Massive Ficathon Post-Vampire Diaries
Okay, so I've been indulging in the TVD Comment Ficathon over at softly_me's journal, and I've done a poor job of keeping up the posting here. So here they are, all the prompts I have filled so far:
General Disclaimer: All belongs to LJ Smith-she's probably filthy rich at this point and that makes me happy, because I love all her stuff.
Spoilers: Up to 2.11, they vary from fic to fic, but everything so far is fair game.
Damon/Caroline, make you feel this pretty burn
She is, perhaps, his first true child. He has made other vampires over the years, but he has never stuck around long enough to see if they lived out the week (and he highly doubts many of them did). She is the only one he can claim has any sort of regular spot in his life and he never would have given it to her of his own free will.
But Katherine is tricky beyond even his ability to imagine. It would have been better if it had been random, a way of playing with them to celebrate her reappearance in their town. But Katherine is always with purpose and he doesn’t think she could do random even if she tried. Everything is a very carefully calculated move. Even if she doesn’t really understand what the game is until much later, Katherine would never indulge in chaos for the fun of it.
Caroline is not someone he would have considered vampire material. He’s been pretty close to ending her life numerous times because sometimes, she just fucking annoyed him. But she has been spared because of Elena, because of Liz, and because why would he waste the time in the first place?
She comes into unlife as most usually do-confused, scared, and hungry. Yet, she deals with it in an amazingly calm fashion. Compulsion comes to her as instinctively as blinking, and though she doesn’t really understand it he knows she loves the idea of it. There are times when she’s hanging around Stefan and there’s still hint of guilt in her eyes. Saint Stefan doesn’t see it but damn if Damon doesn’t recognize it. The first time Damon sees it, it is accompanied by a new pair of boots that she’s desperate to show off and hide at the same time.
He waits for the other shoe to drop, for her to become this snivelling, bitchy control freak who unleashes all her little insecurities out on the town in a bloody rampage. He’s waiting for it to go wrong, waiting for the chance to laugh in Stefan’s face and give Elena that ‘I told you so’ look that would make her simmer. But the chance doesn’t come because Caroline adjusts irritatingly well, and almost astonishingly quick.
Stefan is downright smug on the issue of Caroline for a few weeks.
~0~
Things start changing; she’s suddenly less troublesome and more of an asset. She saves him, saves him, at the risk of losing her mother. It is something he never would have expected from her, something he still has difficulty accepting (and the image of her tossing around Mason Lockwood like Elena says she did is as amusing as it is unreal). She is suddenly there, suddenly Caroline Forbes, suddenly his child and he hasn’t the slightest idea about what to do with her.
She comes around the boarding house more and more often, almost always with her arm linked with Elena’s. He pours her blood, and never once second guesses it or bothers to bitch about his dwindling supply. She is still tentative around him, and he knows that a large part of her hates him as much as ever. But she always ends up within a couple feet of him, like she can’t help but gravitating towards, can’t quell the desire to be near whenever she sees him. He likes the idea of her being unable to resist, but that’s not surprising. He likes most things that stroke his ego so thoroughly. But it also makes him wonder about what’s going on between them, if this maker/child thing comes with any advantages. Katherine wasn’t around to ever try or teach him about it, but he’s a fast learner and first-hand experience is better than any vampire lore.
He takes to the next step, making sure to engage in physical contact when he can. Brushing his fingers against hers as he offers her a glass, taking seats closest to her and letting his leg touch hers ever so lightly. Stefan sees this happening and frowns, but doesn’t know what to do about because Damon technically isn’t really doing anything at all. Elena notices too, watches with narrowed eyes that grow more suspicious by the day. Caroline, he believes, remains completely oblivious or unconcerned, because it’s Damon and she seems to have made up her mind to not try to understand him.
He thinks it hilarious that after everything he’s put her through, she can still consider anything he does as remotely harmless.
~0~
Things do not change significantly until he starts spiking her blood with his own. The idea comes to him while Elena and Alaric comb through some of Isobel’s research in an attempt to find mention of Klaus. Elena starts reading a handful of notes on vampire relations and family trees, and Isobel has made a strange notation in the margin about ‘blood to rule over blood’. It makes him think, makes him wonder, and finally he donates a few drops the next time he fixes Caroline a drink.
It takes a long time for anything to happen, but it is there in the tiniest of things. Her eyes can’t seem to be off him for long and soon enough, she’s showing up at the boarding house with little to no reason. She says she wants to ‘hang out’ and Damon watches in amusement as she fights to control the impulse to be near him, to touch him. Her hands raise often when in his vicinity, fingers grasping at the air and then retreating when their owner realizes what is about to happen. She is confused, almost adorably so, and this game with her is his favourite distraction from having to worry about Klaus and older vampires who can easily end his eternity.
He begins to up the dosage, going from a few drops to pints at a time. It does get harder to hide from Stefan, but he gets it done. And she’s nearly mad with the results. She shakes constantly in his presence and then she starts skipping school, racing to the boarding house just so she can be close to him. At this point, she can’t deny that something has happened, but she still can’t trace it back to him.
“Do you think something’s wrong with me?” she whispers, blue eyes wide and threatening tears. “Do you ever feel this way with Katherine?”
He shrugs and shakes his head, inwardly dancing when she starts touching him. It starts slowly, a hand on his arm or a knee pressed against his leg. It quickly devolves into full embraces, because this scares her and she thinks he’s actually trying to help.
He also notices that she seems to listen to him more than before. When he suggests doing little things, like getting him something from the kitchen to snack on or changing the channel when her television selections annoy him, she’s always quick to respond. He doesn’t want to push too hard with this at first, but he’s downright gleeful at the possibilities it presents. He mentions offhand one day that he likes her red sweater because red is a good colour on her. From that day on, Caroline has something red in her wardrobe at all times. He says one night that her hair looks better when straightened, and the curls vanish overnight. He flat out orders her to do her homework, and then randomly demands that she stop. Not once, in his entire two weeks of experimentation, does Caroline ever disobey him.
It’s too delicious for words, and troubling on different levels. It prompts a late-night visit to the tomb with a bag full of blood and a lot of questions.
“If I had had the time, I would have done the same to you two,” Katherine laughs when he demands an answer. “It’s the oldest trick in the book-the perfect way for vampires to create loyal little minions. Of course, you have to start almost immediately after they’re first made, or they never listen. Just look at you two, chomping at the bit to do me in for eternity, locking me in this hole in the ground-you never would have considered it if I had fed the maker/child bond when you turned.”
“You were too busy trying to save your own ass,” he counters, bitterly and painfully as ever. She just laughs at him, a cruel laugh, and waves him away dismissively.
“I pick me over anyone, any day of the damn week-but you might want to watch it with your little baby vampire. The others are bound to notice, and how will you explain an attempt at subjugation to your beloved Elena?”
Her laughter haunts him all the way home.
~0~
She becomes desperate to please him, and this isn’t how he wants her to be. It’s entirely too reminiscent of the time when he was compelling her. She gets annoying when she’s needy, and so he indulges her while pulling back on the blood. At one point he stops it entirely, and things get a bit better. She no longer shakes with the impulse to touch him and she stops skipping school just to spend time with him.
But she still listens, almost as well as she did at first. He wants to test the strength of it, wants to order her not to help the wolf anymore. But he worries that it’s too much of a one-eighty and that it would put the others on his trail. And besides, he does want someone watching over the mutt, keeping him far away on the nights of the full moon. But he finds himself curiously concerned for her as well, not liking the idea of her being the first line of defence against a rampaging werewolf. He doesn’t like considering that she could get hurt, could die if Tyler Lockwood ever so much as nicks her with one of his wolf teeth. It makes him courteous around her, caring and gentler than he usually is with her. She doesn’t say a thing about the change, but he sees that it pleases her in the smile she struggles to keep at bay.
He is not so amused, and Katherine is once again less than helpful.
“Oh, did I forget to mention the backlash on your part? Oops.”
~0~
It takes too long for her to transition to his bed.
He doesn’t even realize that he’s been craving it until the day it happens. She’s come by after cheerleading practice and Stefan is gone, doing something somewhere that Damon can’t bother to care about. All he can see is Caroline’s legs, bared for all to see because of that skimpy scrap of clothing she calls ‘shorts’. They trade barbs about her attire over glasses of blood and when he finally pulls her into his lap, her face is full of relief.
He takes her first on the couch, spilling the remnants of his drink over her lace-covered breasts. The sight of blood against smooth pale skin does nothing to calm his hunger. His tongue laps up the spilt blood even as his hands tear away every shred of clothing on her body. She shrieks in unabashed delight when he thrusts into her the first time, so joyous at their union that he’s soon kissing away the tears from her cheeks.
He is unrestrained that first time, plunges in and out of her with every ounce of his strength. It hurts her a tad bit, he can tell from the way she bites down on her lip and tries to swallow ragged gasps. But he can’t stop, won’t stop, and the fact that she can take it now drives him into a frenzy of lust and want. He comes shouting her name and she squeezes herself around him while riding out her first climax.
He topples onto her afterwards, gazing up at her face with dazed eyes. His view is partially obscured by the sight of her heaving chest and the rise and fall of pert little breasts make him hard again. Once more he has her in the living room, this time bent over a side table while he pounded into her from behind. She makes delightful little grunting noises, arches her backside against him just so, and it’s such a perfect fit that his eyes cross when she comes, tightening her inner hold on him to the point where it’s almost painful-but it’s a good kind of pain.
They stay still after that, him slumped over her back while she laid face-down on the table top. He says something about Liz, about having to get Caroline home to her mother. Cheekily, she suggests calling in and asking for permission to stay over at Elena’s for the night.
Then she wiggles back against him and he dials the damn phone for her.
~0~
She tells him later that she can feel him inside her, even when they’re far apart. He knows what she means, has spent hours the last three days pulling himself in and out of her psyche. It happens the first few times by accident, and he’s treated to a rather boring history lecture from Alaric that never seems to be as important as how nice his rear end looked in his new jeans. It takes him a little too long to realize that these are Caroline’s thoughts (and how relieved does that make him feel?).
She worries about it, says she feels as if she’s losing grip on who she is because her mind is so full of him. And for a second he considers telling her what he has done, the experiment he conducted out of boredom that now seems to be ruining her life. He thinks of telling her, of watching her explosion, and then seeing if he can order her not to be angry about it.
But instead he flips her over, liking the image of a naked Caroline sprawled out on his sheets, and tells her not to worry about it at all. She frowns for a second, but he makes her smile seconds later by putting his mouth to work on the more sensitive parts of her body.
He probably should stop it, but when she’s got her legs wrapped around his hips and is meeting him thrust for thrust, he just doesn’t feel like it anymore.
Besides, he reasons while she kisses a path down his body, it’s not like he can’t handle the consequences. And when she draws him into her mouth, he hisses and arches his back and then completely forgets why he ever wanted this to end.
~0~
Damon/Caroline, death is your gift
Sobbing. She is sobbing as if her heart is broken, as if her world is shattered. There's a body at her feet and blood on her face and tears on cheeks.
"Stop crying," he orders, voice as cool and unimpressed as always. "Grab his wrists, I'll get the ankles. We're really going to have to find a new spot. That ravine is getting crowded."
She only cries harder.
"Stop it!" he snaps, calm demeanour fading fast under the noise of her remorse. "We can't waste time like this! Move it!"
She shakes her head and bends over the body to weep some more.
He rolls his eyes (these people give him a headache with all the eye-rolling they induce) and he grabs her roughly by the arm. She shrieks and flails, tries her best to get away. He lets her go and she falls on her butt before she starts scrambling backwards.
"Honestly, not a big deal," he shakes his head at her.
"I killed him!" she screams, angry starting to override the fear. "I killed him! It's a very big deal!"
"Well, if you pitch a fit each time you do it," he smirks at her. "What did you think would happen? You'd go through eternity and never spill another drop of blood?"
"Stefan-"
"Stefan's not here!" he roars, suddenly in her space again. He grabs her by both arms and propels her backwards until they collide with a tree. The air goes out of her lungs and the pain to the back of her head is momentarily blinding. He continues on, not noticing (and not caring) that he's done her harm. "You're a goddamn vampire-and sometimes, these things happen. Learn from your damn mistake, and get on with it! You spend all your timing mourning and freaking out over every little human-you'll go crazy!"
"I won't be like you," she gasps, futilely pushing at his shoulders. "I'm not like you! I won't get over it!"
He leans in close and she goes still, at that moment reminded of the monster he can be. His eyes are on her chin, fascinated by the smear of scarlet there. "You're a messy eater," he muses, his tongue soon sliding out and lapping at the 'mess'.
Another sob, tears trailing down over cheeks to add salt to his copper treat. He sighs, pulls back, and brushes her hair off her face with alarming tenderness. "You can't do this, every time," he tells her, in a voice much calmer and more resigned than before. "You can't do it-your mind can't take it. Caroline, it's what we are."
He steps back and she slides to her feet, sniffling, shivering, but controlled at last.
"Grab his wrists," he tells her again, but kinder than before. She glares, mutinously, and wipes away the last traces of blood and saliva from her chin.
And then she grabs the dead man by the wrists.
Stefan/Caroline/Damon, hanging out and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer
It comes in the middle of the night, minutes before midnight, and shatters the silence of the boarding house. He checks the caller id, and waits a second before answering. A tired greeting is on his lips, poised to be dropped but never delivered.
“Do we still have souls?”
He honestly doesn’t know how these thoughts come to her, but they come at random times and in the most illogical order. She had once started texting him madly at four in the morning, demanding to know if they can be photographed like normal people. She never gives reasons for these questions, and maybe he’s indulged her too often because they seem to come with greater frequency now than ever before.
“Excuse me?” he delays, hoping to avoid the outrageously complicated topic of vampires and souls. He’s been around a hundred and sixty-two years-he’s seen this debate go in circles.
“Do we still have souls?” she is as impatient as always, and now speaks slowly as he’s some dull-witted child that constantly needs reminders to stay on topic. “Do we?”
“Caroline, I-“
“Because a lot of people don’t think we do,” she carries on, without giving him time to blink, let alone respond. “Vampires aren’t human; almost everyone thinks they’re demons. And demons don’t have souls. So, are we demons? Are we living dead people? Where are our souls, Stefan?”
“Caroline-“
“Stefan,” her tone goes from impatient to soft and needy in just one breath. “Do we have our souls?”
He should tell her yes. He should assure her that those tales are just myths and folktales. He should tell her that she’ll still be able to go to Heaven whenever it ends, because that’s what she’s really worried about.
But he’s not sure. And he can’t lie to her about these things. “I don’t know, Caroline. I really don’t.”
She hangs up without another word. He looks down at his suddenly dark phone and feels like he’s done something massively stupid.
“Can’t you just feed her some false hope?” Damon calls from the doorway, unashamed by his overt eavesdropping. “She might stop bugging you at all hours with dumbass questions if you do.”
Stefan glares at his brother, feeling worn out and short on patience for reasons they both understood too well. “Someone has to be real with her. Someone has to take responsibility for her.”
Damon’s eyes flash with a fleeting second of anger. “I didn’t make her into this,” he mutters grumpily. “She’s the last damn person I would have made into this.”
“And look at how many times she’s still saved your ass, in spite of that,” Stefan shakes his head at his brother and lies down on his bed. “I know Katherine killed her, but she’s yours, Damon. If you can’t be bothered to deal with her, who’s left to help her through this?”
“Always the martyr,” Damon rolls his eyes and departs, making sure to slam his bedroom door shut behind him. Stefan just stares up at his ceiling, trying hard not to think of Elena and failing.
~0~
“Do our reflections mean we have souls?”
The next day (night) and she’s still on the soul issue. Stefan tries in vain to rub the sleep from his eyes. “Caroline, it’s three in the morning.”
She snorts. “What? You were sleeping?”
“Yeah, I was,” Stefan retorts, trying to keep the irritation from presenting itself too clearly.
“But do you really need to?”
And he can’t help but laugh at that, because she is as relentless as ever. There’s something very reassuring about Caroline’s ability to remain bossy and neurotic even in the midst of all this Katherine crap.
“What was the question?” he asks, a small smile on his lips that he knows she can sense, because her voice returns perky and almost smugly-satisfied.
“Does the fact that we have reflections mean we have souls?”
Stefan pulls himself into a sitting position, leaning his back against his headboard. “I honestly don’t see the connection, Caroline.”
“Well, all the soulless vampires in myths and stuff have no reflections,” she explains hurriedly. “It’s because they have no reflection of humanity, just a mask. So does that mean we have souls because we have reflections? Does it work like that like, or was somebody hundreds of years ago bullshitting for the sake of drama?”
His phone is pulled from his ear a millisecond after he notices that Damon has entered his room. Damon puts the phone to his ear before throwing himself into Stefan’s desk chair. “Blondie this soul-kick of yours gets increasingly tedious as the days go by. Why the sudden fascination?”
Stefan gives his brother a look and listens for Caroline’s response. There is a lengthy pause before: “Damon?”
Damon covers the speaker and glares at his brother. “See why I don’t like talking to her?”
“And see how I hate talking to you just as much, as evident by my dialling Stefan?” Caroline snaps before Stefan can admonish his brother. “Give the phone back.”
Damon smirks. “No.”
“No?”
Stefan frowns. “No?”
“You’re my own child, as someone keeps reminding me,” Damon narrows his eyes at his brother before continuing. “So I’m going to be the best vampire-daddy in the world and help you with your problem. Tell daddy what’s troubling you.”
“Give Stefan the phone.”
Stefan waves a hand at his brother. “Give me the phone.”
Damon waves him off and then frowns. “What’s that in the background? Are you watching TV or something?”
“Damon, I want to talk to-“
“Hey, I know that voice!” Damon sits upright and looks slightly stumped. “That’s what brought on the deep, philosophical pondering on the status of your soul? Seriously, Blondie?”
Stefan hears the soft click and Damon just switches his incredulous look to the darkened phone before looking to his brother. “I’m father to the immortal Pamela Anderson, aren’t I?”
Stefan glares at his brother. “Damon-“
“Nah, you’re right,” Damon tosses Stefan his phone and walks to the door, shaking his head. “Blondie’s not plastic enough to be Pam Anderson, and she’s not quite as slutty as Paris Hilton-but still, this is seriously just . . .”
“What?” Stefan calls after him. Damon waves him off and heads downstairs, no doubt towards the alcohol. Stefan follows him and demands from the top of the staircase. “What?”
Damon just shakes his head again.
~0~
Two nights after that, Caroline is standing in their living room with her arms folded defensively over her chest. “Well, where else was I supposed to get my information from?” she asks, her tone surlier than probably necessary.
Stefan tries his best to hide a smile, knows that he probably fails, and raises his hand slightly in the air. She turns the full force of her glare on him and it’s still too funny for him to take seriously. His small smile becomes full-blown and it’s really hard not to laugh when Caroline gets like this.
“Stop laughing!” she pouts and actually stomps her foot much like a child. “I had questions-“
Damon waves a DVD cover at her and arches an eyebrow. “So you turned to Buffy?”
She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out but a puff of air. She screws her face up into something that is perhaps supposed to be threatening, but is ridiculous in light of the situation. She looks to him, face pleading for assistance, but even he can’t help in this case. Sometimes, Caroline just does it to herself.
“You know, just because she’s blond doesn’t mean she’s a good role model,” Damon continues. “She kills vampires, which is not good if you’re a vampire. And Blondie, though I wonder sometimes, you totally are. But on the other hand, I’m sort of proud. At least it’s not Twilight.”
“Sure, laugh, but you know that has your life stories in it, right?” Caroline gives him a smug look. “The love triangle to end all love triangles-until Sookie, Eric, and Bill anyway.”
“Maybe we should just get Liz to cut the cable,” Damon muses to Stefan. Stefan just takes the DVD cover from him and looks to the back.
“How is this at all like us?” he can’t help but wonder.
“Oh, I don’t know, mysterious brooding vampire who has sworn off human blood because of the guilt it causes him,” Caroline rolls her eyes. “Do you really not see?”
“I have a feeling I’m not going to like this,” Damon says, but he’s still smirking for all he’s worth. He throws himself onto the couch and waves his hand, motioning for her to continue.
“Could you be any more Angel?” Caroline continues, eyeing Stefan critically. “I mean, sometimes you even look like his promo shots-furrowed brow and all.”
Damon laughs uproariously and Stefan is sure if he was human, his face would be red. Caroline arches a brow at him challengingly and then slides her eyes towards Damon.
“And you, what can I say about you?” she shakes her head. “The only real way you’re different from Spike is that he’s blond and British, and you’re dark-haired and American. Otherwise, you two are exactly the same. Both are into carefully orchestrated chaos that hide larger master plans, both infatuated with the vampire that made you-a crazy ass bitch in both cases. And when she dumps you, you focus on a girl who is her complete and utter opposite. You become obsessive, ignoring the fact that she’s in love with someone else. You try changing for her, hoping to please her but you can’t quite manage it because you’ve been self-destructive so long that it’s the only real thing you’re good at. And neither of you realizes that curbing your actions to gain the affections of a girl is not the real, substantial change you need to ever have a chance with her in the first place.”
Damon’s face drops with every word she says. It goes from amused and teasing to dark and threatening, but Caroline doesn’t care to stop. Stefan gets to his feet and steps in front of her before things can get too far. He gives his brother a warning look and shakes his head at Caroline’s smug expression.
“You got all that from a TV show?” he asks, slightly incredulous.
She gives him a blank look. “Don’t you see it?”
“Never really watched it,” he admits, and that’s enough for both Damon and Caroline to forget their previous showdown.
“What? You never watched Buffy?” Caroline looks at him in wide-eyed disbelief and then glances over at his brother. “Is that even allowed?”
“It’s a pretty big part of pop culture,” Damon shakes his head. “Of course, Stefan’s so busy pretending to be a teenager that he hardly ever pays attention to the things that teenagers actually enjoy.”
He feels absurdly betrayed as Caroline joins Damon in laughing at his expense. “It’s just a TV show,” he mutters defensively. Caroline squawks at his statement and Damon just snorts.
“Put that thing in the player,” he orders Caroline, and she listens without protesting for once. He allows himself to be pulled to couch while Damon disappears to get the appropriate snacks.
“I think I liked it better when you two were fighting each other,” Stefan huffs and she just laughs at him.
“Stefan, I adore you, but if you’re going to be my mentor, you need to know how to field all Buffy related inquiries,” she beams at him. “Think of how much of an easier time you would have had all these weeks if you had just watched a couple of episodes.”
He doesn’t reply, shoots her a suffering sort of look that she just laughs at. Damon arrives, arms loaded with food, drinks, and bags of blood. He tosses a particular bag at Caroline and she catches it before looking down in surprise.
“Tostitos?” she gives Damon a curious look and Damon ignores her as he grabs the remote. She looks to Stefan and raises the bag, a happy smile start to blossom on her face. He tries to remember that he’s annoyed with her, but fails and just smiles back.
Damon turns on the TV. “Let’s do this-bring it, Sunnydale!”
Caroline giggles and leans over to whisper in Stefan’s ear. “What a fanboy,” she murmurs and of course Damon hears her. A pillow comes flying their way just as the opening credits start blaring out from the speakers.
~0~
Stefan/Caroline/Damon,Are you saying we should annoy other people?
It takes the fourth argument over the Tostitos to finally break him.
“Enough! You’re not children!”
Two pairs of blue eyes stare back at him, unblinking. One pair, ice blue and unrepentant to the core, simply roll upwards after his declaration and their owner scoffs loudly. The second pair, darker blue with flecks of white and gold, drop downwards as their owner suddenly finds her boots unbelievably interesting. Apathy on one hand and shame on the other-and he feels like taking both their heads and smashing them together until the arguing stops. He doesn’t even care if it stops through apologies or unconsciousness; he just wants it to stop.
Stefan shakes his head and takes in the ruins of the living room. There’s shattered glass and crushed tortilla chips all over the carpet, the coffee table is upended and missing a leg, some books have been toppled from the shelves, and there’s a fire poker jammed in the ceiling.
“It’s a stupid bag of chips!” he growls, rubbing at his eyes tiredly. “Just chips! You can go to the store and get some more.”
“It’s my house-“
“I bought those-“
“Or just share!” he cuts them off before they can get started once again. “Honestly? I don’t even think this is about the chips. Damon, stop trying to order Caroline around so much, and Caroline, stop trying to get on Damon’s last nerve all the time. If you can’t manage that, at least take this outside of the house! I can’t keep up with all the repairs!”
Damon frowns and exchanges a curious look with Caroline. “So, are you saying that we should start annoying other people, instead of just you?”
“Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying.”
Caroline pouts and folds her arms across her chest. “You don’t even want to have us get along? You don’t even want to try for peace?”
Stefan throws up his hands. “If I thought it would do any good, then maybe. But with the way you two have been acting-“
“Told you!” Damon suddenly turns on his heel, completely ignoring his brother to invade Caroline’s personal space with the smuggest expression he can muster. “He has a limit.”
Caroline doesn’t bother to acknowledge him, instead is content to glare unhappily at Stefan. “You couldn’t hold on for two more fights? Just two?”
He’s confused, but not entirely slow on the uptake. He watches Damon chortle and Caroline fume and comes to the right conclusion. “You two were faking?”
“Well, mostly,” Caroline wrinkles her nose and tries to push Damon away. When she fails to move his brother, she attempts stepping away, but Damon follows. She sighs and then shakes her head. “He’s a suffocating, overbearing, out-of-control bipolar maniac, and he does eat my chips without asking even though I have to ‘ask nicely’ if I want so much as a glass of scotch-“
“Glass?” Damon clucks his tongue disapprovingly. “Last time I checked, half the decanter is a tad more than just a glass.”
“Why?” Stefan demands, of the two of them, of the house, of the town, of the universe-of everyone and everything.
Caroline has the sense to look a bit contrite by this point. “Well, we were bored and Damon said he has more patience than me, and then I said at least you beat us both in that department, and then Damon said he could get you to snap fairly quickly, and then I said something about you putting on a better front than that-“
“And then, and then, and then,” Damon rolls his eyes and gives his brother a teasing smirk. “And then, I won the bet, so Blondie gives up remote control rights for the rest of forever.”
Caroline’s back to looking sour and her glare towards Stefan is matched with one of his own. “You’re both idiots,” is all he says before stomping for the door.
“What else do you want us to do?” he can hear Damon shouting after him. “It’s the mid-season! No new episodes of anything until January! January!”
Caroline takes the time to notice the destruction around her. “That was my last bag, you know.”
Stefan slams the door shut behind him.
Idiots. The both of them.
~0~
General Disclaimer: All belongs to LJ Smith-she's probably filthy rich at this point and that makes me happy, because I love all her stuff.
Spoilers: Up to 2.11, they vary from fic to fic, but everything so far is fair game.
Damon/Caroline, make you feel this pretty burn
She is, perhaps, his first true child. He has made other vampires over the years, but he has never stuck around long enough to see if they lived out the week (and he highly doubts many of them did). She is the only one he can claim has any sort of regular spot in his life and he never would have given it to her of his own free will.
But Katherine is tricky beyond even his ability to imagine. It would have been better if it had been random, a way of playing with them to celebrate her reappearance in their town. But Katherine is always with purpose and he doesn’t think she could do random even if she tried. Everything is a very carefully calculated move. Even if she doesn’t really understand what the game is until much later, Katherine would never indulge in chaos for the fun of it.
Caroline is not someone he would have considered vampire material. He’s been pretty close to ending her life numerous times because sometimes, she just fucking annoyed him. But she has been spared because of Elena, because of Liz, and because why would he waste the time in the first place?
She comes into unlife as most usually do-confused, scared, and hungry. Yet, she deals with it in an amazingly calm fashion. Compulsion comes to her as instinctively as blinking, and though she doesn’t really understand it he knows she loves the idea of it. There are times when she’s hanging around Stefan and there’s still hint of guilt in her eyes. Saint Stefan doesn’t see it but damn if Damon doesn’t recognize it. The first time Damon sees it, it is accompanied by a new pair of boots that she’s desperate to show off and hide at the same time.
He waits for the other shoe to drop, for her to become this snivelling, bitchy control freak who unleashes all her little insecurities out on the town in a bloody rampage. He’s waiting for it to go wrong, waiting for the chance to laugh in Stefan’s face and give Elena that ‘I told you so’ look that would make her simmer. But the chance doesn’t come because Caroline adjusts irritatingly well, and almost astonishingly quick.
Stefan is downright smug on the issue of Caroline for a few weeks.
~0~
Things start changing; she’s suddenly less troublesome and more of an asset. She saves him, saves him, at the risk of losing her mother. It is something he never would have expected from her, something he still has difficulty accepting (and the image of her tossing around Mason Lockwood like Elena says she did is as amusing as it is unreal). She is suddenly there, suddenly Caroline Forbes, suddenly his child and he hasn’t the slightest idea about what to do with her.
She comes around the boarding house more and more often, almost always with her arm linked with Elena’s. He pours her blood, and never once second guesses it or bothers to bitch about his dwindling supply. She is still tentative around him, and he knows that a large part of her hates him as much as ever. But she always ends up within a couple feet of him, like she can’t help but gravitating towards, can’t quell the desire to be near whenever she sees him. He likes the idea of her being unable to resist, but that’s not surprising. He likes most things that stroke his ego so thoroughly. But it also makes him wonder about what’s going on between them, if this maker/child thing comes with any advantages. Katherine wasn’t around to ever try or teach him about it, but he’s a fast learner and first-hand experience is better than any vampire lore.
He takes to the next step, making sure to engage in physical contact when he can. Brushing his fingers against hers as he offers her a glass, taking seats closest to her and letting his leg touch hers ever so lightly. Stefan sees this happening and frowns, but doesn’t know what to do about because Damon technically isn’t really doing anything at all. Elena notices too, watches with narrowed eyes that grow more suspicious by the day. Caroline, he believes, remains completely oblivious or unconcerned, because it’s Damon and she seems to have made up her mind to not try to understand him.
He thinks it hilarious that after everything he’s put her through, she can still consider anything he does as remotely harmless.
~0~
Things do not change significantly until he starts spiking her blood with his own. The idea comes to him while Elena and Alaric comb through some of Isobel’s research in an attempt to find mention of Klaus. Elena starts reading a handful of notes on vampire relations and family trees, and Isobel has made a strange notation in the margin about ‘blood to rule over blood’. It makes him think, makes him wonder, and finally he donates a few drops the next time he fixes Caroline a drink.
It takes a long time for anything to happen, but it is there in the tiniest of things. Her eyes can’t seem to be off him for long and soon enough, she’s showing up at the boarding house with little to no reason. She says she wants to ‘hang out’ and Damon watches in amusement as she fights to control the impulse to be near him, to touch him. Her hands raise often when in his vicinity, fingers grasping at the air and then retreating when their owner realizes what is about to happen. She is confused, almost adorably so, and this game with her is his favourite distraction from having to worry about Klaus and older vampires who can easily end his eternity.
He begins to up the dosage, going from a few drops to pints at a time. It does get harder to hide from Stefan, but he gets it done. And she’s nearly mad with the results. She shakes constantly in his presence and then she starts skipping school, racing to the boarding house just so she can be close to him. At this point, she can’t deny that something has happened, but she still can’t trace it back to him.
“Do you think something’s wrong with me?” she whispers, blue eyes wide and threatening tears. “Do you ever feel this way with Katherine?”
He shrugs and shakes his head, inwardly dancing when she starts touching him. It starts slowly, a hand on his arm or a knee pressed against his leg. It quickly devolves into full embraces, because this scares her and she thinks he’s actually trying to help.
He also notices that she seems to listen to him more than before. When he suggests doing little things, like getting him something from the kitchen to snack on or changing the channel when her television selections annoy him, she’s always quick to respond. He doesn’t want to push too hard with this at first, but he’s downright gleeful at the possibilities it presents. He mentions offhand one day that he likes her red sweater because red is a good colour on her. From that day on, Caroline has something red in her wardrobe at all times. He says one night that her hair looks better when straightened, and the curls vanish overnight. He flat out orders her to do her homework, and then randomly demands that she stop. Not once, in his entire two weeks of experimentation, does Caroline ever disobey him.
It’s too delicious for words, and troubling on different levels. It prompts a late-night visit to the tomb with a bag full of blood and a lot of questions.
“If I had had the time, I would have done the same to you two,” Katherine laughs when he demands an answer. “It’s the oldest trick in the book-the perfect way for vampires to create loyal little minions. Of course, you have to start almost immediately after they’re first made, or they never listen. Just look at you two, chomping at the bit to do me in for eternity, locking me in this hole in the ground-you never would have considered it if I had fed the maker/child bond when you turned.”
“You were too busy trying to save your own ass,” he counters, bitterly and painfully as ever. She just laughs at him, a cruel laugh, and waves him away dismissively.
“I pick me over anyone, any day of the damn week-but you might want to watch it with your little baby vampire. The others are bound to notice, and how will you explain an attempt at subjugation to your beloved Elena?”
Her laughter haunts him all the way home.
~0~
She becomes desperate to please him, and this isn’t how he wants her to be. It’s entirely too reminiscent of the time when he was compelling her. She gets annoying when she’s needy, and so he indulges her while pulling back on the blood. At one point he stops it entirely, and things get a bit better. She no longer shakes with the impulse to touch him and she stops skipping school just to spend time with him.
But she still listens, almost as well as she did at first. He wants to test the strength of it, wants to order her not to help the wolf anymore. But he worries that it’s too much of a one-eighty and that it would put the others on his trail. And besides, he does want someone watching over the mutt, keeping him far away on the nights of the full moon. But he finds himself curiously concerned for her as well, not liking the idea of her being the first line of defence against a rampaging werewolf. He doesn’t like considering that she could get hurt, could die if Tyler Lockwood ever so much as nicks her with one of his wolf teeth. It makes him courteous around her, caring and gentler than he usually is with her. She doesn’t say a thing about the change, but he sees that it pleases her in the smile she struggles to keep at bay.
He is not so amused, and Katherine is once again less than helpful.
“Oh, did I forget to mention the backlash on your part? Oops.”
~0~
It takes too long for her to transition to his bed.
He doesn’t even realize that he’s been craving it until the day it happens. She’s come by after cheerleading practice and Stefan is gone, doing something somewhere that Damon can’t bother to care about. All he can see is Caroline’s legs, bared for all to see because of that skimpy scrap of clothing she calls ‘shorts’. They trade barbs about her attire over glasses of blood and when he finally pulls her into his lap, her face is full of relief.
He takes her first on the couch, spilling the remnants of his drink over her lace-covered breasts. The sight of blood against smooth pale skin does nothing to calm his hunger. His tongue laps up the spilt blood even as his hands tear away every shred of clothing on her body. She shrieks in unabashed delight when he thrusts into her the first time, so joyous at their union that he’s soon kissing away the tears from her cheeks.
He is unrestrained that first time, plunges in and out of her with every ounce of his strength. It hurts her a tad bit, he can tell from the way she bites down on her lip and tries to swallow ragged gasps. But he can’t stop, won’t stop, and the fact that she can take it now drives him into a frenzy of lust and want. He comes shouting her name and she squeezes herself around him while riding out her first climax.
He topples onto her afterwards, gazing up at her face with dazed eyes. His view is partially obscured by the sight of her heaving chest and the rise and fall of pert little breasts make him hard again. Once more he has her in the living room, this time bent over a side table while he pounded into her from behind. She makes delightful little grunting noises, arches her backside against him just so, and it’s such a perfect fit that his eyes cross when she comes, tightening her inner hold on him to the point where it’s almost painful-but it’s a good kind of pain.
They stay still after that, him slumped over her back while she laid face-down on the table top. He says something about Liz, about having to get Caroline home to her mother. Cheekily, she suggests calling in and asking for permission to stay over at Elena’s for the night.
Then she wiggles back against him and he dials the damn phone for her.
~0~
She tells him later that she can feel him inside her, even when they’re far apart. He knows what she means, has spent hours the last three days pulling himself in and out of her psyche. It happens the first few times by accident, and he’s treated to a rather boring history lecture from Alaric that never seems to be as important as how nice his rear end looked in his new jeans. It takes him a little too long to realize that these are Caroline’s thoughts (and how relieved does that make him feel?).
She worries about it, says she feels as if she’s losing grip on who she is because her mind is so full of him. And for a second he considers telling her what he has done, the experiment he conducted out of boredom that now seems to be ruining her life. He thinks of telling her, of watching her explosion, and then seeing if he can order her not to be angry about it.
But instead he flips her over, liking the image of a naked Caroline sprawled out on his sheets, and tells her not to worry about it at all. She frowns for a second, but he makes her smile seconds later by putting his mouth to work on the more sensitive parts of her body.
He probably should stop it, but when she’s got her legs wrapped around his hips and is meeting him thrust for thrust, he just doesn’t feel like it anymore.
Besides, he reasons while she kisses a path down his body, it’s not like he can’t handle the consequences. And when she draws him into her mouth, he hisses and arches his back and then completely forgets why he ever wanted this to end.
~0~
Damon/Caroline, death is your gift
Sobbing. She is sobbing as if her heart is broken, as if her world is shattered. There's a body at her feet and blood on her face and tears on cheeks.
"Stop crying," he orders, voice as cool and unimpressed as always. "Grab his wrists, I'll get the ankles. We're really going to have to find a new spot. That ravine is getting crowded."
She only cries harder.
"Stop it!" he snaps, calm demeanour fading fast under the noise of her remorse. "We can't waste time like this! Move it!"
She shakes her head and bends over the body to weep some more.
He rolls his eyes (these people give him a headache with all the eye-rolling they induce) and he grabs her roughly by the arm. She shrieks and flails, tries her best to get away. He lets her go and she falls on her butt before she starts scrambling backwards.
"Honestly, not a big deal," he shakes his head at her.
"I killed him!" she screams, angry starting to override the fear. "I killed him! It's a very big deal!"
"Well, if you pitch a fit each time you do it," he smirks at her. "What did you think would happen? You'd go through eternity and never spill another drop of blood?"
"Stefan-"
"Stefan's not here!" he roars, suddenly in her space again. He grabs her by both arms and propels her backwards until they collide with a tree. The air goes out of her lungs and the pain to the back of her head is momentarily blinding. He continues on, not noticing (and not caring) that he's done her harm. "You're a goddamn vampire-and sometimes, these things happen. Learn from your damn mistake, and get on with it! You spend all your timing mourning and freaking out over every little human-you'll go crazy!"
"I won't be like you," she gasps, futilely pushing at his shoulders. "I'm not like you! I won't get over it!"
He leans in close and she goes still, at that moment reminded of the monster he can be. His eyes are on her chin, fascinated by the smear of scarlet there. "You're a messy eater," he muses, his tongue soon sliding out and lapping at the 'mess'.
Another sob, tears trailing down over cheeks to add salt to his copper treat. He sighs, pulls back, and brushes her hair off her face with alarming tenderness. "You can't do this, every time," he tells her, in a voice much calmer and more resigned than before. "You can't do it-your mind can't take it. Caroline, it's what we are."
He steps back and she slides to her feet, sniffling, shivering, but controlled at last.
"Grab his wrists," he tells her again, but kinder than before. She glares, mutinously, and wipes away the last traces of blood and saliva from her chin.
And then she grabs the dead man by the wrists.
Stefan/Caroline/Damon, hanging out and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer
It comes in the middle of the night, minutes before midnight, and shatters the silence of the boarding house. He checks the caller id, and waits a second before answering. A tired greeting is on his lips, poised to be dropped but never delivered.
“Do we still have souls?”
He honestly doesn’t know how these thoughts come to her, but they come at random times and in the most illogical order. She had once started texting him madly at four in the morning, demanding to know if they can be photographed like normal people. She never gives reasons for these questions, and maybe he’s indulged her too often because they seem to come with greater frequency now than ever before.
“Excuse me?” he delays, hoping to avoid the outrageously complicated topic of vampires and souls. He’s been around a hundred and sixty-two years-he’s seen this debate go in circles.
“Do we still have souls?” she is as impatient as always, and now speaks slowly as he’s some dull-witted child that constantly needs reminders to stay on topic. “Do we?”
“Caroline, I-“
“Because a lot of people don’t think we do,” she carries on, without giving him time to blink, let alone respond. “Vampires aren’t human; almost everyone thinks they’re demons. And demons don’t have souls. So, are we demons? Are we living dead people? Where are our souls, Stefan?”
“Caroline-“
“Stefan,” her tone goes from impatient to soft and needy in just one breath. “Do we have our souls?”
He should tell her yes. He should assure her that those tales are just myths and folktales. He should tell her that she’ll still be able to go to Heaven whenever it ends, because that’s what she’s really worried about.
But he’s not sure. And he can’t lie to her about these things. “I don’t know, Caroline. I really don’t.”
She hangs up without another word. He looks down at his suddenly dark phone and feels like he’s done something massively stupid.
“Can’t you just feed her some false hope?” Damon calls from the doorway, unashamed by his overt eavesdropping. “She might stop bugging you at all hours with dumbass questions if you do.”
Stefan glares at his brother, feeling worn out and short on patience for reasons they both understood too well. “Someone has to be real with her. Someone has to take responsibility for her.”
Damon’s eyes flash with a fleeting second of anger. “I didn’t make her into this,” he mutters grumpily. “She’s the last damn person I would have made into this.”
“And look at how many times she’s still saved your ass, in spite of that,” Stefan shakes his head at his brother and lies down on his bed. “I know Katherine killed her, but she’s yours, Damon. If you can’t be bothered to deal with her, who’s left to help her through this?”
“Always the martyr,” Damon rolls his eyes and departs, making sure to slam his bedroom door shut behind him. Stefan just stares up at his ceiling, trying hard not to think of Elena and failing.
~0~
“Do our reflections mean we have souls?”
The next day (night) and she’s still on the soul issue. Stefan tries in vain to rub the sleep from his eyes. “Caroline, it’s three in the morning.”
She snorts. “What? You were sleeping?”
“Yeah, I was,” Stefan retorts, trying to keep the irritation from presenting itself too clearly.
“But do you really need to?”
And he can’t help but laugh at that, because she is as relentless as ever. There’s something very reassuring about Caroline’s ability to remain bossy and neurotic even in the midst of all this Katherine crap.
“What was the question?” he asks, a small smile on his lips that he knows she can sense, because her voice returns perky and almost smugly-satisfied.
“Does the fact that we have reflections mean we have souls?”
Stefan pulls himself into a sitting position, leaning his back against his headboard. “I honestly don’t see the connection, Caroline.”
“Well, all the soulless vampires in myths and stuff have no reflections,” she explains hurriedly. “It’s because they have no reflection of humanity, just a mask. So does that mean we have souls because we have reflections? Does it work like that like, or was somebody hundreds of years ago bullshitting for the sake of drama?”
His phone is pulled from his ear a millisecond after he notices that Damon has entered his room. Damon puts the phone to his ear before throwing himself into Stefan’s desk chair. “Blondie this soul-kick of yours gets increasingly tedious as the days go by. Why the sudden fascination?”
Stefan gives his brother a look and listens for Caroline’s response. There is a lengthy pause before: “Damon?”
Damon covers the speaker and glares at his brother. “See why I don’t like talking to her?”
“And see how I hate talking to you just as much, as evident by my dialling Stefan?” Caroline snaps before Stefan can admonish his brother. “Give the phone back.”
Damon smirks. “No.”
“No?”
Stefan frowns. “No?”
“You’re my own child, as someone keeps reminding me,” Damon narrows his eyes at his brother before continuing. “So I’m going to be the best vampire-daddy in the world and help you with your problem. Tell daddy what’s troubling you.”
“Give Stefan the phone.”
Stefan waves a hand at his brother. “Give me the phone.”
Damon waves him off and then frowns. “What’s that in the background? Are you watching TV or something?”
“Damon, I want to talk to-“
“Hey, I know that voice!” Damon sits upright and looks slightly stumped. “That’s what brought on the deep, philosophical pondering on the status of your soul? Seriously, Blondie?”
Stefan hears the soft click and Damon just switches his incredulous look to the darkened phone before looking to his brother. “I’m father to the immortal Pamela Anderson, aren’t I?”
Stefan glares at his brother. “Damon-“
“Nah, you’re right,” Damon tosses Stefan his phone and walks to the door, shaking his head. “Blondie’s not plastic enough to be Pam Anderson, and she’s not quite as slutty as Paris Hilton-but still, this is seriously just . . .”
“What?” Stefan calls after him. Damon waves him off and heads downstairs, no doubt towards the alcohol. Stefan follows him and demands from the top of the staircase. “What?”
Damon just shakes his head again.
~0~
Two nights after that, Caroline is standing in their living room with her arms folded defensively over her chest. “Well, where else was I supposed to get my information from?” she asks, her tone surlier than probably necessary.
Stefan tries his best to hide a smile, knows that he probably fails, and raises his hand slightly in the air. She turns the full force of her glare on him and it’s still too funny for him to take seriously. His small smile becomes full-blown and it’s really hard not to laugh when Caroline gets like this.
“Stop laughing!” she pouts and actually stomps her foot much like a child. “I had questions-“
Damon waves a DVD cover at her and arches an eyebrow. “So you turned to Buffy?”
She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out but a puff of air. She screws her face up into something that is perhaps supposed to be threatening, but is ridiculous in light of the situation. She looks to him, face pleading for assistance, but even he can’t help in this case. Sometimes, Caroline just does it to herself.
“You know, just because she’s blond doesn’t mean she’s a good role model,” Damon continues. “She kills vampires, which is not good if you’re a vampire. And Blondie, though I wonder sometimes, you totally are. But on the other hand, I’m sort of proud. At least it’s not Twilight.”
“Sure, laugh, but you know that has your life stories in it, right?” Caroline gives him a smug look. “The love triangle to end all love triangles-until Sookie, Eric, and Bill anyway.”
“Maybe we should just get Liz to cut the cable,” Damon muses to Stefan. Stefan just takes the DVD cover from him and looks to the back.
“How is this at all like us?” he can’t help but wonder.
“Oh, I don’t know, mysterious brooding vampire who has sworn off human blood because of the guilt it causes him,” Caroline rolls her eyes. “Do you really not see?”
“I have a feeling I’m not going to like this,” Damon says, but he’s still smirking for all he’s worth. He throws himself onto the couch and waves his hand, motioning for her to continue.
“Could you be any more Angel?” Caroline continues, eyeing Stefan critically. “I mean, sometimes you even look like his promo shots-furrowed brow and all.”
Damon laughs uproariously and Stefan is sure if he was human, his face would be red. Caroline arches a brow at him challengingly and then slides her eyes towards Damon.
“And you, what can I say about you?” she shakes her head. “The only real way you’re different from Spike is that he’s blond and British, and you’re dark-haired and American. Otherwise, you two are exactly the same. Both are into carefully orchestrated chaos that hide larger master plans, both infatuated with the vampire that made you-a crazy ass bitch in both cases. And when she dumps you, you focus on a girl who is her complete and utter opposite. You become obsessive, ignoring the fact that she’s in love with someone else. You try changing for her, hoping to please her but you can’t quite manage it because you’ve been self-destructive so long that it’s the only real thing you’re good at. And neither of you realizes that curbing your actions to gain the affections of a girl is not the real, substantial change you need to ever have a chance with her in the first place.”
Damon’s face drops with every word she says. It goes from amused and teasing to dark and threatening, but Caroline doesn’t care to stop. Stefan gets to his feet and steps in front of her before things can get too far. He gives his brother a warning look and shakes his head at Caroline’s smug expression.
“You got all that from a TV show?” he asks, slightly incredulous.
She gives him a blank look. “Don’t you see it?”
“Never really watched it,” he admits, and that’s enough for both Damon and Caroline to forget their previous showdown.
“What? You never watched Buffy?” Caroline looks at him in wide-eyed disbelief and then glances over at his brother. “Is that even allowed?”
“It’s a pretty big part of pop culture,” Damon shakes his head. “Of course, Stefan’s so busy pretending to be a teenager that he hardly ever pays attention to the things that teenagers actually enjoy.”
He feels absurdly betrayed as Caroline joins Damon in laughing at his expense. “It’s just a TV show,” he mutters defensively. Caroline squawks at his statement and Damon just snorts.
“Put that thing in the player,” he orders Caroline, and she listens without protesting for once. He allows himself to be pulled to couch while Damon disappears to get the appropriate snacks.
“I think I liked it better when you two were fighting each other,” Stefan huffs and she just laughs at him.
“Stefan, I adore you, but if you’re going to be my mentor, you need to know how to field all Buffy related inquiries,” she beams at him. “Think of how much of an easier time you would have had all these weeks if you had just watched a couple of episodes.”
He doesn’t reply, shoots her a suffering sort of look that she just laughs at. Damon arrives, arms loaded with food, drinks, and bags of blood. He tosses a particular bag at Caroline and she catches it before looking down in surprise.
“Tostitos?” she gives Damon a curious look and Damon ignores her as he grabs the remote. She looks to Stefan and raises the bag, a happy smile start to blossom on her face. He tries to remember that he’s annoyed with her, but fails and just smiles back.
Damon turns on the TV. “Let’s do this-bring it, Sunnydale!”
Caroline giggles and leans over to whisper in Stefan’s ear. “What a fanboy,” she murmurs and of course Damon hears her. A pillow comes flying their way just as the opening credits start blaring out from the speakers.
~0~
Stefan/Caroline/Damon,Are you saying we should annoy other people?
It takes the fourth argument over the Tostitos to finally break him.
“Enough! You’re not children!”
Two pairs of blue eyes stare back at him, unblinking. One pair, ice blue and unrepentant to the core, simply roll upwards after his declaration and their owner scoffs loudly. The second pair, darker blue with flecks of white and gold, drop downwards as their owner suddenly finds her boots unbelievably interesting. Apathy on one hand and shame on the other-and he feels like taking both their heads and smashing them together until the arguing stops. He doesn’t even care if it stops through apologies or unconsciousness; he just wants it to stop.
Stefan shakes his head and takes in the ruins of the living room. There’s shattered glass and crushed tortilla chips all over the carpet, the coffee table is upended and missing a leg, some books have been toppled from the shelves, and there’s a fire poker jammed in the ceiling.
“It’s a stupid bag of chips!” he growls, rubbing at his eyes tiredly. “Just chips! You can go to the store and get some more.”
“It’s my house-“
“I bought those-“
“Or just share!” he cuts them off before they can get started once again. “Honestly? I don’t even think this is about the chips. Damon, stop trying to order Caroline around so much, and Caroline, stop trying to get on Damon’s last nerve all the time. If you can’t manage that, at least take this outside of the house! I can’t keep up with all the repairs!”
Damon frowns and exchanges a curious look with Caroline. “So, are you saying that we should start annoying other people, instead of just you?”
“Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying.”
Caroline pouts and folds her arms across her chest. “You don’t even want to have us get along? You don’t even want to try for peace?”
Stefan throws up his hands. “If I thought it would do any good, then maybe. But with the way you two have been acting-“
“Told you!” Damon suddenly turns on his heel, completely ignoring his brother to invade Caroline’s personal space with the smuggest expression he can muster. “He has a limit.”
Caroline doesn’t bother to acknowledge him, instead is content to glare unhappily at Stefan. “You couldn’t hold on for two more fights? Just two?”
He’s confused, but not entirely slow on the uptake. He watches Damon chortle and Caroline fume and comes to the right conclusion. “You two were faking?”
“Well, mostly,” Caroline wrinkles her nose and tries to push Damon away. When she fails to move his brother, she attempts stepping away, but Damon follows. She sighs and then shakes her head. “He’s a suffocating, overbearing, out-of-control bipolar maniac, and he does eat my chips without asking even though I have to ‘ask nicely’ if I want so much as a glass of scotch-“
“Glass?” Damon clucks his tongue disapprovingly. “Last time I checked, half the decanter is a tad more than just a glass.”
“Why?” Stefan demands, of the two of them, of the house, of the town, of the universe-of everyone and everything.
Caroline has the sense to look a bit contrite by this point. “Well, we were bored and Damon said he has more patience than me, and then I said at least you beat us both in that department, and then Damon said he could get you to snap fairly quickly, and then I said something about you putting on a better front than that-“
“And then, and then, and then,” Damon rolls his eyes and gives his brother a teasing smirk. “And then, I won the bet, so Blondie gives up remote control rights for the rest of forever.”
Caroline’s back to looking sour and her glare towards Stefan is matched with one of his own. “You’re both idiots,” is all he says before stomping for the door.
“What else do you want us to do?” he can hear Damon shouting after him. “It’s the mid-season! No new episodes of anything until January! January!”
Caroline takes the time to notice the destruction around her. “That was my last bag, you know.”
Stefan slams the door shut behind him.
Idiots. The both of them.
~0~