Apocalyptic (Book 7: The Vampire Diaries & The Originals Fanfic)

Things We Lost In the Fire

Damon had attacked and nearly killed Bonnie, Caroline and Matt, before he realized that he was in fact in the real world, healing Bonnie and Matt and waited for Stefan, Caroline and me to wake up.

Caroline had injected him with vervain so they could chain him up in the foyer.

I walked closer.

"No vervain this time?" Damon asked. "We switching up the menu?"

"Nah, I just wanted to make sure you had a chance to calm down," I told him.

"Oh, I'm calm," Damon told me. Stefan walked in. "No, no, no. I know what you're gonna say to me. You're gonna say to me, I screwed up so bad. I nearly killed all of our friends because I thought I was stuck in a fake hell-world."

Stefan looked grim, but it was clear he was sympathetic. "You don't have to explain. It wasn't your fault."

I looked at Stefan. 

Damon was completely confused and stunned by this uncharacteristic reaction. "Huh?"

"It was an honest mistake," Stefan told him. "You're getting a pass."

"Wait," Damon told him. "You skipped a bunch of stuff. First, I'm supposed to say I see the error of my ways, and you tell me that that's not good enough, and then you judge me harder. And then I say something mean but true, that totally throws you off balance."

I knelt in front of Damon. "You came out of the Phoenix Stone, but you thought you were still inside of it. Everybody understands."

Damon nodded. "Oh. That's pretty generous." He looked at Stefan. "Considering I just stabbed your pregnant girlfriend in the chest."

"Yeah, well, the hell stone does a number on you," Stefan told him.

Damon nodded in agreement. "Yeah. Yeah, it does. Well, I'm here. And it's real." He looked at me. "I'm ready for my welcome-home-Kaylin-and-welcome-back-from-the-dead-Damon hug." He spread his arms as wide as the chained shackles around him would allow. "I'll wait until you've unchained me, sister."

Stefan frowned worriedly. "Here's the thing, Damon. Um, hell messes with you, but post-hell is much worse."

I nodded in concern. "Yeah."

The front door opened.

Stefan and I turned to see who it was.

Tyler walked in, and when he saw us, he scoffed in exasperation. "You guys gotta be kidding me." I stood. Tyler gestured around the house. "This is still my house."

I smirked. "Tyler Lockwolf."

Tyler smirked sarcastically in annoyance.

"Yeah, I thought my allergies were acting up," Damon told us.

Stefan looked at Tyler, concerned. "I didn't know you were back."

"Caroline invited me to her baby shower," Tyler told us. "Although she failed to mention the part about Mystic Falls going to crap. What the hell happened out there?"

"Oh, you know," Damon told him. "We had to evacuate. Scary Heretics. Fictional mining fires. You weren't CC'd on the memo?"

I sighed, turning to him. "I don't think he's talking about the evacuation, Damon."

"So, what is he talking about?" Damon asked. "I know you didn't manage to screw the whole town up all over again while I was on my weekend trip to limb."

Stefan sighed. "That's the thing. You weren't gone for just the weekend. You've been gone for weeks."

Julian had infested the entire town of Mystic Falls with hundreds of vampires, and they were partying in town with fires all around the sidewalks, with drag racing in the streets, fight clubs wherever.