It may very well be the worst thing that's ever happened to you! | OPEN MINGLE

[vitaelamorte]

Who: EVERYONE!
Where: EVERYWHERE!
When: Friday October 27th - Tuesday October 31st
Rating: PG-13, warn if you're gonna go higher!
Summary: A catch all for the Horrible Memory Truth Event!
The Story:

For the duration of this event, everyone's entire room will be replaced with a memory playing on loop. They will likely recognize the moment as soon as they see it – it is a moment they remember as the worst moment of their entire lives. It could be a memory from home or something that happened in Wonderland. Lengths of the memories will vary, but they will find that these are not memories they can merely watch – they can step into these memories and attempt to make changes to them, and the memories will be long enough that they have time to make changes (though no more than 24 hours). However, anyone who tries will find that it is futile. No matter what you do or how hard you try, the outcome is always exactly the same somehow. No changes you make will prevent that horrible outcome. It just happens over and over and over again no matter what you do.

On top of that, perhaps complicating any attempts to make changes, everyone will be forced to be honest for the duration of the event. No lies or half-truths are allowed, and filters will be gone for the entire five days. If something bothers someone then they will blurt it out, regardless of whether or not it hurts someone's feelings, and no one will be able to simply keep quiet when they have something to say. They must be truthful and honest with every word they say.

This is a catch-all log for all of your Worst Memory needs! Please mark your threads clearly in the subject line with your character's name and Room Number + Floor for character rooms, or just location if you're making a top level for a public place in the mansion (like the tea rooms or the kitchen) so people can see if there's already a thread available. And here's the plot post if you need it!

Have fun!

Comments

[eyething]

Damon stares at the bottle like he doesn't know if he should take it or not. Beggars can't be choosers, right? He picks up the bottle from Klaus, downing some of it. He swallows it down like it's fire or acid, like it's water and he's thirsty. There's an empty bottle beside him that he got from Lucifer so he's already not so sober.

"Up until the point where I think I set Elena on fire in her sleep."

It'd be nice if he could even say the words without his voice choking especially in front of Klaus. He doesn't even question why he's here, why he cares to point anything out, why any of it. There's a carved out place inside of him that was supposed to give a shit about all that, and it just doesn't.

"That's less typical."

[poppycock]

Klaus is about a bottle and some change through already. Perhaps that is why he stops to offer Damon some liquid comfort. Perhaps that is why he decides to care enough — to bother enough — to do so. Or perhaps he sees no reason to stumble, deny, or question what has become a foundational, reliable, and inescapable truth: Damon Salvatore may not be a friend, but Klaus has ceased to see him first as an enemy. He has ceased to see him as a liability.

What he is, is an asset.

His perspective has shifted, and just as it has shifted regarding the vampire in front of him, so has it with the woman whose name slips past Damon's lips. Klaus stills, for despite his better sense and prior instincts, what he feels in that moment is a stricken horror. It creeps in and floods him, leaving him cold enough to barely register that waver in Damon's voice.

He cannot help the emotion naked on his face and it takes him a moment to consider the particular words Damon uses. Thinks. He thinks he set Elena on fire. It's enough for Klaus to temper his panic and dread, to abandon the beginning trickle of anger he decides not to consider too deeply.

Instead, he swallows thickly. (Elena is fine, he tells himself. Of course she is.) "Did you?" he asks, a level prompt for more. Klaus moves to fold himself next to Damon and reaches for his turn with the bottle.

[eyething]

"No. The Phoenix Stone has a funny way of fucking with your head even when you get out."

Damon doesn't forget that Stefan also tried to set him on fire when he escaped from the Phoenix Stone first. He thought it would make it stop, but he was stopped before he could do so, and Stefan knew it was him when he went in there with gasoline.

Why is it always fire?

Distantly, he hears the emotion in Klaus' face. This world has changed them. It's shifted the playing field, but he never forgets where the playing field started with all of them. It's clear Klaus cared that Elena could have actually been dead- set on fire by him. Maybe he would have done worse to him than Stefan if it'd been true (not that he would even- he wouldn't have been able to live with himself. He would have welcomed- welcomed every ounce of torturous pain and welcomed someone removing him from the face of every planet if he'd actually- actually killed her).

The question still pushes itself out of his chest where it's trapped.

"Why do you care?"

[poppycock]

He hadn't a clue it was possible to escape that stone, let alone the repercussions of doing so. Klaus files away that bit of information; it does so resemble the Hunter's curse. The bourbon burns with warmth on the way down; it burns and he lets that burn stifle the truth bursting to break free when Damon asks — he asks plainly, and Klaus knows he will find the words to answer, whether he wants to or not. Quietly, he begins. "I don't want to. But despite Wonderland's manipulations, it has been helpful."

It has brought them here, exchanging civil words and drink. It's meant they are not at war, not one that has to be waged on two fronts. It means he has allies, resources, hope. It has meant —

The words stick in his throat. He thinks of Elena as a girl in silver and green, how earnest and sure she was, how she told him what it meant to love like it's a secret between two people. He thinks of how she loved him. How he loved her. He knows, even though he doesn't want to know, that it isn't the answer. "It's not because she was like a sister, it's because I understand her now." He does. He does as much as she understands him.

The truth is, "I like being able to rely on both of you." His eyes look over to Damon then. It's what he's always wanted: loyalty. Friendship. Whatever approximation their terrible and precarious group has been. Klaus offers the bottle back. "Insofar as we will trust each other." He has not forgotten where they started either. "And for Caroline too."

[eyething]

"That's the pain in the ass, isn't it?" He smirks his understanding (they're too fucking alike sometimes, and Damon hates himself so much the time). "Not wanting to care doesn't stop you from caring. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, it's still there until eventually you can't run anymore and you give in. You get better. Not good. Just better."

Than before. Damon's better than before. He's grown. Damon's only vaguely aware there's a truth aspect to this Event. The truth came out due to what was behind his door, and the rest of the world has been an emotional haze ever since. Down is up, up is down. Nothing quite makes sense.

He reaches for the bottle, taking it in his hand, staring into it deeply. He's not sure if he can drink enough of it to make it feel less. Damon understands- He understands what Klaus means. He remembers the Event at Hogwarts. "Who knew all it would take to bring you two to a new level of understanding is Harry fucking Potter?"

Only in Wonderland.

[poppycock]

He hates that Damon is right. He can claim not to care until he is blue in the face, avoid it like the plague that is, but nothing can change what is true. Not even he. Lately, he's not sure he wants to. He does change for better. Not good. Never good, for someone like him — like them — does not have that capability, that privilege.

No matter what he was once or what he could have been, he will never be good again.

Klaus is quiets, stewing deep in these thoughts, but Damon's commentary is enough to beckon his attention. Klaus reaches over to take the bottle back, if Damon's just going to look at it. "Who know all it would take was a different dimension and some booze?" His own little joke, considering. He takes a long gulp and slides it back.

"We'll never be good," he says after. "And quite frankly I like to believe I've made my peace with that. Better to be good enough than not at all. Better to have the means and will to protect my family than sit idly by."