The Vampire Diaries fic: Two for Roughing
Title: Two for Roughing
Fandom(s): The Vampire Diaries
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,854
Summary: To Caroline, hockey seems like a pointless waste of blood and teeth. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to let Tyler win.
Author’s Notes: I’ve always wanted to combine the sport I love with a fandom I love, and I’ve finally found an opportunity. Hope it doesn’t throw you off, and that you enjoy.
Two for RoughingIt’s the first weekend in what seems like forever where there’s no imminent threat of danger. No creature wanting to kill the vampires, or a scorned old friend, or a werewolf hunter, or any manner of other undesirables; even the high school drama is kept to a minimum. No one’s under the illusion that it’ll last long, or that things aren’t plotting to attack them soon, but for the moment, all is quiet.
Which is why Tyler feels it’s the perfect time to get out of town. He hasn’t gotten the chance to in a long time, considering he’s always there for some supernatural problem or another, and he’s been itching to leave-not forever or anything-for ages. Not just alone, though. This time he plans on taking company.
“We’re going somewhere.”
Caroline jumps from where she’d been carefully putting on her mascara at the unexpected voice. (Which is annoying in and of itself-what good are vampire senses if they don’t work?) “Tyler!” she snaps. “Don’t do that.”
Tyler simply grins from his spot by the window and walks over to her, sitting on the corner of her vanity. “We’re going somewhere,” he repeats.
“I heard you the first time,” says Caroline, going back to darkening her eyelashes. “Where exactly do you plan on taking me? And why?”
“It’s a surprise,” Tyler answers. He waits…and gets what he was hoping for. The annoyed sigh and eye roll.
“I don’t like surprises,” says Caroline with a glare. “You know that.”
Tyler shrugs. “I do,” he replies, “and I’m still not going to tell you.”
Caroline is clearly irritated as she touches up her lipstick, watching Tyler suspiciously out of her peripheral. He’s always been so straightforward with her, no secrets between them, so this vague nonsense is rather frustrating. She turns around then, though, and knows he’s won her over. She never has been able to fully look him in the eyes-especially not when they do that amber flashy thing-and not bend to his will.
She sets her lipstick down with a huff. “Fine,” she relents, going over to her closet. She picks out one of her favorite tops, a light pink spaghetti strap with a short white skirt, and takes them off their hangers, but Tyler halts her movements.
Placatingly, he says, “Where we’re going, that’s not quite going to do it.” Caroline frowns, and watches as he goes through her closet, obviously searching for something but out of his league-her closet is a formidable foe for anyone who’s not her.
“What are you looking for?” she asks exasperatedly. “If you’d just tell me, it’d go-”
“This’ll work,” Tyler interrupts, holding out a jacket and some snow pants she’d only worn once in her life. She scrunches up her face and begins to object, but Tyler’s been around her long enough to anticipate it. “I’m sure they don’t match,” he says, “but it’s not going to matter, trust me.”
“Trust you,” she snips, though it’s without any real vitriol.
They’d long since gotten past the stage of being wary of one another, even though her skepticism in this situation is rising every second. He just stares at her however, and this time it’s curiosity that gets the better of her. He’s not usually this forceful (well…not this forceful when they’re still clothed), and it’s intriguing.
She snatches the outfit from him and goes into her bathroom, shutting the door. It’s not that she wants to preserve her modesty or anything, she’d just like to make it known she doesn’t approve of this whole thing.
She doesn’t know why precisely he wants her to be warm, considering she doesn’t feel cold, but she humors him. The jacket is one she’s had on plenty of times so it doesn’t really bother her, but she rarely wears pants that are so…not flattering. Even in the dead of winter, like it is now, the most she’d do is wear some boots and leggings under jeans. Never these baggy atrocities. She’s astounded that she even kept them. They were a gift a year or so back from a family friend who obviously had no idea what Caroline’s tastes in fashion were.
But she finds a way to make it work-she always does-and steps out of the bathroom, being sure to keep the glower on her face. “Happy?”
Tyler gives her a once-over that makes her wonder for a second if she is actually wearing anything, and then holds out his hand. “Ecstatic. Now come on. I want this place to ourselves.”
“What place?” Caroline grouches, slipping her hand into his. Predictably he stays silent, and ignores the perfectly adequate front door by leading her towards the window. She almost puts up a fight about that too, but decides against it. She always enjoys using her preternatural skills, and jumping in and out of windows is one of them. The fact that Tyler can do the same is just a bonus.
His truck sits idling on the curb, a tarp covering something in the back, but she doesn’t have enough time to focus on it before he opens her door, waiting for her to climb in. It’s an unnecessary gesture, given that it’s far from requisite and she’s definitely not the same girly Caroline, but she appreciates it anyway. After she buckles in, he jogs around to the driver’s side and smirks at her.
“You’ll have fun, I promise.”
Caroline doubts it. Tyler’s way too happy for that to be possible.
“It’s been an hour, Tyler,” says Caroline, looking at the clock on the dashboard. “Where are you taking me?”
She doesn’t expect him to answer, and he doesn’t, so she takes the time to look outside. Up until then, she’d sat sulking and wishing he’d just tell her, that she hadn’t noticed where they were headed. Which is why she’s surprised to see that they’d clearly gone up in elevation; snow smatters the freeway and trees, and the asphalt glistens with frost.
Well, she muses, at least now I know what the getup’s for.
“What, are we going skiing?” she asks. As far as she knew, Tyler had never got into the sport, and what the tarp covered didn’t look long enough to be skis or snowboards.
Tyler rests his elbow on the window frame contentedly. “Better,” he answers. “Stop freaking out. We’re almost there anyway.”
She would really like to know where there is, but knows it’s futile. Many times she’d been able to sway Tyler to her side, no matter what, but apparently this is not one of those times. She stares at him, wondering what has him so pleased. Her face softens as she realizes this is something important to him, something that, despite their unspoken promise to not keep anything from one another, is worth her being in the dark about it. She wasn’t lying when she reminded him she doesn’t like surprises, but maybe this one would prove to not be so bad.
It’s maybe another twenty minutes before Tyler pulls off the highway and onto an uneven, forest service-like road, the bumps making the CD skip and Caroline yelp, but it isn’t far. He stops once they come to a clearing and shuts off the truck, jumping out onto the crunchy grass. Caroline peers through the slightly foggy window in confusion. Tyler opens the door and offers a step down, but she ignores it.
“A lake?” she asks, staring at the broad expanse in front of her. “You brought me to a lake?”
“No,” corrects Tyler, “I brought you to a frozen lake.”
“Oh well in that case…” Caroline says sarcastically, wondering how the hell Tyler even knew about this place.
Tyler walks around to the bed of the truck, calling out, “If it makes you any more agreeable, I brought you a present.”
Caroline raises an eyebrow as she follows his footsteps. He throws back the tarp to reveal a pair of shoes. Of all things. Well, not precisely shoes…
“Skates?” she inquires, now thoroughly confused. She picks up the smaller pair and turns them over in her hands. “I think you brought the wrong ones.”
Tyler shakes his head. “Nope. Now sit up, I’ll tie them for you.”
She does as she’s told, lets Tyler take one of them from her, and examines the other. She’s been skating once or twice before, at a rink just outside of Mystic Falls, but it never really appealed to her, and she’d sucked at it. More than that, though, the skate she holds in her hand is decidedly unlike the ones she’d used then.
Almost all black, a large “CCM” is emblazoned on the side, which doesn’t mean much to her, the design foreign to her. She sets down the boot and watches as Tyler fits the other one on her foot, pulling the laces tight and methodically as if he’d done it a thousand times. He eases off her remaining shoe and takes the other skate from her, duplicating the movements.
“All right,” he announces when they’re both tied firmly on her feet. “Stay here for a second.”
He reaches again under the tarp to pull out another pair, these ones definitely more well-used, the toes and sides scuffed and the leather around the ankle indented with what Caroline assumes must be laces repeatedly tied around there. Her assumptions prove right as he yanks the laces firmly and wraps the remainder around the ankle to shorten the length.
He hops down from the truck bed, thick rubber guards protecting the blades from the ground, and she mimics his actions. To less success. She tries to walk forward, but the weird contraptions on her feet are alien. Tyler chuckles and offers her his arm as a crutch, but she refuses. He shrugs and heads towards the lake with no difficulty, watching her out of the corner of his eye to make sure she doesn’t actually fall. She doesn’t, which he finds amazing, but she’s certainly not sure on them either.
Once they reach the edge, he takes off the guards from both his and Caroline’s skates, and glides onto the ice, waiting for her to take her first step. She glares at him for a few moments before attempting it, but the second her blades touch the slippery surface, she’s upended and lands hard and ungracefully.
“Ow,” she comments robotically, rubbing her side. “Ice is not forgiving.”
Tyler laughs again. “That’s why they call it ‘ice,’ Caroline.”
He watches as she rights herself gingerly, concentrating on keeping herself steady, feeling the flat of the blade and aiming to remain there. In fact, she’s perfectly fine just standing still. Sounds like a great plan to her.
“Oh come on,” Tyler wheedles. “It’s not like I’m asking you to wear white after Labor Day.”
“I think I’d rather wear the white,” Caroline sniffs. The lake looks frighteningly large from here.
Tyler has a pained expression on his face, which she doesn’t know is truthful or simply exasperation, but she relents. This wouldn’t be something he drug her over an hour outside of town for if it didn’t mean anything to him. She figures he’s done enough for her in the past-she might as well return the favor.
“Okay, fine,” Caroline says. “Convince me these things aren’t death traps.”
A smile breaks out on Tyler’s face and she feels faintly amused-and even interested-as to why. Without warning, he takes off, the power in his strides made noticeable by not only the deep grooves that mar the lake surface, but the crackling, sheathing sounds that erupt from it. He turns backwards on a dime, doing all sorts of things with his skates that she could never dream of, not looking at all like figure skater moves, but graceful in their own way.
He’s a good hundred or so feet away from her, but she can see a kind of tranquility on his face, one that tells her without question this is exactly the reason why he’d wanted to take her out here. She wonders how long that desire had been there, to share this with her, and though it’s not like all the supernatural nastiness was her fault, she feels regret that he hadn’t been able to do this before.
Watching him do crossovers and tight turns and balancing on edges and things she can’t put names to suddenly makes the skates attached to her own feet seem substantially less like injuries waiting to happen. Not quite knowing what she’s doing, she takes a few steps, her balance far from perfect, but soon she starts to understand the movements. Not that she’s willing to try even a fraction of what Tyler had.
After a couple more moments of him getting the majority of the skating out of his system, he sidles over to her, coming to a stop and showering her with snow ankles to waist. She scoffs in faux annoyance, brushing the flakes off her. “Very gentlemanly, Tyler,” she comments.
He simply smiles.
“Fess up,” she says, crossing her arms. “Where the hell did you learn how to do all that?”
He gets uncomfortable for a second or two, but it’s gone before she can pull anything from it. “When I left,” he begins, and Caroline guesses what that discomfort was about, “we didn’t just go to Florida. We didn’t spend much time there at all, actually.”
“You went to Saskatchewan?” Caroline quips.
“No,” says Tyler indulgently. “Colorado. North of Denver in a city called Boulder. It’s right up next to the mountains, and in winter, there’s a bunch of lakes that freeze over. People around town talked about pickup hockey games there all the time, so one weekend I checked it out. I sucked at first, but in Colorado, it’s either that or snowboarding, and I’ve never really got the hang of the boarding thing.”
“So you’re a full-on Mighty Duck now?”
“Less Disney,” Tyler chuckles. “But sort of. It’s-it’s better than I ever thought it’d be. I didn’t get the hype at first, but I stuck around for a couple games and got sucked in.”
“But it’s so…violent,” Caroline inputs, thinking about everything she’d heard of the sport. “All the blood and the fighting and grossness.”
“Nah, it’s not like that,” says Tyler. Then he amends, “All right, well, it’s not hockey if there’s not blood, but the fighting is really just mostly NHL stuff. I’ve gotten into some scraps, but I’m bad at them.”
“Good,” Caroline says firmly. She puts her hands on either side of his face and continues, “I like you unbroken.”
“Funny you should mention that…” Tyler trails. Gesturing to his teeth, he says, “Not all real anymore.”
Caroline frowns. “What happened?”
“Slap shot,” he replies flippantly.
Caroline clamps her own teeth together, shuddering at the mental image. “Ouch.”
“Caroline, I turn into a wolf every month,” Tyler sighs. “A puck to the mouth is nothing.”
She begs to differ, but guesses she’d just be hurting his masculine pride or whatever by arguing. “Have you got your bragging out of the way?” Caroline asks, putting her hands on her hips. “I’m not going to let myself get kidnapped all the way out to the middle of nowhere and not learn a thing or two.”
“Fair enough,” Tyler assents. He takes her hands in his-this time she actually lets him-and starts skating slowly backward, studying her feet to assess her stance. “It’s not like walking,” he says almost immediately. “You’re shaving off the top layer of ice. You have to push outward, not forward.”
“Good thing you said that, Tyler. Otherwise I’d be totally lost.”
It takes awhile, but Caroline eventually gets the hang of it. She’s well aware she’s not going to be skating like some dude named Wayne Gretzky anytime soon, but at least she can stay upright. Tyler attempted to get her to try crossovers, but that turned out to be a disaster, so he decided it’d be best to leave for later.
“See, it’s not so bad,” Tyler comments as Caroline skates unassisted beside him.
Caroline refuses to admit it, but he’s right. She doesn’t know if her vampirism made it just the slightest bit easier in terms of balance or something, but it’s not as hard as she remembered. Tyler had made the occasional reference to the differences between hockey skates and figure skates, which had initially gone over her head, but she can understand now. There’s more room to move around in the ankle, making it phenomenally more comfortable, the leather is thicker and padded, and there’s no annoying pick at the front for her to catch on the ice and wipe out.
Abruptly, Tyler speaks up, “I got you another present, by the way. I was waiting to see if you totally hated this, but…”
Caroline frowns-something’s up. “Okay…?”
He leaves her there and skates to the edge of the lake, pushing the snow off his blades and sliding the protectors over them to walk toward his truck. Caroline watches as he rustles under the tarp again, and her gaze turns more wary than ever once she sees what he’s holding.
“No,” she says immediately as he skates back over to her, the two items slung nonchalantly over his shoulder. “No.”
Tyler hands her one of them, and she stares at it like it’ll bite her. Tyler rolls his eyes. “Oh come on. Trust me.”
Caroline scowls-there’s that word again. She wishes she did not, in fact, trust him. But she stays silent, waiting. Satisfied she won’t hit him with the stick he’d handed her, Tyler pulls out a black rubber disc from his coat and drops it on the ice, gripping his own stick firmly, his right hand on the top and left farther down, the blade just grazing the puck.
“What are you doing?” Caroline asks, not meaning for it to come out so waspishly.
“I want to show you that there’s more to hockey than brutality,” Tyler answers.
Tyler proceeds to stickhandle the puck with motions so fluid it’s hard for her to believe this is the same sport she’s always heard bad things about. He controls the puck as if it’s magnetized to him, his stick responding at the slightest movements of his hands. He pauses then, staring into the distance, and she wonders what he’s looking at, but she doesn’t have to wonder long. There’s a crack so loud it makes her flinch as his stick hits the ice and then the puck, the force behind his slap shot-she thinks shrewdly that in those pickup games he’d used his werewolf strength every now and again-sending the disc flying at a speed that’s hard for her to track. It hits a tree at the edge of the lake square on, leaving a dent before it falls harmlessly to the ice.
Tyler gives her a cheeky grin and then chases after it, his strides again cutting into the surface. She trails after him, not nearly as quickly, as he flips the puck into his hands, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
“Yes, yes, gold star for you,” Caroline says, mockingly clapping. “Give me that.”
The sky begins to darken by the time Caroline successfully learns to use the stick, but to be quite honest, Tyler’s impressed at the progress. Her shot won’t win any awards, but it took him more than a few hours to even get the right form. (He declines to mention this to her.)
They’d even tried a one-on-one scrimmage. She hooked and slashed him to high heaven, but did get some decent wristers off. It actually went on for longer than he anticipated, longer than he thought she’d want to, but if there’s one thing you can’t accuse Caroline Forbes of, it’s backing down from a challenge. And she was damn motivated.
“See?” Tyler says as he picks the puck up from the ice. It’s not-”
“If you say ‘it’s not so bad’ again, I will hit you,” Caroline warns, brandishing the blade of her stick in his face.
“It’s not so bad.”
Caroline wasn’t lying. Before he realizes what she’s doing, she jumps on him, tackling him down to the ice and knocking the wind out of him. “Two minutes for roughing,” he says, looking up at her from her position on top of him.
She smirks. “I’ll show you roughing,” she says lowly, straddling his waist. She takes his mouth with her own, his fingers burying in her hair as he pulls her still closer, any thought of retaliation gone.
For Caroline’s part, though she generally can’t feel temperature changes, being with Tyler is the only time she can. He runs so much hotter than normal that even she gets warm, and it’s ridiculously pleasurable.
Not to be outdone, Tyler flips her then, brushing strands of hair out of her face before kissing her again, trailing his lips down her neck and further southward. Caroline’s unnecessary breaths quicken, and she wishes Tyler hadn’t made her wear such thick clothing-this time for an entirely different reason than fashion. His callused fingers skim her stomach and she squirms, eliciting a low chuckle (almost a growl, really) from him. He keeps her still mostly, but her fingernails rake down his back helplessly, setting his nerves on fire.
It should be uncomfortable, lying on the ice, struggling with removing their wintry gear and ignoring their skates, but it isn’t. His hands are as attentive and light as always, making her go insane. She knows he knows he can’t hurt her, and yet he insists on-at least at first-treating her as such. It doesn’t last long, though, that gentleness. Soon he’s just as rough as she wants him to be, his eyes switching from brown to gold and hers from blue to burgundy as they lose themselves in each other.
He comes away with bites on his skin and she with bruises on her hips, but they’re the furthest thing from caring. The outward marks often fade within the hour-the pleasure from them not for significantly longer. She’d asked him once, after, if she’d hurt him, as her teeth tended to sharpen into points as she bit him, but he’d quickly shut her up. Every now and then, they forgot the other was indeed a supernatural entity, able to match power for power, strength for strength, but always it made the experience that much more unforgettable.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Caroline says softly, Tyler’s arm around her as they lay covered by his jacket. “Hockey’s awesome.”
“Just wait till you’ve been to a game,” Tyler replies.
They grow quiet again as the sun dips below the horizon, the pink and purple dying the sky slowly fading into navy.
“Hey Tyler?” Caroline says, his chest warm against her head. “Thanks for bringing me here.”
He looks like he wants to give a rebuttal or a smartass remark, but instead all he says is, “You’re welcome.” A beat passes, and then he adds, “Want to learn the rules?”
Caroline meets his eyes, alarmed.
“There’s rules?”
Fandom(s): The Vampire Diaries
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,854
Summary: To Caroline, hockey seems like a pointless waste of blood and teeth. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to let Tyler win.
Author’s Notes: I’ve always wanted to combine the sport I love with a fandom I love, and I’ve finally found an opportunity. Hope it doesn’t throw you off, and that you enjoy.
Two for RoughingIt’s the first weekend in what seems like forever where there’s no imminent threat of danger. No creature wanting to kill the vampires, or a scorned old friend, or a werewolf hunter, or any manner of other undesirables; even the high school drama is kept to a minimum. No one’s under the illusion that it’ll last long, or that things aren’t plotting to attack them soon, but for the moment, all is quiet.
Which is why Tyler feels it’s the perfect time to get out of town. He hasn’t gotten the chance to in a long time, considering he’s always there for some supernatural problem or another, and he’s been itching to leave-not forever or anything-for ages. Not just alone, though. This time he plans on taking company.
“We’re going somewhere.”
Caroline jumps from where she’d been carefully putting on her mascara at the unexpected voice. (Which is annoying in and of itself-what good are vampire senses if they don’t work?) “Tyler!” she snaps. “Don’t do that.”
Tyler simply grins from his spot by the window and walks over to her, sitting on the corner of her vanity. “We’re going somewhere,” he repeats.
“I heard you the first time,” says Caroline, going back to darkening her eyelashes. “Where exactly do you plan on taking me? And why?”
“It’s a surprise,” Tyler answers. He waits…and gets what he was hoping for. The annoyed sigh and eye roll.
“I don’t like surprises,” says Caroline with a glare. “You know that.”
Tyler shrugs. “I do,” he replies, “and I’m still not going to tell you.”
Caroline is clearly irritated as she touches up her lipstick, watching Tyler suspiciously out of her peripheral. He’s always been so straightforward with her, no secrets between them, so this vague nonsense is rather frustrating. She turns around then, though, and knows he’s won her over. She never has been able to fully look him in the eyes-especially not when they do that amber flashy thing-and not bend to his will.
She sets her lipstick down with a huff. “Fine,” she relents, going over to her closet. She picks out one of her favorite tops, a light pink spaghetti strap with a short white skirt, and takes them off their hangers, but Tyler halts her movements.
Placatingly, he says, “Where we’re going, that’s not quite going to do it.” Caroline frowns, and watches as he goes through her closet, obviously searching for something but out of his league-her closet is a formidable foe for anyone who’s not her.
“What are you looking for?” she asks exasperatedly. “If you’d just tell me, it’d go-”
“This’ll work,” Tyler interrupts, holding out a jacket and some snow pants she’d only worn once in her life. She scrunches up her face and begins to object, but Tyler’s been around her long enough to anticipate it. “I’m sure they don’t match,” he says, “but it’s not going to matter, trust me.”
“Trust you,” she snips, though it’s without any real vitriol.
They’d long since gotten past the stage of being wary of one another, even though her skepticism in this situation is rising every second. He just stares at her however, and this time it’s curiosity that gets the better of her. He’s not usually this forceful (well…not this forceful when they’re still clothed), and it’s intriguing.
She snatches the outfit from him and goes into her bathroom, shutting the door. It’s not that she wants to preserve her modesty or anything, she’d just like to make it known she doesn’t approve of this whole thing.
She doesn’t know why precisely he wants her to be warm, considering she doesn’t feel cold, but she humors him. The jacket is one she’s had on plenty of times so it doesn’t really bother her, but she rarely wears pants that are so…not flattering. Even in the dead of winter, like it is now, the most she’d do is wear some boots and leggings under jeans. Never these baggy atrocities. She’s astounded that she even kept them. They were a gift a year or so back from a family friend who obviously had no idea what Caroline’s tastes in fashion were.
But she finds a way to make it work-she always does-and steps out of the bathroom, being sure to keep the glower on her face. “Happy?”
Tyler gives her a once-over that makes her wonder for a second if she is actually wearing anything, and then holds out his hand. “Ecstatic. Now come on. I want this place to ourselves.”
“What place?” Caroline grouches, slipping her hand into his. Predictably he stays silent, and ignores the perfectly adequate front door by leading her towards the window. She almost puts up a fight about that too, but decides against it. She always enjoys using her preternatural skills, and jumping in and out of windows is one of them. The fact that Tyler can do the same is just a bonus.
His truck sits idling on the curb, a tarp covering something in the back, but she doesn’t have enough time to focus on it before he opens her door, waiting for her to climb in. It’s an unnecessary gesture, given that it’s far from requisite and she’s definitely not the same girly Caroline, but she appreciates it anyway. After she buckles in, he jogs around to the driver’s side and smirks at her.
“You’ll have fun, I promise.”
Caroline doubts it. Tyler’s way too happy for that to be possible.
“It’s been an hour, Tyler,” says Caroline, looking at the clock on the dashboard. “Where are you taking me?”
She doesn’t expect him to answer, and he doesn’t, so she takes the time to look outside. Up until then, she’d sat sulking and wishing he’d just tell her, that she hadn’t noticed where they were headed. Which is why she’s surprised to see that they’d clearly gone up in elevation; snow smatters the freeway and trees, and the asphalt glistens with frost.
Well, she muses, at least now I know what the getup’s for.
“What, are we going skiing?” she asks. As far as she knew, Tyler had never got into the sport, and what the tarp covered didn’t look long enough to be skis or snowboards.
Tyler rests his elbow on the window frame contentedly. “Better,” he answers. “Stop freaking out. We’re almost there anyway.”
She would really like to know where there is, but knows it’s futile. Many times she’d been able to sway Tyler to her side, no matter what, but apparently this is not one of those times. She stares at him, wondering what has him so pleased. Her face softens as she realizes this is something important to him, something that, despite their unspoken promise to not keep anything from one another, is worth her being in the dark about it. She wasn’t lying when she reminded him she doesn’t like surprises, but maybe this one would prove to not be so bad.
It’s maybe another twenty minutes before Tyler pulls off the highway and onto an uneven, forest service-like road, the bumps making the CD skip and Caroline yelp, but it isn’t far. He stops once they come to a clearing and shuts off the truck, jumping out onto the crunchy grass. Caroline peers through the slightly foggy window in confusion. Tyler opens the door and offers a step down, but she ignores it.
“A lake?” she asks, staring at the broad expanse in front of her. “You brought me to a lake?”
“No,” corrects Tyler, “I brought you to a frozen lake.”
“Oh well in that case…” Caroline says sarcastically, wondering how the hell Tyler even knew about this place.
Tyler walks around to the bed of the truck, calling out, “If it makes you any more agreeable, I brought you a present.”
Caroline raises an eyebrow as she follows his footsteps. He throws back the tarp to reveal a pair of shoes. Of all things. Well, not precisely shoes…
“Skates?” she inquires, now thoroughly confused. She picks up the smaller pair and turns them over in her hands. “I think you brought the wrong ones.”
Tyler shakes his head. “Nope. Now sit up, I’ll tie them for you.”
She does as she’s told, lets Tyler take one of them from her, and examines the other. She’s been skating once or twice before, at a rink just outside of Mystic Falls, but it never really appealed to her, and she’d sucked at it. More than that, though, the skate she holds in her hand is decidedly unlike the ones she’d used then.
Almost all black, a large “CCM” is emblazoned on the side, which doesn’t mean much to her, the design foreign to her. She sets down the boot and watches as Tyler fits the other one on her foot, pulling the laces tight and methodically as if he’d done it a thousand times. He eases off her remaining shoe and takes the other skate from her, duplicating the movements.
“All right,” he announces when they’re both tied firmly on her feet. “Stay here for a second.”
He reaches again under the tarp to pull out another pair, these ones definitely more well-used, the toes and sides scuffed and the leather around the ankle indented with what Caroline assumes must be laces repeatedly tied around there. Her assumptions prove right as he yanks the laces firmly and wraps the remainder around the ankle to shorten the length.
He hops down from the truck bed, thick rubber guards protecting the blades from the ground, and she mimics his actions. To less success. She tries to walk forward, but the weird contraptions on her feet are alien. Tyler chuckles and offers her his arm as a crutch, but she refuses. He shrugs and heads towards the lake with no difficulty, watching her out of the corner of his eye to make sure she doesn’t actually fall. She doesn’t, which he finds amazing, but she’s certainly not sure on them either.
Once they reach the edge, he takes off the guards from both his and Caroline’s skates, and glides onto the ice, waiting for her to take her first step. She glares at him for a few moments before attempting it, but the second her blades touch the slippery surface, she’s upended and lands hard and ungracefully.
“Ow,” she comments robotically, rubbing her side. “Ice is not forgiving.”
Tyler laughs again. “That’s why they call it ‘ice,’ Caroline.”
He watches as she rights herself gingerly, concentrating on keeping herself steady, feeling the flat of the blade and aiming to remain there. In fact, she’s perfectly fine just standing still. Sounds like a great plan to her.
“Oh come on,” Tyler wheedles. “It’s not like I’m asking you to wear white after Labor Day.”
“I think I’d rather wear the white,” Caroline sniffs. The lake looks frighteningly large from here.
Tyler has a pained expression on his face, which she doesn’t know is truthful or simply exasperation, but she relents. This wouldn’t be something he drug her over an hour outside of town for if it didn’t mean anything to him. She figures he’s done enough for her in the past-she might as well return the favor.
“Okay, fine,” Caroline says. “Convince me these things aren’t death traps.”
A smile breaks out on Tyler’s face and she feels faintly amused-and even interested-as to why. Without warning, he takes off, the power in his strides made noticeable by not only the deep grooves that mar the lake surface, but the crackling, sheathing sounds that erupt from it. He turns backwards on a dime, doing all sorts of things with his skates that she could never dream of, not looking at all like figure skater moves, but graceful in their own way.
He’s a good hundred or so feet away from her, but she can see a kind of tranquility on his face, one that tells her without question this is exactly the reason why he’d wanted to take her out here. She wonders how long that desire had been there, to share this with her, and though it’s not like all the supernatural nastiness was her fault, she feels regret that he hadn’t been able to do this before.
Watching him do crossovers and tight turns and balancing on edges and things she can’t put names to suddenly makes the skates attached to her own feet seem substantially less like injuries waiting to happen. Not quite knowing what she’s doing, she takes a few steps, her balance far from perfect, but soon she starts to understand the movements. Not that she’s willing to try even a fraction of what Tyler had.
After a couple more moments of him getting the majority of the skating out of his system, he sidles over to her, coming to a stop and showering her with snow ankles to waist. She scoffs in faux annoyance, brushing the flakes off her. “Very gentlemanly, Tyler,” she comments.
He simply smiles.
“Fess up,” she says, crossing her arms. “Where the hell did you learn how to do all that?”
He gets uncomfortable for a second or two, but it’s gone before she can pull anything from it. “When I left,” he begins, and Caroline guesses what that discomfort was about, “we didn’t just go to Florida. We didn’t spend much time there at all, actually.”
“You went to Saskatchewan?” Caroline quips.
“No,” says Tyler indulgently. “Colorado. North of Denver in a city called Boulder. It’s right up next to the mountains, and in winter, there’s a bunch of lakes that freeze over. People around town talked about pickup hockey games there all the time, so one weekend I checked it out. I sucked at first, but in Colorado, it’s either that or snowboarding, and I’ve never really got the hang of the boarding thing.”
“So you’re a full-on Mighty Duck now?”
“Less Disney,” Tyler chuckles. “But sort of. It’s-it’s better than I ever thought it’d be. I didn’t get the hype at first, but I stuck around for a couple games and got sucked in.”
“But it’s so…violent,” Caroline inputs, thinking about everything she’d heard of the sport. “All the blood and the fighting and grossness.”
“Nah, it’s not like that,” says Tyler. Then he amends, “All right, well, it’s not hockey if there’s not blood, but the fighting is really just mostly NHL stuff. I’ve gotten into some scraps, but I’m bad at them.”
“Good,” Caroline says firmly. She puts her hands on either side of his face and continues, “I like you unbroken.”
“Funny you should mention that…” Tyler trails. Gesturing to his teeth, he says, “Not all real anymore.”
Caroline frowns. “What happened?”
“Slap shot,” he replies flippantly.
Caroline clamps her own teeth together, shuddering at the mental image. “Ouch.”
“Caroline, I turn into a wolf every month,” Tyler sighs. “A puck to the mouth is nothing.”
She begs to differ, but guesses she’d just be hurting his masculine pride or whatever by arguing. “Have you got your bragging out of the way?” Caroline asks, putting her hands on her hips. “I’m not going to let myself get kidnapped all the way out to the middle of nowhere and not learn a thing or two.”
“Fair enough,” Tyler assents. He takes her hands in his-this time she actually lets him-and starts skating slowly backward, studying her feet to assess her stance. “It’s not like walking,” he says almost immediately. “You’re shaving off the top layer of ice. You have to push outward, not forward.”
“Good thing you said that, Tyler. Otherwise I’d be totally lost.”
It takes awhile, but Caroline eventually gets the hang of it. She’s well aware she’s not going to be skating like some dude named Wayne Gretzky anytime soon, but at least she can stay upright. Tyler attempted to get her to try crossovers, but that turned out to be a disaster, so he decided it’d be best to leave for later.
“See, it’s not so bad,” Tyler comments as Caroline skates unassisted beside him.
Caroline refuses to admit it, but he’s right. She doesn’t know if her vampirism made it just the slightest bit easier in terms of balance or something, but it’s not as hard as she remembered. Tyler had made the occasional reference to the differences between hockey skates and figure skates, which had initially gone over her head, but she can understand now. There’s more room to move around in the ankle, making it phenomenally more comfortable, the leather is thicker and padded, and there’s no annoying pick at the front for her to catch on the ice and wipe out.
Abruptly, Tyler speaks up, “I got you another present, by the way. I was waiting to see if you totally hated this, but…”
Caroline frowns-something’s up. “Okay…?”
He leaves her there and skates to the edge of the lake, pushing the snow off his blades and sliding the protectors over them to walk toward his truck. Caroline watches as he rustles under the tarp again, and her gaze turns more wary than ever once she sees what he’s holding.
“No,” she says immediately as he skates back over to her, the two items slung nonchalantly over his shoulder. “No.”
Tyler hands her one of them, and she stares at it like it’ll bite her. Tyler rolls his eyes. “Oh come on. Trust me.”
Caroline scowls-there’s that word again. She wishes she did not, in fact, trust him. But she stays silent, waiting. Satisfied she won’t hit him with the stick he’d handed her, Tyler pulls out a black rubber disc from his coat and drops it on the ice, gripping his own stick firmly, his right hand on the top and left farther down, the blade just grazing the puck.
“What are you doing?” Caroline asks, not meaning for it to come out so waspishly.
“I want to show you that there’s more to hockey than brutality,” Tyler answers.
Tyler proceeds to stickhandle the puck with motions so fluid it’s hard for her to believe this is the same sport she’s always heard bad things about. He controls the puck as if it’s magnetized to him, his stick responding at the slightest movements of his hands. He pauses then, staring into the distance, and she wonders what he’s looking at, but she doesn’t have to wonder long. There’s a crack so loud it makes her flinch as his stick hits the ice and then the puck, the force behind his slap shot-she thinks shrewdly that in those pickup games he’d used his werewolf strength every now and again-sending the disc flying at a speed that’s hard for her to track. It hits a tree at the edge of the lake square on, leaving a dent before it falls harmlessly to the ice.
Tyler gives her a cheeky grin and then chases after it, his strides again cutting into the surface. She trails after him, not nearly as quickly, as he flips the puck into his hands, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
“Yes, yes, gold star for you,” Caroline says, mockingly clapping. “Give me that.”
The sky begins to darken by the time Caroline successfully learns to use the stick, but to be quite honest, Tyler’s impressed at the progress. Her shot won’t win any awards, but it took him more than a few hours to even get the right form. (He declines to mention this to her.)
They’d even tried a one-on-one scrimmage. She hooked and slashed him to high heaven, but did get some decent wristers off. It actually went on for longer than he anticipated, longer than he thought she’d want to, but if there’s one thing you can’t accuse Caroline Forbes of, it’s backing down from a challenge. And she was damn motivated.
“See?” Tyler says as he picks the puck up from the ice. It’s not-”
“If you say ‘it’s not so bad’ again, I will hit you,” Caroline warns, brandishing the blade of her stick in his face.
“It’s not so bad.”
Caroline wasn’t lying. Before he realizes what she’s doing, she jumps on him, tackling him down to the ice and knocking the wind out of him. “Two minutes for roughing,” he says, looking up at her from her position on top of him.
She smirks. “I’ll show you roughing,” she says lowly, straddling his waist. She takes his mouth with her own, his fingers burying in her hair as he pulls her still closer, any thought of retaliation gone.
For Caroline’s part, though she generally can’t feel temperature changes, being with Tyler is the only time she can. He runs so much hotter than normal that even she gets warm, and it’s ridiculously pleasurable.
Not to be outdone, Tyler flips her then, brushing strands of hair out of her face before kissing her again, trailing his lips down her neck and further southward. Caroline’s unnecessary breaths quicken, and she wishes Tyler hadn’t made her wear such thick clothing-this time for an entirely different reason than fashion. His callused fingers skim her stomach and she squirms, eliciting a low chuckle (almost a growl, really) from him. He keeps her still mostly, but her fingernails rake down his back helplessly, setting his nerves on fire.
It should be uncomfortable, lying on the ice, struggling with removing their wintry gear and ignoring their skates, but it isn’t. His hands are as attentive and light as always, making her go insane. She knows he knows he can’t hurt her, and yet he insists on-at least at first-treating her as such. It doesn’t last long, though, that gentleness. Soon he’s just as rough as she wants him to be, his eyes switching from brown to gold and hers from blue to burgundy as they lose themselves in each other.
He comes away with bites on his skin and she with bruises on her hips, but they’re the furthest thing from caring. The outward marks often fade within the hour-the pleasure from them not for significantly longer. She’d asked him once, after, if she’d hurt him, as her teeth tended to sharpen into points as she bit him, but he’d quickly shut her up. Every now and then, they forgot the other was indeed a supernatural entity, able to match power for power, strength for strength, but always it made the experience that much more unforgettable.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Caroline says softly, Tyler’s arm around her as they lay covered by his jacket. “Hockey’s awesome.”
“Just wait till you’ve been to a game,” Tyler replies.
They grow quiet again as the sun dips below the horizon, the pink and purple dying the sky slowly fading into navy.
“Hey Tyler?” Caroline says, his chest warm against her head. “Thanks for bringing me here.”
He looks like he wants to give a rebuttal or a smartass remark, but instead all he says is, “You’re welcome.” A beat passes, and then he adds, “Want to learn the rules?”
Caroline meets his eyes, alarmed.
“There’s rules?”