ran toward the candle to grab it because I had no idea what would happen if it melted down completely. I had been warned to take care of it. Now, I would become the evil version of myself or worse. Gloria had warned me that I would be consumed by darkness if the flame ever went out.

"Nik. No!" Marcel shouted, wrapping both his arms around my waist, he dragged me backward and out of the room. Enzo was leading us down the hallway, screaming at the top of us his lungs that there was a fire.

I was still thrashing in Marcel's arms when he dropped me to the ground. He was coughing and laid in the grass as our classmates came rushing out of the nearest exits. "Where's Damon?" Enzo shouted and I looked around, feeling my stomach curling up. He was no where in sight. Where was he? This was not happening. I was not about to lose my best friend. Not like this. No!

"Damon! Damon!" I shouted and then I saw Damon coming out of the building. Stefan and Kol were running in front of him. At first I felt relieved, then I felt anger raging through me as I noticed that Stefan and Kol were carrying a pair of bags. When Kol stopped and dropped one of the bags. I yanked it toward me and stared inside. "Hair products and belts?" I screamed at Damon.

Damon shrugged. "It's necessary for the appearance of my look," he said, straightening his left shirt sleeve that had begun to bunch. "Katerina Petrova's agent (that's her stage name) cannot go without the basics," he was saying when I rushed toward him. Looking at me, Damon held up his hands. "Now, Nik, I know that you're relieved that I'm alive but you have to control yourself," he was telling me when I went sailing toward him.
"I'm going to kill you," I snarled bitterly, my upper lip curling backward as I emitted a growl.

"Nik. Klaus," I heard Marcel and Enzo shouting from somewhere close by as I as wrapped my hands around Damon's neck and began to throttle him.

"I'm going to kill you, Damon," I repeated, tightening my hold. I felt my friends trying to pull me off but they could not seem to control me. I was too far gone. Just like Damon.

"Damon," I could hear Katherine calling. "Damon, what's going on? I really need you to schedule my pedicure and then there was this guy who claimed that he was running a modeling agency but I think he might be some kind of sleazy freak. So, I need you to impersonate an underage girl and find out for sure. Or you could hire an underage girl to go in my place? What do you think would work better? Damon? Damon, are you even listening to me?" Katherine shouted into the phone.

"Damon can't talk right now!" I called toward the phone. "He's too busy dying!"

"Well, that is not a good reason to slack off on his job," Katherine yelled back.

"Someone hang up on that bitch," I shouted and Kol picked up the phone.

Kol looked at me and then at the phone. "Hi, Kat," he said. "Is Jeremy home?"

Katherine could be heard cursing and I added her to my list of people that I was going to torture when I got done with Damon. "Get off of me," Damon snarled, trying to free himself. "You're wrinkling my pants."

"I hate you," I snapped at Damon who rolled his eyes again. "I hate your clothes. I hate your hair. I hate your stupid phone. I hate you and I'm going to kill you."

"I have things to do, Nik," Damon replied. "So, if you feel neglected, talk to Care or get a therapist."

"I can't talk to Caroline," I snarled at Damon. "Because she's not mine. She's yours, too, and you know how I feel about sharing. But after I kill you, she will be all mine." I informed Damon who wrinkled his nose.

"What are you talking about? Care's all yours," Damon told me through gritted teeth while peeling my fingers off, one by one. "I have too much going on with Kat's work. What was she saying about my dressing up as a girl, because that is not going to happen?"

"I'm tired of sharing everything with you, Damon," I continued like he was not even talking. "I share Caroline with you because we're all friends but then you'll get older and like her and that can't happen because you're supposed to my best friend and I can't have you like her like all the other guys around her. And I share Elijah with you. And my room with you. And my classes with you. And my whole family with you. And my town with you. And my club with you. But what actually belongs to me, Damon? What's mine?" I screamed at him. "Nothing. Because I met you and everything that was mine became ours and now you want more. You want to have your little thing with Kat and… and…"

I sat back and stared at Damon who looked shocked. Sitting up, Damon brushed his hair back with both hands while staring at me. Getting to my feet, I ran away from Damon and away from all of my concerns that I could no longer deal with. "Nik," Damon shouted but I chose to ignore him. I had to. Otherwise I might turn around and try to hurt him again. The way that he was being consumed with his new relationship with Kat.

Running until I was out of breath, I found myself at the gates of our school. Without further thought, I pushed them open and walked outside. Walking down the sidewalk, I felt free. I had no idea where I would go but I knew that I could no longer stay in that school, with those people. I could not continue to pretend that the older that Damon and I became we would not drift further apart until we would one day look up and see complete strangers where our best friends used to be.

Looking around me, I took a right and then a left. Night was beginning to fall and in spite of it still being spring there were bits of air where the Winter chill used to reside. Picking up my pace, it occurred to me that I had no money on me and my sense of direction had never improved. For all intents and purposes I was utterly and hopelessly lost.

Stopping in front of a bakery, I was reminded of my and Damon's little trip to see Caroline in California. My stomach chose that inconvenient time to begin to gurgle. "Hey, kid. You hungry?" a man called. He was leaning against a wall close to an alleyway and I frowned at him.

"No," I told the man.

He smirked back at me. "Sure you are. Do I look stupid to you? Where's your family, kid?" He asked, looking around, he blew out cigarette smoke and threw the lighted piece of tobacco on the ground, not even bothering to put it out first.

"They're around," I told him and he grinned back at me.

"You know there are ways of making money for food," he told me. And I felt my stomach twist suddenly having a flash of Hayley screaming in my ears to get the hell away from the man I stepped backward.

The man reached out for me when I saw a glass bottle and without thinking, I grabbed it and waved it at the man. "What you gonna do with that, kiddo?" he asked, laughing.

"I'm going to slit your throat if you don't get away from me, you sleazy freak," I snarled at the man who stared down at me blankly. "I know what you are. And I'm not scared of monsters anymore. So, go back under whatever bridge you came from before you can't do anything," I told the man, waving the bottle with a glint in my eye. I had never meant anything more in my life.

"Whatever, kid," the man said and backed off.

"Nik," someone called and I whirled with the bottle still clutched in my hand. Damon stared at me and then at the bottle in my hand. "I was looking all over for you," he told me relaxing, his posture, he stepped closer, examining the bottle. "Haven't seen one of those Coke bottles in a long time," he said conversationally as I eyed his neck with the bottle in my hand. "How old do you think it is?" Damon asked me, looking me in the eye and not even bothering to look at the bottle again.

I could feel my breathing coming out in sharp, uneven puffs as I stared at Damon through narrowed eyes. "I don't know, Damon. I don't care. You shouldn't have come after me."

Damon shook his head. "I had to Nik. Because you're not just my friend. You're my brother. You're never going to not be the person that knows me the best and that I love the most. Even if you stuck that bottle in my neck, like you're thinking about doing right now, I'd still be your friend because I'll forgive you," Damon told me as the sky opened up and it began to pour. He blinked at me while the stuff in his hair began to run down his neck and his clothes plastered to him, making him look even more ridiculous. And I thought that that was not possible.

Seething, I lifted my free hand to wipe the mop that was my hair from my eyes and stared at Damon. Slowly extending, my shaking hand that held the bottle, I watched as Damon took it and tossed it into the garbage can. "Damon," I said and I could barely hear my voice over the pouring rain when he reached out and grabbed me, pulling me into a tight hug.

"Let's go get some doughnuts," Damon told me, pulling me toward the store.

"I don't have any money," I told him as I felt my rage dissipating into nothing.

"I do," Damon reassured me. "Let's go." We walked into the shop as he continued to speak. "You proved Gloria wrong, man," he said and gave me a long look with a wide grin.

"I did, didn't I?" I shook my head. "So, what are you going to tell Kat?" I asked Damon when he pulled out his soaking wet cell phone.

Damon shrugged. "I think I'll tell her that Stefan threw it in a toilet. She bought it with her parent's credit card so I doubt she'll be getting me another one anytime soon. And I figure that maybe I should check out the early retirement plan. Seems like I've been neglecting my friends lately," he told me while he walked up to the counter.

"Ya think?" I replied imitating his sarcasm and accent while Damon pulled out a few sopping wet dollar bills.

2019:

"What do ya think?" Damon inquired, deepening his southern drawl with a wide smirk. "Ya wanna a glazed, cream fill' or somethin' full a suga' and covered with suga'?"

I rolled my eyes as I looked inside the display case. I knew that Damon was just being Damon when he pressed his own face to the display case, earning a wary look from the woman behind the counter who was waiting on a child. The customer was a boy who was my and Damon's age the last time we came here. I lifted my hand to wave at the child. However, he had already picked up his bag and was gone.

"Nik?" Damon called as he looked at me and then the soaking money in his hand. "Think you have something that isn't wet?"

Sighing, I dug out my wallet which took far longer than I wished for it to and then my hand began to shake. Then my wallet was on the floor. "I need to sit down," I informed Damon, feeling my entire body beginning to shiver.

"Are you cold?" Damon asked me while wrapping an arm around my waist and half carrying me over to a booth in a corner. Shaking my head, I looked at the woman who was watching us now with a look of pity. I wanted to tell her what she could do with her feelings as I adjusted in the seat. When I was sure that the woman had turned, I pulled my cap off and rubbed my head. "Like my new do? Caroline did it?"

"Yeah, I can see that," Damon remarked. "She missed a spot," he pointed and I looked in the window to see that she had indeed missed a spot when she was shaving my head for my latest radical surgery. I chuckled at the error. It would not matter. They would have someone fix the mistake before they opened up my head and took a look at the contents, trying to figure out how much of the tumor they could take out without killing me.

"Wanna get a drink with Ric after this? He needs a break from the teaching and the pre-teens and Jenna complaining about the pre-teens," Damon told me with an eyebrow wiggle.

I nodded. Yes, I would love a drink. Of course it would not love me back and Damon would have to spend half the night with me at our hotel room while I upended both drink and sugary doughnuts. However, it would be worth it to not act like I was not dying for just five minutes. Damon got up and ordered our doughnuts. "Got you plain," he told me. "Let's go," he said around a mouthful of his own doughnut.

"Where?" I asked Damon while he wrapped his arm around me and we began to walk.

"Back to old times," Damon told me. We moved along the sidewalk until we were in front of the old school. "Remember when this place felt like a prison?" he asked me thoughtfully.

"Yes," I told Damon. He grinned before opening the gate and walking inside. We headed over to a grassy spot and sat down.

"It's just like old times," Damon said as he looked around him.

"Yes," I replied. "Only we're short several members," I told him.

"Not really," Damon pointed out as Marcel appeared with Diego and Thierry.

"Brother," Kol called as he came from the other direction with Stefan.

"Kol," I called, surprised. "What's this?"

"You only live once," Kol told me. Pulling out a camera and bottle of bourbon, he sat down.

"To living like there is a tomorrow," I replied, looking over and seeing Enzo and Genevieve watching with forlorn expressions as I lifted a paper cup in their direction. "To my friends."

"To friendship that defies even death," Damon told me, holding up his cup and tipping it toward mine. For a split second I thought that Damon might weep but instead he laughed. I laughed with him because I knew that he was not laughing about the inevitability of my death but of the absurdity that is life. Because we try so hard to cling to life when we rarely remember that living is the most important part. "To life. To love. To confronting mortality and living everyday like it's one's last," I cried out and the group cheered.

We have three more chapters until the sequel. I hope that you're excited because the wait for book two and the beginning of the tween/teen years will be coming soon.

Thank you to everyone who has faved, followed, read and/or reviewed this story.

Answers to reviews:

ObsessWithElijah: Thank you. I had no idea what readers would think of Hayley and Klaus' talk. Elijah is going to have a ton of problems and most of them will be explored in the second story since that is the end of Elijah's high school days and the debate is whether he goes away to college or whether he stays to help his family. Well, Elijah hasn't been forthcoming about telling me what direction his life will take so we will have to wait and see. Yeah, I think at Elena's age that you can have a crush on about fifteen different people but none of them is too serious although we obviously know that she ends up with Damon in the end. I thought it would be funny to include a bit about modeling since Ian and Nina modeled when they were younger.

Ferrylis: You're welcome. I planned to update the day that you contacted me through my tumblr account because I was feeling guilty about not posting when the story is finished. : I'm bad sometimes.

ScarletRose: I get it. Things happen and trust me there are plenty of people who don't review at all or for like a year. I'm sorry to hear about your uncle and I have no idea why workplaces cannot be more understanding when someone loses a loved one. Seems a bit like adding insult to injury.

I know. I feel the same way but it is part of Elena's pattern of dealing with trauma. Look at season one when she had Jer's memories compelled away by Damon. And we all know how well that worked out. I call it being young and learning from our mistakes by repeating the same behavior a hundred times and then having that "Oops, not a good idea" moment. Yes, Bon and Enzo make a good team. Too bad that I'm killing him off later on. Oh, well. You never know. Maybe he'll come back. I ship Care and Enzo as friends and if Klaus dies then Enzo can inherent Care from him since Enzo in canon is the only character who has given a damn enough about Care to protect even if she did not approve of his methods and he likes her for her.

Yes, I know that Hayley probably sounded a bit defensive in the last chapter and that is one problem with writing this story in the first chapter because I can rarely write the story without Klaus' view on whatever subject affecting readers' thoughts. Anyway, in the next story, as you point out, Kat is rather immature but that does not last too long after the next story begins. Oddly, it's the contrast between Hayley's and Kat's experiences that begin to merge which changes how they view each other and the world around them. Then there is Elijah who has to deal with how he has treated both of the young women in his life at the end of this story and the sequel. And, yes, that sounds very vague for a reason.

Thank you. And I hope that you enjoyed Nik's and Damon's ups and downs in this chapter because it's definitely foreshadowing how they will behave toward each other in the sequel.

Tippy093: Thank you! Yes, Hayley was forced to grow up a bit very quickly and it shows. Klaus is very Care-centric. I can't answer that question. Sorry. But I can say that you will probably like the last chapter except for one little detail and it was hard to write and here I am being vague again.

Peace,

Jessica