Fic: Boys Like You Love Me Forever
Title: Boys Like You Love Me Forever
Author: lit_chick08
Pairings: Caroline/Damon, Caroline/Stefan, Caroline/Matt, Caroline/Tyler
Warnings: explicit sex and language
Rating: MA
Word Count: 4,771
Spoilers: Everything, including spoilers for Season 3
Disclaimer: These characters belong to LJ Smith, Kevin Williamson, and Julie Plec
Summary: Look, some people are good at school, some people are good with numbers, but Caroline Forbes, she's good at boys. Usually. Well, sometimes. Okay, maybe not that good, but boys just like her so what's a girl to do?
A/N: I've never really written Caroline's POV before so concrit and comments are greatly appreciated!
that good, but boys just like her so what's a girl to do?'>
Damon Salvatore
Okay, here's the thing: Damon is a totally abusive, douchebag asshat who used her as a human chew toy, tried to kill her, and compelled her stupid for months, and she should want to castrate him, feed him his own testicles, and then stake him.
But she doesn't. Want to, that is. Right after she was turned, it was kind of all she could think about (seriously: all she could think about) but after Stefan taught her to calm down, it just kind of...dissipated (and who has no idea how to use that word properly in a sentence now, Mrs. Fowler?).
The problem with Damon isn't that he's the villain of the story (though, sometimes, depending on the story, he totally is) or that he is deliberately hurtful (which he has perfected to an art form); the problem with Damon is, he's just so...pathetic.
She doesn't mean it in a bitchy way; it's just kind of one of those things that just is. Damon is the vampire who blocked his own shot, the guy who is so desperate to have anything of his own that, once he gets the tiniest crumb of anything, he gets so jealous and angry he doesn't have everything, he immediately chokes out any goodwill he has earned and ends up right back into his man-cave of loathing and low self-esteem.
Caroline doesn't like Damon, but she totally gets Damon.
See, the way Caroline looks at it, she is like Damon and Elena is like Stefan. Both of them have spent their entire lives watching someone who, on the surface, is pretty much exactly like them get everything they ever wanted without ever having to work for it. And there Caroline and Damon are, scrambling to grab something of their very own, and always finding that Elena and Stefan have beaten them to it. What's worse is that you can't even act like you're pissed over the fact that they've won because everyone else in the world loves them and thinks they're the greatest fucking thing since sliced bread (though, really, if Caroline had created that metaphor, it would've been something actually amazing, like an iPhone.)
The difference between her and Damon, is that she still pretends like it doesn't hurt when Elena walks away the winner and Damon stopped pretending like he gave a fuck centuries ago.
Damon didn't respect her as a human, but now that she's a vampire, they're equals. At least, she thinks they're equals; she's pretty sure Damon in all his dickheaded glory would just make the same stupid comment about how she's nothing but an albatross around his neck.
The albatross was good luck until some dumbass shot it; she likes to remind him of that.
Truth is, she wasn't even sure Damon liked her at all until he jumped in front of Tyler and saved her from his bite. Sure, he showed up when Jules and Brady took her, but that was only so Stefan wouldn't get killed. Taking the bite was the first selfless thing Damon has ever done for her, and Caroline isn't sure if there's a right way to say thank you for that.
He took the bite for her. Because he got bit, Stefan ransomed his life for Klaus's blood. Now Stefan is gone and everyone's miserable and Caroline's pretty sure it's all her fault and how the fuck can you say thank you for something that has annihilated at least two of the most important people in your life?!
No, seriously, how do you do that? She really needs some advice here.
So because no one has any helpful suggestions, she just barrels straight into it because she's Caroline Forbes and no one has ever accused her of being subtle and demure.
“I just wanted to say thank you for not letting Tyler bite me that day,” she says as she's hanging crepe paper for Elena's birthday party.
Damon, who has not moved his ass off the couch once despite her repeated requests that he help her because, vampire or not, heights still bother her, shrugs as he sips his bourbon. “Whatever.”
“No, Damon, thank you.”
This time he rolls his eyes and sighs. “Well...you would have done the same for me, right?”
“Right,” she instantly agrees, “because we're family.”
“Don't go overboard.”
“No, we totally are!” Caroline insists as she begins to make a large bow from ribbon. “Katherine made you and Stefan vampires, and Katherine made me a vampire, so it's kind of like we're brother and sister.”
“We've fucked, Caroline,” he reminds her as if she has somehow forgotten one of the most traumatic experiences of her life (which, quite frankly, given the way her life has been going over the past year, might actually end up not ranking nearly as high on the list as it once had.)
“Okay, so we're a brother and sister from Kentucky.”
Damon laughs, and Caroline knows she has won. “You're insane.”
This time she shrugs before thrusting the bow at him. “Put that on the chandelier. And make sure it's straight!”
So, yeah, Damon's a douchebag, abusive asshat, but the thing is, now, he's kind of her douchebag, abusive asshat. And he's already changed leaps and bounds in the past year and Caroline's pretty sure she can help with that.
There's nothing Caroline loves more than a project.
Matt Donovan
So, true confession time: until he carried her home from the Grill that night she got bombed after Damon told her she was nothing, she hadn't liked Matt. Like, at all. The whole time he had dated Elena (which, to be honest, was pretty much the entire time Caroline had known him), he had always been judgmental and kind of a buzzkill. More than once she had tried to talk Elena into dumping him for someone more fun because Matt was such a freaking Boy Scout. It made no sense that he and Vicki came from the same family because, even though Vicki was a total slut, she was a good fucking time.
May she rest in peace.
But the point is, if she hadn't gotten drunk that night and been so damn depressed, she probably never would have looked at Matt as anything other than Elena's ex-boyfriend. And that kind of makes her sad when she really thinks about it because the Matt she knew as Elena's boyfriend is so totally not the Matt she got to know when he was her boyfriend.
For instance, the first time she ever went over his house, she saw that he had a nightlight next to his bed. She had made some kind of stupid comment about it, and he got this really dark look on his face and asked her to leave. And she had been absolutely convinced he was insane until he showed up at her house and apologized. He explained he had the nightlight next to his bed because sometimes he got panicky in the dark; one of his mom's loser boyfriends got pissed at him once for breaking something and locked him in a closet for hours, until Kelly got home and let him out. He was only six. She had cried as he told her the story, and he had gotten kind of uncomfortable, but afterward it felt like they were on this whole new level, the kind where you tell each other all kinds of things they'd never told anyone before.
And because he told her that story, she told him her biggest secret, which was that she totally knew her dad was fucking Steven long before he ever officially came out and divorced her mom. She had ditched cheerleading practice one day in eighth grade because she had cramps and, when she got home, she found her dad getting a blow job on the couch. They hadn't seen her, and she had never said anything because at least her dad was happy when he was home now and she didn't have to fall asleep to the sounds of her parents screeching at each other.
It didn't really sink in that their relationship was built upon the fact that they're both totally damaged until after she was turned.
Everyone always thinks she was just crazy jealous of Elena because that's who she is; and, don't get her wrong, she has been crazy jealous of Elena over tons of stuff with and without reason, but it was more than that. It was that...truth be told...Matt didn't always treat her the greatest and it always felt like she was being punished because she wasn't Elena.
It's not like he hit her or anything; he never even really swore at her or called her names because Matt's anger isn't like other people's anger. Instead he just gets short and quiet and he gives you this look like you're such a total, fucking disappointment and he wishes he was anywhere else.
Caroline knows that look; it's the same look her mother gives her every time something doesn't go right.
But Caroline always felt like anytime he had to explain something, he was irritated because Elena didn't require explanations since she had always been there. And every time he got into a fight with his mom, he got frustrated because Elena wasn't there to work her Kelly magic and shield him from it. Or when he and Tyler broke up because Tyler macked on his mom (who, by the way, is a dirty faux-cougar who probably has some sort of disease who sure as hell didn't have the right to judge her,) somehow she was the bad guy for suggesting they just talk it out instead of waiting patiently like St. Elena for his anger to go away.
And yet...when things were good with Matt...they were so good, it was almost like she was going to get a happily-ever-after too.
The night everything went to hell, when he rushed up on stage to kiss her, it had been the greatest night of her life. She had felt super loved and happy and like...like maybe she wasn't human anymore but there was still something inside of her which was good and pure and worth loving.
She wonders if that's why Stefan loves Elena so much.
He hates her now. Well, he doesn't hate her, not really. Sometimes she catches him looking at her in the hallways with this sad, nostalgic look on his face, and she just knows he misses her too, but he's never going to be able to get past it, it being everything she is now.
Sometimes she thinks that, if she had stayed human, maybe she and Matt would've found a way to work through everything, to have ended up as Mr. and Mrs. Matt Donovan.
She isn't going to be anyone's wife now, but Matt can still be someone's husband.
Now she wonders if he keeps the nightlight on because she's the thing which scares him.
Tyler Lockwood
“I feel horny all the time. Do you ever get that way?”
Does she ever get that way? Is he kidding? She's 98% convinced her right hand doesn't have fingerprints anymore.
So Stefan definitely didn't lie when he said being a vampire enhanced your personality. Before she was a vampire, she was neurotic control-freak but she was also a neurotic control-freak who really loved sex. And, while she was never really out and proud about it, she had hooked-up with more than her fair share of guys (and, okay, maybe it was because she didn't have the highest of self-esteem or whatever the books say but whatever.) Thus, when Katherine turned her, she became a neurotic control-freak on crack who now had the sex drive of, like, six football players.
Big ones.
With double the testosterone of regular football players.
And it wasn't like she could release her crazy new libido on Matt. She still hasn't completely mastered having super strength, and the last thing she wanted to do was break Matt's hips by squeezing him too tightly with her legs or to get over-excited and rip off his dick.
Stop laughing! This is a legitimate fear, goddamnit!
Anyway, she hasn't had sex with anything that wasn't battery powered since Katherine made her a vampire, and most days she felt like she was a half-beat away from dry humping anything with a pulse just to have an orgasm that wasn't self-induced.
But she can't say that. So instead she just calmly sips the iced tea Jeremy just brought her (which, side note: way to go, Bonnie, for noticing the potential in little Gilbert and getting on that right before he got massively hot) and lies, “Sometimes.”
“It's so fucked up sometimes,” Tyler continues nonchalantly, like they're discussing the weather and not something which makes her wonder just what exactly he's packing in those shorts. “Most of the time I feel like my skin is too tight and every nerve in my body is screaming to just...”
“Just what?” she can't help but prompt, hearing the huskiness in her voice.
“Take,” he finishes, his eyes darkening.
She excuses herself to the bathroom, tosses ice water on her face, and reminds herself that she is so not allowed to jump her friend on a table at the Mystic Grill no much he is clearly not going to protest.
And then he brings that bimbo to Elena's party, and, suddenly, in addition to being a neurotic control-freak on crack who is perpetually in heat, she is now enraged to the point of actually pondering where she could hide this bitch's body after she kills her.
Okay, clearly horniness has made her homicidal and the only way to fix that is by fucking Tyler Lockwood's brains out.
(Maybe Stefan used to be able to handle his urges with deep breaths, but she needs to come. Preferably while Tyler is inside of her. And hopefully while he's going down on her. Or if she lacks the patience to get his jeans off, maybe on his fingers up against the wall in the hallway in the boardinghouse no one ever goes down.)
In the spirit of friendship (shut up), she asks him to dance. She fits so nicely against his body, and he looks so damn good in his black jeans and white t-shirt, and suddenly all she can think about is that scene in Dirty Dancing where Baby runs her hand across Johnny's ass right before he starts undressing her to a Motown soundtrack and Jesus fuck she needs to have sex!
“You want to get out of here?” she breathes in his ear, bringing her body more firmly against his.
Tyler pulls back to look her in the face, making sure she was offering what he thought she was, before asking, “You sure, Care?”
No because this could end up being a huge fucking disaster but she'll think about that after every muscle she has is sore for use. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”
So it's not like she hasn't had sex in the Lockwood mansion before (hey, no judgment; it's practically a rite of passage in Mystic Falls), but she's never been in Tyler's room before. Tyler is kissing her like the world is ending, and she's pulling his shirt out of his jeans and pushing it over his head when the sound of his pounding heart sinks through the want clouding her brain and the bloodlust hits.
“I need a second,” she gasps against his jaw before pushing him shirtless towards the bed. “I'll be right back.”
The front of his jeans is tented to the breaking point, and his entire body is shaking with restraint; it takes everything she has to force herself into the bathroom, locking the door just as her fangs come out. She sheds her dress and neatly folds it before placing it on the toilet seat (look, horny or not, that dress cost $200 and, as her mother is so fond of reminding her, money doesn't grow on trees) and trying to calm down.
“Just breathe,” she whispers to herself as she adjusts her breasts in her red bra for optimal cleavage. “Deep breaths, Caroline.”
The moment her fangs recede and her face is no longer veiny, she whips open the door and all but charges the bed, vaulting over the edge to straddle the werewolf who is now desperately trying to unhook her bra while she struggles to get his jeans open.
“You are so fucking hot,” Tyler groans when he finally gets her bra off, his hands cupping her breasts, fingers tripping over her painfully erect nipples. She can't help but whimper and grind down against him, her panties so wet she can't help but be a little embarrassed.
He flips her so quickly, getting her on her back before she even realizes they are moving, that she actually moans in excitement. She knows he's stronger than a regular person, but she's never really been on the receiving end before; it turns her on, knowing he can't be as easily broken as Matt could have been.
When she flips him back, pulling his jeans down his body with lightning speed, he gasps, and Caroline can't help it: as hot as it is that he's strong, it's still hotter that she's stronger.
“I feel like I should warn you,” Tyler grits out as she pumps his erection, “that this isn't going to last long.”
She appreciates the heads-up but truth is, she might be able to come if he just breathes on her the right way.
Wriggling out of her underwear, Caroline braces her hands on his chest (and, sweet Jesus, does he have a good chest) and counters, “Well, I'm cool with doing this more than once.”
It literally takes less than four strokes for her to fall apart, shouting so loud she's certain everyone back at the party can hear her (oh, and she's definitely going to need to come up with a reason she bailed on the party she forced Elena to attend), and then Tyler is calling out her name like it's a prayer or something.
For the record? Totally gets her wet all over again.
“You're amazing,” he pants as they lie side by side on their backs, staring up at the ceiling as their breathing regulates.
“Well...yeah,” she agrees with a smirk, laughing outright as he playfully jostles her with his elbow.
Look, she's not going to be all falsely modest and blushing about this; she knows she's good in bed the same way he knows he's good in bed, and when there's that much talent in the pool, of course it's going to be good.
But she really can't wait until he's ready to go again because she has a feeling it's going to get even better.
Stefan Salvatore
Don't tell Elena and Bonnie, but Stefan is her best friend.
She isn't even going to use equivocators with it the way most people do (you know, “best friend since childhood,” “best friend from camp”.) Stefan is her best friend, period, end of sentence, no questions asked.
For some reason, everyone forgets that. Everyone's so wrapped up in how Elena is handling everything and whether or not Damon is going to actually look for him, that it's like everyone conveniently forgets how Stefan is the only reason she's not dead right now, staked like Vicki for going blood crazy. Stefan is the only reason she's still Caroline Forbes, and she is prepared to do whatever it takes to make sure he is Stefan Salvatore again.
Damon says his pattern is girls that look like Katherine (which means girls that look like Elena but he doesn't say that) and he doesn't stick to just one hunting ground.
She doesn't say that they're vampires so everywhere is a hunting ground because Alaric kind of looks like he wants to puke as it is.
Most people don't expect it, but she's super good at picking out patterns. On those ridiculous aptitude tests they have to take every couple of years, she always ends up scoring crazy high on sections which involve finding patterns, and she looks at this as just another test. It's just that the stakes are higher and they're all playing for keeps.
As long as she doesn't look at the pictures of the dead girls as people Stefan has murdered, she can compartmentalize the fuck out of this.
In the end, they don't even need her skills because Stefan comes to them. Well, Klaus brings him to Mystic Falls and he kills Andie and who knows who else and by the time she hears the scuffle in the boardinghouse Stefan already has Damon pinned against the wall and is screaming, “Let me go!”
This is not her best friend, and she tastes bile in her throat.
He must hear her come in because he whirls around, and Caroline can smell the blood on his breath (Andie's blood) and his beautiful face is so ugly, he barely even looks like Stefan. Not the Stefan who held her in the bathroom and wiped her face, the one who promised he'd keep her safe no matter what. Not the Stefan who took her out into the woods and taught her how to hunt without hurting anyone. Not the Stefan who walked her home after she had been tortured and organized a slumber party for her.
This is not Stefan, she keeps repeating to herself, but she tears up anyway because this is not Stefan and all she wants is Stefan back.
He moves for the door, and she didn't even realize she was intending to block his way until she is now nose to nose with him. She sees something in his eyes, something which tugs at her and reminds her Stefan is in there somewhere, and then he growls, “Move, Caroline.”
“No,” she retorts with more strength in her voice than she thought possible. “If you want me to move, you move me.”
In the past year, she has almost died, actually died, become a vampire, been tortured, narrowly avoided being sacrificed, and had been outted as a vampire to both her boyfriend and her vampire-hunting mother, but this is the most scared she has ever been because she doesn't know what's going to happen to her heart if Stefan puts his hands on her.
“Get out of my way!”
“Fuck you!”
He grabs her by the shoulders, and she waits for him to throw her or hit her, but instead he starts to shake her like a rag doll, his voice trembling as he shouts, “Why are you being so stupid? I have to leave!”
“Then I'm going with you!”
When he pushes her back against the wall, it's strangely gentle, and it gives her hope that maybe he is in there because he didn't hurt her when he could so easily, hopped up on this much blood, 150 years older than she is.
“Don't say that! Don't you ever say that! I have to - “
“You're not leaving me here again! You want to go with Klaus? Fine! But you said you'd take care of me, and that means I'm going with you!”
He doesn't get a chance to reply because suddenly Damon and Alaric are firing vervain darts into him and Bonnie is knocking him out and before he drops, he looks up at her with such betrayal in his eyes, she feels this totally insane urge to apologize.
Bonnie is putting all kinds of barriers around the boardinghouse and everyone else is powwowing in the living room and trying to keep Elena out of the basement until Stefan is detoxed. Caroline elects to stay with him in the cell, and, even though she knows Stefan would not hurt Elena on purpose, she also knows he will kill himself if he accidentally hurts her.
When Stefan finally wakes up, he jerks awake, disoriented, before his eyes fall on her. His voice is panicked as he warns, “Klaus is going to come for me.”
She nods as if the idea of that doesn't terrify her. “Probably.”
“I need blood.”
She shakes her head. “Sorry. You're cut off.”
“Caroline - “
“Consider this your intervention. I didn't write a letter about how your addiction is affecting my life, but I'm pretty sure you can put the pieces together.”
“This isn't a joke!”
Caroline sobers, drawing her knees up to her chest. “No, it definitely is not that. But you're still not getting blood.”
“I need - “
“Don't make me have Bonnie put you out again,” she cuts in. When he looks as if he is going to speak again, she adds, “You know, everyone else wanted to seal you in the tomb and let you desiccate until you were literally blood free. If you aren't a cooperative patient, they're going to knock my ass out and put you in the tomb anyway.”
Stefan is quiet as he lies back on the cot again, staring aimlessly at the cement ceiling. And then, so softly she almost misses it, he says, “Thank you for not letting them do that to me.”
Hope flutters in her chest, and she can't help but start to cry again.
Hey, her best friend just returned from being held hostage by a psychotic vampire and being forced to be a monster. She's allowed a little girlishness right now.
It takes two days before his body starts to full-on shake from withdrawal, mini-seizures which make his teeth chatter and force pained cries from his lips. In some ways, it's even worse than the first time she watched Tyler transform because she could stop this; she could grab one of the blood bags and he'd be pain-free in moments.
Look, she's not good at inaction; she's a doer, and she needs something to do.
She climbs onto the cot behind him, wrapping her arms around him, the big spoon to his little spoon. He's still shaking so she starts shushing him like she used to do to the kids she once babysat for, whispering nonsense against his ear. And then she just starts talking about everything he has missed since he's been gone.
It's been five months; she has a lot saved up.
On the third day of his withdrawal, Caroline wakes up to someone touching her face. She blinks open her eyes to see Stefan's eyes (her Stefan's eyes) focused on her, his index finger tracing the line of her nose before drifting across her cheekbones.
“Caroline,” he breathes, and it is the voice who has talked her through the hardest moments of her life, not the crazed voice of a monster she doesn't know at all.
“Welcome back,” she smiles, her own hunger gnawing in her gut. She hasn't eaten since he started withdrawing, not wanting to leave him alone even for a moment.
“You saved me.”
It is half-question, half-statement, and she isn't sure how to respond to it so she shrugs and sighs, “Well, not like I didn't owe you one.”
He slides his hand behind her, cupping the nape of her neck, and he pulls her in even closer, burying his face in the hair she is certain smells like moldy basement prison cell. And then he announces with such certainty, “I knew it would be you.”
“Who did what?”
“Who brought me back.”
This is the moment when she falls in love with Stefan Salvatore.
What? It's not like Elena has any plans on living forever, and she's already booked a one-way ticket on the Eternal Life Express.
She thinks she can be patient for Stefan.
And if she isn't now, she knows he'll teach her how to be.
Author: lit_chick08
Pairings: Caroline/Damon, Caroline/Stefan, Caroline/Matt, Caroline/Tyler
Warnings: explicit sex and language
Rating: MA
Word Count: 4,771
Spoilers: Everything, including spoilers for Season 3
Disclaimer: These characters belong to LJ Smith, Kevin Williamson, and Julie Plec
Summary: Look, some people are good at school, some people are good with numbers, but Caroline Forbes, she's good at boys. Usually. Well, sometimes. Okay, maybe not that good, but boys just like her so what's a girl to do?
A/N: I've never really written Caroline's POV before so concrit and comments are greatly appreciated!
that good, but boys just like her so what's a girl to do?'>
Damon Salvatore
Okay, here's the thing: Damon is a totally abusive, douchebag asshat who used her as a human chew toy, tried to kill her, and compelled her stupid for months, and she should want to castrate him, feed him his own testicles, and then stake him.
But she doesn't. Want to, that is. Right after she was turned, it was kind of all she could think about (seriously: all she could think about) but after Stefan taught her to calm down, it just kind of...dissipated (and who has no idea how to use that word properly in a sentence now, Mrs. Fowler?).
The problem with Damon isn't that he's the villain of the story (though, sometimes, depending on the story, he totally is) or that he is deliberately hurtful (which he has perfected to an art form); the problem with Damon is, he's just so...pathetic.
She doesn't mean it in a bitchy way; it's just kind of one of those things that just is. Damon is the vampire who blocked his own shot, the guy who is so desperate to have anything of his own that, once he gets the tiniest crumb of anything, he gets so jealous and angry he doesn't have everything, he immediately chokes out any goodwill he has earned and ends up right back into his man-cave of loathing and low self-esteem.
Caroline doesn't like Damon, but she totally gets Damon.
See, the way Caroline looks at it, she is like Damon and Elena is like Stefan. Both of them have spent their entire lives watching someone who, on the surface, is pretty much exactly like them get everything they ever wanted without ever having to work for it. And there Caroline and Damon are, scrambling to grab something of their very own, and always finding that Elena and Stefan have beaten them to it. What's worse is that you can't even act like you're pissed over the fact that they've won because everyone else in the world loves them and thinks they're the greatest fucking thing since sliced bread (though, really, if Caroline had created that metaphor, it would've been something actually amazing, like an iPhone.)
The difference between her and Damon, is that she still pretends like it doesn't hurt when Elena walks away the winner and Damon stopped pretending like he gave a fuck centuries ago.
Damon didn't respect her as a human, but now that she's a vampire, they're equals. At least, she thinks they're equals; she's pretty sure Damon in all his dickheaded glory would just make the same stupid comment about how she's nothing but an albatross around his neck.
The albatross was good luck until some dumbass shot it; she likes to remind him of that.
Truth is, she wasn't even sure Damon liked her at all until he jumped in front of Tyler and saved her from his bite. Sure, he showed up when Jules and Brady took her, but that was only so Stefan wouldn't get killed. Taking the bite was the first selfless thing Damon has ever done for her, and Caroline isn't sure if there's a right way to say thank you for that.
He took the bite for her. Because he got bit, Stefan ransomed his life for Klaus's blood. Now Stefan is gone and everyone's miserable and Caroline's pretty sure it's all her fault and how the fuck can you say thank you for something that has annihilated at least two of the most important people in your life?!
No, seriously, how do you do that? She really needs some advice here.
So because no one has any helpful suggestions, she just barrels straight into it because she's Caroline Forbes and no one has ever accused her of being subtle and demure.
“I just wanted to say thank you for not letting Tyler bite me that day,” she says as she's hanging crepe paper for Elena's birthday party.
Damon, who has not moved his ass off the couch once despite her repeated requests that he help her because, vampire or not, heights still bother her, shrugs as he sips his bourbon. “Whatever.”
“No, Damon, thank you.”
This time he rolls his eyes and sighs. “Well...you would have done the same for me, right?”
“Right,” she instantly agrees, “because we're family.”
“Don't go overboard.”
“No, we totally are!” Caroline insists as she begins to make a large bow from ribbon. “Katherine made you and Stefan vampires, and Katherine made me a vampire, so it's kind of like we're brother and sister.”
“We've fucked, Caroline,” he reminds her as if she has somehow forgotten one of the most traumatic experiences of her life (which, quite frankly, given the way her life has been going over the past year, might actually end up not ranking nearly as high on the list as it once had.)
“Okay, so we're a brother and sister from Kentucky.”
Damon laughs, and Caroline knows she has won. “You're insane.”
This time she shrugs before thrusting the bow at him. “Put that on the chandelier. And make sure it's straight!”
So, yeah, Damon's a douchebag, abusive asshat, but the thing is, now, he's kind of her douchebag, abusive asshat. And he's already changed leaps and bounds in the past year and Caroline's pretty sure she can help with that.
There's nothing Caroline loves more than a project.
Matt Donovan
So, true confession time: until he carried her home from the Grill that night she got bombed after Damon told her she was nothing, she hadn't liked Matt. Like, at all. The whole time he had dated Elena (which, to be honest, was pretty much the entire time Caroline had known him), he had always been judgmental and kind of a buzzkill. More than once she had tried to talk Elena into dumping him for someone more fun because Matt was such a freaking Boy Scout. It made no sense that he and Vicki came from the same family because, even though Vicki was a total slut, she was a good fucking time.
May she rest in peace.
But the point is, if she hadn't gotten drunk that night and been so damn depressed, she probably never would have looked at Matt as anything other than Elena's ex-boyfriend. And that kind of makes her sad when she really thinks about it because the Matt she knew as Elena's boyfriend is so totally not the Matt she got to know when he was her boyfriend.
For instance, the first time she ever went over his house, she saw that he had a nightlight next to his bed. She had made some kind of stupid comment about it, and he got this really dark look on his face and asked her to leave. And she had been absolutely convinced he was insane until he showed up at her house and apologized. He explained he had the nightlight next to his bed because sometimes he got panicky in the dark; one of his mom's loser boyfriends got pissed at him once for breaking something and locked him in a closet for hours, until Kelly got home and let him out. He was only six. She had cried as he told her the story, and he had gotten kind of uncomfortable, but afterward it felt like they were on this whole new level, the kind where you tell each other all kinds of things they'd never told anyone before.
And because he told her that story, she told him her biggest secret, which was that she totally knew her dad was fucking Steven long before he ever officially came out and divorced her mom. She had ditched cheerleading practice one day in eighth grade because she had cramps and, when she got home, she found her dad getting a blow job on the couch. They hadn't seen her, and she had never said anything because at least her dad was happy when he was home now and she didn't have to fall asleep to the sounds of her parents screeching at each other.
It didn't really sink in that their relationship was built upon the fact that they're both totally damaged until after she was turned.
Everyone always thinks she was just crazy jealous of Elena because that's who she is; and, don't get her wrong, she has been crazy jealous of Elena over tons of stuff with and without reason, but it was more than that. It was that...truth be told...Matt didn't always treat her the greatest and it always felt like she was being punished because she wasn't Elena.
It's not like he hit her or anything; he never even really swore at her or called her names because Matt's anger isn't like other people's anger. Instead he just gets short and quiet and he gives you this look like you're such a total, fucking disappointment and he wishes he was anywhere else.
Caroline knows that look; it's the same look her mother gives her every time something doesn't go right.
But Caroline always felt like anytime he had to explain something, he was irritated because Elena didn't require explanations since she had always been there. And every time he got into a fight with his mom, he got frustrated because Elena wasn't there to work her Kelly magic and shield him from it. Or when he and Tyler broke up because Tyler macked on his mom (who, by the way, is a dirty faux-cougar who probably has some sort of disease who sure as hell didn't have the right to judge her,) somehow she was the bad guy for suggesting they just talk it out instead of waiting patiently like St. Elena for his anger to go away.
And yet...when things were good with Matt...they were so good, it was almost like she was going to get a happily-ever-after too.
The night everything went to hell, when he rushed up on stage to kiss her, it had been the greatest night of her life. She had felt super loved and happy and like...like maybe she wasn't human anymore but there was still something inside of her which was good and pure and worth loving.
She wonders if that's why Stefan loves Elena so much.
He hates her now. Well, he doesn't hate her, not really. Sometimes she catches him looking at her in the hallways with this sad, nostalgic look on his face, and she just knows he misses her too, but he's never going to be able to get past it, it being everything she is now.
Sometimes she thinks that, if she had stayed human, maybe she and Matt would've found a way to work through everything, to have ended up as Mr. and Mrs. Matt Donovan.
She isn't going to be anyone's wife now, but Matt can still be someone's husband.
Now she wonders if he keeps the nightlight on because she's the thing which scares him.
Tyler Lockwood
“I feel horny all the time. Do you ever get that way?”
Does she ever get that way? Is he kidding? She's 98% convinced her right hand doesn't have fingerprints anymore.
So Stefan definitely didn't lie when he said being a vampire enhanced your personality. Before she was a vampire, she was neurotic control-freak but she was also a neurotic control-freak who really loved sex. And, while she was never really out and proud about it, she had hooked-up with more than her fair share of guys (and, okay, maybe it was because she didn't have the highest of self-esteem or whatever the books say but whatever.) Thus, when Katherine turned her, she became a neurotic control-freak on crack who now had the sex drive of, like, six football players.
Big ones.
With double the testosterone of regular football players.
And it wasn't like she could release her crazy new libido on Matt. She still hasn't completely mastered having super strength, and the last thing she wanted to do was break Matt's hips by squeezing him too tightly with her legs or to get over-excited and rip off his dick.
Stop laughing! This is a legitimate fear, goddamnit!
Anyway, she hasn't had sex with anything that wasn't battery powered since Katherine made her a vampire, and most days she felt like she was a half-beat away from dry humping anything with a pulse just to have an orgasm that wasn't self-induced.
But she can't say that. So instead she just calmly sips the iced tea Jeremy just brought her (which, side note: way to go, Bonnie, for noticing the potential in little Gilbert and getting on that right before he got massively hot) and lies, “Sometimes.”
“It's so fucked up sometimes,” Tyler continues nonchalantly, like they're discussing the weather and not something which makes her wonder just what exactly he's packing in those shorts. “Most of the time I feel like my skin is too tight and every nerve in my body is screaming to just...”
“Just what?” she can't help but prompt, hearing the huskiness in her voice.
“Take,” he finishes, his eyes darkening.
She excuses herself to the bathroom, tosses ice water on her face, and reminds herself that she is so not allowed to jump her friend on a table at the Mystic Grill no much he is clearly not going to protest.
And then he brings that bimbo to Elena's party, and, suddenly, in addition to being a neurotic control-freak on crack who is perpetually in heat, she is now enraged to the point of actually pondering where she could hide this bitch's body after she kills her.
Okay, clearly horniness has made her homicidal and the only way to fix that is by fucking Tyler Lockwood's brains out.
(Maybe Stefan used to be able to handle his urges with deep breaths, but she needs to come. Preferably while Tyler is inside of her. And hopefully while he's going down on her. Or if she lacks the patience to get his jeans off, maybe on his fingers up against the wall in the hallway in the boardinghouse no one ever goes down.)
In the spirit of friendship (shut up), she asks him to dance. She fits so nicely against his body, and he looks so damn good in his black jeans and white t-shirt, and suddenly all she can think about is that scene in Dirty Dancing where Baby runs her hand across Johnny's ass right before he starts undressing her to a Motown soundtrack and Jesus fuck she needs to have sex!
“You want to get out of here?” she breathes in his ear, bringing her body more firmly against his.
Tyler pulls back to look her in the face, making sure she was offering what he thought she was, before asking, “You sure, Care?”
No because this could end up being a huge fucking disaster but she'll think about that after every muscle she has is sore for use. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”
So it's not like she hasn't had sex in the Lockwood mansion before (hey, no judgment; it's practically a rite of passage in Mystic Falls), but she's never been in Tyler's room before. Tyler is kissing her like the world is ending, and she's pulling his shirt out of his jeans and pushing it over his head when the sound of his pounding heart sinks through the want clouding her brain and the bloodlust hits.
“I need a second,” she gasps against his jaw before pushing him shirtless towards the bed. “I'll be right back.”
The front of his jeans is tented to the breaking point, and his entire body is shaking with restraint; it takes everything she has to force herself into the bathroom, locking the door just as her fangs come out. She sheds her dress and neatly folds it before placing it on the toilet seat (look, horny or not, that dress cost $200 and, as her mother is so fond of reminding her, money doesn't grow on trees) and trying to calm down.
“Just breathe,” she whispers to herself as she adjusts her breasts in her red bra for optimal cleavage. “Deep breaths, Caroline.”
The moment her fangs recede and her face is no longer veiny, she whips open the door and all but charges the bed, vaulting over the edge to straddle the werewolf who is now desperately trying to unhook her bra while she struggles to get his jeans open.
“You are so fucking hot,” Tyler groans when he finally gets her bra off, his hands cupping her breasts, fingers tripping over her painfully erect nipples. She can't help but whimper and grind down against him, her panties so wet she can't help but be a little embarrassed.
He flips her so quickly, getting her on her back before she even realizes they are moving, that she actually moans in excitement. She knows he's stronger than a regular person, but she's never really been on the receiving end before; it turns her on, knowing he can't be as easily broken as Matt could have been.
When she flips him back, pulling his jeans down his body with lightning speed, he gasps, and Caroline can't help it: as hot as it is that he's strong, it's still hotter that she's stronger.
“I feel like I should warn you,” Tyler grits out as she pumps his erection, “that this isn't going to last long.”
She appreciates the heads-up but truth is, she might be able to come if he just breathes on her the right way.
Wriggling out of her underwear, Caroline braces her hands on his chest (and, sweet Jesus, does he have a good chest) and counters, “Well, I'm cool with doing this more than once.”
It literally takes less than four strokes for her to fall apart, shouting so loud she's certain everyone back at the party can hear her (oh, and she's definitely going to need to come up with a reason she bailed on the party she forced Elena to attend), and then Tyler is calling out her name like it's a prayer or something.
For the record? Totally gets her wet all over again.
“You're amazing,” he pants as they lie side by side on their backs, staring up at the ceiling as their breathing regulates.
“Well...yeah,” she agrees with a smirk, laughing outright as he playfully jostles her with his elbow.
Look, she's not going to be all falsely modest and blushing about this; she knows she's good in bed the same way he knows he's good in bed, and when there's that much talent in the pool, of course it's going to be good.
But she really can't wait until he's ready to go again because she has a feeling it's going to get even better.
Stefan Salvatore
Don't tell Elena and Bonnie, but Stefan is her best friend.
She isn't even going to use equivocators with it the way most people do (you know, “best friend since childhood,” “best friend from camp”.) Stefan is her best friend, period, end of sentence, no questions asked.
For some reason, everyone forgets that. Everyone's so wrapped up in how Elena is handling everything and whether or not Damon is going to actually look for him, that it's like everyone conveniently forgets how Stefan is the only reason she's not dead right now, staked like Vicki for going blood crazy. Stefan is the only reason she's still Caroline Forbes, and she is prepared to do whatever it takes to make sure he is Stefan Salvatore again.
Damon says his pattern is girls that look like Katherine (which means girls that look like Elena but he doesn't say that) and he doesn't stick to just one hunting ground.
She doesn't say that they're vampires so everywhere is a hunting ground because Alaric kind of looks like he wants to puke as it is.
Most people don't expect it, but she's super good at picking out patterns. On those ridiculous aptitude tests they have to take every couple of years, she always ends up scoring crazy high on sections which involve finding patterns, and she looks at this as just another test. It's just that the stakes are higher and they're all playing for keeps.
As long as she doesn't look at the pictures of the dead girls as people Stefan has murdered, she can compartmentalize the fuck out of this.
In the end, they don't even need her skills because Stefan comes to them. Well, Klaus brings him to Mystic Falls and he kills Andie and who knows who else and by the time she hears the scuffle in the boardinghouse Stefan already has Damon pinned against the wall and is screaming, “Let me go!”
This is not her best friend, and she tastes bile in her throat.
He must hear her come in because he whirls around, and Caroline can smell the blood on his breath (Andie's blood) and his beautiful face is so ugly, he barely even looks like Stefan. Not the Stefan who held her in the bathroom and wiped her face, the one who promised he'd keep her safe no matter what. Not the Stefan who took her out into the woods and taught her how to hunt without hurting anyone. Not the Stefan who walked her home after she had been tortured and organized a slumber party for her.
This is not Stefan, she keeps repeating to herself, but she tears up anyway because this is not Stefan and all she wants is Stefan back.
He moves for the door, and she didn't even realize she was intending to block his way until she is now nose to nose with him. She sees something in his eyes, something which tugs at her and reminds her Stefan is in there somewhere, and then he growls, “Move, Caroline.”
“No,” she retorts with more strength in her voice than she thought possible. “If you want me to move, you move me.”
In the past year, she has almost died, actually died, become a vampire, been tortured, narrowly avoided being sacrificed, and had been outted as a vampire to both her boyfriend and her vampire-hunting mother, but this is the most scared she has ever been because she doesn't know what's going to happen to her heart if Stefan puts his hands on her.
“Get out of my way!”
“Fuck you!”
He grabs her by the shoulders, and she waits for him to throw her or hit her, but instead he starts to shake her like a rag doll, his voice trembling as he shouts, “Why are you being so stupid? I have to leave!”
“Then I'm going with you!”
When he pushes her back against the wall, it's strangely gentle, and it gives her hope that maybe he is in there because he didn't hurt her when he could so easily, hopped up on this much blood, 150 years older than she is.
“Don't say that! Don't you ever say that! I have to - “
“You're not leaving me here again! You want to go with Klaus? Fine! But you said you'd take care of me, and that means I'm going with you!”
He doesn't get a chance to reply because suddenly Damon and Alaric are firing vervain darts into him and Bonnie is knocking him out and before he drops, he looks up at her with such betrayal in his eyes, she feels this totally insane urge to apologize.
Bonnie is putting all kinds of barriers around the boardinghouse and everyone else is powwowing in the living room and trying to keep Elena out of the basement until Stefan is detoxed. Caroline elects to stay with him in the cell, and, even though she knows Stefan would not hurt Elena on purpose, she also knows he will kill himself if he accidentally hurts her.
When Stefan finally wakes up, he jerks awake, disoriented, before his eyes fall on her. His voice is panicked as he warns, “Klaus is going to come for me.”
She nods as if the idea of that doesn't terrify her. “Probably.”
“I need blood.”
She shakes her head. “Sorry. You're cut off.”
“Caroline - “
“Consider this your intervention. I didn't write a letter about how your addiction is affecting my life, but I'm pretty sure you can put the pieces together.”
“This isn't a joke!”
Caroline sobers, drawing her knees up to her chest. “No, it definitely is not that. But you're still not getting blood.”
“I need - “
“Don't make me have Bonnie put you out again,” she cuts in. When he looks as if he is going to speak again, she adds, “You know, everyone else wanted to seal you in the tomb and let you desiccate until you were literally blood free. If you aren't a cooperative patient, they're going to knock my ass out and put you in the tomb anyway.”
Stefan is quiet as he lies back on the cot again, staring aimlessly at the cement ceiling. And then, so softly she almost misses it, he says, “Thank you for not letting them do that to me.”
Hope flutters in her chest, and she can't help but start to cry again.
Hey, her best friend just returned from being held hostage by a psychotic vampire and being forced to be a monster. She's allowed a little girlishness right now.
It takes two days before his body starts to full-on shake from withdrawal, mini-seizures which make his teeth chatter and force pained cries from his lips. In some ways, it's even worse than the first time she watched Tyler transform because she could stop this; she could grab one of the blood bags and he'd be pain-free in moments.
Look, she's not good at inaction; she's a doer, and she needs something to do.
She climbs onto the cot behind him, wrapping her arms around him, the big spoon to his little spoon. He's still shaking so she starts shushing him like she used to do to the kids she once babysat for, whispering nonsense against his ear. And then she just starts talking about everything he has missed since he's been gone.
It's been five months; she has a lot saved up.
On the third day of his withdrawal, Caroline wakes up to someone touching her face. She blinks open her eyes to see Stefan's eyes (her Stefan's eyes) focused on her, his index finger tracing the line of her nose before drifting across her cheekbones.
“Caroline,” he breathes, and it is the voice who has talked her through the hardest moments of her life, not the crazed voice of a monster she doesn't know at all.
“Welcome back,” she smiles, her own hunger gnawing in her gut. She hasn't eaten since he started withdrawing, not wanting to leave him alone even for a moment.
“You saved me.”
It is half-question, half-statement, and she isn't sure how to respond to it so she shrugs and sighs, “Well, not like I didn't owe you one.”
He slides his hand behind her, cupping the nape of her neck, and he pulls her in even closer, burying his face in the hair she is certain smells like moldy basement prison cell. And then he announces with such certainty, “I knew it would be you.”
“Who did what?”
“Who brought me back.”
This is the moment when she falls in love with Stefan Salvatore.
What? It's not like Elena has any plans on living forever, and she's already booked a one-way ticket on the Eternal Life Express.
She thinks she can be patient for Stefan.
And if she isn't now, she knows he'll teach her how to be.