Almost Enough (Caroline/Tyler, PG-13)
Feb. 19th, 2011 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ms_beccaalmost enough (Caroline, Caroline/Tyler, PG-13)
spoilers for all aired episodes
for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stainofmylove because she is so damn patient and awesome
written for the prompt "Halfway Point" at the fanfic free-for-all
She knows he’s there, standing outside her front door, on the porch where he kissed her so thoroughly just a few days earlier.
She feels him in the sharp pull from deep in her chest, in the prickle of hairs standing up from the base of her neck. In the shiver, unintentional and unwanted, that spreads up her spine.
She walks to the door, checking the lock, her hand pausing on the cold metal, feeling the slight groves in the metal against her fingers. She knows he’s there but he won’t come any closer. The Tyler she knows wouldn’t have hesitated. He would have knocked and waited, so confident that she couldn’t possibly reject him. Knowing that with one look into his eyes – dark and tormented – she would remember why they were friends in the first place and let him back in.
Because he didn’t have anyone else.
But this Tyler, he made his bed. He chose his kind. The people who kept her captive and shot her over and over with wooden bullets that sunk deeper into her body every time. The pain was only partly from the entry. Pulling and tearing at already swollen and puckered skin to try and dig at the bullets leaving fragments of nails embedded in the skin. Knowing that as soon as she began to heal it would just start all over again...
She doesn’t want to think about it anymore.
She can’t.
So as much as her body might still want him, as much as she might want to see him and have him kiss her or hold her, she just can’t.
She turns the lock and walks quietly back to her bedroom.
~~~
She finds out that he’s left through the grapevine.
She wonders if maybe that’s why he came to her house last night.
She sits through Math trying not to be irrationally angry with all of the decisions he’s made in the last few days. He’s not her responsibility anymore. He never was.
~~~
The thing is she can’t forget him. Can’t push him out of her mind like Damon and Stefan have, like Matt is trying to do.
Every night she crosses off the date on her calendar counting the sleeps until the next full moon. Every night she relives the feeling of his damp skin, the smell of earth and sweat and fear permeating the air around them as she held on to him so tightly, whispering that he would be all right.
She wonders if it’s still true.
~~~
She waits for him. Even after graduation and the drama with Klaus has ebbed. When Elena and Stefan take their perfect relationship to go on a perfect European trip, Caroline stays behind, to watch over Mystic Falls, she says.
Damon gives her that classically unbelieving glare of his, but says nothing as he packs his own bag for some kind of off-season male bonding trip with Alaric.
She’s so sure that when everyone else is gone Tyler will come back for her. He’ll remember what almost was and forget about the drama with Matt, and he’ll kiss her and everything will be just as perfect as it is in her dreams – the ones she has the nights she doesn’t dream about living her life in a four by four cage her only nourishment a steady diet of wooden projectiles.
He doesn’t come.
~~~
In the fall she leaves for college with the Salvatore brothers’ blessings and vows never to think of him again.
It’s an empty threat.
~~~
She stays in Virginia, goes home to visit her mom at least one weekend a month. She’s found that she actually really enjoys college. The learning atmosphere and the co-eds alike. There’s an on-campus clinic where she can get blood if she’s in dire need, but for the most part she’s been picking up men in bars or using the supply she has from the Mystic Falls Blood Bank. Sometimes she uses college parties as an excuse. She hardly needs to compel them into forgetting. The alcohol that flows does most of the work for her.
She’s studying Poli Sci and has actually made some living friends. She still talks to Elena or Damon on the phone almost every night. But she also has a social life. She goes out for coffee, is involved in a study group, and has even started seeing one of her classmates. He’s nothing like Matt, but tall, dark and handsome, with a little bit of edge.
His name is Travis and he treats her wonderfully.
She’s almost completely moved on with her life. Almost.
And then he shows up.
She sees him standing on the other side of the long narrow hallway in the Poli Sci building. She wishes she were surprised to see him, but the truth is that she’s been looking for him every day since he left. He looks broader somehow. Older. She can almost smell the salt and spice on his skin from where she stands. She doesn’t even realize that she’s stopped walking until moments later when he’s standing in front of her a foot away for where he needs to be.
“Hello, Caroline,” he says, his voice rough and deep, just like the memory she’s never been able to let go of.
She doesn’t know what to say. She thought that she’d feel relieved, happy. In her imagination she always thought that she’d run to him and hug him and maybe he’d kiss her. Maybe with his mouth on hers she’d forget all about the heaviness of his leaving. About how he never even took the time to say goodbye to her properly, just disappeared without a word.
But he doesn’t kiss her. He doesn’t touch her at all and she doesn’t know how to come back from all of this. The memories of him mix in her head until she feels tears on her cheeks.
“Could we talk?”
She wants to run away. To use her full speed and just get away from everything. This isn’t what she wants. She can’t handle this right now. She breathes slowly in through the nose and out through the nose, focussing hard to remain calm like Stefan always taught her.
Then she nods her head and follows him.
~~~
He stays in town after explaining what happened. How it was all too much, how he needed to get out of that town, and figure out how to deal with what he is now. What he always will be. There’s no cure. He has to live with who and what he is forever.
She knows he keeps a journal, just like Mason did. He shows one to her the day she breaks up with Travis.
It’s filled with her, but that’s not why she does it.
Her dreams are filled with Tyler.
~~~
The evening of the full moon Stefan calls her. Tyler’s had four years of transformations now, he tells her that he can handle it on his own as much as he’d like her to be there. She can’t forget the last time. (Doesn’t want to forget the last time.)
Stefan talks to her for hours, about how Elena and Damon are doing in Mystic Falls, about Bonnie and Jeremy’s latest escapades. Regales her with stories of her friends – not Matt, never Matt – to keep her busy. She giggles and responds when it’s her turn, but Tyler is never far from her thoughts no matter how hard Stefan tries.
When they hang up the sun is peaking over the trees outside her apartment. She’s left hoping that the night has passed with incident.
~~~
He stays for her. Stays with her. Before she really understands what’s happening he’s living with her. She doesn’t realize it until they’re both in the kitchen after her classes making dinner for him, a glass of blood in her hand and a beer in his. They’re chopping up vegetables for a salad and it’s just so damn domestic that it burns a hole through her. He smiles at her as he slices into a cucumber carefully and she knows.
It’s not like it’s really a surprise to her, but it’s still a striking realization.
She’s in love with him.
Before she was always conflicted or confused. But now...
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” she says as she puts the knife into the sink and takes another sip from her drink. “Does this gross you out?” She points to the glass, the red ribbons of O-negative dripping lazily down the sides.
“Nah.” His voice is calm. “It’s just part of who you are.”
~~~
When she wakes up beside him the next morning she feels more alive than she has in a long time. His lips cover hers and it’s just as gentle as the first time on the front porch of her mom’s house.
His fingers run along her hip, up her side, then back down her arm to play with the ring still firmly placed on her index finger.
She doesn’t know how this will ever work. But she does know that right now, with him (finally), she’s in it for more than the halfway point.
With him, she wants absolutely everything.
spoilers for all aired episodes
for
stainofmylove because she is so damn patient and awesomewritten for the prompt "Halfway Point" at the fanfic free-for-all
She knows he’s there, standing outside her front door, on the porch where he kissed her so thoroughly just a few days earlier.
She feels him in the sharp pull from deep in her chest, in the prickle of hairs standing up from the base of her neck. In the shiver, unintentional and unwanted, that spreads up her spine.
She walks to the door, checking the lock, her hand pausing on the cold metal, feeling the slight groves in the metal against her fingers. She knows he’s there but he won’t come any closer. The Tyler she knows wouldn’t have hesitated. He would have knocked and waited, so confident that she couldn’t possibly reject him. Knowing that with one look into his eyes – dark and tormented – she would remember why they were friends in the first place and let him back in.
Because he didn’t have anyone else.
But this Tyler, he made his bed. He chose his kind. The people who kept her captive and shot her over and over with wooden bullets that sunk deeper into her body every time. The pain was only partly from the entry. Pulling and tearing at already swollen and puckered skin to try and dig at the bullets leaving fragments of nails embedded in the skin. Knowing that as soon as she began to heal it would just start all over again...
She doesn’t want to think about it anymore.
She can’t.
So as much as her body might still want him, as much as she might want to see him and have him kiss her or hold her, she just can’t.
She turns the lock and walks quietly back to her bedroom.
~~~
She finds out that he’s left through the grapevine.
She wonders if maybe that’s why he came to her house last night.
She sits through Math trying not to be irrationally angry with all of the decisions he’s made in the last few days. He’s not her responsibility anymore. He never was.
~~~
The thing is she can’t forget him. Can’t push him out of her mind like Damon and Stefan have, like Matt is trying to do.
Every night she crosses off the date on her calendar counting the sleeps until the next full moon. Every night she relives the feeling of his damp skin, the smell of earth and sweat and fear permeating the air around them as she held on to him so tightly, whispering that he would be all right.
She wonders if it’s still true.
~~~
She waits for him. Even after graduation and the drama with Klaus has ebbed. When Elena and Stefan take their perfect relationship to go on a perfect European trip, Caroline stays behind, to watch over Mystic Falls, she says.
Damon gives her that classically unbelieving glare of his, but says nothing as he packs his own bag for some kind of off-season male bonding trip with Alaric.
She’s so sure that when everyone else is gone Tyler will come back for her. He’ll remember what almost was and forget about the drama with Matt, and he’ll kiss her and everything will be just as perfect as it is in her dreams – the ones she has the nights she doesn’t dream about living her life in a four by four cage her only nourishment a steady diet of wooden projectiles.
He doesn’t come.
~~~
In the fall she leaves for college with the Salvatore brothers’ blessings and vows never to think of him again.
It’s an empty threat.
~~~
She stays in Virginia, goes home to visit her mom at least one weekend a month. She’s found that she actually really enjoys college. The learning atmosphere and the co-eds alike. There’s an on-campus clinic where she can get blood if she’s in dire need, but for the most part she’s been picking up men in bars or using the supply she has from the Mystic Falls Blood Bank. Sometimes she uses college parties as an excuse. She hardly needs to compel them into forgetting. The alcohol that flows does most of the work for her.
She’s studying Poli Sci and has actually made some living friends. She still talks to Elena or Damon on the phone almost every night. But she also has a social life. She goes out for coffee, is involved in a study group, and has even started seeing one of her classmates. He’s nothing like Matt, but tall, dark and handsome, with a little bit of edge.
His name is Travis and he treats her wonderfully.
She’s almost completely moved on with her life. Almost.
And then he shows up.
She sees him standing on the other side of the long narrow hallway in the Poli Sci building. She wishes she were surprised to see him, but the truth is that she’s been looking for him every day since he left. He looks broader somehow. Older. She can almost smell the salt and spice on his skin from where she stands. She doesn’t even realize that she’s stopped walking until moments later when he’s standing in front of her a foot away for where he needs to be.
“Hello, Caroline,” he says, his voice rough and deep, just like the memory she’s never been able to let go of.
She doesn’t know what to say. She thought that she’d feel relieved, happy. In her imagination she always thought that she’d run to him and hug him and maybe he’d kiss her. Maybe with his mouth on hers she’d forget all about the heaviness of his leaving. About how he never even took the time to say goodbye to her properly, just disappeared without a word.
But he doesn’t kiss her. He doesn’t touch her at all and she doesn’t know how to come back from all of this. The memories of him mix in her head until she feels tears on her cheeks.
“Could we talk?”
She wants to run away. To use her full speed and just get away from everything. This isn’t what she wants. She can’t handle this right now. She breathes slowly in through the nose and out through the nose, focussing hard to remain calm like Stefan always taught her.
Then she nods her head and follows him.
~~~
He stays in town after explaining what happened. How it was all too much, how he needed to get out of that town, and figure out how to deal with what he is now. What he always will be. There’s no cure. He has to live with who and what he is forever.
She knows he keeps a journal, just like Mason did. He shows one to her the day she breaks up with Travis.
It’s filled with her, but that’s not why she does it.
Her dreams are filled with Tyler.
~~~
The evening of the full moon Stefan calls her. Tyler’s had four years of transformations now, he tells her that he can handle it on his own as much as he’d like her to be there. She can’t forget the last time. (Doesn’t want to forget the last time.)
Stefan talks to her for hours, about how Elena and Damon are doing in Mystic Falls, about Bonnie and Jeremy’s latest escapades. Regales her with stories of her friends – not Matt, never Matt – to keep her busy. She giggles and responds when it’s her turn, but Tyler is never far from her thoughts no matter how hard Stefan tries.
When they hang up the sun is peaking over the trees outside her apartment. She’s left hoping that the night has passed with incident.
~~~
He stays for her. Stays with her. Before she really understands what’s happening he’s living with her. She doesn’t realize it until they’re both in the kitchen after her classes making dinner for him, a glass of blood in her hand and a beer in his. They’re chopping up vegetables for a salad and it’s just so damn domestic that it burns a hole through her. He smiles at her as he slices into a cucumber carefully and she knows.
It’s not like it’s really a surprise to her, but it’s still a striking realization.
She’s in love with him.
Before she was always conflicted or confused. But now...
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” she says as she puts the knife into the sink and takes another sip from her drink. “Does this gross you out?” She points to the glass, the red ribbons of O-negative dripping lazily down the sides.
“Nah.” His voice is calm. “It’s just part of who you are.”
~~~
When she wakes up beside him the next morning she feels more alive than she has in a long time. His lips cover hers and it’s just as gentle as the first time on the front porch of her mom’s house.
His fingers run along her hip, up her side, then back down her arm to play with the ring still firmly placed on her index finger.
She doesn’t know how this will ever work. But she does know that right now, with him (finally), she’s in it for more than the halfway point.
With him, she wants absolutely everything.
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-20 12:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-20 04:38 pm (UTC)With him, she wants absolutely everything. ♥