Prompt: The Vampire Diaries - Tyler/Caroline - I'm not really sure how to do this whole dating thing. Is it a lot like having a fuck buddy, only with talking?
-x-
Tyler Lockwood is not one for relationships.
Or friendships with girls. Or really, anything that involves more talking than fucking.
This whole Caroline Forbes "I'll hold you while you're crying like a pussy during your transformation but I won't make out with you" thing is kind of freaking him out.
What's even worse?
He doesn't mind.
-x-
"Fuck Matt."
Caroline's head whips toward him, her mouth stuck somewhere between a shocked 'O' and a disapproving thin line. He's more focused on the stray hairs that have fallen out of her bun and are framing her face like a halo. "TYLER," she says, tone sharp like she used to use before. Before werewolves and vampires, back when their biggest problem was who got Matt on Friday night. "Be nice."
"I'm always nice."
Fuck you, it's sometimes true.
Her green eyes narrow into slits, patented Forbes' "I'm not buying your bullshit, mister" look on her face. "Normal people nice, not Tyler nice." He almost thinks she's going to wag her finger at him.
He rolls his eyes and shifts beside her on the lunch bench.
She's eating a ham and cheese sub from Porcaro's and some mustard has smudged across her chin.
He lifts a hand to wipe it away, not thinking.
Her eyes widen again and then they're stuck in this awkward, frozen "will he or won't he cross that line" moment and it's just like something out of a Lindsay Lohan movie. Or something. He sees the quick flash of Matt's red sweater over her shoulder, feels guilt, feels cliche.
He pulls his hand back.
-x-
But then:
He kisses her.
Yeah, he knows Matt kissed her and yeah, he knows Matt wants her.
So what.
Tyler's a dick who always gets what he wants.
And he wants Caroline Forbes.
-x-
She pulls away, reminding him once again that her strength is greater than his strength, and searches his face, her own wearing an expression of confusion.
He hopes his expression is more nonchalant "yeah, I just kissed you, so?" and less "choose me" but reality's been kind of a bitch lately and -
For fuck's sake, he does want her to choose him.
"Everybody needs to stop kissing me!" she exclaims, retreats into the house.
He goes off in the vague direction of the flowershop. Girls like flowers.
He stops before the entrance, smacks his head and drives home.
No. He will not be whipped. He is not in a relationship. Fucking...
Damn it.
-x-
When she arrives on his doorstep, head down with tear tracks, he thinks this is it for him. End of the line. She's chosen the golden boy. The nice, sensitive, mortal, human boy next door.
Well. He guesses with his best friend and his old best friend (yeah, she's his best friend now, what the fuck ever, okay) occupied with each other, he might actually do homework. Maybe catch up in History. Finally learn what happened in America after the Civil War. Shit like that.
Her eyes are so green. He doesn't want to stop looking at them now. He has to fix this.
He says, "Please don't do the whole 'let's still be friends thing', Care. Yeah, I'm your friend. You're mine. Whatever. It's okay."
Her lower lip wobbles like it does when she's about to cry and then she presses herself against him, arms encircling his neck as she pulls him into a bruising hug.
Every inch of him that's touching her feels like it's on fire.
Friends. Okay. He can do this again. Restraint. It's cool.
-x-
Three months later and she still hasn't told him that she's chosen Matt.
And Matt's not around her.
And she's usually with Tyler on Friday and Saturday nights.
And... maybe he was wrong.
-x-
She lets herself into his house almost daily now; swings through his window from the trees or some shit, he doesn't really know. He asked her once if vampires could fly. She beat him over the head with a pillow.
He comes home from a really long run (he's been feeling this lately - this energy bubbling up underneath his skin - this need to - running seems to be the most healthy option) and she's sitting on his bed, watching reruns of Dawson's Creek. He didn't even know that that shit was still on, Jesus.
He walks over to his closet, strips off the wet white teeshirt and slowly begins to find another shirt to wear. He can feel the burn of her eyes on his back and yeah, okay, he wants her to notice his muscles and be attracted to him. Is that really so horrible? Tell him that Damon doesn't do the same to Elena, okay. Tell him. (...he may still hate Damon for treating Caroline like crap, details of which are unbeknownst even to him, but he kind of understands him in terms of the whole losing side of the triangle thing.) He kind of expects her to start in on a long synopsis of the plot and the cultural significance of the episode and blahblahblah.
"You have to take me on a date" is the first thing she says. "Not to The Grill or bowling or whatever but a real date. And you have to wear a tux when we go to prom. And I need you to tell me I look pretty even when I'm wearing that yellow sundress you hate. And I don't want you to get me a wall and we don't have to go sailing but I - "
He cuts off the rest of her sentence with his lips, a quick, hard press. Too many words. Her mouth opens up underneath his and she begins to wind her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, fingernails softly scratching against his skin.
He pulls back. "No Matt?" he asks, just to clarify because... damn it, he's a little insecure now. He's kind of waiting for Matt to ride in on a horse and take her away or some shit like that because that's how his life works lately. "You're my, uh," this is so dumb, "my girlfriend. Or... you know. Just my girlfriend."
She nods her head with a laugh and pulls him back in for another kiss.
-x-
For their sixth anniversary, he writes out that Pacey's speech on the creepy bloodstained wall in their dungeon.
(Yeah, they have a dungeon. They're not exactly Dawson's Creek, okay, but he's trying.)
-x-