Title: "The Moon Asked the Crow"
Author: Lila
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing: Tyler, Tyler/Caroline
Spoiler: "By the Light of the Moon"
Length: Part I of V
Summary: When Tyler turns, Caroline is with him every step of the way.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs
Author's Note: All I have to say is: Tyler/Caroline own me. This is why. Originally a one-shot piece, but like most of my work, it got away from itself. Title courtesy of CocoRosie. Enjoy
I. Before
There's fire in his blood.
He can feel it, lurking under his skin, curling around the edges of his veins and coating his insides in molten hot.
His skin prickles, itches from underneath, and the heat pulses through him with every day closer to the turn of the moon.
His skin burns and his cheeks are flushed and sometimes, right around midnight, he swears his eyes turn to liquid gold.
He stops looking in the mirror sometime during the second week.
His body is changing too.
His arms are stronger, his muscles bigger, and there's new strength in his chest. He's thankful for baggy jerseys and the cold streak streaking through Virginia.
He won't wear t-shirts even as his skin burns.
Coach Mitchell calls him in for a conference a week after Sarah dies.
The guy is always talking about "educating the entire athlete" and telling them there's no "I" in team, but Tyler still likes him. He's nicer than Coach Tanner, smarter too, and he manages to work through the high school bullshit so they actually win games.
"Tyler, I'm worried about you," he starts. "Your body…I don't want you doing anything to hurt yourself, son. If you're taking something, you can tell me. There won't be a consequence. We'll just get you the help you need."
It takes everything in Tyler not to laugh. He wishes it was drugs, steroids, even those herbal supplements pros are always pretending they aren't downing by the dozen.
He wishes it was anything but the truth.
He stares Coach Mitchell right in the eye and pulls out his ultimate trump card. "I'm not on anything, I swear, it's just that since my dad…working out makes it easier, you know?
Coach's face falls and his eyes fill with compassion but Tyler doesn't even blink.
His life has always been about lies and half-truths. There's too much on the line for things to change now.
He can't sleep.
He closes his eyes and all he sees is Sarah's face that night, her slack jaw and lifeless eyes, and the spear of lightning that shot through him as the life left her and the curse claimed him.
He remembers the awkward sprawl of her body and the fall of her hair and the way Caroline made it all go away.
He tries to listen to her, hears her voice in his ear as exhaustion claws at his eyelids but sleep refuses to come.
It doesn't matter that Caroline says it wasn't his fault. It doesn't matter that he didn't know his own strength. It doesn't matter that he'll pay every full moon for the rest of his life.
All that matters is that where there used to be a living, breathing girl is a broken body and he was the one to deal the final blow.
He pushes people away.
He avoids the team, sits alone in class, turns down the girls who offer him a shoulder to cry on. Dead dad, dead Sarah…it all makes for a golden opportunity in their eyes.
His mother senses the change even if she can't put it into words. She talks less, but hovers more, and one night she touches him, once, brushes his hair from his brow as he bends over his chemistry homework, and pulls her hand back like she's been burned.
His body burns at over a hundred degrees; she has every reason to be concerned.
"Tyler, honey, you're burning up," she exclaims and lays a cool palm on the heated skin of his forehead. "Are you coming down with something?"
He makes a feeble excuse about drinking tea right before she came into the room and she doesn't believe him, but she doesn't press either. She already lost one Lockwood; she's not willing to push another away.
He ducks his head and lowers his eyes so he doesn't have to see the pain in hers. Despite his efforts, he can't avoid the way something tightens in his chest.
He doesn't let her touch him again.
He can't leave Caroline alone.
There's a buzzing in his ears when she's near and he can't concentrate.
His mind goes blank and all he wants to do is lay his hands on her, skin to skin, feel her soft and cool while he burns and burns.
He remembers that night, Matt's voice in his ears and Caroline's giggle lodging under his skin, and he remembers wanting things to work out for his friend while his feet dragged him to the door against his own accord.
Awkward is a good way to describe the entire scene.
The next morning Caroline sidles up to him at his locker and her voice is soft but the meaning is crystal clear.
"Tyler, what the hell was that?" she hisses. "I know we've been getting close these past weeks, but we're just friends. You know that, right?"
She's wrong. They might not be the next Matt and Elena, but she's not his friend. He searches for a way to put his feelings into words, that he needs her to get through the day because it's too much to face what's coming on his own.
"Did you know that wolves mate for life?" he says and it's possibly the dorkiest sentence to ever leave his mouth but it doesn't make the sentiment any less true.
He can't stay away from her and he doesn't want anyone else.
He keeps waiting for the day she tells him she can't do this anymore.
It doesn't matter that it happens every morning. He's always surprised when he shows up at school and she's still there.
He lets her in.
She comes to him at lunch and plops down across from him without saying hello.
"You look terrible," she says but doesn't touch him, just picks at a bag of potato chips and watches him. "You haven't been sleeping."
He shrugs, rolls an apple between his hands, anything to keep from looking at her; he can't focus when he's looking at something that pretty. "I have a lot on my mind," he says and hopes she'll go away even though it's the last thing he wants.
She's the only person he can talk to about this stuff. He wants her with him all the time.
"I know you think your life is over, but it's not." He makes the mistake of looking at her and the apple falls from his hands as he wonders when she got to be so damn beautiful.
Her voice drops along with her eyes. "I didn't get to give up, Tyler," she says. "I take it one day at a time. All I'm asking is for you to do the same."
She doesn't touch him because everything that needs to be said is clear in her eyes.
"I'm here," they say. "You're not alone."
He smiles for the first time since his life stopped being his own.
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