Chapter Text
Damon was really in it now. Having mostly regained his sense of reality, he was now halfway debating whether it would be more painful to drown himself in the shower or to have to go face Stefan after that disaster.
What the hell had even happened? Damon screwed his face up against the recent memories. Had he really acted like that in front of Stefan?
It wasn’t worth the internal debate. The truth of the matter was that he had, in fact, lost it in front of Stefan, and he didn’t really have a choice in the matter of going to see him or not. It wasn’t like drowning in the shower would be permanent anyway.
‘Don’t do anything you can’t take back.’
Damon froze and wrenched his eyes open even against the near boiling cascade above him. He still had to call Will. That would have to be enough of a reason not to immediately take any drastic action.
The longer he thought about it, the more he latched onto the idea. He couldn’t call Will without going downstairs. He just had to survive this confrontation with Stefan, and then he could get to the phone and call. That would have to be how it happened.
Now confident in the next two steps of his life, Damon turned off the faucet and toweled off quickly. He got dressed in a pair of black sweatpants and a grey hoodie. At least he wouldn’t want to scratch his skin off at the friction of those textures.
Before going downstairs, he leaned over the sink to examine himself in the mirror. The feral sheen was gone from his eyes, but he looked a mess regardless. He wrinkled his nose at the redness of his eyes and the puffiness below them. He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. There was no point hiding the evidence of his breakdown.
Tearing himself away from the mirror with concerted effort, Damon walked out of his room and down the staircase. Most of the anxious energy had been exhausted, and now, Damon’s limbs felt as if they were filled with lead.
It was fine. All he had to do was survive the next twenty minutes. He could call Will as soon as it was over. If it was bad enough, Damon could maybe even go find him.
As he descended the steps, Damon could hear laughter from the kitchen. He felt a sharp twinge in his ribs at the sound, but he continued on into the room.
“Hey, Damon,” Lexi greeted, perhaps a bit too casually.
Damon nodded, and suppressed a wince at the way Stefan’s head immediately whipped around.
“How are you doing?” Stefan asked once he regained his composure.
Damon shrugged. No point lying, but he didn’t need to get into the whole truth either.
“Let’s sit in the living room. Is that fine?” Stefan asked. Damon thought he was laying the concerned questions on a little thick, but he allowed it with another terse nod.
Once the group was situated across the couch and chairs, Damon found himself at a complete loss for words. It was a rather unpleasant realization; at any other time, Damon had to force himself to shut up. Now, Stefan expected an explanation, confession even, and he couldn’t find a single word to describe it.
How could one describe a thing like that? An atrocity of five years, punctuated only by strange threads of comfort. Ideally, Damon wouldn’t even talk about it, but to avoid it would mean painstakingly extricating En- him from every part of his story, which sounded somehow even more gut wrenching.
And he had already told Lexi. Damn, he was starting to get annoyed at her again.
“So,” Stefan said, reeling Damon back to the moment, “What, uhm . . . What happened?”
“You’re gonna have to be a little more specific than that.” Damon’s voice was faint, though not without bite.
“Fine.” Damon was taken aback by the sudden manner in which Stefan’s entire demeanor shifted. “I can work with an interrogation. Let’s start where I left the picture. Where were you when the train left in 1942?”
“I assume still at the bar enjoying my bottomless drinks.”
“You assume?” Stefan’s tone had become much more severe.
“Well, Stefan, it was a long time ago. Frankly, I have a hard time keeping everything straight.”
“Can you stop? Just stop! Okay? For one second, and give me a real honest answer. We both know you’re deflecting, so just say whatever it is you wanna say.”
Damon actually looked at Stefan after that. His brother’s eyebrows were nearly touching his hairline, and his hands were held out in question. Damon sighed heavily, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“I was about thirty yards away from you, Stefan.”
Stefan was silent for a beat. “Why didn’t you say something? Anything would have been better than you leaving me alone for no reason.”
“Lexi asked me not to. And that’s all I’m going to say about that,” Damon said, cutting off Stefan’s noise of surprise. “If you want to know more, ask Lexi.”
Damon watched the pair have a nonverbal conversation. He supposed it would’ve been quite entertaining to watch if he was less checked out, but it was over in just a few seconds.
“Fine. Next question: why did you flip your switch?”
“No.” Damon didn’t even mean to say it, but, in his opinion, it really was the best answer he could have given. What the hell else was he going to say?
“‘No’ wasn’t really a choice there.” Stefan was definitely annoyed now, which Damon was grateful for. It would make the questions easier to slip through.
“I think, given the open-ended nature of that question, that ‘no’ was a perfectly reasonable answer.” Damon really leaned into the ‘annoying older brother’ role. Anything to get Stefan to stop talking.
“What do you want from me?” Stefan asked, switching gears just as abruptly as he had a few moments ago. “If you want so desperately to avoid this conversation, then fine, whatever, but I meant it when I said I was going to help you. Just give me something to work with, okay? That’s all I’m asking.”
Damon thought that he should’ve felt a sense of victory at that, but all he really felt was a strange type of remorse. For what, he had no idea; it wasn’t like he had actually done anything wrong. Still, it remained, and it made his next words scrape the inside of his throat rather painfully.
“Can I just call Will? I promised him I would.”
Stefan looked taken aback, but he nodded regardless. “We put a phone in the study if you’d rather use that one.”
Damon nodded and moved quickly out of the living room. The fact that Stefan didn’t try to stop him left another sour taste in his mouth, but he elected to ignore it. There was enough to be concerned with.
For example: What exactly he would say to Will. Damon stared at the receiver in his right hand and the scrap of paper in his left and tried to come up with something that would fix everything. Was he even supposed to ask for help or convince him that he was fine? If he were to ask for help, what would he even ask for? To come pick him up like a scared child on the first day of school? To abandon his bar completely and come stay at the boarding house?
Slowly, Damon dialed the number and listened to the line ring, once, twice, then-
“Hello?” Will’s voice was friendly, easy, which was a welcome change from the uptight anxiety Damon had been dealing with from Stefan.
“Hey, Will. It’s me.”
“Damon, hey! Made it home alright?”
“Drive was a breeze, company was a nightmare, you know how it goes.” The ease of the conversation was a breath of fresh air, and Damon could actually feel his chest loosening, his lungs expanding wider than they had in hours.
“I hear you. How’s Stefan? He’s not giving you too much shit is he?”
Damon huffed out a laugh. “He’s fine. You can’t tell either of them I say so, but Lexi’s been good for him. He seems slightly less guilt-ridden than the last time I saw him.”
Will laughed, and the sound crackled through the receiver. “Well, that’s not too bad, then. What about you?” he asked, in a similarly light tone.
Damon grimaced. “I gotta be honest, Will,” he said, “not great.”
“How so?”
“I can’t think,” Damon stated bluntly. “I can’t think, and I can’t talk. I can’t explain what’s happening because I can’t figure it out, and it’s starting to piss me off.”
“Have you tried hitting something? Preferably something that shatters?”
Damon nearly laughed again. “I did, actually, but I wasn’t really in the right state of mind to get any catharsis from it. I’ll just have to strap in for my seven years of bad luck.”
Will laughed again. “Well, listen, don’t drive yourself crazy trying to figure anything out without saying it out loud first. Even writing it down would be better than nothing.”
“Are you really telling me to write a journal right now?” Damon asked, feeling slightly miffed at the idea.
“No, I’m telling you it would be easier to figure out the mess in your head if you told someone about it, and I’m suggesting a journal as a second option if you’re still too vain to talk.”
Damon made a noise of indignation. “What does being vain have to do with anything?”
“You think you can do everything yourself. I told you before you left, but I didn’t know if you remembered that. Anyways, I don’t know what the reason for it is, but you gotta get over yourself if you’re gonna get through all this. Plain and simple.”
When Damon remained silent, Will continued. “If you really can’t make yourself talk to your brother, I’ll come down tomorrow. I can close the bar for a couple days until I can get someone else to come take care of it. I’ll hang around you guys until everything is figured out.”
“You don’t have to-“
“Shut up, yeah, I do. Just gimme a day to set everything up out here, and I’ll be there tomorrow night.”
Damon nodded, then made a noise of assent. “I’d eat on the way down if I were you. Everything they got stocked here is cold and nasty.”
“Will do.” Will was silent for a moment. “Listen, Damon, hang around Lexi and Stefan for today and tomorrow, alright?”
“Sure?”
“Just trust me. You’re not gonna want to, but I need you to do it anyway.”
“Yeah, sure, man. I’ll see you tomorrow night?”
“I’ll see you then. Wear something nice, we can make a date out of it.”
Damon chuckled. “Goodbye,” he emphasized, hanging up on Will’s laughter.
Damon breathed in deeply through his nose, then sighed. “Hey, Stefan?” he called.
“Yeah?” came Stefan’s immediate response.
“We’re having company tomorrow.”