fic: caroline/stefan, tvd, for KC
Title: every day after this one (is all we have)
Disclaimer: Not mine. Only responsible for their fictional corruption.
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Pairing: Stefan/Caroline
Rating: Pg-13
Summary: The old Stefan's first lesson took. That slow inhale of breath, followed by that careful exhale after. She can still feel his eyes holding hers like a pulse - something steady, one beat after another convincing her that there was life after death.
A/N: 15 minute ficlet, written for crickets. Prompted by the words "small town, pulse, cotton candy, we'll forget about this place, postcard, and the all-nighter.
+
It's her job to scope out new towns, small places enough like Mystic Falls to make them familiar, enough like home to make them forget for weeks at a time that they aren't.
He stays behind, stays hidden. She's never sure if it's because he's afraid of what he'll do or because he wants her to leave him. Because he doesn't know how to lead anymore or because he craves time alone. One day, turns into two, three - and she's never tempted to cover her tracks, never tempted to keep moving. She's never fallen in love with a new place faster than she fell in love with him. No place holds more appeal than Stefan Salvatore, all broken and blood-thirsty.
He asked her once, one quiet night in a fresh city, asked her why she didn't love him when he was hungry.
She told him the truth. She's always told him the truth.
One person, one monster, should always be full.
+
The old Stefan's first lesson took. That slow inhale of breath, followed by that careful exhale after. She can still feel his eyes holding hers like a pulse - something steady, one beat after another convincing her that there was life after death.
She didn't love him then, but she trusted him. She never stopped, even when everyone else did.
He came back, with murder in his eyes and a tenuous grip on his sanity. Damon and Elena, Tyler, even Matt - helped bring him home. None of them wanted him to stay once they heard everything he'd done.
The fight they had when he tried to leave, when he fled, was something special - a twist of bodies in the woods behind his house, a mix of growl and hiss - of struggle and surrender. The tears on her shoulder weren't the tears of a hundred and forty-seven year old teenager. It wasn't the broken heart of Elena's true love she felt beneath her palm.
It was someone else she met that day, someone she couldn't walk away from, someone she wouldn't let walk away from her.
+
Who he is now, three years later, is who he says he wants to be - someone less naive than he was as a human, someone more controlled than the monster would allow.
There's defeat in his step, but determination in his smile.
The neighbors always take them for young newly-weds. His kisses are cotton candy in the daylight, sweet and fleeting on the tongue. Her voice still bubbles, still lilts on the breeze. Her eyes still twinkle when he orders her to stay safe - when he leaves to hunt like a man going to war.
His kisses are gunpowder and flint when he returns, blood and spark behind closed doors.
She always waiting with open arms for his bite, for the hard crush of his body pinning hers against their bedroom wall.
+
She doesn't expect easy anymore- can't recall a morning when she woke up to even a second of blissful ignorance. There is no moment when she doesn't miss Matt or Tyler, her mother or Bonnie. She knows he still dreams of dark brown hair as soft as silk, of Elena's legs around him, the taste and smell of hope on skin a little darker than hers.
He still has nightmares of his brother replacing him.
Six weeks, maybe seven, and they'll move once more, leave everything they found and take only those old memories with them.
She won't remember the name of the street they lived on, the names they used. He won't know the color of their front door if asked, or if their kitchen had a window.
+
The journal, his only constant companion except her, is a book full of letters he'll never send. Apology after apology. Promise after promise. I didn't mean to. It will never happen again.
Letters full of lies.
Her kisses are postcards.
One for his shoulder, saying - the weather is beautiful. The one against his stiffened neck - I wish you were here.
It only takes a little effort to convince him to come outside and play. The longer they run the easier it gets to make him love her back.
He's always been a lover, always had so much to give.
"Why do you always fight it?" she asked, once, and the way his eyes wouldn't meet hers after was answer enough.
To him she's the same - Elena's silly best friend, Damon and Katherine's victim - the girl vampire who has only ever killed one innocent person, the woman he doesn't deserve for a myriad of reasons.
Her nails down his back are a list, items one through ten, a scratch to refute every good intention he has left.
She promised him them, and she continues to show him now, that the moment she was lost was the exact moment she was found. That who she is - isn't weak enough to need protecting.
+
They have forever. Forever to chase the shadows in his heart and the ghosts in his head. Forever to walk together through the life that was thrust upon them. He didn't turn her but she can't turn away from him.
She wasn't what he wanted; she's become the one he needs.
He drains the occupants of a two bedroom Tudor dry, drags their bodies to the nearest river and throws them in. The current is fast enough, the season wet enough to take them far from this place she's chosen. The people were older, loners, with no children or close relatives to speak of.
She'll get two months, maybe three, to set up house. She'll buy canvas, charcoal, sketch daffodils that look like daisies, and daisies that don't look like flowers at all. He'll spend his days fixing the roof, the creaky steps of the back porch.
At night they will lay in each other's arms, waiting for whatever comes next.
He'll hold her tight enough to create bruises that will heal as they form, ask her with the touch of his forehead against hers if she's still sure.
The blood vessels will ripple beneath her eyes and the answer will remain the same - the only place she will ever belong is beside him.
~~~end
Disclaimer: Not mine. Only responsible for their fictional corruption.
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Pairing: Stefan/Caroline
Rating: Pg-13
Summary: The old Stefan's first lesson took. That slow inhale of breath, followed by that careful exhale after. She can still feel his eyes holding hers like a pulse - something steady, one beat after another convincing her that there was life after death.
A/N: 15 minute ficlet, written for crickets. Prompted by the words "small town, pulse, cotton candy, we'll forget about this place, postcard, and the all-nighter.
+
It's her job to scope out new towns, small places enough like Mystic Falls to make them familiar, enough like home to make them forget for weeks at a time that they aren't.
He stays behind, stays hidden. She's never sure if it's because he's afraid of what he'll do or because he wants her to leave him. Because he doesn't know how to lead anymore or because he craves time alone. One day, turns into two, three - and she's never tempted to cover her tracks, never tempted to keep moving. She's never fallen in love with a new place faster than she fell in love with him. No place holds more appeal than Stefan Salvatore, all broken and blood-thirsty.
He asked her once, one quiet night in a fresh city, asked her why she didn't love him when he was hungry.
She told him the truth. She's always told him the truth.
One person, one monster, should always be full.
+
The old Stefan's first lesson took. That slow inhale of breath, followed by that careful exhale after. She can still feel his eyes holding hers like a pulse - something steady, one beat after another convincing her that there was life after death.
She didn't love him then, but she trusted him. She never stopped, even when everyone else did.
He came back, with murder in his eyes and a tenuous grip on his sanity. Damon and Elena, Tyler, even Matt - helped bring him home. None of them wanted him to stay once they heard everything he'd done.
The fight they had when he tried to leave, when he fled, was something special - a twist of bodies in the woods behind his house, a mix of growl and hiss - of struggle and surrender. The tears on her shoulder weren't the tears of a hundred and forty-seven year old teenager. It wasn't the broken heart of Elena's true love she felt beneath her palm.
It was someone else she met that day, someone she couldn't walk away from, someone she wouldn't let walk away from her.
+
Who he is now, three years later, is who he says he wants to be - someone less naive than he was as a human, someone more controlled than the monster would allow.
There's defeat in his step, but determination in his smile.
The neighbors always take them for young newly-weds. His kisses are cotton candy in the daylight, sweet and fleeting on the tongue. Her voice still bubbles, still lilts on the breeze. Her eyes still twinkle when he orders her to stay safe - when he leaves to hunt like a man going to war.
His kisses are gunpowder and flint when he returns, blood and spark behind closed doors.
She always waiting with open arms for his bite, for the hard crush of his body pinning hers against their bedroom wall.
+
She doesn't expect easy anymore- can't recall a morning when she woke up to even a second of blissful ignorance. There is no moment when she doesn't miss Matt or Tyler, her mother or Bonnie. She knows he still dreams of dark brown hair as soft as silk, of Elena's legs around him, the taste and smell of hope on skin a little darker than hers.
He still has nightmares of his brother replacing him.
Six weeks, maybe seven, and they'll move once more, leave everything they found and take only those old memories with them.
She won't remember the name of the street they lived on, the names they used. He won't know the color of their front door if asked, or if their kitchen had a window.
+
The journal, his only constant companion except her, is a book full of letters he'll never send. Apology after apology. Promise after promise. I didn't mean to. It will never happen again.
Letters full of lies.
Her kisses are postcards.
One for his shoulder, saying - the weather is beautiful. The one against his stiffened neck - I wish you were here.
It only takes a little effort to convince him to come outside and play. The longer they run the easier it gets to make him love her back.
He's always been a lover, always had so much to give.
"Why do you always fight it?" she asked, once, and the way his eyes wouldn't meet hers after was answer enough.
To him she's the same - Elena's silly best friend, Damon and Katherine's victim - the girl vampire who has only ever killed one innocent person, the woman he doesn't deserve for a myriad of reasons.
Her nails down his back are a list, items one through ten, a scratch to refute every good intention he has left.
She promised him them, and she continues to show him now, that the moment she was lost was the exact moment she was found. That who she is - isn't weak enough to need protecting.
+
They have forever. Forever to chase the shadows in his heart and the ghosts in his head. Forever to walk together through the life that was thrust upon them. He didn't turn her but she can't turn away from him.
She wasn't what he wanted; she's become the one he needs.
He drains the occupants of a two bedroom Tudor dry, drags their bodies to the nearest river and throws them in. The current is fast enough, the season wet enough to take them far from this place she's chosen. The people were older, loners, with no children or close relatives to speak of.
She'll get two months, maybe three, to set up house. She'll buy canvas, charcoal, sketch daffodils that look like daisies, and daisies that don't look like flowers at all. He'll spend his days fixing the roof, the creaky steps of the back porch.
At night they will lay in each other's arms, waiting for whatever comes next.
He'll hold her tight enough to create bruises that will heal as they form, ask her with the touch of his forehead against hers if she's still sure.
The blood vessels will ripple beneath her eyes and the answer will remain the same - the only place she will ever belong is beside him.
~~~end