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[season four]
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marcid:
(adj.) withered;
incredibly exhausted
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Part of Madeline expected to wake up in the Gilbert family home to the sound of her brothers begging her to bless them with some breakfast. Elena would scold them for not doing it themselves, telling them that Madeline needed her sleep. She did not awaken to that fantasy. Disoriented, she examined her surroundings. For a moment, she thought all the heartache had been a part of a nightmare. She realized that wasn't the case when she spotted Jeremy's sketches on the side table, hope subsiding.
Jeremy was gone.
Engulfed with sorrow, Madeline wondered when the continuous funerals would cease. Like clockwork, her loved ones were yanked out of her life, deliberately leaving her with tons of questions she couldn't possibly answer. Apprehension captured her mind, causing her to doubt her every decision. A pair of arms kept her from leaving the bed. Already familiar with who it was, she turned her body to face him.
Stefan looked like an angel, his features completely relaxed and the definition of striking. Wondering if she would ever lose him, she admired him silently. If he was taken away, her heart would be left devoid. Feeling the urge to cry approaching, she blinked rapidly and untangled herself from his arms. Once in the bathroom, she let out a breath she had been holding, grasping onto the sink countertop.
She glimpsed into the mirror, an expression of hatred and despair looking back at her. Tears were impossible to repress, shimmering in her eyes.
"Madeline." a familiar whisper let out. Beside her reflection, Jeremy stood with a blank expression, his eyes depleted of liveliness. He wasn't looking at her the way he used to. Her mouth was wide open as she turned around. Disillusioned, she realized there was no one there. All of it was in her head, a ridiculous misconception that left her wishing she could trade places with her younger brother.
Breathing heavily, Maddie stared at the empty space. It was official. She was going insane.
Chuckling at her own foolishness, she averted her gaze to the mirror. She had gotten her hopes up. Again. Before she could wash her face to gain back some sense of normalcy, her head was bombarded with thoughts that weren't hers. It sent ripples of agony through her brain, making her wince. Teeth gritted, she clasped onto her head, praying the pain would depart.
She could hear the thoughts of her family downstairs. Damon. Elena. Pietro. Wincing, Maddie waited until the discomfort lessened slightly, whispering to herself that it would all be okay. The pain and thoughts still lingered, but they became tolerable. Adding to her confusion, while glimpsing at the mirror, her eyes were illuminated with a profound scarlet red. As the color faded, so did the voices, granting her a moment of bliss. She scoffed in disbelief, stunned that she couldn't get a break.
"I need to get shitface drunk."
✧︎
Sneaking out of the Salvatore house was easier than Madeline had anticipated. Damon was busy worrying about Elena, downing a glass of bourbon. The closer she got to her destination, the more voices she heard. They all belonged to the random people at the bar, nearly making her unable to speak without groaning in pain.
However, when she got her hands on the hardest liquor the Grill had, the thoughts vanished. Each drop granted her unexpected contentment. She forgot about everything — Jeremy's death, Elena turning off her humanity, the interminable gloom. She wondered what would've happened if she hadn't moved to Mystic Falls, a town that slowly led her to her descent. Her life could've turned out so differently, uncorrupted with woe.
Disrupting her brief moment of enjoyment, someone beside her mentioned how much her phone was buzzing. She didn't need to look to know her friends were probably freaking out. Before abandoning the bar and her phone, Madeline snatched a bottle of alcohol, already having a new destination in mind.
✧︎
Stumbling, Madeline finally arrived at the cemetery and found the specific grave she was looking for. For the second time since Jeremy's death, Madeline genuinely grinned (although, it was prompted by the alcohol swirling in her system).
"Hey, dad," Madeline said, getting comfortable on the grass with her back against a gravestone. She sighed, leaning her head against the gravel and chugging more booze. The satisfying afterburn lingered. "Everything's gone to shit, you know? You probably have a front-row seat to all of it."
She scoffed at herself for waiting for some kind of response. "Oh, who am I kidding? I'm totally going insane." She chuckled, amused. "After everything we've faced, it seems I'm finally cracking, hearing voices and seeing shit. I have to admit, I lasted far longer than I thought I would."
Going to her father's grave, she hoped her father would reach out, awarding her some life-changing advice. How wrong she was. She scoffed. "This is the part where you go 'No, Maddie, you're not going insane. I'm sorry, Maddie, for leaving your side when I promised you I'd be with you forever. Sorry, Maddie, for lying, for abandoning you.' But no. Of course you don't say that. I mean, you're dead for god's sake."
She pursed her lips, worried she wouldn't be able to stop ranting. She ran a hand through her hair. "God, I sound completely crazy, but it's fine. I got a dead brother pass, a dead mother pass, a dead father pass. The list goes on and on and on." Sick of hearing herself talk, she was convinced that all her losses were slowly killing her. She examined her past actions, wondering what she did to deserve it all. "God, I need fucking therapy."
Recalling Bonnie's debate to bring back the dead by committing another massacre, Madeline sighed, preserving silence for a while. "I'm sorry, Dad. I want to see you and Jeremy again... more than anything in this world but I can't... They can't bring everyone back. I can't ruin the balance." She kept back her emotions, wondering if the dam she had created would break.
She thought back to what Elena said. 'Does that make me a bad person?'
"What I want doesn't matter," Maddie whispered. "The balance does." She was about to chug down whatever was left in the jug, but she paused and left it on the grave. "Have the rest, dad. I can feel you scolding me with judgy little eyes."
She struggled to stand, nearly wobbling onto the prickly grass. "Too bad you can't ground me." Madeline joked. "You kinda need to be alive for that."
✧︎
Stefan was losing it. After he found his girlfriend's phone abandoned at the bar, he assumed the worst. He could feel his mind cramming with a static-like sound, his movements becoming automatic.
He knew Leine could protect herself from threats wandering about, but he was also well aware of her vulnerability against her own thoughts. Scolding himself, he cursed under his breath. If he hadn't stayed up keeping her peaceful dreams adrift, he wouldn't have slept in. The grief Madeline suffered from wasn't just one emotion. It was a million all at the same time. Bitterness, blame, the works.
He asked everyone if they had seen her, but no one did. Some simply didn't care enough to listen to him, shaking their head to make him leave them alone.
He scoffed into the phone. "How hard is it to find a girl with red hair?"
"I don't know. We checked Alaric's grave. She's not here either." Caroline said in her car. Her phone was on speaker, and she had Pietro in the passenger seat. "All we found was an almost empty bottle of bourbon."
"You probably just missed her," Stefan said, running his hand through his hair. Madeline wasn't someone to just disappear off the face of the earth. The mere thought of living in this world without her made Stefan want to burn it to the ground. "I'll call you back. There's one more place I need to check out."
✧︎
Hesitant, Stefan listened for any movement inside the house. He heard nothing, making him doubt Madeline had ever been inside. They had checked the place earlier, but there was a possibility she could've returned when they weren't there. Regardless, he stepped into the structure, eyes darting to the couch.
He was in the home Madeline used to share with her brother and father, stalking up the stairs to her room. On his way up, he could tell someone kept the home clean. There was not even a speck of dust, almost as if the house were waiting for its previous owner to return from the dead.
"Leine?" he called out, creaking her door open. His brows creased in disappointment at the sight of her empty room. The blankets on her bed were untouched. Not a single piece of clothing was out of place. No one had been there. Head perking up, he heard someone shift in Alaric's own room. Striding quickly, he reached the door and turned the doorknob.
Relief beyond explanation inundated his veins at the sight of Madeline. Her figure was curled up in her father's blankets, eyes closed. The scent of alcohol was hard to miss. He stood beside her, listening to the sound of her breathing. Maddie always looked so serene while sleeping, her face deprived of any hardship. He wished he could see her relaxed more often, but the constant peril in their life made it impossible.
He texted her brother that she was alright, not wanting him to continue fretting. Stefan slid in the sheets next to her, wrapping an arm around her waist. She nestled closer to him, her head laying on his chest. It was almost as if she recognized his touch.
With her in his arms, he could feel a section of his worry fade away. Another section of it expanded tremendously, substituting the missing dread. It wasn't like Maddie to abandon home without saying a word to anyone. She hadn't even thought to leave a note to ease their concern. Something or someone had to have set her off, and Stefan was determined to find out what happened.
However, he hadn't been careful enough not to wake her. Clearly, she had not been sleeping for very long because she was still considerably intoxicated, a drunken smile creeping onto her lips.
"Who — who are you?" she said, slurring her words together. She looked at Stefan with pure curiosity, genuinely not recognizing him.
"You have no idea how worried I was about you." he chuckled lightly, amused by the subtle confusion on her features.
"Worried? Why are you hugging me? You better back off. My boyfriend won't like it." she warned, shaking her finger in his face. She removed herself from the embrace, putting some distance between them. He smiled widely.
"Your boyfriend, huh? What's his name?" he questioned.
Madeline answered, "Stefan Salvatore." She clumsily looked for her phone, frowning when she couldn't locate it. He pulled out her phone and passed it to her.
He asked, "Looking for this?"
"Thank you," she said politely, not questioning why he had her phone. She turned on the device and showed him the wallpaper. It was a photo of her and Stefan, their love more noticeable than anything in the world.
Examining the picture as if he hadn't seen it a hundred times, Stefan said, "I'm sure I could beat him up."
"Nuh-uh," Madeline said, brows furrowed in conviction.
"Yuh-huh." Stefan taunted.
"He is a vampire and can have you dead in seconds," Madeline stated matter-of-factly. Her eyes widened with panic when she realized she wasn't supposed to reveal that to a complete 'stranger'. "Oops. Forget I said that. He won't kill you, probably. He's a nice vampire. I swear."
"Don't worry. I won't say a word," he assured as she sat up.
"You're a nice stranger," Maddie said in response, thankful that he was willing to be sworn to secrecy.
"Does that mean I have a chance?" he asked.
"With what?" she asked.
"You," Stefan teased, having a fun time with her drunk reactions and retorts.
Maddie laughed, covering her smile with her hand. "Sorry, stranger. No chance."
"Why?" Stefan replied.
"First of all, he is like a thousand times more attractive than you," she said as if it was a known fact. Adoration was infused in her eyes. "Second of all, he is always — and I mean always — there for me. He gives me butterflies, even when he's being stupid — and he can be really stupid at times."
"He sounds nice, Leine," Stefan said, his heart soaring. He could see the love and everlasting devotion she had for him.
"Don't call me that. It's Madeline to you, sir. And he is better than nice. He is the closest thing to perfection." Madeline yawned. She plopped her head back onto the pillow, exhaustion rippling in her body. Stefan was about to do the same when she stopped him.
"I don't think so," she said, sitting up abruptly and creating a pillow wall between them. "There. Now we can both sleep."
Stefan chuckled at her poorly assembled wall, modifying it for her. "You really love him, don't you?"
She nodded, getting back under the sheets. "I do."
✧︎
"I'm never drinking again," Madeline said groggily for the hundredth time, her hangover hitting her in several waves. She remained at the dinner table, barely holding back the urge to rip out her own brain.
In the kitchen, Stefan whipped her up some breakfast, setting the plate in front of her. He set down a bag of blood, just in case she hadn't fed in a while. She shook her head, the sight making her queasy. "I'm not hungry. I'll just throw it up."
Stefan scanned her features. "You haven't eaten in a while, Leine." He retrieved some hangover pills and a glass of water, setting it on the table. She shrugged, unable to provide him with an answer.
Pulling out a chair, he sat next to her, the soft look in his eyes never vanishing. "Leine?"
"Stefan?" Madeline replied, skeptical. She wanted to leave the room more than anything, but she knew there was no escape from going through with the conversation.
"What happened this morning?" he asked. He could tell by the way she avoided eye contact that her sudden departure wasn't entirely because of Jeremy's death. "Leine?"
"You're going to think I'm crazy," Madeline said, shaking her head. She did not want the way he viewed her to change. In his eyes, she carried his future in her palms. She was his entire world, his everything. Madeline wasn't sure if she could handle his gaze altering into something crueler.
"I could never think you're crazy. I promise," he assured, placing his hand in hers. He gave her a comforting squeeze, watching her contemplate whether to tell him or not. Unbeknownst to him, Madeline could hear his mind confirm his words.
"I... I heard voices." Madeline said. Saying it out loud made it seem like she was one second closer to ending up in a mental hospital.
Puzzled, Stefan said, "Voices?" He didn't have a shred of judgment in his voice. His tone was gentle as he listened attentively and studied her features.
She nodded, hesitating. "They aren't just any voices. When I went to the Grill, I could hear everyone's thoughts. When I woke up, I heard everyone's thoughts downstairs. I just wanted them to stop. The... the alcohol drowns them out."
Analyzing his face, she waited for him to say something. He was silent, putting together the pieces. "God, you think I'm insane." She waited for his thoughts to prove her right, but she heard the opposite.
'Leine, you're not going insane.'
After realizing she heard his thoughts, he knew exactly what happened. Pietro had once warned him about what grief could do to a Guardian. Despair or any other powerful emotion could cause their powers to develop beyond comprehension. In Leine's case, her brain could not just move things at will but also read the minds of the people around her.
"Your powers, they're getting stronger," Stefan explained. He didn't need to say another word, already knowing she heard the rest of the explanation in his head.
"How do I control it?" she asked, partially questioning herself. "I don't want to disrespect anyone's privacy, and hearing everyone's thoughts at once isn't exactly painless."
Stefan hated that Madeline was forced to handle one problem after another. Rubbing circles onto the back of her palm, he assured, "It might just take some time for you to get used to it. We'll find out. Together, okay?"
If it were anyone else saying it, Madeline would have yielded a befuddled expression and asked them how the hell they were going to do that, but Stefan's voice was one of the few things capable of easing all her doubts. His soft smile and the tenderness his hands granted made her mind go blank with any thoughts that didn't include him.
She smiled, leaning into his touch. "Okay," she whispered, hugging him tightly. His scent itself ensured her that as long as he was with her, she would be alright. "By the way, why was there a pillow wall between us when I woke up? Did we get in a fight?"
Stefan chuckled, preparing to tease her about what happened earlier.
i can't tell if
i hate this chapter or not