Summary: A series of connected one-shots of Stefan and Caroline trying to move on with their lives and how their separate directions in life, ultimately lead to each other.
Notes: Season 6 beginning, when Stefan goes off to 'start over' after the events of season 5, Caroline loses her footing and changes her plans drastically.
His Gothic Inspiration
It wasn't the heat of the glare that had distracted Caroline from her usual routine, or maybe it was...because the thinning crowd at the gentlemen's club made her feel self-conscious and vulnerable about her amateur moves, her grip on the pole was a little sweatier, her twists felt just a little more awkward; knowing that the few men in the club were leering at her scantily clad form and were able to judge just about any imperfections in her routine, ironically, she had never really felt this naked before.
And she hadn't even gotten to her bra yet, so, of course when her eyes locked with Stefan Salvatore's pained gaze from a darkened corner, she lost her rhythm, stumbled and managed to fall on her ass in a completely unsexy way.
There were laughs and jeers of appreciation from the few middle aged drunks who thought this was some comedy routine and she avoided the sliver of concerned movement from Stefan's dark corner, running backstage to one of the dressing rooms to hide until the club was empty and there was no sign of the young Salvatore in the shadows.
She wasn't sure how long he's stood there and watched her do her dance and if he's seen her strip before in a club full of mostly drunk males eye humping anything that shook ass, but Robbie the manager let her know she could either improve or find a better job.
They did have standards here after all.
The gentlemen's club is a quasi sleazy organization, the girls don't have individual make up rooms but back stage a small room with a half mirror which everyone tries in vain to have the full attention of. Caroline can push her way through even without vampire strength but she has avoided reminding herself what she was, otherwise nightmares never seized to plague her. The only time she used compulsion on someone was to get a small apartment.
A younger more experienced stripper had gotten killed...drained of blood; This, Gina, one of the club girls told her conspiratorially while Robbie was firing one of cocaine addicted performers. Caroline hadn't really sensed any vampires coming into the club, but then she hadn't sensed Stefan watching her in shadows. So, she was probably not a good judge of what supernatural creatures came and went through the club at odd hours. But she swallowed painfully, wondering if Stefan had something to do with this... and just when she was starting to get along with the L.A way of life. Hadley, the fired girl looked at her in a vicious way before shoving past her into the street, she wondered if Robbie told her he was replacing her with Caroline.
This was the first time in months after she left Mystic Falls she had come into contact with news of a death of any kind. Death of someone she saw perform once in while...an acquaintance at the most but still, the knowledge disturbed the well settled debris of a corner in her mind she had finally managed to compartmentalize.
And now frigging Stefan Salvatore was here.
Caroline didn't look up from her giant cup of untouched coffee when he quietly slid into a seat across from her, exuding a brooding mixture of angst and dismay. The dismay she shared, she knew he would follow her from the club but hadn't a clue of how to face him as Caroline Forbes, ex Miss Mystic Falls, university student, and now a stripper- in- training at an L.A. strip club.
After walking around aimlessly she had settled for a coffee shop seeing as she was nowhere ready for the ensuing conversation between them without a decent amount of caffeine in her system to raise her fallen spirits.
The cup was too small for her and her hands too unsteady trying to quash an urge to brush them over his face. He cleared his throat purposefully and she quickly raised her hand, 'Don't say a word, ok? ... Not a word.'
And they sat, silently contemplating each other for the next half an hour, until, like a razorblade, she asked him whether he had something to do with the stripper's death in the club and his pained expression just deepened as he vanished out of the seat into the night leaving her bewildered and worried.
Damn it! She should have let him start.