WILD YOUTH
prompt: Growing up happens in the blink of an eye and this is going to be the summer of their lives. Things get hot - fast.
pairings: multiple pairings, many dynamic relationships
I.
Jealousy doesn't suit her.
Her Grams tells her so when Elena finally drives off after a long, drawn out "girl's night" (is it really girl's night if Elena's the only one talking?) and a pancake breakfast in the morning. After a stack of three fluffy blueberry pancakes, Elena drones on for another fifteen minutes before deciding to head out and it's all Bonnie can do to keep from skipping as she walks her friend to the door. She waves half-heartedly in return as her friend drives away in her red Honda civic, the smile on her face as fake as Mrs. Lockwood's boobs.
"You've never looked so green, Bonnie Bennett," Her grandmother mutters from the kitchen.
Gram's tone is equal parts knowing and warning, and the screen door hasn't even slammed shut.
"I'm not jealous, Grams. Just sick of hearing about her boy drama." she intones heavily, but her Grams has superhuman abilities when it comes to reading people. She rolls her jade green eyes and stomps to her room, but isn't quick enough to miss the next few words out of her grandmother's mouth.
"Boys? Or one boy?"
She slams her bedroom door shut, fumes on her bed and then decides to fill up the tub with bubbles and cry it out. Stepping around empty beer cans and making a mental note to discard of them discreetly later, she wishes that a little alcohol was enough to drown out her sorrows.
Jack Daniels. Labatt. Four Lokos. Even weed.
Not one thing burns on the way down or chills her out enough to eradicate the real pain that remains ever present.
She's not even really that jealous. She's just - stifled. She's angry and stifled and tired of being put to the side in favor of her taller, thinner, prettier best friend. Twelve years is a pretty long time to play the sidekick without ever getting a taste of center stage. She can't do it anymore, she can't bite her tongue any harder but she has to.
Every fucking day.
College. If she can make it through senior year and get into her dream school, she'll be golden. UCLA will welcome her with open arms and hopefully a scholarship. Maybe then she'll feel like something other than background noise. Maybe then she'll get the guy, and stop feeling like the wrapping paper everyone tears into just to get a real good look at the gift.
Not to mention she just so happens to be in love with her best friend's boyfriend whom said best friend is currently cheating on by way of secretly fucking his older brother on the side. Gag.
All in all, it's really not that complicated.
She runs steaming hot water from the faucet and drops in a bath bomb for good measure. She's been through a lot of emotional trauma the last 24 hours and the least she can do is pamper herself. The bath bomb is called "The Experimenter" and she'd felt a little rebellious purchasing it, as though buying such an item made her a lot more daring and fearless than she actually is. Stepping into the tub, she sinks up to her neck, closes her eyes and imagines a world in which Stefan Salvatore is hers.
Elena doesn't deserve him. Not really. She's so lost in the sauce that she can't see what's right in front of her. But Bonnie...she sees him. She sees all of him, all at once.
Her daydreams taste better than blueberry pancakes eaten in peace and quiet.
This summer is officially going to suck dick.
Caroline Forbes struggles to keep her cool and not thoroughly tongue-lash the flagrantly rude couple that is smirking as she waits for them to finish ordering. The guy - he'd be fucking gorgeous if he wasn't such a prick - is not so subtly creeping his hand up his girlfriend's skirt and the girl is giggling too much to even complete the word "cheeseburger."
Finally, she slaps her note pad shut and chirps "You know what, I think I got it! Two burgers coming right up!" in her most cheerful voice. He smirks at her, mischief present in his sky-blue eyes, before she spins on her heel and darts for the kitchen desperately trying not to vomit.
Disgusting. What a fucking perv.
"This summer is ruined." she exclaims exasperatedly as she bursts through the swinging doors. "Fuck my life already!"
"Another senior try to feel you up on Senior Saturday?" Tyler, the Mayor's son and Mystic Grill's current busboy grins at her from where he's loading the dishwasher. "Sucks to be you."
"Shut up, Tyler." she groans, and chucks her note pad at the wall before slumping against the metal countertop "Not a senior this time. Just two gross, horny teens at table six." She leans over the counter and calls out "It'll be two cheeseburgers, Dave. If you feel like hacking a loogie onto one of the patties I'll owe you five bucks."
Dave shakes his head and Tyler snorts.
"You are also a horny teen, you know. If you hate working here so much then quit. This isn't your career."
She narrows her eyes at him. Tyler is the definition of a preppy, high school star athlete. His rich daddy and mommy have provided him with everything that he could ever want, and the only reason he's even bussing tables is because his mother wanted him to be more well-rounded and have some kind of job to put on his college applications. He drives a Mercedes, throws parties every other Saturday out in the wooded area of the Lockwood property, and gets his hot uncle Mason to pay for the ridiculous amount of alcohol (provided Mason gets to flirt with his female friends.)
Tyler doesn't know a damn thing about having to work for what he wants, even for the bare necessities like she does. It's a fact that Caroline is reminded of every day when she walks into work for her eight hour shift as a waitress.
"Unlike you, football star, I need to buy a car by the end of this summer with my own money." She says, "Pretty sure we discussed this yesterday."
"We did." He shrugs and drops a handful of dirty silverware into a steaming bin of soapy water to soak. "Still don't get why you can't find another place to work."
"It's not that easy!" she exclaims with a huff and reaches for an elastic to tie her blonde hair back into a ponytail. Her neck is starting to sweat like it usually does when she gets worked up. Tyler also didn't have to submit an actual application or even interview for his job. Being the Mayor's son has perks on top of perks on top of perks, and he is so not becoming more well-rounded.
"It could be for you." he shrugs, stacking the few remaining plates inside the washer.
She frowns. "How so? I have to apply and call over and over again to get an interview just like everyone else. Besides you, I mean."
"Yeah. But you've already got an advantage. Especially if you apply in person." Tyler shoves the dishwasher closed and spins the dial. It beeps and he picks up his empty bin to go collect more dirty plates.
Caroline shakes her head, crossing her arms over her chest. "What kind of an advantage? You mean like my stellar GPA? Why would I tell them that? I don't get it."
He smirks, side-stepping around her where she leans against the counter. Just before he reaches for the kitchen door, he steps in close and smiles. It's a real, genuine smile that throws her for a loop. He's never been this close to her before. They go high school together, see each other in the halls and have the same classes. He's always been somewhat of a douche. Attractive, but a douche none-the-less.
Still... she's never noticed the tiny brown mole at the corner of his left eye or the slight dimple in his chin. Not to mention the subtle scent of his expensive cologne, sprayed lightly and not overdone like one might anticipate from a privileged, rich boy.
She sucks in a small breath and hates herself.
"Not your GPA. That's nice and all, but for godsakes you're fucking gorgeous, Caroline." His shoulders go up and down as he shrugs again. "Don't make me out to be some shallow asshole, it's not even like that. Obviously there's more to you then your looks so you can save me the lecture. I just... I would hire you in a second." He says nonchalantly and then winks - a corny, stupid, fucking wink - and then the door swings and he is gone.
She stares blankly at the space where he was just moments before, blinking in shock. Tyler Lockwood has never once complimented her, nor ever alluded to any sort of attraction to her. So maybe his comment was a tad shallow...it was still a compliment. She doesn't even know what to think.
"Well, shit. Didn't see that one coming." Dave mutters loudly from behind the stove top and two plates full of food clink heavily onto the countertop for her take out. Caroline's cheeks flame red. Though she tries to blame it on heat of the stove, she can't even believe her own bullshit.
"Thanks, Dave." She grabs the plates and makes a mad dash for the front of the restaurant, gaze focused straight ahead. Tyler's putting empty glasses into his bin at table four so she doesn't have to look at him.
The pervy guys proceeds to ruin her life even more by ordering curly fries and two milkshakes with "2% milk only, love." but she doesn't even remember to spit in his drink when the time comes. All she can think of his Tyler… the mole beneath his left eye and the fact that she can't look at him straight anymore without feeling sort of ...funny.
He thinks she's pretty.
No. His exact words had been, "you're fucking gorgeous, Caroline."
How...interesting.
Stefan Salvatore is not an idiot.
His girlfriend is lounging delicately across his lap, chewing Wintermint Stride gum and drawing lazy circles on his left knee with one hand, scrolling through twitter timeline with her right. Her head, positioned perfectly on his right shoulder, smells like her strawberry and cream shampoo as it usually does. In fact, this moment with her curled into him like a sleepy cat on the leather couch in the den is playing out exactly the way it should according to their regular couple habits.
Everything is right.
Except that it's not.
Elena is currently emotionally involved with someone else. He just can't figure out who.
She can't see his face right now, so she doesn't notice how he stares blankly ahead, focused absently on the ugly portrait of his great grandfather over the mantle. He strokes her bare thigh but barely registers the smooth skin beneath his fingertips. She has absolutely no clue that he's running through the past three weeks in his mind on repeat.
Who?
Who is it?
He would never have known if not for how attuned he is to her. He loves Elena, has loved her since the moment he laid eyes on her last September, when he pulled her from the burning wreck of her parent's SUV. She'd been the only member of her family to make it out of that wreck, the only surviving Gilbert in the town besides her aunt, Jenna.
He'd been new in town, he and his elder brother forced to move back in with his horrid, stuffy father. And then she'd crashed into his life and made every shitty aspect of it completely irrelevant with her smile. The day she'd thanked him for saving her life with a teary embrace of gratitude, she'd had no idea she was saving him in return.
They'd been inseparable after that. He came to visit her in the hospital every day until they released her, and then they'd gone to the same school and wound up with the same classes. She had confessed her love to him first, and he'd never been more spellbound, more bewitched be such a beautiful creature. She knew him inside from out and he'd made it his duty to know her.
Nothing should've been able to come between them.
And yet...somehow someone has managed to do it.
He can't put his finger on it. Not quite. But there's just something. It's not for lack of sex or physical attention. They fuck, they make love, they cuddle, and it's all right the way that it should be...except that it's not. It's not.
Who is it?
She yawns softly - it's getting later, almost dinner time - and he catches another whiff of strawberry that bombards his senses.
"You hungry, babe?"
He blinks to clear away the haze that has clouded over his forest green eyes.
"Sure, yeah." he replies, and then clears his throat to get rid of whatever's lodged in it.
Elena shifts in his lap, finally setting her phone down to kiss him on the mouth. Despite his suspicions, he can't help but get lost in her lips, in the swift swirl of her tongue against his bottom lip. She does it for him.
Every. Single. Time.
After a moment she pulls away and he has to stifle a groan. Just a minute of making out and he's already pointlessly hard. He follows her lead as she stands and pockets her phone, reaching for her purse on the side table. She stretches felinely and he can't help but admire her mile-long legs.
"How about we go to Mystic Grill?" She suggests. "Care's working tonight. I'm sure she'll be glad to see some friendly faces."
He nods and smiles and she smiles happily now that they've come to an easy solution. Swiping the keys to his cherry red Porsche, he doesn't bother to call up to his father and tell him they're leaving. Guiseppe doesn't give a shit about what he does. The only son he ever makes a point to punish is Stefan's older brother, Damon.
Damon is out, likely doing something despicable, so Stefan is so far in the clear he's practically invisible.
"I'm so in the mood for a strawberry milkshake." Elena reaches for his hand once they've both strapped themselves into their seats. He peels out of the driveway and the engine purrs sweetly as they speed toward town.
"Me too," he says in agreement and squeezes her fingers just so, like he usually does. It's their thing. Holding on tight. Squeezing. Never letting go. All of that bullshit.
Everything is like it should be, he reminds himself. It's perfect. Stop worrying.
And it is.
Just a little too perfect.
tbc.
So I can't really explain where this story is coming from, just that I love writing it so much that I'm making it my summer creation. Please review, as your inputs mean so much to me and I'd love to hear your thoughts and even any ideas. I have a few ideas on where I want to take this piece, but hey, I'm always open to suggestions.
Note: if you're at all attached to certain pairings...don't get too comfortable. Like I said..things are about to heat up. Also...if your faves, are my faves, I'm sure you'll enjoy this just fine so don't be too worried about how things start off.
This is unbeta-ed. so yeah. love me, hate me, i'm human. (: