Ficathon Round-ups-And It's A Three-Parter! The Third
Does and Doesn't, Nikita 2010, Thom/Alex/Jaden
Prompt: In a trap, trip I can't grip
never thought I'd be the one who'd slip
then I started to realize
I was living one big lie
She thinks that Division is bad, but she’s feeling like she’s worse.
Thom watches her now, with eyes that speak of love and lust and so many other things. She’ll quirk her lips upwards at him, drops her eyes, and he thinks she also feels those things.
She does-and she doesn’t.
She’s manipulating him; she’s using him-she’s stringing him along because it’s useful. She kisses him to further her own agenda, to help Nikita. She presses her lips against his and thinks of Nikita. He kisses her back and she can only guess at what he’s thinking. But his hand on her back and the look in his eyes makes her think her guess is right.
He has blue eyes. Any other time, she might have thought them beautiful. At this time, she kind of already does.
Jaden sees, a bit, but she doesn’t know what to do with what she sees. Jaden is possessive of Thom, wants something from him that he is too kind to tell her will never happen. Jaden’s eyes are green, and it’s laughably appropriate.
There are confrontations in work areas and during training, confrontations hidden behind pathetic little masks that everyone sees through. Michael purses his lips and looks disappointed. Amanda says nothing, but her eyes are louder than her silence. It’s drawing attention that doesn’t need to be drawn. It’s creating complications that Nikita would disapprove of.
But they’re fighting for Thom. And though she tells herself that she doesn’t want him, she doesn’t want Jaden to win.
It’s harder than she thought it would be. It’s harder than it needs to be. She’s ruining this, taking risks and endangering herself. And it doesn’t make sense because every time Thom looks at her, she feels the need to stop what she’s doing to him. She doesn’t want to keep it up, it would be better for everyone if she dropped it altogether.
But she doesn’t-she can’t.
And so, she uses him. She uses him and tells herself she is using him for a greater purpose. She lets him touch, lets him kiss, lets him do whatever they can get away with because she’s using him.
She uses him, and it burns her up and leaves little ashes of her on the floor.
Jaden knows-Jaden is never too far behind. One day, she’ll scoop up the Alex ashes and put them to right. Jaden cannot be dismissed; she doesn’t need to be antagonized any further. Jaden will be the end of Alex if she can, and do it with a smile before going to comfort Thom. And the image of Jaden with her arms around Thom does things to Alex’s insides that she’s not prepared to handle.
She’s using him. She shouldn’t feel bad about it, because Division is bad and it needs to be stopped.
She shouldn’t feel a lot of the things she feels in regards to Thom.
Alex knows, somewhere in those blue eyes, is the hard determination to defend that which she is trying to bring down. In the end, Thom believes in Division and will believe in Division more than he will believe in a girl that lies so often to his face.
They will be Michael and Nikita for the new generation.
He will hate her, resent her, chase after her with deadly intent.
They will never be what they are now, in dark corners and after hours. It will never be the simple press of lips on lips, breathy sighs, and heavy-lidded stares. Those things in his eyes will twist and warp until there’s little beauty left.
She knows, and knows she shouldn’t care. She cares too much for someone she is using.
But she doesn’t want it to happen, all the same.
A Child of Divorce, TVD, Caroline/Stefan/Damon
Prompt: Our Girl
It starts, inexplicably, in the middle of the fight with Klaus.
He’s fighting; Stefan’s fighting-there’s a lot of fighting going on. Jeremy and Alaric are in the thick of it; even the Lockwood pup has been enlisted. Judgy’s standing guard over Elena and using her witch aneurysms to stop any vampires from getting too close. Elijah’s going toe-to-toe with Klaus and Damon needs to pay attention to what’s going on around him.
But even at that, he can’t help but notice, out of the corner of his eye, Caroline pounce on a vampire many centuries her senior. Blondie had been playing possum and now the older vampire’s paying for it. She’s got her teeth sunk into his jugular, draining him even as she plunges down with a stake.
The vampire drops dead at her feet. She straightens and wipes some blood off her chin (she doesn’t even get half of what’s there). Quickly, she pulls another stake out of her jacket and whirls to face the next opponent. She’s holding her own, and it’s cute.
“That’s my girl,” Damon manages to chuckle before the next vampire is flying his way. The fight is intense, but not so intense that Damon doesn’t pick up on Stefan’s derisive snort.
“Yeah, your girl.”
There’s entirely too much sarcasm there.
~0~
He notices, after, that Stefan spends a lot of time with Caroline. Not in that there’s-something-possibly-naughty-going-on way (because really, this is Saint Stefan, after all), but in a mentor-student sort of way. Caroline listens to Stefan, obsessively so; she agrees with him on everything, even on mundane things such as what to watch on movie night (yes, them having a movie night is very domestic and very disheartening).
These little things, they compound on what Stefan had said the night they took down Klaus. Damon hates feeling paranoid, but something about the way his brother said that little quip makes him think that his role as vampire daddy had been usurped (granted he was never very interested in the role until he thought Stefan had usurped it).
“What did you mean, that night?” he asks one night. Stefan’s sitting on the couch, watching football on the television while Damon is supposed to be reading a book (seriously, how boring does this all sound? He needs to find something reckless to do, and fast!).
“Huh?” Stefan’s barely paying attention, his eyes glued to the screen as the Patriots took on . . . someone in red. Damon used to be better with football.
“That night, when we were fighting Klaus,” Damon prods his brother. “I saw Caroline take down a vampire, and I said ‘that’s my girl’. And you said, very sarcastically I mind you, ‘yeah, your girl’.”
“Did I?” Stefan continues to be unconcerned.
“You did.”
Now this makes Stefan pay attention. He watches as his brother’s spine stiffens and meets Stefan’s gaze head on. There’s genuine confusion on Stefan’s face and he’s looking at Damon like he doesn’t even recognize his own brother. “Since when do you care about anything concerning Caroline?”
There’s no answer for that. Well, no answer that doesn’t sound completely ridiculous and childish. “She’s my kid; I think I should be allowed to express some pride in her without any commentary from you.”
This make Stefan laugh-hard. “Sure, she’s your kid,” Stefan chuckles. “And when did you decide that? Before or after you tried to stake her on her first night as a vampire?”
Damon rolls his eyes. Stefan would bring that up. It was so long ago-Damon barely remembers it all. Actually, he pretty much forgot it right after. But he answers before getting to his feet and escaping this very awkward conversation. “After.”
Stefan’s still laughing long after Damon’s headed up to his room.
~0~
Some of the stuff Stefan said bothers him all the time. He could take care of Caroline just as well, if not better, than Stefan could. He just hadn’t been given the chance (or hadn’t cared to have a chance, whatever).
It presents itself in little ways. Whenever she’s over, he prepares glasses of blood and scotch for her without once complaining like he used to. He stocks the cabinets full of Tostitos, suggests she take over one of the guest rooms for nights when staying over is unavoidable, and even replaces her cell phone when she breaks it accidentally (that vampire strength does take time getting used to). He does these things in his usual manner, surly and impatient, like her needs are just one of the annoyances of life that he must deal with. He likes to think he’s covering it pretty well, but then again, Damon loves lying to himself.
Elena gets suspicious almost immediately. She spends a week nagging/badgering him-she wants to know what he’s trying to accomplish.
Bonnie gets angry. She yells at him for being a pig and gives him aneurysm after aneurysm until he finally manages to convince her that he’s not trying to move Caroline in for the express purpose of sex.
Caroline arches an eyebrow every time, takes what he’s offering, and reminds him that this doesn’t change anything. She still hates him, she constantly says it to everyone, and she will always hate him. But he doesn’t put too much stock in that as she actually smiles at him nowadays, almost like a reflex, before she remembers that she’s supposed to hate him and changes her smile to a frown.
Stefan is the only one who sees this for what it is.
“Seriously, we’re going to do this now?”
Well, obviously.
~0~
Stefan can be surprisingly childish too.
Damon’s sudden outpouring of concern for Caroline is quickly followed by more ‘lessons’ with Stefan. And when Stefan runs out of excuses for ‘lessons’, he starts hanging out with Caroline because they’re ‘friends’. Caroline hardly spends time at the boarding house because now Stefan takes her out to the Grill, to the mall, to the movies-once they went to the park. Damon stood there, shaking his head while Stefan and Caroline used their vampire strength and speed to spin the merry-go-round nearly off its axis.
“You could get caught,” he lectures them afterwards, and is struck by the thought that somehow he’s become the put-upon older brother. It’s just such a complete role reversal that he needs a drink or two to completely stomach it.
But in the end, he’s not to be outdone by his brother. Damon takes up nearly a week of Caroline’s time, helping to ‘prepare her for the future’. He shows her how to survive, when the time comes to move on. He tells her what to do in case she suspects detection, where to go when she’s in need of help, and how to tell when people are on her trail. He opens bank accounts for her, gives her lectures on investments and funds and all the other things she needs to do in order to have enough income to do as she wants (you know, for those instances where compelling what you want doesn’t work). He shows her how to create fake IDs (passports, licences-the usual) and how to blend into her surroundings, no matter where she goes. He teaches her all sorts of things that he had to figure out on his own, and he does it mostly because of how much it annoys Stefan.
Stefan retaliates, zeroing in on something that Damon had overlooked. He announces a surprise road trip, on which he will take Caroline to see all the nearby college campuses in order to help her pick one. There are brochures, websites, and course catalogues all over the damn house, and Damon watches sourly from the driveway when Stefan and Caroline drive away in Stefan’s Mustang.
Elena, surprisingly quiet during these past few weeks, is standing right next to him, also watching her boyfriend and friend speed away. “So, is this fight over Caroline going to end anytime soon? I kind of miss my boyfriend.”
That of course prompts some very dirty suggestions to come tumbling out of his mouth. Elena rolls her eyes at him and decides to make her way to Bonnie’s house. “At least Bonnie pays attention to me, these days.”
He argues (well shouts after her retreating form, really) that he is perfectly willing to pay her proper attention.
Somehow, she just isn’t interested.
~0~
It ends just as inexplicably as it began. It’s Friday night, Caroline has been over since four that afternoon, and the issue becomes who will get her first.
But before they can begin, before Stefan can suggest a movie or Damon can suggest a bottle of scotch, she gets to her feet and announces that she’s leaving.
It’s an odd notion because Damon’s pretty sure she hasn’t had a Salvatore-less night since this whole thing began.
“Where are you-“
“Out,” she cuts Stefan off, a sunny smile on her face to offset the abruptness of her reply. “With Bonnie and Elena. We’re having a girls’ night. And I figured you two could use the night off to arrange some sort of custody agreement.”
Damon blinks, sure he misheard her, and yet she’s still giving him that cheeky little smile. “Huh?” is one of his less articulate moments, but it does the job of summarizing his feelings aptly.
Her face changes in an instant from cute to bitchy. “How blonde do you think I am?”
Stefan’s eyes flit upwards to her hair, confusion evident in his inability to form words. She shakes her head and glares at them both. “You think that I don’t notice what you’re doing? I’m a child of divorce-I knew what this was the moment you two started.”
Damon’s not sure what to do. He’s got this queasy feeling in his stomach, and he suspects it might be shame. The very thought of it makes him even more nauseous.
Stefan is stumbling to recover some pride. “How did you-Why-“
“Because the first little while is fun,” she explains with a roll of her eyes. “I get lots of attention, almost anything I want, and two people vying for my time-it soothes the ego and feeds the greed. I mean, have you seen the price on iPhones? And Damon bought me one without me having to say a thing!”
“So, you’ve been milking this?” Damon feels the need to clarify.
Caroline makes a ‘duh’ face at him. “Well, if I thought reasoning with you two would work-but child of divorce, remember? I know how this works. You guys fight and shower me with attention for a while before realizing that you’re being foolish-and then you go back to ignoring me.”
“We’re not going to ignore you,” Stefan argues.
“You want us to ignore you?” Damon asks at the same time, because she’s the one making them realize how foolish they’re being.
“No,” Caroline’s voice drops to a softer tone and she sounds sort of wounded. “But this can’t continue. Elena’s miserable because Stefan hardly spends any time with her, and yesterday my mom asked me if I was sleeping with one of you. Two very big clues that something needs to give.”
She looks up and gives them a sad smile. “It’s kind of nice to be in the middle of my own triangle, but without the messy love stuff. But seriously, people are starting to give me funny looks and you two are sort of looking like lunatics. I think we should go back to normal-you two go back to obsessing over Elena and I go back to . . . well, it’s almost prom time. I’m sure I’ll find something to do.”
Damon glances over at his brother. Stefan gives him a hard look in exchange. In three seconds, they come to an agreement that Elena has spent three weeks trying to bring about.
“Have fun with the girls,” Stefan turns back to Caroline and gives her a warm smile. “We’ll go to the movies tomorrow night.”
Caroline snaps her head his way and frowns. “But I said you don’t have to, anymore. Remember?”
“Have to? No,” Damon wags a finger at her. “Want to? Surprisingly, yes.”
Blondie hasn’t quite caught on. “Huh?”
“We’re not going to start ignoring you,” Stefan laughs at the look on her face. “But yes, we have realized that we’ve been acting . . . odd.”
“But, the past few weeks of acting odd has revealed a harsh truth,” Damon rises to pour himself a drink, taking care to bump Caroline’s shoulder with his own as he walks to over to the scotch.
“What truth?” she demands, recovering enough sense to be bitchy once more.
“That you’re not my girl, or even Stefan’s girl,” Damon downs a mouthful of liquor and throws a smirk at her over his shoulder. “You’re our girl.”
He turns and sees she’s giving him a strange look. She glances over to Stefan and he nods, a playful grin twitching at his lips. She’s obviously touched, and struggling to cover it.
“God, could you two be any lamer?”
But as she flounces out the door, Damon can see a sparkle of happy tears in her eyes.
“We need to work on her parting shots,” he comments off-hand to his brother.
Stefan laughs. “It’s okay. We’ve got time.”
And now things are officially too sappy. “I’m going to go get drunk and proposition half the female population-want to come?”
A patented Saint Stefan Look of Suffering before the television is turned on. Damon smirks, grabs his keys, and heads out the door.
“Don’t wait up!”
~0~
Fractured, TVD, Caroline/Elena/Katherine
Prompt: Driven by the strangle of veins
Showing me no mercy, I'd do it again
Open up your eyes
You keep on crying, baby, I'll bleed you dry
”Get away from me! You killed me!”
It’s funny how some things stick with you long after everyone else has forgotten them.
~0~
Elena Gilbert became friends with Caroline Forbes before she could even crawl. Founding Families have always been close, but two girls of the same age? Their friendship was practically preordained.
That being said, it has never been a particularly easy friendship.
There have been moments where they both took leave of their senses, when popularity, boys, and winning became more important than a lifelong friendship. Bonnie remembers these days better than the other two, because no one ever forgets being in the middle and nearly pulled in two.
But it never mattered; not in the end.
Elena is still Elena, and Caroline is still Caroline. They’ve never been separate long enough to know how to deal without each other. Even when they’re fighting, they don’t keep apart. If anything, they stay closer in order to express just how angry they are with each other. Elena beat Caroline and won out the lead role in the school play two years in a row, but when Caroline’s parents were splitting up, Elena hid with her friend under her bed covers. Caroline yanked the cheerleading captaincy away from Elena through some shady tactics, but when Elena’s parents were gone, Caroline was in the Gilbert kitchen, cooking meals and brewing coffee and just there until Elena needed her.
Caroline Forbes is Elena Gilbert’s friend. They do, underneath it all, love each other dearly. That will never change.
But Katherine gives it her best shot.
~0~
”I’ve been so mad at you.”
It’s hard, because she’s never been too good at watching what she says, but Caroline manages not to scream at the disappointed look on Elena’s face.
It’s not charitable to think like that. Caroline remembers all too clearly the stake coming for her heart and Elena suddenly plastered over her body. She remembers clearly the shock on Damon’s face, the steel in Elena’s voice when she tells Damon that Caroline is her friend.
Caroline-insecure, neurotic, control freak Caroline-knows in her heart that Elena means every word. She knows that there is love between the two of them, a love that comes from years of friendship and sisterhood.
And yet, a tiny part of her knows that this wouldn’t have happened to her if she wasn’t Elena’s friend.
And those thoughts, more so than anything she’s done to date, shame her.
Mostly because she can’t make them stop.
~0~
”I liked the poetry of Caroline.”
It’s horrible, but Elena sees where Katherine is coming from. In her own, twisted way, it’s even sort of thoughtful. She plans to hand over Elena, Bonnie, and Caroline-the trio that has hardly ever been apart. When she plans on killing her doppelganger, she plans on giving Elena good company.
But Katherine’s killed Caroline once already. Elena’s not sure their friendship will survive a second time.
Caroline struggles daily, not to say it. Elena sees her struggles, knows what is always on the tip of Caroline’s tongue. It’s plain to see in the way Caroline’s smile dims somewhat in Elena’s presence, or how those blue eyes widen for a fraction of a second before Caroline covers it up. Elena sees this and understands it because Caroline has been her friend for longer than she can remember.
It’s obvious; Caroline looks at Elena, and sees Katherine.
Elena understands.
But her heart breaks a little bit, every time, regardless.
~0~
”But you’re asking for the truth from someone who’s probably never given it.”
They are changing, both of them, faster than she can track.
She’s already different; hell, she’s not even human anymore. She’s stronger now, physically and emotionally, but she’s still flaky-Caroline. Most of the time, anyways. Even that is changing, and Caroline hates it because she can see it (and the remnants of her innocence) slipping out of her fingers.
Elena is becoming hard. It’s an unusual look for the girl, because Elena’s never been hard, bitchy, mean, or any of the other things that Caroline’s indulged in before. But Elena is evolving, even as Caroline does so, and they’re both going in the same direction.
So why does she feel like they’re going to end up in different destinations?
Caroline tries to ignore it, tries to waylay her own fears. But after she leaves Elena down in the tomb with Katherine, even she can’t overlook the fact that they don’t speak again for weeks.
Weeks.
When did they lose what used to be so vital?
~0~
”Goodbye Caroline.”
Katherine has a secret plan, twinkling in her eye. Even now, when she’s trapped in the tomb with little to eat and nothing to do but wait for the inevitable, she has a secret plan. And there is always, at the mention of Caroline, such a hateful look in the vampire’s eyes . . .
Elena is sometimes more afraid of that than she is of Klaus.
~0~
The Fun Of It, BTVS, Angel/Vamp Willow/Vamp Xander
Prompt: now I'm ready to close my eyes
and now I'm ready to close my mind
and now I'm ready to feel your hand
and lose my heart on the burning sands
and now I wanna be your dog
He’s really more of a toy than a pet, an easel for her creative yearnings. She paints him in dark colours, all purples, blacks, blues, and reds with intermittent splotches of yellow. His skin is beautiful, because it stretches and breaks and then mends itself so she can start all over again. She has to cut hard and deep, repetitively, for any mark to remain.
She supposes that’s half the fun.
The other half is him, and him. Puppy and Xander, fighting over something that’s not even really there. Puppy refuses to break, to beg or plead. His eyes, when she’s on about her fun, his eyes are so dark and enraged-it’s a bit like poetry. She likes that about him, and she’s obvious about it. Xander is jealous of that, and he’s obvious about that.
Xander’s always been such a silly little boy. Puppy’s not someone to be jealous of; Puppy’s not really a someone at all. When they play, he makes the funniest noises; the tones are all high-pitched and sometimes he whimpers. He doesn’t beg, but he does whimper-and shake. She loves it when he shakes.
She doesn’t mind that Xander’s jealous, or that he won’t play with her and Puppy. He says he wants to watch, but he says it with a pout so she doesn’t really buy it. But it’s okay, because she can change his mind. In between the cuts and the blood and the smell of burnt flesh, Xander’s mood changes to something more amenable. Sometimes, Xander will wait until Puppy’s nearly out of his mind and then toss in a bleeding human.
Puppy really is too cute when he cries.
Possession, TVD/SPN, Caroline/Dean/Damon,
Prompt: Just because half the time I want to kill her, doesn't mean anybody else gets to fuck her. Especially not a half rate hunter who throws his balls at bitch willing to spread their legs.
She gazes about at the mess, the broken furniture, the overturned tables, the glass shards, and the blood smeared everywhere. She takes it in calmly, turning on one heel slowly to get a good look at all of it. Soon a low whistle escapes her lips, but it’s deceptive because she’s nowhere near as nonchalant as she’s pretending.
One eyebrow arches and soon those blue eyes find their way over to the two of them. She looks from one to the other and then shakes her head.
“So, this is how you defend my honour?”
~0~
She doesn’t know enough about vampires, doesn’t understand this link they have. Mostly her ignorance is his doing, because he doesn’t really want her to know everything. She’s easier to control when she thinks she’s expendable. Stefan hates this approach, but his hands are tied. He can physically defend Caroline from danger, but he has no say in her upbringing. Even if Katherine killed her, even if Stefan mentors her-Damon is still her maker.
So she knows as much as he tells her, and he doesn’t tell her a lot. He allows her to go about her business, inwardly relieved when she gets rid of Mutt on her own because that’s one less thing to worry about. He’s more concerned about protecting Elena; he has no time for the jealousy to kick in (and it will; it always does). He figures if he keeps her nearby but not too close, he might be able to ride out the time limit (the first few months of turning are the worst).
But then, she does it. The stupid little blonde goes out and gets laid. And she traipses around like it isn’t a big deal. Granted she doesn’t know about the jealousy, the possessiveness that wraps itself around makers when they turn others (how Katherine stayed away he doesn’t know-he’s always found the pull maddening).
She does know enough to want to hide it from him, and the first time he sees her after it, she’s practically bathed in perfumes and scented lotions. He can also smell the lingering scent of soap, knows automatically that she must have showered and scrubbed at least three times before thinking she had gotten rid of the last traces. She probably thought that since she can’t smell it, no one else will be able to either.
She really is too young.
She comes by the boarding house, chirping happily with Elena. She greets Stefan with a bright smile and rolls her eyes at Damon, and the two older vampires only stare. He can see Stefan’s nostrils flare as she walks by him and his eyes immediately turn to Damon. There’s a warning there, but Damon doesn’t really register it because he’s figured it out too.
Things get complicated. Elena screams, Stefan shouts, things break and smash, and Caroline is shrieking in his ears. He sees nothing but red, doesn’t really notice when he destroys a bookshelf by throwing her bodily into it. He just presses himself against her, nose buried in the crook of her neck while he searched out the other scent.
Stefan soon has him by the shoulders, but he barely gets Caroline a half inch of space. Stefan pulls, she pushes, and neither one moves him until he’s ready.
“I’ll deal with you later,” he growls at her and then throws her so suddenly into Stefan that they both go flying across the room. By the time Elena helps them to their feet, Damon is long gone.
~0~
He finds the fuck drinking a beer calmly in the only real dive bar in Mystic Falls. Damon hasn’t the patience for the usual threatening or chitchat. He grabs the presumptuous little human by the collar and has him thrown into the jukebox in a flash. The bar clears pretty quickly, even the bartender slipping out the door with the five or so patrons.
That’s when things get interesting.
The jerk carries a gun. Damon takes two bullets in the stomach before he’s able to slap the weapon out the man’s hand. Of course, the man then just pulls out another gun, then a knife, and then two knifes. He fights damn well, and he catches on real quick.
“Vampire,” the word is spat out like it leaves a bad taste.
“Hunter,” Damon fires back, because he’s fast on the uptake as well. The guy shakes his head, trades his two smaller knives in for a larger, curved blade-and where the hell is the guy keeping all this stuff?
“This is about the blonde, right?” the Hunter shakes his head. “I knew that would come back to bite me-figuratively speaking, that is. Sammy’s going to have a field day with this one.”
Damon says nothing, but takes a lunge at the man. The Hunter dodges easily (he’s good) and Damon’s hissing as the jagged wound in his back heals. There’s blood dripping down his back and if the guy keeps getting little hits like that in, Damon might be in a spot of trouble.
“So, you’re the douchebag maker,” the Hunter carries on, smirking like a maniac. “She said you try and keep a tight leash on her. I think last night was probably her way of acting out-you know, they say children crave communication with their parents-“
Damon picks up a table and throws it at the bastard’s head. He ducks, Damon grabs him the shoulder, and the jerk still manages to get a knife to Damon’s ribs. Damon tosses the Hunter towards the pool tables even as he’s cursing wildly. But the Hunter smells blood, knows that this is it. He comes at Damon again, blade flashing under the dim lights, and suddenly, it’s a fight.
Fists fly, blood flows, and all kinds of shit breaks. The Hunter smashes beer mugs over Damon’s head and the vampire is so incensed that all he wants to do is drain the fucker right now. But the Hunter’s no idiot; he never puts himself in a position where Damon can latch onto his neck.
Honestly, this guy could give Alaric a run for his money.
Of course, it’s only when the fight gets really good, when it’s down to do or die, that Saint Stefan appears to break it up.
~0~
”Just because half the time I want to kill her, doesn’t mean that anyone else gets to fuck her. Especially not a half-rate Hunter who throws his balls at any bitch willing to spread her legs.”
Suddenly, having Stefan there is a good thing, because he’s the only one who’s able to stop Caroline from clawing his eyeballs out.
“What?” he shouts after her. “It’s fucking true.”
“Dude,” the asshole (he says his name is Dean-like Damon cares) rolls his eyes. “You are not doing yourselves any favours here.”
“I didn’t ask for your advice,” Damon growls, ignoring the exasperated noise coming from Elena.
“We should go,” the second Hunter says, yet again. “Someone’s bound to call the cops, and you can’t afford to get arrested again.”
Dean flashes Caroline a flirty sort look. "Legally dead, and all," he explains with a wink.
"We can make it literally instead," Damon warns and Caroline makes a move for his eyeballs again.
"You would have sex with a vampire," the second Hunter mutters, tone very much aggrieved. "Can we go now? I hear sirens."
And the bastard's parting shot? "Call me," and a wink for Caroline.
It's like he doesn't think Damon will yank his entrails out through his nose.
How annoying.
~0~
"I hate you," she snaps at him while they're fleeing the cops.
He rolls his eyes, grabs her arm, and pulls her very close.
"Like that fucking matters."
Seventeen Forever, TVD, Caroline/Damon
Prompt: Ten years later and he's still the one who buys Caroline her alcohol.
When she turns twenty-one, there is no bartender in the country who will believe her. She gets tossed out of many places, ego smarting too much to even consider compulsion.
When she turns twenty-two, she asks Stefan for a better fake ID.
~0~
When she’s thirty-four, but still seventeen, she knows that seventeen forever works better in theory than in practice. No one ever accepts her credit card without a raised eyebrow and no nice restaurant will serve her wine without Bonnie or Elena vouching for her.
Bonnie at this time is also thirty-four, and is glorious. She is also the mother to twin boys that are giving her both laugh lines and worry lines around her eyes and mouth. Caroline spots a greying hair or two and it fills her with the strangest sense of jealousy. And when the light bounces off Bonnie’s wedding band, the jealousy returns but she understands it then.
Elena is a solid twenty-two and can look anywhere from seventeen to twenty-five, it all depends on her mood. Dark eyes peer out of a pale face and a flash of blindingly white teeth puts almost everyone at ease. Caroline hates her for it, because at most she can look nineteen and even that stretches it a bit. It depresses her in the worse ways.
“Nineteen is old enough to drink in Canada,” is the only advice Elena has for her, and she would know it because Stefan carts her all over the world in first-class seats. Caroline is honest about how unfair she thinks this is, especially when she has to work all sorts of jobs to keep herself afloat.
“You don’t need to,” Bonnie reminds her gently. And that turn of conversation puts Caroline into the worst mood possible.
“He keeps saying that he wants to help,” Elena keeps pushing when Bonnie backs off. Most of their conversations end this way, and it almost always ruins the evening.
When she’s thirty-five, she starts skipping dinners with her friends.
~0~
When she’s fifty-four, and not a day older in any physical sense, Matt Donovan becomes a very proud grandfather. It’s masochistic, but she keeps checking in on him. And on the day he and his family welcome little Ashley Donovan into the world, she watches from down the hospital corridor.
She doesn’t know why this bothers her more than the other events of his life. The pain at little Ashley’s birth is beyond the grief of Matt’s marriage to Meredith Sulez and the birth of their three children (one boy, two girls-one of the girls is named Victoria). She wonders if it’s because Matt’s entering the last phase of his life, and she had always imagined herself being with him when that happened.
It’s stupid to stay there, to risk being seen by a boy (man) that she had left behind so many years before. She knows that if he sees her, there will be chaos. Caroline Forbes died in the fire at the Mystic Falls Police Department thirty-five years ago, along with her mother and her friend Elena Gilbert. It’s tempting fate to be here.
But she can’t draw herself away, and it almost undoes all the work of the past three decades. A nurse steps in front of her, demands to know what she’s doing on the mat ward. The nurse shakes her head while Caroline stammers, muttering something about ‘teenagers’, and Caroline has to compel her to stop catastrophe.
She flees the hospital seconds after this is complete, tears flowing freely. She’s not surprised to see him sitting on the hood of her parked car. He arches an eyebrow at her, taking in the tears with an impassive look.
“That was stupid,” he says. She doesn’t acknowledge him, climbs into the driver’s seat with a word. He moves off the hood and slides into the passenger seat before she can lock the doors. He calmly puts on his seatbelt, not looking at her even while she glared death at him. “The nearest liquor store is three blocks on your right.”
“I don’t need you,” she grumbles before turning on the car.
“So you keep saying,” he replies evenly. “And yet, you won’t just compel someone to just hand over the liquor. You use compulsion perfectly well in almost any other setting, but you’re stubborn about this.”
“I’m fifty-four. I should be able to buy liquor without compulsion.”
Then he looks at her, icy blue eyes ablaze with fierce irritation. “Sheer stubbornness is not going to make a difference,” he snaps. “You have to deal with what you’ve got.”
She says nothing, throws the car into drive, and careens out of the parking lot at least thirty miles over the speed limit.
When she turns fifty-five, she picks up and moves to London in the hopes that distance might be enough to keep her out of Matt Donovan’s life permanently.
~0~
When she’s ninety-seven, Bonnie Bennett-Gilbert dies.
. . .
When she’s ninety-nine, Damon drags her out of the shoebox apartment she’s been wallowing in, washes away two years worth of grime, and gives her a firm kick in the ass.
“It’s always going to be like this,” he tells her while she tries to claw her way out of the bathtub. “It’s never going to change. Get over it.”
When she turns one hundred, Stefan and Elena show up to collect her from her weary maker. She doesn’t thank him, because it’s still too late for him to start caring.
~0~
When she’s a hundred and fifteen, the world has gone through so many changes. Nations rose and fell, civilizations clashed, and peoples came to understandings and descended into petty squabbles quickly after.
And yet the legal drinking age in America is still twenty-one.
“All this progress, and that’s the one thing that can’t change?” she demands peevishly of an amused Elena and Stefan. Her friends suffer through her dark moods with entirely too much good humour and fondness.
“Compulsion, Caroline,” Elena drawls in the middle of another liquor-induced rant.
But she still refuses. “It’s the principle of the matter,” she insists.
When she’s a hundred and sixteen, Stefan finally gets her that ID.
~0~
When she’s a hundred and forty-two, Damon shows up on their doorstep and throws her over his shoulder without so much as a word. He waves goodbye to Elena and Stefan, who wave back calmly. Elena even winks at her cheekily over the rim of her coffee mug and Caroline contemplates throwing a massive tantrum just to get back at them all.
Instead she settles herself down in his car when he tosses her in, slipping on her seatbelt with a deceiving sort of serenity.
“We’re going to New York,” he informs her before turning on the car. “You’re going shopping, I’m paying, and then we’re having a sinful amount of sex.”
She gives a short laugh. “Still cocky,” she mutters, exasperated and anxious at the same time.
He tilts his head her way, gives her that damned smirk of his. “Forever,” he winks at her and then pulls the car of the driveway. Twenty minutes later, he pulls up to a liquor store and buys the booze when her trusty ID fails her once again.
When she’s a hundred and forty-three, she’s still in New York, still with Damon, and still refusing to admit that she loves being there.
But she suspects that he knows anyway.
~0~
Prompt: In a trap, trip I can't grip
never thought I'd be the one who'd slip
then I started to realize
I was living one big lie
She thinks that Division is bad, but she’s feeling like she’s worse.
Thom watches her now, with eyes that speak of love and lust and so many other things. She’ll quirk her lips upwards at him, drops her eyes, and he thinks she also feels those things.
She does-and she doesn’t.
She’s manipulating him; she’s using him-she’s stringing him along because it’s useful. She kisses him to further her own agenda, to help Nikita. She presses her lips against his and thinks of Nikita. He kisses her back and she can only guess at what he’s thinking. But his hand on her back and the look in his eyes makes her think her guess is right.
He has blue eyes. Any other time, she might have thought them beautiful. At this time, she kind of already does.
Jaden sees, a bit, but she doesn’t know what to do with what she sees. Jaden is possessive of Thom, wants something from him that he is too kind to tell her will never happen. Jaden’s eyes are green, and it’s laughably appropriate.
There are confrontations in work areas and during training, confrontations hidden behind pathetic little masks that everyone sees through. Michael purses his lips and looks disappointed. Amanda says nothing, but her eyes are louder than her silence. It’s drawing attention that doesn’t need to be drawn. It’s creating complications that Nikita would disapprove of.
But they’re fighting for Thom. And though she tells herself that she doesn’t want him, she doesn’t want Jaden to win.
It’s harder than she thought it would be. It’s harder than it needs to be. She’s ruining this, taking risks and endangering herself. And it doesn’t make sense because every time Thom looks at her, she feels the need to stop what she’s doing to him. She doesn’t want to keep it up, it would be better for everyone if she dropped it altogether.
But she doesn’t-she can’t.
And so, she uses him. She uses him and tells herself she is using him for a greater purpose. She lets him touch, lets him kiss, lets him do whatever they can get away with because she’s using him.
She uses him, and it burns her up and leaves little ashes of her on the floor.
Jaden knows-Jaden is never too far behind. One day, she’ll scoop up the Alex ashes and put them to right. Jaden cannot be dismissed; she doesn’t need to be antagonized any further. Jaden will be the end of Alex if she can, and do it with a smile before going to comfort Thom. And the image of Jaden with her arms around Thom does things to Alex’s insides that she’s not prepared to handle.
She’s using him. She shouldn’t feel bad about it, because Division is bad and it needs to be stopped.
She shouldn’t feel a lot of the things she feels in regards to Thom.
Alex knows, somewhere in those blue eyes, is the hard determination to defend that which she is trying to bring down. In the end, Thom believes in Division and will believe in Division more than he will believe in a girl that lies so often to his face.
They will be Michael and Nikita for the new generation.
He will hate her, resent her, chase after her with deadly intent.
They will never be what they are now, in dark corners and after hours. It will never be the simple press of lips on lips, breathy sighs, and heavy-lidded stares. Those things in his eyes will twist and warp until there’s little beauty left.
She knows, and knows she shouldn’t care. She cares too much for someone she is using.
But she doesn’t want it to happen, all the same.
A Child of Divorce, TVD, Caroline/Stefan/Damon
Prompt: Our Girl
It starts, inexplicably, in the middle of the fight with Klaus.
He’s fighting; Stefan’s fighting-there’s a lot of fighting going on. Jeremy and Alaric are in the thick of it; even the Lockwood pup has been enlisted. Judgy’s standing guard over Elena and using her witch aneurysms to stop any vampires from getting too close. Elijah’s going toe-to-toe with Klaus and Damon needs to pay attention to what’s going on around him.
But even at that, he can’t help but notice, out of the corner of his eye, Caroline pounce on a vampire many centuries her senior. Blondie had been playing possum and now the older vampire’s paying for it. She’s got her teeth sunk into his jugular, draining him even as she plunges down with a stake.
The vampire drops dead at her feet. She straightens and wipes some blood off her chin (she doesn’t even get half of what’s there). Quickly, she pulls another stake out of her jacket and whirls to face the next opponent. She’s holding her own, and it’s cute.
“That’s my girl,” Damon manages to chuckle before the next vampire is flying his way. The fight is intense, but not so intense that Damon doesn’t pick up on Stefan’s derisive snort.
“Yeah, your girl.”
There’s entirely too much sarcasm there.
~0~
He notices, after, that Stefan spends a lot of time with Caroline. Not in that there’s-something-possibly-naughty-going-on way (because really, this is Saint Stefan, after all), but in a mentor-student sort of way. Caroline listens to Stefan, obsessively so; she agrees with him on everything, even on mundane things such as what to watch on movie night (yes, them having a movie night is very domestic and very disheartening).
These little things, they compound on what Stefan had said the night they took down Klaus. Damon hates feeling paranoid, but something about the way his brother said that little quip makes him think that his role as vampire daddy had been usurped (granted he was never very interested in the role until he thought Stefan had usurped it).
“What did you mean, that night?” he asks one night. Stefan’s sitting on the couch, watching football on the television while Damon is supposed to be reading a book (seriously, how boring does this all sound? He needs to find something reckless to do, and fast!).
“Huh?” Stefan’s barely paying attention, his eyes glued to the screen as the Patriots took on . . . someone in red. Damon used to be better with football.
“That night, when we were fighting Klaus,” Damon prods his brother. “I saw Caroline take down a vampire, and I said ‘that’s my girl’. And you said, very sarcastically I mind you, ‘yeah, your girl’.”
“Did I?” Stefan continues to be unconcerned.
“You did.”
Now this makes Stefan pay attention. He watches as his brother’s spine stiffens and meets Stefan’s gaze head on. There’s genuine confusion on Stefan’s face and he’s looking at Damon like he doesn’t even recognize his own brother. “Since when do you care about anything concerning Caroline?”
There’s no answer for that. Well, no answer that doesn’t sound completely ridiculous and childish. “She’s my kid; I think I should be allowed to express some pride in her without any commentary from you.”
This make Stefan laugh-hard. “Sure, she’s your kid,” Stefan chuckles. “And when did you decide that? Before or after you tried to stake her on her first night as a vampire?”
Damon rolls his eyes. Stefan would bring that up. It was so long ago-Damon barely remembers it all. Actually, he pretty much forgot it right after. But he answers before getting to his feet and escaping this very awkward conversation. “After.”
Stefan’s still laughing long after Damon’s headed up to his room.
~0~
Some of the stuff Stefan said bothers him all the time. He could take care of Caroline just as well, if not better, than Stefan could. He just hadn’t been given the chance (or hadn’t cared to have a chance, whatever).
It presents itself in little ways. Whenever she’s over, he prepares glasses of blood and scotch for her without once complaining like he used to. He stocks the cabinets full of Tostitos, suggests she take over one of the guest rooms for nights when staying over is unavoidable, and even replaces her cell phone when she breaks it accidentally (that vampire strength does take time getting used to). He does these things in his usual manner, surly and impatient, like her needs are just one of the annoyances of life that he must deal with. He likes to think he’s covering it pretty well, but then again, Damon loves lying to himself.
Elena gets suspicious almost immediately. She spends a week nagging/badgering him-she wants to know what he’s trying to accomplish.
Bonnie gets angry. She yells at him for being a pig and gives him aneurysm after aneurysm until he finally manages to convince her that he’s not trying to move Caroline in for the express purpose of sex.
Caroline arches an eyebrow every time, takes what he’s offering, and reminds him that this doesn’t change anything. She still hates him, she constantly says it to everyone, and she will always hate him. But he doesn’t put too much stock in that as she actually smiles at him nowadays, almost like a reflex, before she remembers that she’s supposed to hate him and changes her smile to a frown.
Stefan is the only one who sees this for what it is.
“Seriously, we’re going to do this now?”
Well, obviously.
~0~
Stefan can be surprisingly childish too.
Damon’s sudden outpouring of concern for Caroline is quickly followed by more ‘lessons’ with Stefan. And when Stefan runs out of excuses for ‘lessons’, he starts hanging out with Caroline because they’re ‘friends’. Caroline hardly spends time at the boarding house because now Stefan takes her out to the Grill, to the mall, to the movies-once they went to the park. Damon stood there, shaking his head while Stefan and Caroline used their vampire strength and speed to spin the merry-go-round nearly off its axis.
“You could get caught,” he lectures them afterwards, and is struck by the thought that somehow he’s become the put-upon older brother. It’s just such a complete role reversal that he needs a drink or two to completely stomach it.
But in the end, he’s not to be outdone by his brother. Damon takes up nearly a week of Caroline’s time, helping to ‘prepare her for the future’. He shows her how to survive, when the time comes to move on. He tells her what to do in case she suspects detection, where to go when she’s in need of help, and how to tell when people are on her trail. He opens bank accounts for her, gives her lectures on investments and funds and all the other things she needs to do in order to have enough income to do as she wants (you know, for those instances where compelling what you want doesn’t work). He shows her how to create fake IDs (passports, licences-the usual) and how to blend into her surroundings, no matter where she goes. He teaches her all sorts of things that he had to figure out on his own, and he does it mostly because of how much it annoys Stefan.
Stefan retaliates, zeroing in on something that Damon had overlooked. He announces a surprise road trip, on which he will take Caroline to see all the nearby college campuses in order to help her pick one. There are brochures, websites, and course catalogues all over the damn house, and Damon watches sourly from the driveway when Stefan and Caroline drive away in Stefan’s Mustang.
Elena, surprisingly quiet during these past few weeks, is standing right next to him, also watching her boyfriend and friend speed away. “So, is this fight over Caroline going to end anytime soon? I kind of miss my boyfriend.”
That of course prompts some very dirty suggestions to come tumbling out of his mouth. Elena rolls her eyes at him and decides to make her way to Bonnie’s house. “At least Bonnie pays attention to me, these days.”
He argues (well shouts after her retreating form, really) that he is perfectly willing to pay her proper attention.
Somehow, she just isn’t interested.
~0~
It ends just as inexplicably as it began. It’s Friday night, Caroline has been over since four that afternoon, and the issue becomes who will get her first.
But before they can begin, before Stefan can suggest a movie or Damon can suggest a bottle of scotch, she gets to her feet and announces that she’s leaving.
It’s an odd notion because Damon’s pretty sure she hasn’t had a Salvatore-less night since this whole thing began.
“Where are you-“
“Out,” she cuts Stefan off, a sunny smile on her face to offset the abruptness of her reply. “With Bonnie and Elena. We’re having a girls’ night. And I figured you two could use the night off to arrange some sort of custody agreement.”
Damon blinks, sure he misheard her, and yet she’s still giving him that cheeky little smile. “Huh?” is one of his less articulate moments, but it does the job of summarizing his feelings aptly.
Her face changes in an instant from cute to bitchy. “How blonde do you think I am?”
Stefan’s eyes flit upwards to her hair, confusion evident in his inability to form words. She shakes her head and glares at them both. “You think that I don’t notice what you’re doing? I’m a child of divorce-I knew what this was the moment you two started.”
Damon’s not sure what to do. He’s got this queasy feeling in his stomach, and he suspects it might be shame. The very thought of it makes him even more nauseous.
Stefan is stumbling to recover some pride. “How did you-Why-“
“Because the first little while is fun,” she explains with a roll of her eyes. “I get lots of attention, almost anything I want, and two people vying for my time-it soothes the ego and feeds the greed. I mean, have you seen the price on iPhones? And Damon bought me one without me having to say a thing!”
“So, you’ve been milking this?” Damon feels the need to clarify.
Caroline makes a ‘duh’ face at him. “Well, if I thought reasoning with you two would work-but child of divorce, remember? I know how this works. You guys fight and shower me with attention for a while before realizing that you’re being foolish-and then you go back to ignoring me.”
“We’re not going to ignore you,” Stefan argues.
“You want us to ignore you?” Damon asks at the same time, because she’s the one making them realize how foolish they’re being.
“No,” Caroline’s voice drops to a softer tone and she sounds sort of wounded. “But this can’t continue. Elena’s miserable because Stefan hardly spends any time with her, and yesterday my mom asked me if I was sleeping with one of you. Two very big clues that something needs to give.”
She looks up and gives them a sad smile. “It’s kind of nice to be in the middle of my own triangle, but without the messy love stuff. But seriously, people are starting to give me funny looks and you two are sort of looking like lunatics. I think we should go back to normal-you two go back to obsessing over Elena and I go back to . . . well, it’s almost prom time. I’m sure I’ll find something to do.”
Damon glances over at his brother. Stefan gives him a hard look in exchange. In three seconds, they come to an agreement that Elena has spent three weeks trying to bring about.
“Have fun with the girls,” Stefan turns back to Caroline and gives her a warm smile. “We’ll go to the movies tomorrow night.”
Caroline snaps her head his way and frowns. “But I said you don’t have to, anymore. Remember?”
“Have to? No,” Damon wags a finger at her. “Want to? Surprisingly, yes.”
Blondie hasn’t quite caught on. “Huh?”
“We’re not going to start ignoring you,” Stefan laughs at the look on her face. “But yes, we have realized that we’ve been acting . . . odd.”
“But, the past few weeks of acting odd has revealed a harsh truth,” Damon rises to pour himself a drink, taking care to bump Caroline’s shoulder with his own as he walks to over to the scotch.
“What truth?” she demands, recovering enough sense to be bitchy once more.
“That you’re not my girl, or even Stefan’s girl,” Damon downs a mouthful of liquor and throws a smirk at her over his shoulder. “You’re our girl.”
He turns and sees she’s giving him a strange look. She glances over to Stefan and he nods, a playful grin twitching at his lips. She’s obviously touched, and struggling to cover it.
“God, could you two be any lamer?”
But as she flounces out the door, Damon can see a sparkle of happy tears in her eyes.
“We need to work on her parting shots,” he comments off-hand to his brother.
Stefan laughs. “It’s okay. We’ve got time.”
And now things are officially too sappy. “I’m going to go get drunk and proposition half the female population-want to come?”
A patented Saint Stefan Look of Suffering before the television is turned on. Damon smirks, grabs his keys, and heads out the door.
“Don’t wait up!”
~0~
Fractured, TVD, Caroline/Elena/Katherine
Prompt: Driven by the strangle of veins
Showing me no mercy, I'd do it again
Open up your eyes
You keep on crying, baby, I'll bleed you dry
”Get away from me! You killed me!”
It’s funny how some things stick with you long after everyone else has forgotten them.
~0~
Elena Gilbert became friends with Caroline Forbes before she could even crawl. Founding Families have always been close, but two girls of the same age? Their friendship was practically preordained.
That being said, it has never been a particularly easy friendship.
There have been moments where they both took leave of their senses, when popularity, boys, and winning became more important than a lifelong friendship. Bonnie remembers these days better than the other two, because no one ever forgets being in the middle and nearly pulled in two.
But it never mattered; not in the end.
Elena is still Elena, and Caroline is still Caroline. They’ve never been separate long enough to know how to deal without each other. Even when they’re fighting, they don’t keep apart. If anything, they stay closer in order to express just how angry they are with each other. Elena beat Caroline and won out the lead role in the school play two years in a row, but when Caroline’s parents were splitting up, Elena hid with her friend under her bed covers. Caroline yanked the cheerleading captaincy away from Elena through some shady tactics, but when Elena’s parents were gone, Caroline was in the Gilbert kitchen, cooking meals and brewing coffee and just there until Elena needed her.
Caroline Forbes is Elena Gilbert’s friend. They do, underneath it all, love each other dearly. That will never change.
But Katherine gives it her best shot.
~0~
”I’ve been so mad at you.”
It’s hard, because she’s never been too good at watching what she says, but Caroline manages not to scream at the disappointed look on Elena’s face.
It’s not charitable to think like that. Caroline remembers all too clearly the stake coming for her heart and Elena suddenly plastered over her body. She remembers clearly the shock on Damon’s face, the steel in Elena’s voice when she tells Damon that Caroline is her friend.
Caroline-insecure, neurotic, control freak Caroline-knows in her heart that Elena means every word. She knows that there is love between the two of them, a love that comes from years of friendship and sisterhood.
And yet, a tiny part of her knows that this wouldn’t have happened to her if she wasn’t Elena’s friend.
And those thoughts, more so than anything she’s done to date, shame her.
Mostly because she can’t make them stop.
~0~
”I liked the poetry of Caroline.”
It’s horrible, but Elena sees where Katherine is coming from. In her own, twisted way, it’s even sort of thoughtful. She plans to hand over Elena, Bonnie, and Caroline-the trio that has hardly ever been apart. When she plans on killing her doppelganger, she plans on giving Elena good company.
But Katherine’s killed Caroline once already. Elena’s not sure their friendship will survive a second time.
Caroline struggles daily, not to say it. Elena sees her struggles, knows what is always on the tip of Caroline’s tongue. It’s plain to see in the way Caroline’s smile dims somewhat in Elena’s presence, or how those blue eyes widen for a fraction of a second before Caroline covers it up. Elena sees this and understands it because Caroline has been her friend for longer than she can remember.
It’s obvious; Caroline looks at Elena, and sees Katherine.
Elena understands.
But her heart breaks a little bit, every time, regardless.
~0~
”But you’re asking for the truth from someone who’s probably never given it.”
They are changing, both of them, faster than she can track.
She’s already different; hell, she’s not even human anymore. She’s stronger now, physically and emotionally, but she’s still flaky-Caroline. Most of the time, anyways. Even that is changing, and Caroline hates it because she can see it (and the remnants of her innocence) slipping out of her fingers.
Elena is becoming hard. It’s an unusual look for the girl, because Elena’s never been hard, bitchy, mean, or any of the other things that Caroline’s indulged in before. But Elena is evolving, even as Caroline does so, and they’re both going in the same direction.
So why does she feel like they’re going to end up in different destinations?
Caroline tries to ignore it, tries to waylay her own fears. But after she leaves Elena down in the tomb with Katherine, even she can’t overlook the fact that they don’t speak again for weeks.
Weeks.
When did they lose what used to be so vital?
~0~
”Goodbye Caroline.”
Katherine has a secret plan, twinkling in her eye. Even now, when she’s trapped in the tomb with little to eat and nothing to do but wait for the inevitable, she has a secret plan. And there is always, at the mention of Caroline, such a hateful look in the vampire’s eyes . . .
Elena is sometimes more afraid of that than she is of Klaus.
~0~
The Fun Of It, BTVS, Angel/Vamp Willow/Vamp Xander
Prompt: now I'm ready to close my eyes
and now I'm ready to close my mind
and now I'm ready to feel your hand
and lose my heart on the burning sands
and now I wanna be your dog
He’s really more of a toy than a pet, an easel for her creative yearnings. She paints him in dark colours, all purples, blacks, blues, and reds with intermittent splotches of yellow. His skin is beautiful, because it stretches and breaks and then mends itself so she can start all over again. She has to cut hard and deep, repetitively, for any mark to remain.
She supposes that’s half the fun.
The other half is him, and him. Puppy and Xander, fighting over something that’s not even really there. Puppy refuses to break, to beg or plead. His eyes, when she’s on about her fun, his eyes are so dark and enraged-it’s a bit like poetry. She likes that about him, and she’s obvious about it. Xander is jealous of that, and he’s obvious about that.
Xander’s always been such a silly little boy. Puppy’s not someone to be jealous of; Puppy’s not really a someone at all. When they play, he makes the funniest noises; the tones are all high-pitched and sometimes he whimpers. He doesn’t beg, but he does whimper-and shake. She loves it when he shakes.
She doesn’t mind that Xander’s jealous, or that he won’t play with her and Puppy. He says he wants to watch, but he says it with a pout so she doesn’t really buy it. But it’s okay, because she can change his mind. In between the cuts and the blood and the smell of burnt flesh, Xander’s mood changes to something more amenable. Sometimes, Xander will wait until Puppy’s nearly out of his mind and then toss in a bleeding human.
Puppy really is too cute when he cries.
Possession, TVD/SPN, Caroline/Dean/Damon,
Prompt: Just because half the time I want to kill her, doesn't mean anybody else gets to fuck her. Especially not a half rate hunter who throws his balls at bitch willing to spread their legs.
She gazes about at the mess, the broken furniture, the overturned tables, the glass shards, and the blood smeared everywhere. She takes it in calmly, turning on one heel slowly to get a good look at all of it. Soon a low whistle escapes her lips, but it’s deceptive because she’s nowhere near as nonchalant as she’s pretending.
One eyebrow arches and soon those blue eyes find their way over to the two of them. She looks from one to the other and then shakes her head.
“So, this is how you defend my honour?”
~0~
She doesn’t know enough about vampires, doesn’t understand this link they have. Mostly her ignorance is his doing, because he doesn’t really want her to know everything. She’s easier to control when she thinks she’s expendable. Stefan hates this approach, but his hands are tied. He can physically defend Caroline from danger, but he has no say in her upbringing. Even if Katherine killed her, even if Stefan mentors her-Damon is still her maker.
So she knows as much as he tells her, and he doesn’t tell her a lot. He allows her to go about her business, inwardly relieved when she gets rid of Mutt on her own because that’s one less thing to worry about. He’s more concerned about protecting Elena; he has no time for the jealousy to kick in (and it will; it always does). He figures if he keeps her nearby but not too close, he might be able to ride out the time limit (the first few months of turning are the worst).
But then, she does it. The stupid little blonde goes out and gets laid. And she traipses around like it isn’t a big deal. Granted she doesn’t know about the jealousy, the possessiveness that wraps itself around makers when they turn others (how Katherine stayed away he doesn’t know-he’s always found the pull maddening).
She does know enough to want to hide it from him, and the first time he sees her after it, she’s practically bathed in perfumes and scented lotions. He can also smell the lingering scent of soap, knows automatically that she must have showered and scrubbed at least three times before thinking she had gotten rid of the last traces. She probably thought that since she can’t smell it, no one else will be able to either.
She really is too young.
She comes by the boarding house, chirping happily with Elena. She greets Stefan with a bright smile and rolls her eyes at Damon, and the two older vampires only stare. He can see Stefan’s nostrils flare as she walks by him and his eyes immediately turn to Damon. There’s a warning there, but Damon doesn’t really register it because he’s figured it out too.
Things get complicated. Elena screams, Stefan shouts, things break and smash, and Caroline is shrieking in his ears. He sees nothing but red, doesn’t really notice when he destroys a bookshelf by throwing her bodily into it. He just presses himself against her, nose buried in the crook of her neck while he searched out the other scent.
Stefan soon has him by the shoulders, but he barely gets Caroline a half inch of space. Stefan pulls, she pushes, and neither one moves him until he’s ready.
“I’ll deal with you later,” he growls at her and then throws her so suddenly into Stefan that they both go flying across the room. By the time Elena helps them to their feet, Damon is long gone.
~0~
He finds the fuck drinking a beer calmly in the only real dive bar in Mystic Falls. Damon hasn’t the patience for the usual threatening or chitchat. He grabs the presumptuous little human by the collar and has him thrown into the jukebox in a flash. The bar clears pretty quickly, even the bartender slipping out the door with the five or so patrons.
That’s when things get interesting.
The jerk carries a gun. Damon takes two bullets in the stomach before he’s able to slap the weapon out the man’s hand. Of course, the man then just pulls out another gun, then a knife, and then two knifes. He fights damn well, and he catches on real quick.
“Vampire,” the word is spat out like it leaves a bad taste.
“Hunter,” Damon fires back, because he’s fast on the uptake as well. The guy shakes his head, trades his two smaller knives in for a larger, curved blade-and where the hell is the guy keeping all this stuff?
“This is about the blonde, right?” the Hunter shakes his head. “I knew that would come back to bite me-figuratively speaking, that is. Sammy’s going to have a field day with this one.”
Damon says nothing, but takes a lunge at the man. The Hunter dodges easily (he’s good) and Damon’s hissing as the jagged wound in his back heals. There’s blood dripping down his back and if the guy keeps getting little hits like that in, Damon might be in a spot of trouble.
“So, you’re the douchebag maker,” the Hunter carries on, smirking like a maniac. “She said you try and keep a tight leash on her. I think last night was probably her way of acting out-you know, they say children crave communication with their parents-“
Damon picks up a table and throws it at the bastard’s head. He ducks, Damon grabs him the shoulder, and the jerk still manages to get a knife to Damon’s ribs. Damon tosses the Hunter towards the pool tables even as he’s cursing wildly. But the Hunter smells blood, knows that this is it. He comes at Damon again, blade flashing under the dim lights, and suddenly, it’s a fight.
Fists fly, blood flows, and all kinds of shit breaks. The Hunter smashes beer mugs over Damon’s head and the vampire is so incensed that all he wants to do is drain the fucker right now. But the Hunter’s no idiot; he never puts himself in a position where Damon can latch onto his neck.
Honestly, this guy could give Alaric a run for his money.
Of course, it’s only when the fight gets really good, when it’s down to do or die, that Saint Stefan appears to break it up.
~0~
”Just because half the time I want to kill her, doesn’t mean that anyone else gets to fuck her. Especially not a half-rate Hunter who throws his balls at any bitch willing to spread her legs.”
Suddenly, having Stefan there is a good thing, because he’s the only one who’s able to stop Caroline from clawing his eyeballs out.
“What?” he shouts after her. “It’s fucking true.”
“Dude,” the asshole (he says his name is Dean-like Damon cares) rolls his eyes. “You are not doing yourselves any favours here.”
“I didn’t ask for your advice,” Damon growls, ignoring the exasperated noise coming from Elena.
“We should go,” the second Hunter says, yet again. “Someone’s bound to call the cops, and you can’t afford to get arrested again.”
Dean flashes Caroline a flirty sort look. "Legally dead, and all," he explains with a wink.
"We can make it literally instead," Damon warns and Caroline makes a move for his eyeballs again.
"You would have sex with a vampire," the second Hunter mutters, tone very much aggrieved. "Can we go now? I hear sirens."
And the bastard's parting shot? "Call me," and a wink for Caroline.
It's like he doesn't think Damon will yank his entrails out through his nose.
How annoying.
~0~
"I hate you," she snaps at him while they're fleeing the cops.
He rolls his eyes, grabs her arm, and pulls her very close.
"Like that fucking matters."
Seventeen Forever, TVD, Caroline/Damon
Prompt: Ten years later and he's still the one who buys Caroline her alcohol.
When she turns twenty-one, there is no bartender in the country who will believe her. She gets tossed out of many places, ego smarting too much to even consider compulsion.
When she turns twenty-two, she asks Stefan for a better fake ID.
~0~
When she’s thirty-four, but still seventeen, she knows that seventeen forever works better in theory than in practice. No one ever accepts her credit card without a raised eyebrow and no nice restaurant will serve her wine without Bonnie or Elena vouching for her.
Bonnie at this time is also thirty-four, and is glorious. She is also the mother to twin boys that are giving her both laugh lines and worry lines around her eyes and mouth. Caroline spots a greying hair or two and it fills her with the strangest sense of jealousy. And when the light bounces off Bonnie’s wedding band, the jealousy returns but she understands it then.
Elena is a solid twenty-two and can look anywhere from seventeen to twenty-five, it all depends on her mood. Dark eyes peer out of a pale face and a flash of blindingly white teeth puts almost everyone at ease. Caroline hates her for it, because at most she can look nineteen and even that stretches it a bit. It depresses her in the worse ways.
“Nineteen is old enough to drink in Canada,” is the only advice Elena has for her, and she would know it because Stefan carts her all over the world in first-class seats. Caroline is honest about how unfair she thinks this is, especially when she has to work all sorts of jobs to keep herself afloat.
“You don’t need to,” Bonnie reminds her gently. And that turn of conversation puts Caroline into the worst mood possible.
“He keeps saying that he wants to help,” Elena keeps pushing when Bonnie backs off. Most of their conversations end this way, and it almost always ruins the evening.
When she’s thirty-five, she starts skipping dinners with her friends.
~0~
When she’s fifty-four, and not a day older in any physical sense, Matt Donovan becomes a very proud grandfather. It’s masochistic, but she keeps checking in on him. And on the day he and his family welcome little Ashley Donovan into the world, she watches from down the hospital corridor.
She doesn’t know why this bothers her more than the other events of his life. The pain at little Ashley’s birth is beyond the grief of Matt’s marriage to Meredith Sulez and the birth of their three children (one boy, two girls-one of the girls is named Victoria). She wonders if it’s because Matt’s entering the last phase of his life, and she had always imagined herself being with him when that happened.
It’s stupid to stay there, to risk being seen by a boy (man) that she had left behind so many years before. She knows that if he sees her, there will be chaos. Caroline Forbes died in the fire at the Mystic Falls Police Department thirty-five years ago, along with her mother and her friend Elena Gilbert. It’s tempting fate to be here.
But she can’t draw herself away, and it almost undoes all the work of the past three decades. A nurse steps in front of her, demands to know what she’s doing on the mat ward. The nurse shakes her head while Caroline stammers, muttering something about ‘teenagers’, and Caroline has to compel her to stop catastrophe.
She flees the hospital seconds after this is complete, tears flowing freely. She’s not surprised to see him sitting on the hood of her parked car. He arches an eyebrow at her, taking in the tears with an impassive look.
“That was stupid,” he says. She doesn’t acknowledge him, climbs into the driver’s seat with a word. He moves off the hood and slides into the passenger seat before she can lock the doors. He calmly puts on his seatbelt, not looking at her even while she glared death at him. “The nearest liquor store is three blocks on your right.”
“I don’t need you,” she grumbles before turning on the car.
“So you keep saying,” he replies evenly. “And yet, you won’t just compel someone to just hand over the liquor. You use compulsion perfectly well in almost any other setting, but you’re stubborn about this.”
“I’m fifty-four. I should be able to buy liquor without compulsion.”
Then he looks at her, icy blue eyes ablaze with fierce irritation. “Sheer stubbornness is not going to make a difference,” he snaps. “You have to deal with what you’ve got.”
She says nothing, throws the car into drive, and careens out of the parking lot at least thirty miles over the speed limit.
When she turns fifty-five, she picks up and moves to London in the hopes that distance might be enough to keep her out of Matt Donovan’s life permanently.
~0~
When she’s ninety-seven, Bonnie Bennett-Gilbert dies.
. . .
When she’s ninety-nine, Damon drags her out of the shoebox apartment she’s been wallowing in, washes away two years worth of grime, and gives her a firm kick in the ass.
“It’s always going to be like this,” he tells her while she tries to claw her way out of the bathtub. “It’s never going to change. Get over it.”
When she turns one hundred, Stefan and Elena show up to collect her from her weary maker. She doesn’t thank him, because it’s still too late for him to start caring.
~0~
When she’s a hundred and fifteen, the world has gone through so many changes. Nations rose and fell, civilizations clashed, and peoples came to understandings and descended into petty squabbles quickly after.
And yet the legal drinking age in America is still twenty-one.
“All this progress, and that’s the one thing that can’t change?” she demands peevishly of an amused Elena and Stefan. Her friends suffer through her dark moods with entirely too much good humour and fondness.
“Compulsion, Caroline,” Elena drawls in the middle of another liquor-induced rant.
But she still refuses. “It’s the principle of the matter,” she insists.
When she’s a hundred and sixteen, Stefan finally gets her that ID.
~0~
When she’s a hundred and forty-two, Damon shows up on their doorstep and throws her over his shoulder without so much as a word. He waves goodbye to Elena and Stefan, who wave back calmly. Elena even winks at her cheekily over the rim of her coffee mug and Caroline contemplates throwing a massive tantrum just to get back at them all.
Instead she settles herself down in his car when he tosses her in, slipping on her seatbelt with a deceiving sort of serenity.
“We’re going to New York,” he informs her before turning on the car. “You’re going shopping, I’m paying, and then we’re having a sinful amount of sex.”
She gives a short laugh. “Still cocky,” she mutters, exasperated and anxious at the same time.
He tilts his head her way, gives her that damned smirk of his. “Forever,” he winks at her and then pulls the car of the driveway. Twenty minutes later, he pulls up to a liquor store and buys the booze when her trusty ID fails her once again.
When she’s a hundred and forty-three, she’s still in New York, still with Damon, and still refusing to admit that she loves being there.
But she suspects that he knows anyway.
~0~