ILLUMINATION

"Love me more than you hate him!"

Her words rang through his head, taunting him endlessly. As his fingers tightened around the steering wheel, tears began to blur his vision, mingling with the raindrops on the windscreen of his car that the wipers had not yet sloshed away. That was the thing about Caroline Forbes. She was good, and pure and innocent, still living under the illusion that love will always prevail, that it will win regardless of the circumstance, as if they all existed within some elaborate fairy tale where when they came to the end, everything would be worth it, and they could live happily ever after.

Tyler loved that about her.

But at the same time, it was all that he despised. Watching her swallow around the lump in the throat as she tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back an onslaught of uncontrollable tears, all he had wanted was to cease exist. Hurting her had never been his intention, although he was painfully aware of the fact that it was inevitable. Tyler wanted more than anything, to be able to sit with her in that old dorm room at that stupid college, to have her wrapped in his arms, his chin resting lightly on top of her forehead as he murmured something sweet in her ear, something that he meant. But it wasn't possible. The more he thought about it, the more the vision became distorted. It was Klaus' face that loomed perilously above him, the face of the smooth tongued immortal hybrid that had brought nothing but torture to him.

Tyler pulled over before his hands started shaking. Whilst the experience of a tragic accident wasn't entirely unwelcome in his brain, it wouldn't be aptly timed. Klaus came first. And only then could Tyler cease to be.

The fact of the matter was that it wasn't possible him to not hate Klaus the amount that he did. It wasn't possible to not have the firm tug of vengeance dragging him like a magnet back to the age old immortal that had indefinitely ruined his life. He was a Lockwood; he had been cursed with a volatile temper, and whilst Caroline's sweet nature had undoubtedly pacified him, it couldn't erase what he really was. Tyler was vengeful, he was hateful to those that opposed him, he was impulsive... and since his transition into a Hybrid, he had been more than a little unhinged.

Tyler cut the engine of his car and let his forehead drop dolefully onto the cool centre of the steering wheel. Fumbling about the car door with his left hand, he jammed down the button that would open the windows, grateful for the blast of cold air and the wetness of the storm that ripped through his vehicle. The icy numbness would have been enough to make anyone freeze, but it didn't quell the fiery heat that engulfed Tyler. His temper was out of control. Because of Klaus, he had lost his mother. He had lost friends. He had lost Caroline.

Whilst he could still have Caroline, it was only because he had been permitted to be with her. By Klaus. Clenching his fists, Tyler ground his teeth together in fury. Klaus had ruined him. The ever present deity that commandeered him - how on earth could it be considered living when all that Tyler knew was the careful control exerted over him by someone who was unspeakably evil?

That's why he had turned his back on Caroline. Not because he didn't love her - but because he couldn't live in the shadows of Niklaus Mikaelson, ready to turn his tail and run the minute the Hybrid decided he was done with the arrangement. He couldn't not avenge his mother, the woman who had raised him with such tender and loving care, the woman that Klaus had drowned, leaving her body to float face down in the shallow pool that surrounded a fountain.

Klaus had taken everything from him.

And to ask him to stay at Whitmore, to not seek revenge was the most cruel thing that Caroline could do. Asking him to not seek revenge was like asking him lose himself for something that he wasn't. He loved her dearly, but if she couldn't see him for him, he couldn't stay with her.

Leaning back in the car seat, Tyler took several deep breaths of the cold air. He knew Caroline. He knew her crazy, erratic personality like the back of his hand. He knew her insecurities, her knew what she was confident with. And he knew that she wouldn't wait for him. When she said she was done, she had meant it. Pain flashed through him like a stake being dragged through his flesh. Caroline, was Caroline. She'd busy herself with helping her friends. She'd be Elena's shoulder to cry on as they dealt with the loss of the Bonnie. She'd be there to help Stefan recover his memories, she'd throw herself head first into every god-damned society that that college had to offer, all to remind herself that there was something better out there. Something that was worth fighting for.

As realisation set in, Tyler couldn't help but let a sob explode from his mouth.

Caroline would be ok without him. She would cope. With sickening, cold hard certainty, Tyler realised that all he had left was the promise of the revenge, the chance to deliver excruciating pain to the man that had wrecked his entire life. The only point of Tyler's existence was revenge.

Before he found the switch that blotted out all of his agony, Tyler had time to acknowledge one last thing.

Illumination is not golden.

A/N: this was just a one-shot that I wrote within about twenty minutes. I have proof read it but forgive me if there are any stupid mistakes, I'm not feeling quite my best. I'm thinking about turning this into a set of drabbles if I get more of these random inspiration spurts to right for certain characters... let me know what you think? R&R if you please :-) have a nice day x