❝in over my head❞
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"I FEEL BAD."

Charlotte sighed, shifting in the overstuffed chair as her therapist peered curiously at her stiff posture, a clear sign of her discomfort at actually sharing during a session. "I mean, I don't even know Damon that well. I shouldn't have said all of that stuff to him, it was just rude,"

Mary stayed silent, urging Charlotte on.

"Seriously, who just tells their sister's boyfriend's brother that he's a sad, lonely person that no one can stand to be around? I just– I feel bad."

Mary shrugged, somewhat agreeing with Charlotte's sentiments. "Perhaps some of it was unprompted, yes, but you did say that he started it. All you did was fight fire with fire, and while it's not the smartest choice to make, it's better than not expressing any emotion, right?"

"If it were literally anybody else, I'd agree, but Damon is different." She shook her head, anxiously picking at the skin around her nails. "I mean, I wouldn't even be surprised if I was wrong. He could very well be a total sociopath for all I know, and now I've provoked him. I'm probably going to get myself killed,"

"Well, I wouldn't go that far. I don't think Damon's a killer,"

Charlotte snorted at the irony.

"You know, Charlotte, sometimes the things we recognize in others are the things we choose not to see in ourselves." Mary raised a brow, her words cryptic but pointed enough to lead Charlotte down the bumpy path of her own emotions. She'd gotten used to the therapist's methods over the months. "Maybe that's why you're so upset, because you know that deep down, you do what Damon does."

"But I– I'm not rude. I've never been like that, I was taught better than that. My parents taught me to be kind, no matter what,"

"Whereas Damon hides behind his callousness, you hide behind your kindness. They're two sides of the same sword, Charlotte. I think that you and Damon might have more in common than you think, you just aren't willing to admit it yet."

"I don't think I'd ever want to admit it,"

Mary regards her words with the same level of severity she does with everything else Charlotte says. "Why not?"

"Because I don't like Damon," She whispered, suddenly horrified at the realization. "And if we are that much alike, then it doesn't just mean that I don't like Damon. It means that I don't like myself."

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"I don't know what to do, Charlie," Elena sighs, laying back on her sister's bed while she watches her hang up her clean clothes. "I just feel like he's never being honest with me. I mean, all he does is avoid my questions, and I get we're not that serious yet, but if he expects to get serious, how can I give that to him if I don't even trust him?"

"You can't," Charlotte shrugs, like the answer is obvious. Elena's resounding frown makes her sigh, and she folds the dress she'd worn to the Founders' Party carefully over her arm while she reaches for a hanger. "Look, Stefan's obviously got some major baggage along with glaring family issues, maybe he's just bad at the whole building trust thing,"

Elena props herself up on her elbows, eyes widening. "That's another thing! Damon totally freaks out at the party, and Stefan tells me this morning that he's 'dealt with'. And then Caroline is all twenty questions with him, trying to figure out where Damon is so he can apologize, and he tells her that Damon's gone and never coming back. Caroline got more of an answer than I did, and he's literally my boyfriend."

Charlotte's mouth opens but she quickly snaps it shut again, staring at Elena with wavering confusion. "What do you mean Damon freaked out at the party? He was perfectly fine until Cory and I left?"

Elena shrugged, oblivious to Charlotte's rising worry. "He had a few too many drinks, I guess, and he and Caroline ended up in the bathroom together. He must've been out of it, 'cause she had a huge hickey on her neck. She started to freak out over something, but he and Stefan got into it and left before I could say anything. Caroline is still in denial about it, though, 'cause I guess he gave her a necklace to make up for it or something,"

Elena heaves a sigh, looking exasperated with Damon and Caroline both. "You know how she is, Charlie,"

"Yeah," Charlotte clenches her jaw, feeling her guilt for lashing out on Damon give way to an unfamiliar irritation that only Damon seemed able to bring out of her. "I also know what Damon's like, and it's nothing good."

Elena nodded in agreement, and Charlotte sighed softly, crawling on her knees on her bed beside Elena. "Look, Lena," She tapped her sister's arm, her warm brown eyes a familiar comfort to the younger twin. "I know you want Stefan to be honest, but you also don't want to go and open Pandora's Box, right?"

The younger girl nodded hesitantly, a slight pout forming on her lips.

"So maybe cut him some slack, and give him time to come to you. For all you know, it could be nothing."

"You're right," Elena sighed, and Charlotte grinned at her words, nudging her a bit firmer this time.

"Well, I did get all of your brain cells in the womb,"

"Shut up," Elena pushed her back, chuckling slightly as her discomfort receded to the back of her mind. "You know, something totally weird happened today at the Grill when I was talking to Stefan,"

Charlotte raised a brow, twisting herself around so she could lay on her bed beside Elena. "Oh, really? What?"

Elena huffed another laugh, her thin brows furrowing. "This old man, he must've had dementia or something, he thought he recognized Stefan. He kept telling him that he knew him, and that he hadn't aged a day. Isn't that crazy?"

Charlotte tensed beside her oblivious sister, and she let out a shaky breath as she stared at her ceiling, keeping her tone carefully confident. "Yeah," She forced a chuckle, grateful that Elena wasn't reading too much into her body language right now. "That's really weird."

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"Charlie!" Caroline's voice rang out over the mingled conversations and the girl in question looked up from where she'd been filling another bucket full of water for Cory to take to his next car.

"Yeah, Care?"

"Come with me to get more towels," Caroline extends a hand, waggling her fingers impatiently as Charlotte gave Cory an apologetic smile.

"You heard the boss lady,"

Cory rolled his eyes, lifting the bucket with an annoyed grunt. "Fine, but you better come right back. I swear to god, if one more soccer mom requests me, I'm going to drown myself in a bucket."

"Your will to live is inspiring, Cory," Charlotte shakes her head as she allows Caroline to pull her off in the direction of the school, momentarily passing by Elena and Stefan as they scrub down a car. She sends a helpless look to her sister, earning only a laugh in return that Stefan softly echoes when he sees her.

Charlotte finally yanks her hand from Caroline's fixing the cuff of her long-sleeved pullover on her wrist in a move that makes Caroline frown as they enter the dim hallways of the school.

"You know, it's supposed to be a sexy suds car wash," Caroline intones, raising a brow at her friend. "Not a 'just left the Amish' car wash,"

"Okay, first of all, that's rude," Charlotte held up a scolding finger at the blonde, earning a laugh. "Second, I still have a swimsuit underneath this, and I'm wearing shorts. Isn't that enough?"

"It'd be better if you took it off, Charlie, it's practically a miu miu."

Charlotte sighed, rolling her shoulders back stiffly. "Come on, Care, I just don't wanna deal with the looks today, alright? Everybody already knows what happened, I don't need to be stared at like some circus freak."

Caroline sighs, displaying a rare show of understanding for the girl as they approach the janitor's closet. "Fine, but I don't know why you'd be insecure about it. You're totally hot, and no one would even be looking if you took your cover-up off. They'd be too busy staring at something else,"

She pointedly gestures to her chest and Charlotte scoffs, shoving Caroline towards the door even as she grins despite herself.

Caroline pulls on the handle of the door as she settles, her laughter quickly turning into an annoyed grunt as the door jolts, apparently locked. "Ugh, someone must've locked it,"

Charlotte frowned, looking around at the dark hallways. "I didn't think anyone had a key, though,"

A faint swish of air cut off whatever Caroline could've responded with, and she tensed alongside the brunette, sharing a fearful look with her.

Caroline turned, gasping as she came face to face with a sickly looking Damon.

Charlotte frowned, tugging on Caroline's arm worriedly. "Caroline? What is it? What'd you see?"

"I," The blonde shook her head, looking frightened and confused. "You don't see him?"

"Caroline, there's no one there."

"No, you– you hear that, right? It's– It's Damon, he needs my help,"

"What? What– Caroline, what are you talking about? Damon's not here,"

Caroline tried to yank her arm from Charlotte's grip, a dazed look in her eye as she walked towards an emergency exit at the end of the hallway. "He needs help, Charlie, I have to go,"

Charlotte glanced behind her, hoping uselessly that someone would appear and help her figure out what was wrong with Caroline. "Okay, I don't know what's going on, but you're not going alone," The Gilbert girl pulled her keys out of her pocket, pulling Caroline a bit more gently. "Let's go get my car."

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"Care?"

The drive to the Salvatore Boarding House was odd, and Charlotte had had a steady wave of nausea rolling through her stomach as Caroline muttered to herself with that same dazed look in her eye as Charlie made her way through town.

"Come on," Caroline barely waited for Charlotte to put her car in park before she was out the door, heading towards the back gate through the hedge garden.

"Caroline! Seriously, what is going on with you?" She pulled at her friend's jacket, only to get shrugged off as the blonde found an open door through the back porch. "Damon attacked you, why are you trying to help him?"

Charlotte followed after her friend, not comforted in the slightest by the walls of the boarding house.

"Damon?"

"Caroline, look, whatever's going on with you we should figure out somewhere that's not here."

"Damon?" The blonde continued down the stairs, ignoring Charlotte all the while, much to the girl's absolute dismay. "Damon! Oh, god, what is this?"

Charlotte stood on her tiptoes beside Caroline, her eyes widening in horror at the sight before her. Looking through the slotted bars on the cell door was Damon, looking like he was five seconds away from being truly dead. "Damon?"

Damon's foggy eyes lifted, and he briefly looked at Caroline before sliding his gaze to Charlotte. His brows twitched confusedly and he let out what sounded like a sigh of relief. "Katherine,"

Charlotte frowned, her eyes marred with concern and hesitance. "Damon, it's me, it's Charlotte,"

"How– How did I know you were here?" Caroline seems to have snapped out of her daze, and Damon does, too at the sound of her voice, pushing the jacket off of him as he pushes himself upright.

"Because I wanted you to, very, very badly," He stands on unsteady feet and Charlotte watches warily as he stumbles towards the door of the cell. He disregards Charlotte completely, instead holding Caroline in place with his piercing stare. "Let me out of here, please."

Caroline glances down at the handle, and Charlotte bites the inside of her cheek at her friend's hesitance. "You bit me,"

"You liked it, remember?"

Caroline shook her head, trying to clear it of the constant fog she'd felt for the past few nights. "Why do I keep remembering the same things but in different ways?"

"What did you do to her, Damon?"

Damon blinks, barely sparing Charlotte a glance before he looks back to Caroline. "You remember what I want you to remember. And now that the vervain has passed out of your system, you won't remember what you're about to do. You won't even remember that you were here with Charlotte,"

"What am I about to do?"

"Damon,"

"Charlotte, shut up and let me handle this," Damon finally spoke to her, snapping impatiently without removing his eyes from Caroline's. "You're gonna open the door."

Caroline slowly lifts her hand, and Damon repeats himself, the words echoing in her head as she slides the lock out of place.

"No!"

Charlotte gasps as a voice breaks through the basement, and she yanks Caroline away from the door as the man presses himself against the cell, barely preventing Damon's escape.

"Get out of here! Run!" Zach waved the girls off, and they ran, Charlotte pushing Caroline up the stairs in front of her as the sickening crack of something breaking echoed behind them.

Caroline stumbled up the steps haphazardly, and Charlotte pulled herself up with the railing as Damon reached for her ankle. She ripped her leg from his grasp, her flurried kicks landing somewhere on his body and allowing her to get the rest of the way up the stairs.

"Charlie!"

"Caroline, go! Keep going!" Charlotte grunted as she slid into a wall, the rug beneath her feet rumpling as she regained her footing. She held her aching side as she quickly started running again, flicking her sandals off her feet in her haste to pick up her pace.

Her bare feet hit the hardwood floor right as Caroline swung the front door open, and Charlotte gasped in relief as they stumbled outside. She looked over her shoulder, watching as Damon stopped abruptly in the sunlight, his yells of pain echoing as they reached her car.

Charlotte hesitated for a second longer than she wished she had, and she made eye contact with Damon as he shielded himself from the burning sun. Her heart raced dangerously in her chest, and she felt frozen by his stare, feeling every ounce of ire he could possibly project at her.

"Charlie, come on!"

The girl fumbled with her keys and quickly climbed into her car, not wasting another second before driving off, all the while wondering what exactly she'd gotten herself into. 

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author's note; just fyi, caroline and damon didn't sleep together, he just bit her and is using her for the amulet thingy,,, also idk if i like this chapter it's kinda boring ??  

published; 12.2.21. 

- liz