Disclaimer: These are not my characters. They belong to those who are not me. I do not own them. I do own a nice collection of hair twisters though, so that's something.
Author's Note: This is pure Daroline goodness. The first thing I've written for vampire diaries in awhile, which has been strange for me. It's set in a future time, after Caroline has been gone from Mystic Falls for a few years. Obviously AU because the writers of the show have shut down my original OTP so many times I can no longer count it. Anywho, like always, I'd love to hear what you have to say about it! Enjoy! :)
Caroline sat on the bed, her hands grasping the small wooden blade making no noise as she pulled fruitlessly against its protruding length. Her hands slid across the uneven edges, splinters feeling like knives digging into her palms, and with every movement, she could feel the tip of the stake scraping nearer to her spinal cord. She didn't know if it was possible to paralyze a vampire, and she wasn't looking forward to finding out. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she pulled one last time, but the stake wouldn't budge as her skin began to heal around it, trapping it inside of her.
"Need some help?" She made sure not to make too sudden of a movement, looking away from the blood pooled on the sheets around her to where Damon was standing in her doorway. His eyes trailed from her bloodshot eyes, the tears that lurked just at the edge of her eyelids, stubbornly staying put. They trailed over her bitten lips, past the teeth marks on her neck, down to the blood-dampened shirt, and finally towards the wooden stake.
"I don't need your help. Get out." Her words came out through fangs and teeth, the pain lacing each syllable. Her pride was still stronger than the pain, but she was unsure of how long she could hold out before allowed him to help; or worse, until she cried out for his help.
With a roll of his sharp blue eyes, Damon entered over the threshold of her room. He walked past the pristine carpets, the mud on his boots sullying the crisp white color. Caroline was too preoccupied to care, but later, after he left, she would stare for a long moment, feeling the rage build inside of her. As he sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress rocked, sending her rigid as the stake pressed closer and closer to the back of her body. There was no way she could scoot around him. The fear of dying overwhelmed her dislike of the man whose blood had sired her.
"Blondie," He started, his hands reaching out towards her and she flinched. The pain sent a sharp cry to her lips, but she made sure it didn't pass. "Just hold still, okay?" Frustration littered his tone, like he was speaking to a child instead of an adult. Like he was talking to someone useless, and stupid. She had known that tone of voice since she was seventeen (since she had first been seventeen, not for all the years that followed where she was stuck at seventeen).
Even years later, her reaction to his voice was the same. "Are you going to kill me?" She asked, boldly looking into his eyes. Years had passed since she'd been truly afraid of him, but she knew what he was like, and he'd tried to kill her just as many times as he'd saved her.
Without answering, he grasped the stake with both hands and pulled, the force pushing her flat on her back, the stake leaving a gaping hole in the middle of her stomach. She couldn't help the scream that ripped from her lungs, feeling it resonate to her toes and out her fingers. Damon flung the stake onto the bed, turning his calm eyes back towards her.
"How long is it going to take for you to trust me?" He asked, his voice low and steady.
"Forever." She bit back, feeling the healing process starting to begin. She knew that after hours of no blood and a stake wedged into her intestines, it would take at least an hour to fully heal, two until she could get up and grab from her stash in the refrigerator.
Damon watched her struggling, watched the pain flickering over her face, evident in the pursed lips and puckered lines between her eyebrows. Without speaking, he stood from the bed and left the room. He left the stake at the end of the bed; he knew she saved them; that she looked at them and wondered how many times she would escape death before it finally claimed her. She would never admit it, but she liked who she was as a vampire. It gave her life, it gave her strength, and though he would never admit it, he liked her that way too.
When he came back, she had moved from her back to her stomach. He wasn't sure if she'd heard him enter the room, but she didn't flinch when he sat the mug of O negative heavily on the bedside table. The stake was gone from the edge of the bed, and he knew it was now residing in the chest under a pile of old jeans in the furthest edge of her closet.
"Just drink it." He muttered, walking back out of the room and shutting the door behind him. He waited, listening, until he heard her body shift. He heard her swallow. And he only moved once he heard the first gasping sob that she'd been holding in for hours.
Caroline woke, healed and covered in filth hours later. As she watched the crimson water sink through the edges of the drain, she thought about the dark-haired lurker who couldn't seem to leave her alone. She had told him, time and time again, that she didn't want him around. He reminded her of the past – of her friends, her mom, of the girl she used to be – and she didn't want the reminder. When she left the small, sad little town behind, she didn't want any reminders. The things she had loved there were gone, and she wanted it to stay that way. It was easier.
She shut the water off, leaving her bathroom and wrapping a towel around her wet skin to hide the fading mark of the stake, and the bite from the vampire who was now unfortunately residing at the bottom of a ditch somewhere. She ignored her reflection in the mirror, the sad eyes and straggly hair only reminding her that she was as lost as she refused to admit she was. And when she stepped into her room, she knew almost instinctively that he would be there, sitting on fresh sheets, the stained bloodied ones in the trash somewhere.
"I'm so tired of doing this with you, Damon." She muttered as she grabbed for clothes in her dresser. She wasn't sure how he'd gotten into the apartment, but then again, she knew that he'd had a key. He always did.
"Then let's not do it anymore, Care." He mimicked a high-pitched female voice, smirking victoriously at her. She walked back into the bathroom, changing quickly into her new clothes and brushing viciously through her drying clothes. As she pulled her hands through her sweatshirt sleeves, she felt herself growing angrier at the man sitting in her room. Her oldest enemy; her first love.
He was lying on her bed when she came out, his hands behind his head and a contented smile on his face. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. And she snapped. "Why are you always saving me? Why? I just want you to leave me alone. I don't want you here anymore. I don't need you to save me." Her breath was coming quicker, and she could feel the rage coursing through her veins. The blue veins threatened to pulse through her eyes, and she tried to remain as calm as possible, tried to keep herself at bay.
Damon seemed unaffected, peeking through his closed eyes to look at her. "You need me, Blondie. Accept it, move on."
Caroline felt the anger break through, and before she could stop herself, she had moved from her position next to the bathroom. Her hands grasped the muscled skin of her neck, pressing him into the wall, itching to toss him through the window. She wanted to hear the sickening sound of his body crunching through the glass and then landing on the ground. She wanted to know the answer to her question. She wanted to know why it was her now, and not the brunette he'd been pining after for years. She needed to know.
"Why? Give me one good reason. Is it because of Elena? Did she ask you to do this?" For his part, Damon didn't flinch, didn't so much as breathe any heavier. It angered her, caused her to press harder against his windpipe, and she waited for her answer.
"Elena didn't ask me to do this." She waited for his retaliation. When nothing came, she pushed him further, wanting him to break, wanting him to feel what she felt so many times before.
Damon watched as she struggled, as the emotions played out over her face. Her grip lessened. Her face started to fall, and her eyes faded back into the cool blue he knew almost better than his own. "Is it because you feel like you have to take care of me? Because I'd literally rather it be anyone but you." She said the words, lacking the vehemence to fight anymore. He wanted to tell her, to let her know, to watch as she finally realized why. And so he stopped fighting it.
"I want to be the one to save you. I like being that person. I'll always be that person because I love you. Okay? I love you." He removed himself from her grip, pushing her away from him. His emotions felt overwhelming. He hadn't said the words to anyone but Elena since after Caroline left Mystic Falls. She had said it was too much. She couldn't take it anymore. And she left, saying goodbye to those who mattered most (Elena and Stefan, always Elena and Stefan) and she had disappeared.
It had taken him two weeks to find her. It had taken him three weeks to realize it hadn't been Elena after all. Out of the spell of the doppelganger who looked so much like his first love, but who acted so much like everything he'd thought Katherine was, he realized that he had placed her on the pedestal she hadn't needed to be on. He watched Caroline grow into someone who was wanted and deserved to be loved all on her own, out of the shadow of her best friend. When he'd realized this, she'd discovered he'd found her, and had left again.
The game of cat and mouse had led to this. The revelation that he could feel clawing at his heart as she continued to stare at him, to say nothing as he walked towards the door that would lead him out of her apartment. Because that was what hurt the most – this rejection in its purest form. He'd done things in the past that he couldn't take back, and he knew he didn't deserve her, but he wanted to. He needed to.
"Damon," Her voice was soft as his hand clutched the doorknob, twisting as the metal gave way under his palm. He paused, but remained facing away from her. "Don't go?" She said it like a question, unsure of herself, and she was. She didn't know why she wasn't letting him walk away. She wanted to let him leave, to never come back, to finally leave her alone like she'd asked him to do so many times. And so, she said it again, stronger this time. "Don't go."
His hand left the handle. And he stayed.