Wake up call
Fandom: Vampire Diaries
Rating: PG-13 (just to be sure)
Genre: AU, drama, angst, dark romance, romance.
Characters/Pairings: Caroline/Stefan/Damon.
Any warnings: Spoilers through season 1 kind of... well, not really.
Disclaimer: VD and its characters are not mine. I only write fan fiction! The title is also not mine, it is borrowed from a song and a fanvid. You'll understand when you keep reading the below.
A/N: Watched a fanvid on you!tube and absolutely loved it... It was such a great Caroline/Stefan/Damon triangle... really brilliantly cut, the scenes flew into each other, and it looked really professionally made. This is my fic to it... Please visit the vid titled 'wake up call'!
-o-
"She's with Damon… isn't she?" asked Stefan his best friend and teen-witch Bonnie.
The other girl just stared at her friend helplessly. Vampire business was strictly taboo for witches, and because of that she just couldn't tell him everything that was going on. Everything that she knew he had a right to know about.
He shook disappointed his head and for a moment it looked like he would retreat into a corner of his locked mind. But then she saw the fire in his eyes and watched him jump up from his seat and exit the bar.
She knew what he was going to find.
-o-
She woke up with a fuzzy head. Or better to say a fuzzy feeling inside her head. Before even registering the body next to her in bed, she turned to stand. Her naked feet touched the cold ground and she sucked in a quick breath.
She got out of bed, walked slowly and unsteadily two steps and combed her hair roughly with her fingers. She felt funny today. Odd and yet unexplainably tiered.
She looked to her bedroom door, having heard the main entrance of her home being banged open. Watching Stefan speed up with unnatural pace, Caroline felt confusion and uncertainty consume her. His face grew angry and disappointed, and for a moment she wondered why her boyfriend was so angry with her.
Then she saw it. He wasn't angry with her. Not now.
She followed his angry eyes, having fixated on a point behind her. Something on her bed was catching his attention. She turned and stared at someone, clearly naked, laying asleep there. He was covered from the waist down with a blanked, but she doubted that he was wearing something underneath it.
-o-
"How could you!" screamed Stefan angrily at her.
"I don't even know how this happened. I swear I really don't..." replied she with as much anger.
He was screaming at her, and she felt it was unjustly so. Okay, so Stefan had actually caught her in bed with another man, but she really couldn't remember how she even got into it with him. For that matter she didn't even know who he was.
Stefan just assumed the worst of her! And she felt horrible, because she secretly too assumed the worse of herself. It used to happen sometimes that she'd drink too much and end up with a boy she barely knew. But this time she couldn't even remember going to a party and getting drunk.
Besides, her social drunkenness was matter of the past. A past she sealed when she got together with Stefan.
"You clearly had something with him!" said Stefan angrily. He was pacing around the room, reminding her of a caged animal. Soon he would pounce on his prey and go for the kill, a little voice inside her spoke.
"Look... I really don't know how this happened... I'm sorry, Stefan..." she came near him, two steps separating her from him. She lifted her hand to touch him, but he just turned and left her.
Heart broken and frustrated, all she could do, was watch him go.
-o-
He was dropping her off for training. That was really nice of him.
Usually Stefan would do that, but ever since the fight, he had kept his distance from her. She didn't understand what was happening, but it scared her a little.
"Thank you..." murmured Caroline, turning and attempting to get out of the car. He held her back by holding onto and pulling her hand. She turned and looked at him.
"You forgot something."
He stared deeply into her eyes, and she felt herself start to loose all coherent thoughts. Even the alarm bells that had just seconds ago started to go off, like they always did when he looked at her like this, were now silent.
She smiled through her sunglasses and bend to give him a kiss on the cheek. He turned his head and she missed, instead touched the mouth.
"Better."
He smirked.
For a moment something inside her wanted to remind her of something. But it was too vague. She smiled back at him and then got out of the car. "See you later..." murmured Caroline, not expecting to have been heard.
"Yeah... sure" was his reply.
-o-
He watched his brother drop off his girlfriend, or ex-girlfriend now, for training.
He just didn't understand why Caroline was acting so out of character. She never behaved like this. She had always been steady and honest with him. It was one of the reasons why he loved her. But now... he just didn't know what to think.
If he hadn't given her a necklace spiked with vervain, which even now she was clearly wearing, he would have thought that Damon might have compelled her.
But she was wearing the necklace... so no compulsion... right?
-o-
It was the night of a party that they all meet again. Stefan was waiting for her, knowing that her family had to be present or at least be presented by her.
She didn't show up alone as he had hoped. She was there, yes, but Damon was with her.
They walked towards him. She looked at him with innocent eyes, which seemed to look for something.
Damon was smiling at him. Smirking.
Then she was gone again. On an array from Damon, to get them drinks.
Stefan was angry. This wasn't Caroline's normal behaviour. She never played maid... not even for him. She always demanded the respect which she deserved...
-o-
"Hello brother. Fancy meeting you here tonight."
"What have you done?"
"Done? I don't know what you mean..."
"How?"
"Lower your voice Stefan. You're making a scene..."
"How did you do it? Her necklace is protecting her from compulsion. So, how else...? Are you using magic... is that it?"
"Oh brother... silly little brother... you never learn, do you?"
"What?"
He tapped his index finger against his temple. "I'm older and therefore brighter than you up there... I know exactly how you think and how to undo it..."
-o-
"Caroline?" asked Damon into the empty living room. She wasn't there, which was really odd.
He scanned the note she had send him. It read that she wanted to meet him. Nothing else.
"Hello brother..." rang the voice of his younger brother from behind him. Damon had time enough to turn around, before he felt a stake go through him.
He looked at his younger and usually much gentler brother with new found wonder and amazement. "You..."
"I know exactly how you think and how to undo it..." mocked Stefan, pushing the stake further into his brother's body.
-o-
He dropped his weak and immobile brother on the cold and dirty cellar floor, without much concern for his well being.
"You deserve nothing better..." spat Stefan angrily. Then he stared at him with contempt. "You deserve worse for what you did... You played me, you played her... You manipulated me into leaving her..."
He closed and locked the heavy, steel door. Before he made his way to the steps leading into the upper floor, Stefan took one more look at him.
Damon was laying in a foetal position on the ground. He looked pale and wasn't moving. "I should really kill you this time..." thought Stefan out loud.
-o-
"Have you seen Damon?" asked her innocent and rather shy voice.
He looked at her for a moment. She used to be different. Now she was almost shy and tame. Nothing like Caroline that he loved. Only a shadow of what she used to be.
And she was asking about his brother.
"No... I think he meant to leave town. Said it was boring here, nothing worth staying for..."
This was just sick and crazy, thought Stefan. He had to break his girlfriend's heart, just so she would get over his brother...
-o-
They passed each other in the hall. She looked much better. More in control. More like the girl he knew.
She smiled at him flirtingly.
He smiled back at her.
It was changing for the better...
-o-
He finally had gathered enough energy to crawly to the wall. Somehow he managed to pull himself up enough, so that he was now resting against said wall.
The cellar, a once frequently used dungeon, was a cold and dark place. And yet, thanks to his vampire genes, he could see clearly into the darkness. He still heard sounds in the dark. That was how he knew that he wasn't at his last straw yet.
He would have smirked if it wouldn't have cost him energy.
With his last energy resources he played his last trick. He was going to lure Caroline into the dungeon, so that she would help him. She would free him, and he was going to take revenge on his brother.
-o-
She approached the steel door slowly. Bars were put on the opening in the door. She couldn't look through, it was too dark.
"Open the door..." his voice rang in the silence of the surrounding darkness.
"Who put you there...?" was all she wanted to know. She didn't want to go on, but her feet were acting on their own accord. They were taking more and more steps. Betraying her with it.
"Open the door... now"
"Why is your voice commanding my body?" asked Caroline.
"Do it!"
She watched her treacherous hand open the door. As he stepped out of the dark and cold room, she felt her skin crawl. She was going to regret this...
-o-
They were dancing now. He altered from drinking off her neck and then her wrist.
She did everything he told her to.
And then when she turned her head to look at him with innocent eyes, he knew that the time was right. This was it. Her eyes showed that she knew that this was her time.
"Good bye little one..."
It was too fast for her to know what was happening.
He snapped her neck.
She fell to the ground. Her hair spread all around the floor and covered her face.
-o-
He found her after coming from school.
He knew something bad was going to happen. He had been feeling it all day. And then he had decided to stay in school and look for Caroline. To make sure she was all right. But he couldn't find her.
And that was when he saw Bonnie. Saw her guilt ridden eyes, her avoiding face.
That was when he knew he had to run home. As fast as he could.
But now... now it was too late. She lay there on the ground.
"No...! God, no!" screamed Stefan. Raw pain was dying his voice. He felt it inside. Something had just died. He pulled on his hair, trying to redirect his pain. Trying to control it.
But it felt too much. How could he now go on? How?
-o-
He saw everything in red. Everything around him turned cold.
He ran to his room and started thrashing it. He threw things about and screamed. Then he found a bottle of strong old scotch. It must have been his brothers.
He broke down, and started the cry. Stefan buried his face in his hand, wanting to hide. He just couldn't go on anymore. No more mouse and cat games. They always cost him too much.
Damon always won.
-o-
She woke up disorientated. She staggered to her feet, and then slowly looked around.
Why had she been laying on Stefan's living room couch? She never liked the moth smell of his old furniture.
Confused and feeling oddly fuzzy, she walked to the main entrance and stepped outside.
The light blinded her for a moment. And then her eyes adapted to the light. That was when she noticed the bright lights hadn't been the sunlight, but rather the artificial light generated by the town.
It was night time.
She heard loud voices and happy screams. And she followed them.
-o-
She was diverted from the happy sounds by something smelling really good. It smelled so good, that she remembered now how hungry she really was.
Someone was bleeding. He sat dejectedly nursing his bloody nose.
She looked at him, not understanding why the picture he was making was exciting her. But her hunger was now growing and she knew that she had never felt this hungry in her life.
-o-
Even before she knew what she was doing, something inside her was screaming at her to wake up.
Wake up, wake up, wake up... it sounded inside her; but she couldn't.
She looked down at the dead body beneath her.
"I'm sorry..." cried Caroline now. Her tears were mixing with the blood on her face. But it didn't disgust her so much as it should have.
Her hands shook and she felt like her gum was exploding. Her stomach hurt, like she really needed to throw up hot lava. She clutched it.
"Ahhh... make it stop!" she screamed. But who was she screaming it to, wondered Caroline dimly as pain seemed to cut her into two.
"It's ok... breath. You need to breath." His soft voice called.
"Stefan!" sighed Caroline relieved.
"You need to go with it. Don't try fighting against it... the change is now complete. This is the worst part. It either kills you, or it turns you forever." He stroked her hair, as she slowly breathed in and out of her mouth.
She nodded stupidly, as if she had just understood anything he said. She didn't. But it helped her so much that he was here.
"I'm sorry..." hiccupped Caroline lowly.
"I'm here for you. I'm not going anywhere. I'll make sure you'll get through this. We'll be fine..."
He sounded relieved, she noticed.
-o-
She looked up from the nameless face. Pale and dead.
She heard footsteps and expected Stefan. It was Damon.
"I'm sorry... I really didn't want this again. I was just so hungry... I I really didn't want this!" she cried, honest tears of sorrow and panic escaping her.
"Shhhh... it's alright." His voice sounded falsely gentle.
"Help me!" she cried in panic. She just couldn't help herself. She needed someone to do it for her. Help her get through this. Help her because she just couldn't seem to keep this animalistic side of her under control.
"Alright... alright..." he hushed her. She noticed a stake in his hand.
"Nooo!" screamed Caroline. She was feeling fear now. The instincts inside which had moments before demanded food were now warning her to run.
"It's alright!" he lied. "I'll help you!"
"Please..." she begged. She almost collapsed against his chest. Finally...
She didn't feel or see anything happen. It happened once again too fast for her.
-o-
He screamed, and threw the bedclothes aside. His eyes shot open.
His bed he noticed was drenched in his sweat.
His nerves were standing on edge. He looked around and saw his brother sit on a chair, seeming to read leisurely a magazine.
"You know how easy it was to get inside your head right now?"
He shook his head disappointingly. That was when Stefan noticed his dairy in Damon's hands. The dairy that contained his secret feelings and thoughts about Caroline Forbes.
His forbidden apple.
"You really need some human blood in you."
END.