Swimming In The River Styx

[angryzen]

Title: Swimming In The River Styx
Author: angryzen AKA charrrmed
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Characters: Jeremy Gilbert and Kol Mikaelson
Timeline: AU, pre-3.19
Trigger Warning: Thoughts on death, grief, and the mourning process.
Summary: Jeremy asked Kol to override Damon's compulsion and now he must deal with his emotions pre, during, and post compulsion. At the batting cage with Kol, he reflects on his response to John and Jenna's deaths. Companion piece to At Rock Bottom and Looking Up.
***

Jeremy widened his stance haphazardly and bent his knees, and rolled the bat in his hands. He genuinely didn’t care about his form. The light green ball shot out, and he swung.

“Are you even trying, mate?” Kol grimaced as if the human’s horrible athleticism gave him physical pains. Four tween-aged runts of the female kind had taken notice of his new friend’s plight. Two of them had giggled, looking as if they wanted to come over and give him some pointers. The other two were happy to ridicule him. For his part, he’d looked at the two lovestruck mortals and given them his most dashing smile. He’d maintained eye contact and communicated that he shared in their pity for his friend. Why yes, they can come over if they so liked. He kept an ear on their heartbeats. When Jeremy missed again and he heard the snickers, he fixed them with his most predatory smile. Their hearts thudded against their chests, and he could see the color drain from their light brown faces as their smiles froze. He wasn’t one for patience, but sometimes, sometimes there was virtue in waiting.



“Your turn,” Jeremy spoke out. He took Kol’s place and leaned against the fence, the sole of his shoe leaving traces of dirt on the chain link when he put his leg up. He had no idea where his ball had rolled off to nor did he care. He looked at the once-laughing girls and found their body language strange as one of them waited for her ball, but he let it go. He didn’t come to the batting cage to get better at baseball. It was simply an excuse to get out of the house. Whenever Kol went up to bat, his mind drifted. His mind tended to drift a lot since Kol overrode Damon’s compulsion. There were times when he had no control over it. It was a consequence, see. His mind was in shambles; he was working at three levels: first, he not only knew of the troubles back home, but he had an opinion about them again. He felt in regards to the bad things that permeated their lives. Next, he remembered how he’d felt while under Damon’s compulsion: free. Carefree. Normal. Detached. It had been downright agonizing.

His first night in Denver, he woke up sweating in the middle of the night. There were times when it felt like someone was sitting on his chest. Or he’d be dinning with the family, talking and laughing, when suddenly his neck would grow cold and his skin would prickle, and he would excuse himself. He couldn’t think about Mystic Falls or Elena or Bonnie or Alaric for more than two seconds before his brain switched gears. Sometimes in those two seconds he’d get it in his mind to call his sister, but his fingers wouldn’t push the number. Just one number on the speed dial, and he couldn’t do it. The desire to call, to reach out, was there, but the ability to do it was not. He chased flashes of memories, memories of Damon, memories of blue eyes. He wondered why he was in Denver. Why he was with these people? Why wasn’t he with his sister? Why had it been so long since he’d spoken to Elena? He didn’t have an answer. And most times he was fine with that. And sometimes his conscious would break through, and he would be anything but fine.

He lost track of time. At times it felt like he’d been in Denver for months, other times for a mere week. And how long did he plan to stay? He could never answer this question he posed to himself. Sometimes he wanted to ask the family, but he always chose to keep it to himself.

Or did he? He now wondered if he would have been able to question the family if he’d wanted to. Kol had asked if he wouldn’t rather compel away his time in Denver. That would have been too much tweaking for Jeremy. He’d just wanted the pain to go away.

Thus, third, he was working with his reopened eyes. The feelings before Denver, the pain, hurt, and confusion while under compulsion, and the hurt, confusion, and apathy post compulsion. All of them pulled at his brain and demanded space, attention, focus, and exploration. He found he could do that best when he was high. That was when he felt the most calm. He thought about doing something physical to release energy, maybe take up a boxing class or go to the gym more. Or trash something. But he felt those things were for releasing anger more than anything else. And he was not angry. He wasn’t sure whether or not he was resentful. He wasn’t sure what he’d say when he saw his sister, Damon, and Alaric again. He was....defeated...but not completely so. His sister had betrayed his trust and compelled him again. She’d ignored him in the most invasive way he could think of, and it was taking him time to figure out the words for how that made him feel.

Kol kept saying that she was just trying to protect him, but he knew the continuously pestering vampire just wanted to stoke an angry response.

Jeremy was wrong, of course. An angry response was not what Kol longed for. In fact, if ever Jeremy let all of his emotions burst forth, Kol would lose all of the interest he had in him. The Original vampire lived for unshed emotion. Especially where humans were concerned.

He doesn’t usually talk to their species, preferring the company of his family and, at rare times, other vampires. So Jeremy is an exceptional find in his one thousand-year existence. Jeremy is his favorite kind of human. He loves the ones who bury things, the ones who can’t say all that they need to because they either don’t know how or they’re so beaten down that they’ve forgotten how, the ones who suffer in silence. He glosses over the ones who wear their emotions on their sleeves as well as the ones who release everything with just a little bit of support. Unshed emotion feeds his wicked soul. So yes, he teases Jeremy and picks at the scabs of his emotional wounds. He loves to watch him bottle it up. Emotion flickers over his face and dances in his eyes. He inhales; he tightens his mouth; he puffs his chest, all signs of things he wants to say but can’t because he’s realized that no one listens to him. So he tells him that Elena was just trying to protect him, says it in every way he can.

The bat connected with the ball, reversing its trajectory. He set up for his fourth attempt, keeping in mind not to swing too hard. He did that the last time they’d come and of course there had been gasps, awe, and admiration, an occurrence he’d basked in while Jeremy had stood back and looked on with amused exasperation. He took the swing and connected. Looking back at his morose friend, he asked, “Something on your mind, mate?”

Jeremy’s foot slipped from the fence when Kol shook his arm. The bat slipping from his hand onto the floor made him snap out of it. “What?” he asked with mild irritation as he retrieved the bat.

“It’s your turn.”

Jeremy considered him a moment and then asked a question that had been on his mind for a while. “Dude, why are you always smiling?”

That, of course, made Kol smile wider. “I’m not always smiling.”

“Amused, whatever.” He walked up and took his usual bad stance. He ignored Kol’s sigh behind him. “You always look like you’re listening to a big joke.”

“What would you have me do?”

“I dunno. Look normal?”

“What’s normal for a thousand-year-old vampire?”

Jeremy’s lips curved on one side, acknowledging his point.

“I could ask you a similar question. Why are you always so distant?”

“You know why,” he dead-panned.

Dead, apathetic, and numb. All things he’d been feeling for a while. The impassivity, at least, was not a consequence of the compulsion. Perhaps it was more pronounced because of the compulsion, but it had been there for a while. Since before he and Bonnie broke up, actually. A familiar something expanded in his chest when he thought of her, and he wanted to tell Kol to take his place. He was still not used to being able to think about her, about any of them, without the quick redirecting of his mind. It felt strange to be able to think about whatever he wanted. There was no more filter. So he thought about the other person he would see when he returned to Mystic Falls: Bonnie.

Did she know about the compulsion? He hadn’t finished the thought before the answer came at him, quick and definite: yes. So why hadn’t she done anything? Why hadn’t she at least called him? He could think of only two answers, one of which was more attractive than the other. The first option was that she was busy. He knew that that was one of the reasons she had never enlightened Caroline about what Damon had done to her, back when the Chair of the Dance Committee had been in the dark about everything.

The ball flew at him, and he missed, and he ceded his spot.

Leaning his head on the chilly fence, he looked up at the sky sparsely filled with thin clouds. A pensive smile disturbed his face while Kol’s rhythmic hitting of the ball provided a comfortable lull. It was so easy to get left behind. It was so easy to be forgotten, even if you were present.

He didn’t forget easily. That had been his problem at one point, and he’d tried to fix it. Now he wondered if perhaps that had been a mistake. He’d tried to adopt other people’s philosophies.

The second option was darker and twisted his heart. Maybe Bonnie had supported Elena. He remembered the girl who had tricked him into unconsciousness in the name of protection. His stomach churned at the thought that, perhaps just like Elena, Bonnie’s apology had meant nothing in the face of impending danger to his person. It was a hard possibility for him to accept, but he considered it nonetheless. His lips curled reflexively, and his nostrils flared as noisome bitterness clutched his stomach, and for the first time he considered staying away from Mystic Falls. Yes. Just leave Denver and make a new life elsewhere. The whole point of screwing with his mind was to keep him safe, right? Well he’d help them along and stay away from Mystic Falls. Only he wouldn’t tell anyone where he’d gone to. And he dared them to find him. Dared them to ignore him again and invade his life.

“You all right there, mate?” Kol’s voice cut in. “You look downright...murderous,” he said, his dark eyes alight with interest.

“I’m fine.” He couldn’t help the tightness of his mouth, so his words were short. He turned and put his fingers in the openings of the fence and leaned against it, his chin on his chest, and he closed his eyes and breathed, feeling completely alone and like he didn’t have a single person he could count on. Every time he thought he’d made progress, someone, Elena, or something came along and cut him off. Told him he wasn’t progressing fast enough. He was fed up, but say it as loud as he could it seemed no one wanted to recognize the fact. His chest burned, and his breath caught in his throat.

“There there,” Kol soothed after he turned off the machine, slapping his hand on Jeremy’s neck and squeezing it comfortingly. “I know all about siblings with God complexes. My older brother plays with my life all the time. Starts and stops it whenever he pleases.”

That caught Jeremy’s attention, as well as the fact that the whimsical vampire said it as if he was talking about the latest baseball scores. He looked up at him, but it seemed he’d said all he was going to. That wasn’t good enough. “And?”

“And? My life starts and stops at times.”

“And you’re completely fine with that,” he stated, growing irritated.

“Of course not, but after a couple of rows...what is there to do but move on?”

“Right. So why don’t you move on? Leave him.”

“Unlike your sister where you’re concerned, my brother has no problem killing me.”

“So you stay because you’re scared?”

“I stay because I honestly can’t think of a better option,” he said, smile still in place.

Jeremy sighed in frustration and walked a couple of paces from the contented man. “What’s normal for a thousand-year old vampire, right?” he asked, looking back at him through narrowed eyes.

“Exactly,” he said and emphasized the affirmation by pointing his bat at Jeremy.

Jeremy shook his head, thinking of how he could never do that. Even now he was thinking about running away. “You’ve never thought about escaping?”

“No.”

He rolled his eyes, disbelieving.

“I say this with utmost sincerity: I can think of no people more interesting or worthy of my presence than my family. Especially my dear brother.” He also compartmentalized his family. There was his family in the old world, old world meaning pre-vampyrism in this case, and there was his vampyric family. Although the former had been far from perfect, they had loved each other. They’d protected each other and would have never thought to hurt each other. They’d had boundaries. And when one of them had died, Henrik, they had mourned, they had felt the loss, they had cared. That had come to an abrupt end when his father and mother had killed them. At that moment they had become a vampyric family. The Originals. They had prestige and knowledge and experience. They were the first, the strongest, and the best. There was no place above theirs, and every vampire recognized. They were legends. The fact that his father and mother, for he didn’t have parents anymore, had killed them was just more proof of how unique they were. No one else had that type of story. No one else killed their child to make sure they survived and lived on. His brother was ruthless, but he was famous. The fact that Klaus controlled his life only added to their complexity. Few people, like his human friend, could understand, and he was proud of that fact. The family he felt affection for died a long time ago. That family had lived a mortal life. The ferociousness of his vampyric family was immortalized and would be remembered forever.

He gave Jeremy a parting look before walking to the machine in order to turn it back on. He was enjoying this role play. He didn’t watch much television since waking from his long slumber, having found almost every program to be a nuisance, but he had taken particular interest in the balding Texas man who counseled various humans on their numerous derangements. He’d taken such a liking to the program that he had attempted to play the role of counselor with Niklaus, who’d ignored him, and Rebekah, who’d cursed him out of the room. He hadn’t realized it at first, but Jeremy Gilbert was giving him a chance to live out his newest fantasy.

He turned the machine back on and signaled for his patient to take his turn.

Jeremy sighed and looked at his surroundings. He wished Denver’s forestry didn’t consist of parks. He missed the woods of Mystic Falls. He would rather shoot arrows than whack baseballs. His bat in hand, he prepared for the ball and hit a lucky streak, hitting three in a row.

“Very nice,” Kol cheered. “But you still haven’t answered my question. Is your sister all that’s occupying your mind? She didn’t act alone. There’s the vampire who helped her,” he said, using his fingers to compile the list as he sauntered over to Jeremy, “and the guardian who literally drove you out of town.”

Jeremy swung above the ball. He cut Kol a quick look and found him smiling, a cruel and timely reminder that their friendship had a hidden layer of danger. Kol was passing the time until his brother gave him his next move, and he was talking to the vampire because he....was accepting of someone willing to talk to him. Kol had only told him the truth about his compulsion because he’d gotten bored of watching him live a shell of a life.

“So. Who else is victim to your ire? The unfortunate teacher?”

Jeremy thought Kol looked certifiable. He put distance between them and took up his spot by the fence while Kol readied himself. He didn’t know how to identify her to the Original, so he used both of the descriptors that came to mind. “My ex-girlfriend. Bonnie.”

“The witch?” he asked while swinging. He turned and didn't flinch when the next ball hit him in the middle of his back. "You dated the witch who tried to kill my brother?"

No one had been this incredulous about his love life since Tyler Lockwood learned of his relationship with Vicky. "Yeah."

"Amazing," Kol said, and he actually looked impressed on top of amused, as if now that he knew Jeremy had dated the witch he thought perhaps anything was possible. He turned and whacked the third ball before it could assault his back like the other two. "I've yet to have the privilege. I've never even seen her," he said as he fixed his stance. "Perhaps you can introduce us when return home."

Jeremy thought about telling him that he wasn't her type, but he decided the guy wasn't worth it.

"What happened there? Did she dump you?"

"Yes," he said, with the air of someone who was too tired to question why Kol had pegged him as the dumpee. When the vampire non-verbally asked him if he wanted to take his turn, he declined.

Yes, the numbness and apathy he felt now that he was free of the second compulsion were familiar feelings for him, maybe more pronounced as a result of the different memories he had. The memories from his compelled state felt like they'd happened to someone else. There was a certain amount of denial there, perhaps a last ditch effort by his mind to keep from being overwhelmed. It felt like he'd been doing without feeling, doing with no commitment whatsoever. In fact the only difference between this and the way he'd felt in the weeks before Bonnie broke up with him is that he hadn't chosen to be uncommitted to what he was doing.

He’d never thought there was a grand design behind the crap that happened to him: losing his parents, losing Vicky, losing Anna, his sister being a doppelgänger who was destined to die, his uncle dying, his aunt dying. He’d never thought there was a plan, never believed in destiny or fate. Not until he'd been saved from Death's clutches, only to start seeing ghosts.

He chuckled even as his chest constricted, so it sounded like he was winded.

"Why?" Kol dragged the word out, like it should've been obvious to Jeremy that an explanation was necessary.

"I cheated on her with my ex."

It was such a simple answer. He just woke up one day and decided to cheat. It sounded no different from all the other cheating stories.

He dropped the bat and turned to hold on to the fence and closed his eyes. He focused on breathing, something Kol had counseled him to do whenever his different memories fought for consideration in his mind.

He'd been so relieved when Bonnie had broke up with him. It had been almost overwhelming, the peace he'd felt when she'd said her piece and turned away from him, as if her kicking him to the curb had been the final integral component in his exercise to.....what? He still wasn't sure what he'd been aiming for by doing what he'd done. He just knew, had even known at the time, that he was tired and that maybe it was time he gave the other side a shot since being a functional, mature adult was not working. Something out there was determined to screw it up. So maybe there was a grand design behind the things that happened to him. Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was destiny.

That’s why he wouldn't take back the decisions that had led to Bonnie breaking up with him, and it wasn’t because he'd gotten to see Anna again, gotten the chance to say goodbye. He hadn't been left wanting by the fact that he hadn't gotten to say goodbye to her. After all, he never got to say goodbye to his parents, or John, or Jenna. Or Vicky.

He'd said he loved her, that he'd always loved her, but only in the aftermath had he tried to consider how they were suppose to work had she been allowed to stay. Try being the operative word, because he hadn't wanted to think in the aftermath. He had felt, and his feelings messed a lot of things up.

But he was thinking now. Wondering. And he wondered why the future hadn't mattered, why he had felt with all of his heart that saying he loved Anna, kissing her, why holding her had been all that mattered. It wasn't all that mattered now. Now that he was thinking, he didn't cherish the experience because he got to touch, talk to, and see her again. He thought of her now, thought back to when he'd said the words to his sister that it had always been Anna, and he didn't experience any regret at losing Anna for a second time. There was no longing, and there was no hurt.

And the absence of these emotions wasn't new. He was familiar with the numbness and apathy. Because the night Bonnie had closed the veil between the worlds, he hadn't cried for him and Anna; he hadn't cried for his relationship with Bonnie. He hadn't cried at all. He hadn't been hurt, and though his heart had hurt, it had not been broken. Peculiar, considering his words to Elena had been laced with such longing, such fulfillment at gaining back someone lost, someone loved. But as he'd rolled a joint only to change his mind about smoking it, he'd only pictured three things: himself as he'd confessed to Elena, Anna as he'd looked back at her and she'd smiled at him like the whole world was laid out before them, and Bonnie as she'd stood hurt, distant yet so close.

It was a different kind of distance that permeated his thoughts and his mood and his feelings now. He couldn't connect with the words he'd spoken, had not been able to connect with them even while he'd been speaking them. But he was still able to connect with the feeling of giving up. It was a heady one, sliding deeper, getting closer and closer to the abyss while he sabotaged everything he had. It was almost intoxicating.

Kissing Anna had felt nice. Yes, seeing her again had felt nice. At first. And then it hadn't felt like anything at all. But still he'd said the words, thought them, and mimed the looks.

He had ruined something good for something that left him cold in the aftermath. Because he and Bonnie had been good. Being a good, functional, mature person had led him to her.

He remembered what Elena said to him a long time ago. The words hadn't resounded with him beyond the surface at the time, but now he remembered when she'd told him that no one cared that their parents were dead. Everyone had moved on, so he should to. Of course she'd proceeded to force him to move on, but he'd accepted it, thought at the time, in some corner of his mind, that maybe that was what he needed. Turned shit into gold. He certainly hadn't been in a slump after he'd found out about the first compulsion. So like a good and functional human being, like a mature adult, he decided to adopt the attitude that losses happen. You cry, but then you go on. You find something, anything that makes you happy again. So he tried to get involved. Tried not to get bullied by the supernatural world, tried to accept it as his life. So he helped. Tried to find the answer everyone was looking for: what was up with the Lockwoods? Mason Lockwood was murdered, but...that was his life. People got murdered. Kill or be killed. And then he got close to Bonnie, and for the first time he realized....this was his life. And he didn't resent it. He and Bonnie became friends and suddenly getting involved wasn't being done out of spite and he wasn't moving on for lack of any other choice. Because he did have other choices. Lots of them. Choices he knew from experience scared and exasperated his sister.

What he found amusing now that he was thinking, was the fact that ghosts had been trying to pull him before Anna ever showed up. Ghosts from his pass. The Ghosts of loss and uncertainty. And as with Anna, something had found it appropriate to give him forewarning that he was going to lose Bonnie. She was going to die.

When Anna had been dragged away from him, he had thought himself cursed. Everyone he cared about died. That had been his overwhelming thought for such a long time. So why get mad at his uncle? Yes John had killed her, but his uncle would've never gotten the chance to personally hate Anna if he hadn't taken a liking to her. And the night Bonnie told him it would take all of her power to kill Klaus his hand had shaken uncontrollably after his frustrated outburst. The shaking had disconcerted him so much that he'd clinched his hand into a tight fist and it had stopped immediately.

He’d been new at handling lost like a mature person, so he hadn’t been able to help feeling a little betrayed. He had moved on just like all those people who no longer cared about his parents' death, just like everyone who no longer mentioned Vicky. He didn't mention Anna other than the time he and Bonnie had talked about it. So why was he now faced with the possibility of losing Bonnie? He was a good, mature adult just like his aunt and sister, who both had realized and accepted that people die. Yet he was going to go through it again?

Yes. The few days leading up to the dance and the day of the dance, he'd fought off the feeling: like sliding into unwanted but comfortable darkness. She was ready to die, so he needed to be ready for her to die. She was okay with it, so he needed to be okay with it. If things went wrong and Klaus got the better of her, he would need to mourn for an appropriate amount of time and then move on because at one point everyone else would stop caring that she was dead and they'd stop caring about the fact that he still cared, that he still felt her death was the most unfortunate thing that could happen.

He had needed to keep up.

But then....she didn’t die. He hadn’t spiraled, run to fetch a coping mechanism to prepare for her death even though he’d wanted to. He hadn’t spiraled, and she hadn’t died. It worked out; she worked out, so maybe there was something to moving on after all, to letting go; to dealing and then finding a reason to go on.

And then....John died. Right in front of him. With no forewarning whatsoever.

And then....Jenna died. The same day. Despite the rescue brigade that went went off to save her, he passed out, and he woke up to two deaths.

And then...he died.

It had felt like a dream. Bonnie rendering him unconscious had gone a long way to assure that. Standing at his uncle and aunt’s twin funerals, he had entertained the thought that he was still passed out from Bonnie’s kiss. The foreboding he’d felt when Anna was going to die and when he’d thought Bonnie was going to die had been nowhere to be found. He’d felt a supreme calm.

When people die, moving on always means being okay again. You're supposed to somehow be functional again after someone you built memories with has been taken from you.

Even when it's multiple someones?

Yes, according to.....everyone.

Because it’s completely understandable to love someone so much that you’d give your life for them. That’s understandable, relatable, and even encouraged. It is not understandable to love someone so much that losing them completely, maybe irrevocably, incapacitates you for months, maybe years, maybe until you die yourself. It’s not okay to be so down in the dumps that you can’t afford to think about it because you hurt too much, that kind of love is not understandable. You can’t love someone so much that you’d give your life for them in response to their death. So you’re supposed to take the fucking pain, accept the condolences, the sad looks because that’s as far and as deep as your loved one is supposed to affect you. Be sad. Cry. Maybe stumble a little, but not too much and not too far. And then move on.

Even when it’s multiple loved ones. Yes.

He held on to the fence, his fingers stark white and unnaturally cold. His throat bottled up and tears stung his eyes.

He cracked while being a functional adult, but first he died. That was when he came out of the dream state. The moment Sheriff Frobes‘ wooden bullet pierced his heart, his thought before he lost consciousness was, “Uncle John and aunt Jenna are dead, and so am I.”

It was after Bonnie brought him back to life that he felt, in the conventional way, Jenna and John’s deaths. It was then that he was sad. It was then that he wanted to cry. He’d wanted to tell Bonnie during their video chat, but he’d decided to wait. First he’d wanted to think about what had happened to them. Because up until that moment, he hadn’t thought about what had happened. He’d still been unconscious from Bonnie’s kiss after all. He thought about what happened as he fell asleep, that yes John was dead because he’d given his life for his sister, no warnings and no last words. Yes Jenna was dead because she’d been killed, thrusted into this new world and then ripped from both old and new. He’d made the decision to ask Elena how exactly Jenna had died, decided he would ask in the morning. And though his heart had felt more heavy than he could ever remember, he hadn’t felt the need to cope.

And then....the stupidest thing happened. He woke up (again he woke up), and he was faced with Vicky. A turn of his head and he was looking at Anna. And he looked at them for a long time. Unlike what would happen later, they didn’t immediately disappear the moment he laid eyes on them. They lingered. They stayed, as if giving him ample time to accept that he was really seeing them. And unlike with Jenna and John, he knew he wasn’t dreaming.

They’d both stared at him, and he’d stared at them. In the blink of an eye, Vicky had moved to stand next to Anna.

“Aren’t you gonna say something?” He hadn’t cared that Alaric was close, asleep on the couch and could very well wake up.

The ghosts had stood mute, just staring at him. Tearing up, he’d slowly lifted his hand to touch Vicky, somehow knowing what would happen but needing to do it, to see it, nonetheless. His fingers had gone through Vicky’s collarbone. He hadn’t snatched it back out of fear. Instead, he’d run his fingers across, inside her collarbone, and out her right side. He’d backed up until he hit the wall and then he’d slid to the floor. His heavy heart had finally spilled and he’d cried. And they’d watched. Had never made a move to come closer or to say anything. They’d watched him cry and finally, he’d been the one to leave them in the kitchen and go back upstairs.

His eyes had immediately fallen on his computer upon entering his room. He could call Bonnie. Right now. And she would answer. She wasn’t a heavy sleeper; he’d found out while they’d stayed at the witches’ house.

He made the decision not to call.

Red-eyed from crying and feeling like he had more tears to shed, he’d extra-carefully moved the computer from the foot of his bed onto his desk. He was done.

He gave up.

Being a functional, mature adult was not working. It was time he gave the other option a shot.

Something, (fate? destiny?) wanted him in perpetual despair. Why else would he start seeing ghosts at the very moment he was succeeding in thinking about John and Jenna’s double deaths in a rational manner?

He’d hated it. So he’d checked out. He’d followed fate or destiny to its completion with the ghosts while knowing in a recess of his mind that it was not what he wanted. But he didn’t want to keep dealing with dead people either, and that was surely happening.

He sniffed and slowly detached his fingers from the fence, irrationally afraid that he might break them. He watched the blood return to them and when he turned, Kol was looking at him. The machine was turned off and for the first time the vampire looked serious. It made his skin crawl.

Jeremy inhaled and tightened his mouth and puffed his chest. Kol loved watching him bottle it up.

Without a word, Jeremy grabbed Kol’s bat and went to turn on the machine. He breathed slowly as he bent his legs and waited when he just wanted to curl up and cry. He hit the first ball. “Have you ever been in love?”

“Love?” The amusement was back, and he was leaning on the fence with a foot up. “I assume you mean romantic love. No.”

“In a thousand years?”

“A lot of which was spent in a box. Hard to carry a relationship, mate.”

The closest he’d come to love was heavy infatuation. He was content to watch Niklaus destroy himself over the blond youngling, and he was content to watch Rebekah’s ever continuing quest to be wanted. He enjoyed sex. Sometimes he enjoyed flirting, especially with someone who had no interest in him, more than he enjoyed sex. But then he had to relieve the tension with someone who did want him.

“Do you want to be though?” He missed the next ball.

“I don’t care.”

Miss.

Connect.

Miss.

Miss.

“Do you want your witch back?”

“No. She doesn’t want me.”

“But do you want her back?”

“No.”

Kol wanted to tell him he was lying (he didn’t actually know whether he was or not), but that wasn’t the conversational thread he was interested in. “Fantastic.” He walked to Jeremy and took back his bat. “I look forward to the introductions when we get back.” The young human’s hand was stiff on the wood. Did he realize how tense he’d gotten when he’d come out of his reverie?

His smirk turned into a grin and he watched Jeremy go to the rest spot against the fence. It was interesting to watch his walk transform from fickle to steady, from someone who was lost to someone who had buried everything beneath another layer, all accomplished in seven steps. Personalities repeat. He’s seen it all before: the saviors, the heroes, the lost, the damsels. You hang around long enough and the problems and neuroses repeat too. What was interesting was seeing how they mix-up and manifest and watching the humans’ attempts at coping.

“Hey, uh, I’m ready to go soon.”

Jeremy was worn out. He needed to light up to slow his thoughts down. He’d considered asking Kol to reverse the first compulsion, so angry was he at the time the vampire had told him what happened, but he’d decided against it, and he was glad he had. Two much had happened to him since being compelled to forget Vicky’s death, and they were important things, things he didn’t want muddied by freed memories, and not knowing how Vicky died was part of that.

He had seen Bonnie the day after he’d seen the ghosts, and he’d mourned her the way he’d been mourning John and Jenna the night before. She’d seemed so....alive?....vibrant?....better? Better. She’d seemed so much better than him. It was like they were standing on different planes. They were different people. She had it together, knew what she wanted. She had a calling. He...was fucked up.

He’d held on to the relationship though. Her vacation away from Mystic Falls had made it easier for him to hold on and ride both of his worlds. And then she’d put an end to one. And then she’d put an end to the other by breaking up with him.

He had no idea what he was going to do when he saw Elena and Alaric and Damon again. And for a quick second the idea came to him to ask Kol to kill Damon. He was sure the Original vampire would be up to the task. It would certainly be a surprise if he returned to Mystic Falls with a new best friend.

He thought about the label: best friend. They weren’t, of course. Their friendship had an expiration date. Even if Kol, by some miracle, planned to defy Klaus and refuse to kill him, he knew his sister and the Salvatores and Bonnie were gunning to kill Kol.

“All right, I need to go. Now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“All right,” Kol said as he smacked the ball.

He watched Jeremy walk out of the batting cage, put his grey hoodie up, and shove his hands in the pockets of his sweater.

Kol shook his head and prepared for his next shot. When the ball came, he smacked it so hard that he put a whole in the fence opposite.

END