fic: i used to live alone / before i knew you
title: i used to live alone / before i knew you
pairing/characteristics: stefan/lexi, caroline
rating: pg 13
original prompt: "stefan/lexi - so many birthdays, so many different ways to celebrate"
a/n: for the tvd_hiatus winter challenge
warning: reading this might trigger the need to strangle author for botching their amazing chemistry
disclaimer: they'll kill me if i attempt to own them
He’s never been good with witty remarks like his brother. He’s never had to. One look at his face and they already know he’s into writing journals and brooding about winter nights and the world at large not someone they want to exchange witty repartee about last night’s Supernatural episode with. But his brother, on the other hand, could have practically written that show (and name himself Dean in it) and everything else that seems to be topping E!News' 'Fall’s ten top shows!’
So it surprises him every time he sees her on the same day every year, with the same beautiful hair and with the same not so honourable intentions.
---
“Did you know that some lemings have the suicide syndrome?” she throws at him from the top of the bar counter, drunk and nursing her tenth drink.
He shakes his head, his own glass nestled between his two bare hands, almost blue because of the Chicago cold. Sometimes, but only sometimes, he hates the windy city.
She gives him her best know-it-all smile and recites as if from a textbook, “They get claustrophobic because of the lack of land and leave in search of more space. Only, they’re covered by the big bad sea on all four sides and they can’t swim...” her face softens “...and then they die.” She brings the glass to her lips and drinks.
He lifts his hand up to grasp hers and argues, “Technically they don’t have the syndrome. They’re...just misguided. Poor bastards” he adds mournfully.
“They remind me of you.” She tips her glass towards him and manages to drop half the contents on his shirt.
He’s too drunk to care but he sputters angrily. “Hey. This was expensive.” But then he looks at her again and manages a quizzical expression. “Why do they remind you of me?”
She shrugs. “Well...because they’re a, stupid and ‘misguided’, your word, not mine, like you and b..., well because I forgot b.”
He barks out a laugh. “Lexi. My sweet, smart Lexiiii. You’re so smart. Did I mention smart?”
She drops to her knees and looks straight into his eyes. “That’s why you need me, Stefan.”
It’s said with a bit of slurring but he knows she means it with all her heart.
“Always,” he whispers, leaning ahead, their noses almost touching.
And the whole bar watches as the two burst into laughter.
---
He doesn’t even remember half of that birthday evening. Was it his 125th? But what he does remember is having fun. A word that usually fails to make an appearance in his dictionary the rest of the year. He remembers the joy of being...almost human and feeling like she’s home.
And he remembers her shampoo. It smelled like apple.
---
“Why did you stay?” he asks her that one time.
It’s 1976 and they’re both stuck in his bedroom because of a freak storm outside. She’s leaning against his headboard and painting her toenails.
“Hmmm?”
He repeats his question and waits patiently. She looks up after painting the big toe of her left foot and presents him with a questioning gaze. “What did I what?”
“When you first met me.” He feels oddly vulnerable. “You never left when Damon did.”
He thinks he sees anger on her but it passes too soon for him to be sure. Always too quick for him.
“You were my friend, Stefan. Of course, I was going to stay.” She says calmly like she’s explaining something too difficult for him to understand.
“I wasn’t your friend then.” He doesn’t know why he’s being so insistent. Maybe it was the weather outside. It was making him restless.
To his frustration, he sees her pick up her red nail polish bottle and in a flash, he’s beside her and it's his palm that opens up to reveal the tiny red bottle.
“Stefan!” she reprimands half-heartedly.
“Lexi!” he mimics her tone.
She puts out her hand. “Polish first, story then.”
He hands it out to her. And waits.
When she begins, her face is hidden by the curtain of her hair and he almost wants to push it back. “I heard about you the moment I arrived in Mystic Falls. You made quite the impression then.”
He clears his throat, trying to push back the guilt that had almost been forgotten.
“...I was determined to hate you, you know,” at this, she turns to him and smiles, “I never even thought that we’d cross paths. I was drinking from the survivors of the Civil war and healing them and you were partying with the ladies of the town in your mansion.”
It isn’t even remotely something to laugh about but he does anyway. It’s Lexi and her ability to lighten him up even during times like this.
“And when I met you, you were...” he sees a gamut of expressions flickering in her face and passes no comment, “...this lost boy that screamed help more loudly than the soldiers who were on their deathbeds.”
He doesn’t know what to feel.
“I had a brother like you once.” She quips lightly. He holds his breath.
“Only with a better hairstyle and prettier shirts.”
---
These days, it's his dairies that give him company on his birthdays. He sits and relives all the memories and all that gut-wrenching pain. He holds a pen to fill new pages, new memories but it never touches the fresh pages. Instead, he uses it to flip over his old entries. He even underlines, sometimes. Some funny line. Some sad moment. But he reads. And he reads.
It's Caroline, not Elena who finally asks.
"Stefan?"
He turns his back to the window and sees the beautiful girl he wants to protect from herself. Caroline Forbes was not meant to be a monster. She's the girl who should have grown old, live the life she was supposed to have led. Work her dream job, have babies with the man lucky enough to have married her and die living the happy life. Instead, she's standing in front of him, concerned and worried.
Go away, he wants to say. Go away before it happens to you. Before I happen to you. Somewhere, some place hundred miles back, bad luck and he mated and he hadn't even known about it.
"Stefan?" she tries again. The beautiful girl who never gives up.
She receives a smile and a, "don't worry about it."
There's too much to say, too much to discuss and no place to start from. She wants to start. She looks like she's going to start But just then, it all stops.
Instead, "Happy Birthday!"
When she gives him the warmest hug she can manage, strangely enough, he doesn't feel that as much as the feeling of being kissed on his cheek.
- - -
a/n: I am SO sorry for such a horrible ending. Somehow, I just couldn't bring myself to write more because I kept sobbing every time I thought about her not being there anymore. I loved Lexi more than...well, everyone put together. She was one tough cookie. SHOW, BRING GHOST!LEXI BACK.