entry three: maye damage seeks out damage
title: maybe damage seeks out damage
entry number: 03
fandom: the vampire diaries (caroline/jeremy)
rating: PG-13/Light R (vague imo, but sexual situations, and what I think is considered blood play. think vampires, i'm not sure.)
genre: Supernatural/Fantasy/Vampirism
spoiler warnings: early season 2, goes AU from 2x03 and ignores most of the show's plot and focuses on these two. mostly caroline.
word count: 3308
Jeremy finds Caroline by the falls, a bottle of alcohol in her hand, in her pajamas and her feet in the freezing cold water.
“You know this is where the stoners hang out, right? Not Miss Mystic Falls?”
She whips around, the alcohol sloshing on the grass, and even in the dark there is a hint of red in her eyes, a darkness that had not been there before, before it slowly disappears when she recognizes there is no threat, recognizes that it is Jeremy, and she breathes in and out until it all disappears.
Caroline takes another drink of alcohol too expensive for her, that she stole from the Salvatores, because Damon owed her at least that. (Owed her far more.)
“You shouldn’t be here, Jeremy.” Caroline says not looking at him.
“Do I need to remind you who the stoner here is?” He asks.
He sits down beside her, though his feet don’t go in the water, and there’s space between them because she’s still jumpy and she remembers that he’s been here before, sitting beside a girl with red eyes and trying to understand.
She just doesn’t know why he’s doing it now.
(Caroline has known Jeremy since he was three, when he followed around Elena and her friends, and tried to play their games. Elena always let him and Caroline talked him into playing tea party with her when no one else would. He never complained.
But it was a long time since then.
Things had changed and so had they.)
“Jeremy…” Caroline began, a warning in her voice, but it wasn’t as strong or as forceful as she would have liked. She was tired. She was just so very tired.
“You’re not the first vampire I’ve been around.” He reminds her.
“Anna…” She says quietly, almost reverently, despite the fact she never really met her.
She hands him the bottle, thinking maybe he should have it more than her.
“I’m sorry about what happened.” She says, “I didn’t know her but…Elena explained everything. About the device and about your uncle…”
“Yeah,” Jeremy says taking a drink. He doesn’t elaborate.
“It’s not better you know.” Caroline tells him.
Jeremy looks at her confused.
“Being a vampire, it’s not better. It doesn’t make things better, it doesn’t change things, it just…It makes you hungry and confused and you try to hurt the people you love because their blood taste good in your mouth and you-it isn’t better, Jeremy. You were lucky that it didn’t work when you tried. That Anna’s last act saved you.”
“Elena has a big mouth.” Jeremy says and Caroline steals her bottle back.
“Don’t be an idiot.” Caroline tells him, taking a big gulp, it burns going down but the burn disappears just as soon as it appears. “Anna might be dead, but you aren’t. Be glad, because some of us aren’t that lucky.”
There’s no talking after that, just Caroline drinking and her legs swinging in the water, like she’s trying to feel something, anything, but the cold water does nothing.
She’s dead. She’s cold enough already. Ice cold in the night, with the wind whipping around her, her body temperature too cold for anyone living.
But then, Caroline doesn’t have to worry about that anymore.
Eventually the bottle is empty and Caroline leaves and Jeremy stays, watching her go.
--
When you see her at school, you can’t even tell the difference.
Caroline is still perfectly dressed, her hair and makeup perfectly done, and she smiles just like she used to. Big and happy, like the world has never done a bad thing to her.
(Lie.)
It’s jarring for the people who know her to watch. Or it should be. When Jeremy brings it up with Elena, it’s like nothing has changed. Bonnie still refuses to talk about it, to think about, and Stefan just says things like “coping mechanisms” and “it’s better this way”.
Jeremy hates them all a little on Caroline’s behalf, his brow furrowing as he scowls at them all, and Caroline blocks out the things she shouldn’t be able to hear them say, pushes them down and smiles at the other cheerleaders, raises her hand in class with the right answer.
Matt avoids her in the hall, and she looks after him longingly, but she smiles through it, pushes through it, and she goes to all her classes, her committee, cheerleading practice, like she hasn’t just died.
Like she isn’t a vampire.
(Lie.)
Because it’s what she has to do.
(Lie.)
--
Jeremy finds her at the Grill. Like a lost little puppy, with big floppy ears and too much fur, that doesn’t know what to do without an owner to follow around.
It’s not like that at all of course, but Caroline likes to think of it that way, it’s better than the truth.
She has her curly fries and diet coke, like always. She could switch to regular coke now, order more fries, but that would lead to questions. So she stays with her regular order.
Caroline spends her nights thinking about these kind of things. About the things that could get her caught, the ways that she could slip, about the things that lead to questions.
“Are you a secret masochist?” Jeremy asks as he slides into the booth across from her, “You like heartbreak and pain and just never told anyone?”
He steals a fry and she wants to swat his hand. Almost does.
“I mean, you know that Matt works here-”
“I’m not here for Matt,” She says too quickly, her voice too defensive and she wonders when these emotional highs and lows will disappear. When she might be something like normal. Or normal for her anyways.
(She’d still be neurotic and insecure; there was no escaping that.)
“Yeah, you are.” Jeremy says stealing another fry and she hates him because he’s probably right. Is right.
“You’re right, Elena does have a big mouth.” She mutters, munching on her own fry.
Jeremy laughs and nods his head in agreement and she wants to look around and see if maybe Matt is watching, if maybe he is jealous. But she doesn’t.
It’s better this way. She knows that.
And more than that, it feels like using Jeremy, and she doesn’t want that either. She’s been that girl before, playing games to get the boy she wants to like her back, but she won’t use Jeremy to do that. Not when he still looks at her like she is who she always was. Not when he’s Jeremy and too many bad things have happened to him already.
She doesn’t want to be another person to use him. She doesn’t want to be a person who uses people.
(Caroline does not want to be Damon. To be Katherine.)
“You were right to do it.” Jeremy tells her, repeats his own sister’s words back at her. “I’ve known Matt my whole life…he wouldn’t understand...all of this.”
“And you do?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Like a lost floppy haired puppy.
Or a boy with a death wish, she wasn’t sure which.
--
Still, Jeremy wasn’t afraid to be around her.
Wasn’t skittish or on the defensive and he didn’t talk to her through doors like Elena had before Caroline had finally gotten her ring. (Stefan there of course, to make sure Elena was safe.)
Instead he sat and talked to her, sometimes even touched her hand, and didn’t comment on how cold it felt next to his.
(Jeremy was full of heat, full of warmth that pulled her in, made her want to hold him down and take it from him, steal it and make it her own, because she didn’t have any of her own.
She ignored those impulses though. Changed them, made them better.
Thought about what it would be like to hold his hand. What his hand would feel like against hers.
She thinks it might be rough against her smooth skin that she had worked so hard for. Caroline thinks he would be the fire to her ice and that once she had his hand she would never let go.)
Caroline begins to spend more time at the Gilbert house and when Jenna would open the door and tell her Elena wasn’t home and Jeremy would appear in the background, Caroline would blush.
(Or she would have if she could, instead she just looked to the floor and shuffled her feet.)
Eventually Jenna caught on and there was an “oh” and then she stopped mentioning Elena and let the two of them be.
Caroline wonders what Jenna thinks about the two of them, but doesn’t delve into it. She has enough things to obsess over. She just hopes she doesn’t mention it to Elena, not yet.
Jeremy teaches her how to play stupid video games about killing zombies or other things, his hands on hers as he showed her how to work the controller and what buttons to push, his breathe on her cheek as he explained the game, though he never looked away from the screen.
Caroline could care less about the games, always lost despite her need to be the best at everything (even the things she didn’t understand), but she liked the time they spent together.
She liked just being there.
--
Damon was a dick.
Caroline had always known that, had the memories to prove it, but now he was showing it in different ways and she hated him. Hate, hate, hated him and she wanted someone-she wanted Jeremy.
Elena opens the door instead, surprise on her face before a soft smile appears. And Caroline shoves all her tears inside, and pushes the anger and resentment forward.
(It’s easier than it should be.)
“Damon’s a dick.” She tells her and Elena leads her to her bedroom, to let her rant and explain, and then rant some more.
“He knows, he knows that Stefan has me on a strict diet,” Caroline paces, “One blood bag a day and the rest is hunting with him until we can figure out my control, but he leaves glasses of blood all over the house, because he knows I’ll be there. It’s like he’s just waiting for me to lose control so that he can shove a piece of wooden furniture through my heart. Which for being vampires, Stefan and Damon have a lot of.”
“No one’s going to let him kill you, I promise.” Elena says, her eyes soft and her voice strong.
“Well then he’s doing it to drive me crazy!” Caroline threw up her hands, “He’s taunting me and it’s not like I need it. His mere existence drives me crazy enough on its own.”
“He’s just…Katherine is driving him crazy,” Elena tells her, grabbing Caroline’s hands and stopping her pacing, “So he’s trying to make everyone else crazy too. You just…you can’t let him get to you.”
Caroline wants to say it’s too late for that.
She has the memories in her head to prove it. The faint scars that you can barely see.
Instead she just nods, lets Elena fold her into a hug and offer to paint her nails.
Pretends to understand.
--
When she finally leaves Elena’s room, she doesn’t really leave. She’s halfway to her car, when she hears rocks, pebbles really, being thrown at the house next door.
Caroline looks around the house and sees Jeremy hanging out the window, a small smile on his face.
“Isn’t this supposed to be the other way around?” She asks.
Caroline knows it is, she’s dreamed about the day a boy would do something like this, something romantic, like throwing rocks at her window to get her attention and declare his undying love.
(Undying love, she wants to laugh, it’s all she has. Undying everything.)
“Yeah, well you weren’t throwing them.” Jeremy smiled. “The windows open, if you know, you wanna…”
She nods and is inside his room before he can blink.
He looks a little surprised, but not startled or scared, and she moves to hug him quickly, wraps her arms around him and breathe in his scent, feel his warmth, and just take comfort in someone who knows everything but doesn’t expect anything back.
--
They end up lying in his bed.
There not close together, but she holds his hand, because she wants to and because she can, and Jeremy doesn’t try to stop her.
They watch crappy tv shows and info commercials, and he lets her stay. Promises she can stay as long as she likes.
(“Why?” She had asked.
“It beats being alone, doesn’t it?” He had said.
She didn’t know who he was talking about.
Caroline took it anyways.)
“I hate him.” She breaks the silence and she doesn’t have to fill in the blanks on who.
“I know, I do too.” Jeremy says, promises almost. Like they’re both on the same side, even if no one else is.
“I wish he would have died that night.” She says, “I wish…”
His hand squeezes her, and she realizes that tears have fallen down while she was speaking.
She doesn’t move to wipe them away, because that might make him notice if he hasn’t already, but she turns to stare at the ceiling.
Neither of them say anything.
--
It becomes a thing between them, though they never really talk about it.
His window is always open, even when the air is too cold outside or it’s raining, he leaves it open anyways, and Caroline does that whoosh thing that Stefan taught her and climbs inside.
Sometimes he’s not there, out of the house or downstairs eating dinner with his family, like a real family despite of everything and she envies him, or he’s playing one of those stupid video games she never could win.
Caroline curls up in his bed when this happens, holds his pillow close, takes in his scene, and pretends.
Sometimes she even falls asleep, wakes up to him in the room with her. Sometimes doing things like homework or scrolling online, sometimes he has replaced the pillow and her arms are wrapped around him and she pretends she’s sleeping a little longer.
When he is there, he smiles when he sees her appear. It’s a small smile, like he’s scared if he gives too much information away, she’ll disappear. And maybe she would.
Caroline recognizes it from the mirror.
She smiles back, larger, more real than with anybody else.
They always end up in his bed and she thinks there’s some meaning in that, even when there not touching and just watching trash tv or she has talked him into watching “girly movies” with happy endings that he rolls his eyes at.
She holds his hand because he lets her.
She cuddles up to his side, because no one stops her and she likes the sound of his heartbeat, likes the way he feels solid beneath her.
Caroline had missed that.
Solid land.
--
“I still don’t get it.” Jeremy says.
“They were in love.”
“They were bad for each other.” He says.
“They weren’t-they brought out passion in each other, only people in love can do that.” Caroline says, “It’s what you’re supposed to want.”
“Is it what you want?” He asks.
She pauses. “I don’t…I don’t know what I want.”
--
Caroline falls asleep in his bed, spends most of the night, and Jeremy tucks the blanket around the both of them, changes into his pajamas, like it’s all just normal.
Like its domestic and they are something that they’re not.
When she blinks awake the clock says four eleven and his hands are around her waist, holding her to him, pressing her back to his front, and she thinks if she closes her eyes this could be everything she ever wanted.
(If she forgot about the dead vampire part of course.)
Her mother won’t be home, will be off working, again, and she could stay if she wanted to (and she does want to) but she stirs instead, moving to get up.
Jeremy groans as she lifts his hand from her waist.
“I was comfortable.” He murmurs, still half asleep, maybe more.
“I was too,” Caroline whispers but he’s asleep again and she’s climbing out the window and everything is how it should be.
Or that’s what she keeps telling herself anyways, as she walks home in the rain.
--
They don’t watch the tv or movies or read books to each other or silently to themselves while they bump each other’s feet because they can.
Instead they lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and Caroline counts in her head, does math, and wonders what Jeremy is thinking about somehow all at once.
(She’s always been a multitasker.)
She turns to look at him and he’s staring upwards, his expression blank until she stares too long and he starts to smirk, his eyebrows raising, and she considers hitting him.
“Why are you here?” Caroline asks.
“It is my room.” Jeremy reminds her, turning to look at her.
“No, I mean, why are you here?” She repeats, trying to put all the meaning behind it that she can.
“Because I needed someone too.” He says.
--
She kisses him after he says it, she wasn’t supposed too, it wasn’t planned. It happens suddenly and Jeremy doesn’t seem confused, kisses her back with passion and devotion, and like he was just waiting for it to happen and Caroline thinks it might be her perfect moment that she always wanted.
That moment, that time that someone finally chose her, picked her.
She pulls away and looks at him, looks at him like maybe he’s crazy or maybe she is too because she shouldn’t be-
but she wants to
-this wasn’t supposed to happen.
“I’m dangerous.” Caroline says looking down at him, her legs on either side of him, and she thinks about how easy it would be to dive back into it all. To block it all out and press him onto the bed and for it to all be easy for a little while.
(Life has never really been easy, but she’d like to see what it was like.)
“You’re Caroline.” Jeremy says, “That’s all that matters to me.”
He’s the one to kiss her that time and she doesn’t try to fight him, clings to him instead, her hands underneath his clothes, wandering and taking in his warmth, as his kisses make their way down her neck, nuzzling and making the perfect little noises.
Her eyes darken, she feels it happen, the veins coming forth, her eyes shifting and she makes a sound she can’t describe, one of pleasure one of pain one of fear all wrapped in one, and Jeremy pulls away.
He looks down at her, moves his hand and pushes the hair out of her face.
“You’re Caroline.” He repeats.
“I…”
“” Jeremy says his voice strong, “That’s all that matters.”
--
When she bites into his neck, him offering it up like a reward she doesn’t deserve, they moan in harmony, they moan in pleasure.
And when she kisses him with lips tainted with his blood, he kisses her back harder, and she groans, angling her body to press down a little farther.
(It’s like a present she doesn’t deserve.
One she didn’t earn.
Like one that her father gave her when the arguments got to loud.
But it’s different too, because there’s no guilt between them, only trust and that makes all the difference.)
He flips them over, pushes in farther, and she groans again beneath him, her nails clawing at his back, because it’s everything she wanted and she still wants more.
“Caroline,” He moans into her neck, “Caroline.”
And it’s like she’s hearing her name for the very first time.
entry number: 03
fandom: the vampire diaries (caroline/jeremy)
rating: PG-13/Light R (vague imo, but sexual situations, and what I think is considered blood play. think vampires, i'm not sure.)
genre: Supernatural/Fantasy/Vampirism
spoiler warnings: early season 2, goes AU from 2x03 and ignores most of the show's plot and focuses on these two. mostly caroline.
word count: 3308
Jeremy finds Caroline by the falls, a bottle of alcohol in her hand, in her pajamas and her feet in the freezing cold water.
“You know this is where the stoners hang out, right? Not Miss Mystic Falls?”
She whips around, the alcohol sloshing on the grass, and even in the dark there is a hint of red in her eyes, a darkness that had not been there before, before it slowly disappears when she recognizes there is no threat, recognizes that it is Jeremy, and she breathes in and out until it all disappears.
Caroline takes another drink of alcohol too expensive for her, that she stole from the Salvatores, because Damon owed her at least that. (Owed her far more.)
“You shouldn’t be here, Jeremy.” Caroline says not looking at him.
“Do I need to remind you who the stoner here is?” He asks.
He sits down beside her, though his feet don’t go in the water, and there’s space between them because she’s still jumpy and she remembers that he’s been here before, sitting beside a girl with red eyes and trying to understand.
She just doesn’t know why he’s doing it now.
(Caroline has known Jeremy since he was three, when he followed around Elena and her friends, and tried to play their games. Elena always let him and Caroline talked him into playing tea party with her when no one else would. He never complained.
But it was a long time since then.
Things had changed and so had they.)
“Jeremy…” Caroline began, a warning in her voice, but it wasn’t as strong or as forceful as she would have liked. She was tired. She was just so very tired.
“You’re not the first vampire I’ve been around.” He reminds her.
“Anna…” She says quietly, almost reverently, despite the fact she never really met her.
She hands him the bottle, thinking maybe he should have it more than her.
“I’m sorry about what happened.” She says, “I didn’t know her but…Elena explained everything. About the device and about your uncle…”
“Yeah,” Jeremy says taking a drink. He doesn’t elaborate.
“It’s not better you know.” Caroline tells him.
Jeremy looks at her confused.
“Being a vampire, it’s not better. It doesn’t make things better, it doesn’t change things, it just…It makes you hungry and confused and you try to hurt the people you love because their blood taste good in your mouth and you-it isn’t better, Jeremy. You were lucky that it didn’t work when you tried. That Anna’s last act saved you.”
“Elena has a big mouth.” Jeremy says and Caroline steals her bottle back.
“Don’t be an idiot.” Caroline tells him, taking a big gulp, it burns going down but the burn disappears just as soon as it appears. “Anna might be dead, but you aren’t. Be glad, because some of us aren’t that lucky.”
There’s no talking after that, just Caroline drinking and her legs swinging in the water, like she’s trying to feel something, anything, but the cold water does nothing.
She’s dead. She’s cold enough already. Ice cold in the night, with the wind whipping around her, her body temperature too cold for anyone living.
But then, Caroline doesn’t have to worry about that anymore.
Eventually the bottle is empty and Caroline leaves and Jeremy stays, watching her go.
--
When you see her at school, you can’t even tell the difference.
Caroline is still perfectly dressed, her hair and makeup perfectly done, and she smiles just like she used to. Big and happy, like the world has never done a bad thing to her.
(Lie.)
It’s jarring for the people who know her to watch. Or it should be. When Jeremy brings it up with Elena, it’s like nothing has changed. Bonnie still refuses to talk about it, to think about, and Stefan just says things like “coping mechanisms” and “it’s better this way”.
Jeremy hates them all a little on Caroline’s behalf, his brow furrowing as he scowls at them all, and Caroline blocks out the things she shouldn’t be able to hear them say, pushes them down and smiles at the other cheerleaders, raises her hand in class with the right answer.
Matt avoids her in the hall, and she looks after him longingly, but she smiles through it, pushes through it, and she goes to all her classes, her committee, cheerleading practice, like she hasn’t just died.
Like she isn’t a vampire.
(Lie.)
Because it’s what she has to do.
(Lie.)
--
Jeremy finds her at the Grill. Like a lost little puppy, with big floppy ears and too much fur, that doesn’t know what to do without an owner to follow around.
It’s not like that at all of course, but Caroline likes to think of it that way, it’s better than the truth.
She has her curly fries and diet coke, like always. She could switch to regular coke now, order more fries, but that would lead to questions. So she stays with her regular order.
Caroline spends her nights thinking about these kind of things. About the things that could get her caught, the ways that she could slip, about the things that lead to questions.
“Are you a secret masochist?” Jeremy asks as he slides into the booth across from her, “You like heartbreak and pain and just never told anyone?”
He steals a fry and she wants to swat his hand. Almost does.
“I mean, you know that Matt works here-”
“I’m not here for Matt,” She says too quickly, her voice too defensive and she wonders when these emotional highs and lows will disappear. When she might be something like normal. Or normal for her anyways.
(She’d still be neurotic and insecure; there was no escaping that.)
“Yeah, you are.” Jeremy says stealing another fry and she hates him because he’s probably right. Is right.
“You’re right, Elena does have a big mouth.” She mutters, munching on her own fry.
Jeremy laughs and nods his head in agreement and she wants to look around and see if maybe Matt is watching, if maybe he is jealous. But she doesn’t.
It’s better this way. She knows that.
And more than that, it feels like using Jeremy, and she doesn’t want that either. She’s been that girl before, playing games to get the boy she wants to like her back, but she won’t use Jeremy to do that. Not when he still looks at her like she is who she always was. Not when he’s Jeremy and too many bad things have happened to him already.
She doesn’t want to be another person to use him. She doesn’t want to be a person who uses people.
(Caroline does not want to be Damon. To be Katherine.)
“You were right to do it.” Jeremy tells her, repeats his own sister’s words back at her. “I’ve known Matt my whole life…he wouldn’t understand...all of this.”
“And you do?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Like a lost floppy haired puppy.
Or a boy with a death wish, she wasn’t sure which.
--
Still, Jeremy wasn’t afraid to be around her.
Wasn’t skittish or on the defensive and he didn’t talk to her through doors like Elena had before Caroline had finally gotten her ring. (Stefan there of course, to make sure Elena was safe.)
Instead he sat and talked to her, sometimes even touched her hand, and didn’t comment on how cold it felt next to his.
(Jeremy was full of heat, full of warmth that pulled her in, made her want to hold him down and take it from him, steal it and make it her own, because she didn’t have any of her own.
She ignored those impulses though. Changed them, made them better.
Thought about what it would be like to hold his hand. What his hand would feel like against hers.
She thinks it might be rough against her smooth skin that she had worked so hard for. Caroline thinks he would be the fire to her ice and that once she had his hand she would never let go.)
Caroline begins to spend more time at the Gilbert house and when Jenna would open the door and tell her Elena wasn’t home and Jeremy would appear in the background, Caroline would blush.
(Or she would have if she could, instead she just looked to the floor and shuffled her feet.)
Eventually Jenna caught on and there was an “oh” and then she stopped mentioning Elena and let the two of them be.
Caroline wonders what Jenna thinks about the two of them, but doesn’t delve into it. She has enough things to obsess over. She just hopes she doesn’t mention it to Elena, not yet.
Jeremy teaches her how to play stupid video games about killing zombies or other things, his hands on hers as he showed her how to work the controller and what buttons to push, his breathe on her cheek as he explained the game, though he never looked away from the screen.
Caroline could care less about the games, always lost despite her need to be the best at everything (even the things she didn’t understand), but she liked the time they spent together.
She liked just being there.
--
Damon was a dick.
Caroline had always known that, had the memories to prove it, but now he was showing it in different ways and she hated him. Hate, hate, hated him and she wanted someone-she wanted Jeremy.
Elena opens the door instead, surprise on her face before a soft smile appears. And Caroline shoves all her tears inside, and pushes the anger and resentment forward.
(It’s easier than it should be.)
“Damon’s a dick.” She tells her and Elena leads her to her bedroom, to let her rant and explain, and then rant some more.
“He knows, he knows that Stefan has me on a strict diet,” Caroline paces, “One blood bag a day and the rest is hunting with him until we can figure out my control, but he leaves glasses of blood all over the house, because he knows I’ll be there. It’s like he’s just waiting for me to lose control so that he can shove a piece of wooden furniture through my heart. Which for being vampires, Stefan and Damon have a lot of.”
“No one’s going to let him kill you, I promise.” Elena says, her eyes soft and her voice strong.
“Well then he’s doing it to drive me crazy!” Caroline threw up her hands, “He’s taunting me and it’s not like I need it. His mere existence drives me crazy enough on its own.”
“He’s just…Katherine is driving him crazy,” Elena tells her, grabbing Caroline’s hands and stopping her pacing, “So he’s trying to make everyone else crazy too. You just…you can’t let him get to you.”
Caroline wants to say it’s too late for that.
She has the memories in her head to prove it. The faint scars that you can barely see.
Instead she just nods, lets Elena fold her into a hug and offer to paint her nails.
Pretends to understand.
--
When she finally leaves Elena’s room, she doesn’t really leave. She’s halfway to her car, when she hears rocks, pebbles really, being thrown at the house next door.
Caroline looks around the house and sees Jeremy hanging out the window, a small smile on his face.
“Isn’t this supposed to be the other way around?” She asks.
Caroline knows it is, she’s dreamed about the day a boy would do something like this, something romantic, like throwing rocks at her window to get her attention and declare his undying love.
(Undying love, she wants to laugh, it’s all she has. Undying everything.)
“Yeah, well you weren’t throwing them.” Jeremy smiled. “The windows open, if you know, you wanna…”
She nods and is inside his room before he can blink.
He looks a little surprised, but not startled or scared, and she moves to hug him quickly, wraps her arms around him and breathe in his scent, feel his warmth, and just take comfort in someone who knows everything but doesn’t expect anything back.
--
They end up lying in his bed.
There not close together, but she holds his hand, because she wants to and because she can, and Jeremy doesn’t try to stop her.
They watch crappy tv shows and info commercials, and he lets her stay. Promises she can stay as long as she likes.
(“Why?” She had asked.
“It beats being alone, doesn’t it?” He had said.
She didn’t know who he was talking about.
Caroline took it anyways.)
“I hate him.” She breaks the silence and she doesn’t have to fill in the blanks on who.
“I know, I do too.” Jeremy says, promises almost. Like they’re both on the same side, even if no one else is.
“I wish he would have died that night.” She says, “I wish…”
His hand squeezes her, and she realizes that tears have fallen down while she was speaking.
She doesn’t move to wipe them away, because that might make him notice if he hasn’t already, but she turns to stare at the ceiling.
Neither of them say anything.
--
It becomes a thing between them, though they never really talk about it.
His window is always open, even when the air is too cold outside or it’s raining, he leaves it open anyways, and Caroline does that whoosh thing that Stefan taught her and climbs inside.
Sometimes he’s not there, out of the house or downstairs eating dinner with his family, like a real family despite of everything and she envies him, or he’s playing one of those stupid video games she never could win.
Caroline curls up in his bed when this happens, holds his pillow close, takes in his scene, and pretends.
Sometimes she even falls asleep, wakes up to him in the room with her. Sometimes doing things like homework or scrolling online, sometimes he has replaced the pillow and her arms are wrapped around him and she pretends she’s sleeping a little longer.
When he is there, he smiles when he sees her appear. It’s a small smile, like he’s scared if he gives too much information away, she’ll disappear. And maybe she would.
Caroline recognizes it from the mirror.
She smiles back, larger, more real than with anybody else.
They always end up in his bed and she thinks there’s some meaning in that, even when there not touching and just watching trash tv or she has talked him into watching “girly movies” with happy endings that he rolls his eyes at.
She holds his hand because he lets her.
She cuddles up to his side, because no one stops her and she likes the sound of his heartbeat, likes the way he feels solid beneath her.
Caroline had missed that.
Solid land.
--
“I still don’t get it.” Jeremy says.
“They were in love.”
“They were bad for each other.” He says.
“They weren’t-they brought out passion in each other, only people in love can do that.” Caroline says, “It’s what you’re supposed to want.”
“Is it what you want?” He asks.
She pauses. “I don’t…I don’t know what I want.”
--
Caroline falls asleep in his bed, spends most of the night, and Jeremy tucks the blanket around the both of them, changes into his pajamas, like it’s all just normal.
Like its domestic and they are something that they’re not.
When she blinks awake the clock says four eleven and his hands are around her waist, holding her to him, pressing her back to his front, and she thinks if she closes her eyes this could be everything she ever wanted.
(If she forgot about the dead vampire part of course.)
Her mother won’t be home, will be off working, again, and she could stay if she wanted to (and she does want to) but she stirs instead, moving to get up.
Jeremy groans as she lifts his hand from her waist.
“I was comfortable.” He murmurs, still half asleep, maybe more.
“I was too,” Caroline whispers but he’s asleep again and she’s climbing out the window and everything is how it should be.
Or that’s what she keeps telling herself anyways, as she walks home in the rain.
--
They don’t watch the tv or movies or read books to each other or silently to themselves while they bump each other’s feet because they can.
Instead they lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and Caroline counts in her head, does math, and wonders what Jeremy is thinking about somehow all at once.
(She’s always been a multitasker.)
She turns to look at him and he’s staring upwards, his expression blank until she stares too long and he starts to smirk, his eyebrows raising, and she considers hitting him.
“Why are you here?” Caroline asks.
“It is my room.” Jeremy reminds her, turning to look at her.
“No, I mean, why are you here?” She repeats, trying to put all the meaning behind it that she can.
“Because I needed someone too.” He says.
--
She kisses him after he says it, she wasn’t supposed too, it wasn’t planned. It happens suddenly and Jeremy doesn’t seem confused, kisses her back with passion and devotion, and like he was just waiting for it to happen and Caroline thinks it might be her perfect moment that she always wanted.
That moment, that time that someone finally chose her, picked her.
She pulls away and looks at him, looks at him like maybe he’s crazy or maybe she is too because she shouldn’t be-
but she wants to
-this wasn’t supposed to happen.
“I’m dangerous.” Caroline says looking down at him, her legs on either side of him, and she thinks about how easy it would be to dive back into it all. To block it all out and press him onto the bed and for it to all be easy for a little while.
(Life has never really been easy, but she’d like to see what it was like.)
“You’re Caroline.” Jeremy says, “That’s all that matters to me.”
He’s the one to kiss her that time and she doesn’t try to fight him, clings to him instead, her hands underneath his clothes, wandering and taking in his warmth, as his kisses make their way down her neck, nuzzling and making the perfect little noises.
Her eyes darken, she feels it happen, the veins coming forth, her eyes shifting and she makes a sound she can’t describe, one of pleasure one of pain one of fear all wrapped in one, and Jeremy pulls away.
He looks down at her, moves his hand and pushes the hair out of her face.
“You’re Caroline.” He repeats.
“I…”
“” Jeremy says his voice strong, “That’s all that matters.”
--
When she bites into his neck, him offering it up like a reward she doesn’t deserve, they moan in harmony, they moan in pleasure.
And when she kisses him with lips tainted with his blood, he kisses her back harder, and she groans, angling her body to press down a little farther.
(It’s like a present she doesn’t deserve.
One she didn’t earn.
Like one that her father gave her when the arguments got to loud.
But it’s different too, because there’s no guilt between them, only trust and that makes all the difference.)
He flips them over, pushes in farther, and she groans again beneath him, her nails clawing at his back, because it’s everything she wanted and she still wants more.
“Caroline,” He moans into her neck, “Caroline.”
And it’s like she’s hearing her name for the very first time.