have you ever watched the show Summer in Transylvania? this is like that, but, like, if it was on crack.
One: the not-so-secret secret of Stoker High
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She wonders if it's a phase. Everybody has phases throughout their lives, she's had dozens; there was neurotic-mean-girl-Caroline, straight-A-Caroline, straight-detention-Caroline, nobody-understands-me-Caroline, obsessed-with-twilight-Caroline, etc.
So maybe gay-Bill is a phase, too, and maybe she won't have to move half way across the world. Maybe her parents won't split up and she can continue pretending her life is a perfect Gone With The Wind romantic drama. Maybe she can finish the year with her very best friends and familiar classes and teachers, and maybe that's not her dad sticking his tongue down her Algebra teacher's throat─ oh, um, never mind.
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She orders feel-better-food on the plane and makes sure to earn a hefty bill for her father.
"Bill for Bill," she beams while tossing the tiny paper toward his face. He grimaces at the numbers.
Caroline watches Clueless and thinks about how her soul would thrive in a mansion with that many clothes.
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Her new house is yellow. Yellow.
It's a dark neighborhood with undoubtedly hoodlums and criminals, so much graffiti. Caroline can just feel that this is the start of something terrible.
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A piercing scream echoes through the crooked, yellow house.
Bill rushes toward the kitchen ─ "What is it? What's wrong? Will we need to go into witness protection? What's happened?" ─ and finds his daughter staring open-mouthed at his new boyfriend. He laughs awkwardly.
"Caroline, this is Steven. Steven, Caroline."
"Hello," air bubbles float through the cylindrical tank.
"Dad," Caroline's voice squeaks, "When you said Steven was brainy..."
"Yeah, um," Bill scratches the back of his head.
"This is..." Caroline shakes her head.
"Look, Carebear. It's really not that bad. He's just a little different."
"Dad," she stares at him, still in disbelief, "He's a brain in a box."
"I know," Bill winces.
"But, dad. He's a literal brain in a literal box."
"Well, technically, it's a tank," Steven's robotic voice echoes through the kitchen.
"He's a talking literal brain in a literal tank," Caroline releases a squeak from her throat, "This is not okay."
Bill laughs nervously, "Yeah, we need to have a talk about this town."
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Caroline walks into Stoker High with her head held high. She glances around at the zombies, witches, vampires and werewolves... literally. If she was worried about everything before, it was nothing compared to the actual truth of the neighbors wanting to eat her. Sometimes, she hates her life.
People ─ could she even call them that? ─ stare her down in the hallways. She gulps and scurries down the hall with her folder and English book huddled in her arms. Where the hell is she supposed to go for lunch? Or to not be lunch? Caroline glances over her shoulder and slams into something hard. The something hard screeches. She looks up to find a girl with wavy brown hair squealing as she is soaked by Caroline's ice coffee.
"Oops," Caroline laughs nervously. The girl growls─growls─at her.
"You bitch!" the scary girl attempts to grab Caroline but, miraculously, a curvy, blonde girl steps in the way.
"'Lena, darling, love the new 'do."
The brunette hisses and glares at Caroline before disappearing (like, literally, poofs).
"I'm Rebekah," the blonde swings around to face Caroline, "That's my brother, Kol," she nods her head at the guy lurking behind Caroline, "and you must be lunch," Caroline gulps and shrinks back towards the lockers.
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In a shocking turn of events, they let Caroline sit at their lunch table. She glances around at the odd looking beings while nibbling on her sandwich. Rebekah and Kol are zombies... It shows.
Kol sports the all-out-black look but his sister wears an illuminated rainbow of colours on every inch of her body.
"Don't let Elena bother you, she's the bitchiest of vampires. She thinks she rules the school, nay, the town," Rebekah informs Caroline.
"Are you kidding? She thinks she rules the world," Kol snorts, glaring at the table with the brunette from earlier and two other men that seemed to be fawning over her. Caroline notices how attractive they are and hums in approval. Rebekah smiles.
"They're the Salvatores, super easy to attract, if you're interested. I've had both of them."
"Had?" Kol makes a crude hand gesture and Caroline's eyebrows stretch in slow realisation, "Oh."
"Just don't tell Elena," Rebekah winks.
"Pretty sure she already knows you're looser than a clown's pocket, 'Bekah," Kol chortles and Rebekah slaps him with her lunchbox.
Caroline hears the distinct sound of someone sniffing. She turns her head to the right and jumps when she sees that there's suddenly a guy sitting right beside her.
"Nik! Stop being creepy!" Rebekah scolds.
"She smells nice," he turns back to Caroline, "You smell nice."
"Um, sandwich?" she offers him the other half of her sandwich meekly. He shoots his dimples at her and accepts it.
Rebekah sighs, "Caroline, this is my other brother, Niklaus. You can call him Klaus."
"Oh, she can call me whatever she likes," he shrugs, munching gleefully on the meaty sandwich.
"But he doesn't─ah," Caroline gestures between them, "Look like you."
"Finally someone who can appreciate my beauty," Klaus turns to his sister, "I like her. Can I keep her?"
"Sorry, Nik," Kol slurps whatever green liquid is in his flask, "'Bekah called dibs."
"As a friend!" Rebekah laughs nervously, "I called dibs on you as a friend."
"He looks different 'cause he's a werewolf," Kol adds.
Caroline's head spins from all the information, "How come you and Kol are zombies but Klaus is a werewolf?" she shakes her head, "I cannot believe I just said that."
"Our mother's a tramp."
"KOL!"
"Well, her vagina is. The other parts of her are too old to even reach the cookie jar without spazzing and freezing mid-grab."
Rebekah sighs heavily. One friend, was that too much to ask for?
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A week passes and Caroline adjusts to her new reality. She becomes closer with Rebekah and learns to tolerate Kol's sense of humour and Klaus' lurking and borderline stalking. She even befriends the only other human in Stoker High; Matthew Donovan. Rebekah still gets flustered whenever he's around but he's been a great friend to her, helping her deal with everything.
"So you've officially survived until Friday," Rebekah grins teasingly, "Ready to party hard and dead with us this weekend at The Stakeout?"
("The only bar worth being at," Kol had told Caroline in Chemistry whilst some girl named Vicki was being physically removed by security for trying to attack one of the Salvatores, "and, well, the only bar in town, so.")
"I think I'll pass. It's kind of hard with everyone wanting to eat me," Caroline's eyes drift to the werewolf watching her by the water dispenser.
"Who? Nik?" Rebekah laughs boyishly, "Nik doesn't want to eat you, silly. He wants to mate with you."
Caroline drops her textbook.
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She invites Rebekah to her house. The luminous zombie laughs as Caroline rants about yellow being the colour of doom, and of course she likes it ─ "but it matches your hair, Carebear," ─ that is so very Rebekah of her.
"What you said earlier, is that, like, a thing you people do here?" Caroline lowers her voice to a whisper, "Mate?"
"As opposed to going extinct?" Rebekah raises an eyebrow.
"No. As opposed to, y'know, like, dating," she shakes her head and shrugs her shoulders.
"What's the point? They both have the same outcome."
"But isn't it─ ugh, I don't know," Caroline groans and falls back on her bed.
"Well you better know soon because Nik's already chosen you," Rebekah crunches on a crisp.
"Chosen me?" she questions and Rebekah nods, "Well can't he, like, un-chose me?"
Rebekah laughs, stopping when she realizes Caroline is serious, "He's a werewolf, Caroline. They mate once and it's for life."
"Brilliant," Caroline mumbles.
"So, you're coming with us to The Stakeout, right?"
"Only if you get Klaus off my back."
"But─" Caroline shoots her a challenging look, "Fine. I'll try, but know this, werewolves love sudden, fast and hard. My pain in the arse brother is most certainly no exception."
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"And what would a woman have to look like to be the most attractive to you?" Rebekah reads the question from LoveBitesBackdotcom. She holds the laptop to her chest and looks to her brother for an answer.
Klaus blinks, "Caroline."
"You can't answer that for everything!" his sister groans, "You need to answer these seriously so we can find someone who will love you!"
Klaus nods with a smile, "Caroline."
"She means willingly, Nik," Klaus' mouth forms an 'O' shape, Kol turns to his sister, "Enough with the online dating, Beks. He's hopeless just like us and our inevitable inbreeding."
"Ew, Kol," Rebekah wrinkles her nose, "You need to stop listening to mother's crazy talk, you know her new brain is from the 1500's."
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"Hey guys!" Caroline greets them as she slips into the booth beside Kol. Rebekah and Klaus sit directly across from them.
"Caroline, finally. Thank goodness you're here!" Rebekah shoves a book at her.
"Um," Caroline awkwardly fixes the book so she can read it and raises her eyebrow at the catalog of clothing, opened on the sparkly, colourful outfits of course.
"For the Halloween Fright Fest," Rebekah giggles, "It's a dance."
"It's stupid, is what it is," Kol mutters, slurping his weird green liquid out of a pitch black flask.
"Kol got rejected," Rebekah smirks. Kol sticks his tongue out at her.
"The little witch is just playing hard to get," he reassures himself.
"Well, she obviously won't go with you if you're calling her things like that," Caroline snorts and orders tea from the passing waiter.
"Literal witch, sweetheart," Klaus smiles and looks at her like she's the most adorable thing in the world. Caroline glares at Rebekah who shrugs and mouths 'I said try'.
"So which one?" Rebekah changes the subject, pointing to the catalog.
"Uh," Caroline blinks. Klaus places a hand at the side of his mouth that faces Rebekah and mouths 'green' to her, "The green one," the waiter arrives with her tea, smirking down at her as their fingers brush. Caroline flashes him a wry smile.
Rebekah grins, "See brothers. Somebody has fashion sense," she hops out of the booth, "I'm going to go order it!"
"I'm going to go make sure she doesn't use my credit card again," Kol trots after her, flask in hand.
They leave Caroline stirring her tea and Klaus watching her.
"Do you love me yet?"
She takes the spoon out of her cup and sucks the tea off it, "No."
They sit in silence, Caroline sipping her tea and Klaus watching her.
"Can I keep that spoon?"
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On Sunday Rebekah calls and asks if she'll go to the mall. She says no.
"Caroline!" Rebekah groans, "Don't leave me alone with my brothers!"
"Excuse me, I'm lucky to be alive after you ditched me at The Stakeout."
"I didn't ditch you," Rebekah rolls her eyes, "You had Nik."
"Yeah, don't tell him I said this but I'm kind of extremely grateful he offered to walk me home," they had talked and Caroline would never admit it but it wasn't even the slightest bit awkward. They just fell into comfortable conversation.
"Why shouldn't I tell him? He'd be delighted," Rebekah asks, puzzled.
"Exactly!"
There is a pause, "Humans are weird."
"Yeah, we're the freaky race," Caroline snorts.
"But doesn't that mean you've accepted him? When you let him walk you home?"
"No! I only let him walk me home because he beat up that sleazy waiter that kept looking down my blouse," Caroline pauses, "Should I visit him at the hospital?" she shakes her head, "No, that'd be weird."
"Caroline," Rebekah sighs.
"What?"
"Are you only pretending to not want to mate with my brother?"
"Ew, no. Why would I do that?"
"I don't know, I don't understand humans," Rebekah grumbles, "It's just, you're giving out all the wrong signals."
"No. I just rewarded him for doing something chivalrous," Caroline shrugs.
Rebekah pauses, "Was the waiter a werewolf?"
"Yeah, totally," Caroline tilts her head, "He had the teeth, it was freaky."
"Nik didn't just do it out of the kindness of his heart, Caroline," Rebekah chuckles as if Caroline is missing something obvious, "He was showing his ownership of you."
"...SERIOUSLY?!"
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Rebekah orders Caroline to twirl. She examines the pink dress with a frown, tapping her pointer finger against her chin, "Try the blue again."
"For Frankenstein's sake, Beks," Kol shakes his head with a groan, ever the humorist, "Just pick one already!"
"Beauty takes time, Kol," Rebekah chides, "And Caroline needs to be perfect."
"Why? Who is she trying to impress?" Kol wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, clearly excited at the new piece of information. In response, Rebekah smirks, Klaus frowns, and Caroline raises her eyebrows, looking between the two.
"Well, well, well," Caroline recognizes the voice as one of the Salvatores, he has suddenly appeared beside Kol who grits his teeth, "Look what the circus spat out. Nice dress, Blondie," he sniggers and Caroline frowns, immediately feeling extremely self conscious.
"Watch your words, Salvatore," Klaus growls.
"Make me, Mikaelson," he challenges.
"Careful Damon. You don't want to make the puppy angry," Elena pops up beside Caroline and Klaus glares at Elena, his fists tight by his side, "Somebody might get a boo boo."
"What do you want, Leeches?" Kol glares at Damon.
"Oh, nothing," Elena latches on to Caroline's dress and elegantly rips the top layer of her skirt off, Caroline gapes at her only to receive a beaming smile, "Thought I'd do it a favour," Elena disappears into thin air.
"Nice underwear, Barbie," Damon wiggles his fingers at her before vanishing.
"I hate them," Rebekah mutters furiously.
"I'm sorry," Caroline sighs before returning to the changing room.
"It's not your fault, Caroline. You didn't mean to be so clumsy and ruin your social life," Klaus slaps Kol on the back of the head.
"What he means is, they're bullies and they're just looking for an easy target. You just have to ignore them and they'll eventually get bored," Rebekah nods as she speaks, "Or push them in the swamp."
"Now who's been listening to mother's crazy talk?" Kol gulps from his flask as if dying of thirst.
Caroline comes out of the dressing room in her normal clothes. She brings the blue and pink dresses to the counter as she's going to have to pay for the damaged one and she needs something to wear to the dance.
"Do you want me to kill her?" Klaus appears beside her.
"No, that's okay," Caroline finds herself smiling, "Thanks Klaus," he nods.
She pays for the dresses and links her arm through his, walking after Rebekah and Kol who are arguing about the correct way to eat a slug. Caroline lets her head fall on Klaus' shoulder and sighs wistfully as she watches Rebekah tear Kol's arm off and slap him on the back of the head with it.
Maybe she might like it here after all.
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