Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries. There are some lines that are taken directly from the show, and those lines belong entirely to the writers. I take no credit there.
And in the dark, I could hear your heart beat. I tried to find the sound. But then…it stopped, and I was in the darkness. So the darkness I became…~
-Cosmic Love, Florence and The Machine
So the Darkness I Became
Prologue
They are a symphony of passion. His fingers ghost over her collar bone and then brush the underside of her knee in a way that makes her moan. She reaches up to rest her hand on his shoulder for support. She cannot remember how she arrived in this place, and all that she is aware of now is the pounding of her heart as he pushes inside her. His jaw is pressed against her cheek, and she thinks for a moment that she actually misses the coarseness that usually scratches her skin.
"Mmm," she sighs when he collapses on top of her. It is not unusual for him to ignore her after he's finished, so she is surprised when he props himself up on an elbow and stares at her.
"You have no idea what you do to me," he says softly. His thumb lightly brushes her lower lip.
She feels the blood rush to her face and the moment shatter.
He murmurs an apology as his teeth meet her jugular.
His skin is not white, like she had expected a vampire's skin to be. Instead, he can pass for a normal, sinfully attractive man with freckles and imperfections. She knows, deep down, that he is not a normal, sinfully attractive man. He can and does and will hurt her, in more ways than one.
She ponders this, pushing against the counter of his kitchen to spin the swirly chair back and forth. He is standing in the middle of the room without a shirt and without pants. She admires the rippling of his muscles when he flips the pancakes.
"Stop the squeaking. Seriously."
She twirls one more time, trying not to let the playful smile grace her face as she listens for that enjoyable squeak.
He tenses but plates the pancakes anyway, reaching over her shoulder to drizzle syrup on them without even asking if she wants any.
"Controlling bastard," she bites out between swallows.
"Squeaky bitch."
He smirks though, and she wonders what is running through his mind when he licks his lips and tilts his head.
"I know how you feel about him." There is an accusing glint in his eyes, but an accepting one as well.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I shouldn't even be surprised." He looks at her, considering. "Can I ask you something, though?"
She nods, all curls and betrayal and something else, something he can't put his finger on.
"Do you really think he can make you happy?"
A silence falls between them then, and he feels apologetic for even asking. Everyone knows she lives and breathes denial.
He finds it is the little things that remind him: the lift of her eyebrow when she admonishes him for his naughty behavior; the slight curl to her hair before she brushes it. And most of all, he cannot ignore the painfully similar feeling that rises in his chest when she whispers that she can simply not go on with him any longer.
Chapter 1
Caroline grinned at Elena and crossed her legs underneath her. She took a sip of her martini while her best friend squirmed.
"Oh, come on, Elena. Just tell us! I bet he's good." She sighed dramatically, leaning back against Bonnie's headboard. "He's got big hands."
"Caroline!"
She ducked, barely missing the pillow that Elena pelted in her direction. "What? You know I'm right, Bonnie. And from the way you're blushing, Elena, I'm pretty sure you know exactly what I'm talking about."
"He's….wonderful," Elena admitted. She bit her lip but couldn't hold back the blush that rose to her cheeks.
"And….?"
"And he's got nice hands – happy?"
Caroline, finally satisfied, glanced at Bonnie while taking another sip from her glass. "Told ya so."
"What about you, Forbes?" Bonnie shot back. "Still screwing Lockwood?"
"It was one time!"
"And we're never gonna let you forget it."
Elena laughed. "She's right. I may be having hot sex with my hot boyfriend, but at least I didn't lose my virginity to a pompous ass."
"Right. You lost it to Matt – much better."
There was a pause, and Caroline regretted what she said. Matt was off-limits. He, Caroline, Bonnie and Elena had been best friends since kindergarten, but Elena and Bonnie had always had something Caroline didn't. They were all Sister, Sister and she was all stupid, blonde air-head third wheel. Matt, like everyone else, preferred Elena and Caroline watched as she broke his heart again and again, more often then not without ever even realizing it.
Middle school hadn't changed their dynamic all that much. Caroline twirled around them with her looks and sharp features and blossoming body and sometimes, sometimes, Elena and Bonnie joined in. Most of the time, though, Caroline dated and flirted and gossiped, and most of all tried to get Matt to notice her. She batted her eyelashes at him when they spoke and touched his arm more often than was appropriate. And he still pined for her on-again off-again BFF.
High school arrived and with it came (for Caroline, anyway) a rockin' body and guys and a rush of hormones like you wouldn't believe. She branched out, made her own friends, and surrounded herself with girls she knew were beneath her. She had a clique and her social position was secure. She went out on dates and drank her first beer and smoked her first cigarette. Elena, though, fun and flirty but mysterious and sexy in a way Caroline simply couldn't be, still ruled the social scene. She could hold down more liquor, smoke more expensive tobacco and leave all the boys wanting. Along with sidekick/best friend Bonnie, Elena had been able to maintain her popularity without scheming, without rivalry. Caroline tried to be queen; Elena just was.
And as for Matt, poor pining love-sick Matt? He got her. He asked Elena out for the hundredth time and she said yes. Matt was her arm-candy for a whole year, and together they were the perfect couple. He kissed her with tongue in front of everyone, carried her books, and danced with her at their junior prom. She laughed when he twirled her and blushed when they were caught without shirts in the janitor's closet.
On June 3rd of their junior year, Elena's parents' car went over the bridge and into the water.
With them in it.
Elena had gotten out of the car somehow, and was found on the bank of the river with a dislocated shoulder and a shattered cheekbone. She was unconscious for two weeks, and it wasn't all because of physical pain. The doctors in the hospital had worked with her father. They were doing her a kindness, prolonging the inevitable.
Caroline had stopped by twice: once when Elena was still out and the other when she was still groggy. Try as she might, Caroline just couldn't face this broken girl who was clearly not the Elena she had known for well over a decade. Matt was beside himself; he barely slept, refused to leave Elena's side, and stroked her hair so much that Caroline had to wonder if she would be bald when she woke.
A month after the accident, Elena broke up with Matt. She told him she needed time, and he, being the gentleman that he was and still is, accepted this gracefully and told her he would wait as long as she needed.
Elena gave up the booze and the smokes; traded them in for sensible jeans and converse sneakers. She watched after her newly-stoned brother and shut herself off from everyone but Bonnie for the rest of the summer.
Caroline put gold highlights in her hair and plucked her eyebrows and got her bikini line waxed.
It hurt like a bitch, but everything that summer had.
"Caroline, are you okay?"
She blinked, realizing that she was still on Bonnie's bed with alcohol in her hand. "Sorry guys. Must have zoned for a minute."
"You were really out of it, Care."
Matt used to call her that. It was their thing. Most people had assumed it came from her name, and it sort of had. But mostly it had derived from the fact that she loved Care-Bears. Like, really freaking loved them. She had a basket stuffed full of them: blue ones with rainbows on their stomachs and yellow ones with daffodils and even a blanket still folded on her bed which involved Care-Bears dancing in a circle in their magical Care-Bear-y world. Thinking about it now made her heart hurt in a way she couldn't quite explain.
She shook those thoughts away with a large gulp from her glass. "I know. Sorry. Listen, I better go – my mother'll freak if I spend another night away from home."
She embraced Elena and rolled her eyes at Bonnie before blowing them air kisses and dashing out of the room to get to her car. She breathed a sigh of relief when she was safely seated behind the wheel of her adorable baby blue Prius.
And then she started to cry.
"Be home by eleven, honey."
Caroline rolled her eyes and ignored her mother.
All her life she had practically raised herself, and then when she got boobs and a knowing smirk, her mom decided to care. Caroline spent most of her time finding ways to get under her mother's skin, knowing for a fact that having a daughter who was practically a drunken whore (in her mother's eyes, at least) was the ultimate embarrassment.
She checked her reflection in the mirror one more time, taking no more than twenty seconds to reapply her lip gloss and flip her newly-straightened hair. When she was satisfied, she yanked her kitchen door open and hopped in Damon's car.
"Easy there, princess." Damon snatched her hand away from his precious radio. He caught her gaze and stared at her. "Hands off the merchandise."
She nodded happily. For whatever reason, she didn't feel the need to change stations any longer.
"Where are we going?" She watched the muscle in his jaw jump as she chattered away. It was growing increasingly apparent that she was more talented at antagonizing those around her than at being a good student, daughter, or friend.
"Shut up," he tossed casually over his shoulder.
Once again she acquiesced, quieting immediately. As she kept her mouth shut, she admired the cool leather interior of Damon's car, and just how hot he looked in it.
Damon Salvatore, she sighed in her head. When he and his brother Stefan had strolled into town just weeks before, she had had her eyes set on the younger of the two. As usual, though, Elena snatched the brooding Salvatore right out of Caroline's grasp. Not that she minded now, 'cause Damon was ten times hotter with his midnight hair and electric blue eyes. He also possessed this wonderful thing called passion, something, Caroline decided, Stefan was definitely lacking.
A smirk appeared on Damon's handsome face, lifting one perfectly sculpted lip to one side.
He pulled up in front of the boardinghouse where he lived and kissed her hard. She nipped at the side of his mouth, earning a vicious growl in return. He lifted her into his arms and raced through the front door and up the stairs.
And as he rested her on his bed and kissed his way up her rib cage, she wondered if she would always, in one way or another, end up here: surrendering her control to a man because she wanted to feel like she was worth something.
She barely noticed the deliberate motion as Damon turned her neck to the side, completely entranced by the feelings he stirred within her body.
And then he sank his teeth deep into her artery, and she let out an ear-piercing scream until he pressed his hand to her mouth and silenced her.
Because she was, to him, simply a rag doll. Which was almost laughable, as most of time she felt that way: weak, desperate, and useless.
"Will these bites make me a vampire?"
She was finding it difficult to remember how Damon had arrived in her bedroom, but she pushed those thoughts aside and focused on the mirror before her. Her fingers caressed the seven marks he had left on her skin.
Damon lay on her bed, one hand behind his head as the other flipped the pages to New Moon. He paused, almost made curious by her inquiry.
"It's a little more complicated than that." He stood behind her, brushing her hair behind her neck to reveal yet another healing wound.
"You'd have to drink my blood, then die, and then drink someone else's blood. It's a whole ordeal."
He placed a kiss on her shoulder and then gazed down at her form with furrowed brows.
"No yellow. Looks like jaundice. Go for the blue."
Caroline pouted. "But I don't like the blue, I like the yellow."
His eyes darkened. "Well I like the blue, and if I'm going to be your date – "
"You are not going to be my date." She scoffed at the mere idea, imagining her mother, Elena, Stefan, and Damon, of all people, in the same room.
He wrapped his hands around her wrists, forming steel manacles. "I went through a lot of trouble to make sure this dance wasn't canceled."
He turned her head to face him. "Please take me."
Caroline blinked, struck by a sudden impulse. "You should come to the founder's gala with me."
Damon's easy smile returned. "Not if you're wearing that dress."
She giggled and stripped out of the yellow dress, leaving it on the floor, forgotten, and leaping into his arms.
He flipped them over and licked the underside of her jaw, placing butterfly kisses on the curve of her neck.
"Mmmm, you can be very sweet when you want to be."
"Of course I can be sweet." He pressed his nose against her jugular and inhaled.
In that moment, a wave of concern washed over her. "Are you going to kill me?"
He drew away from her neck and stared down at her, almost considering.
"Mmhm. But not yet."
"Why?"
"Because I need you to do something for me." His fingers traced a gentle path down the veins in her wrist.
She closed her eyes and opened them, as if to make sure he was real.
"Anything."
Damon lowered his mouth to her ear and whispered his plan.
Then she watched as his face was overtaken with blood vessels that cracked and rose to the surface of his skin. His eyes, once electric in their intensity, were consumed by thirst, and his teeth grew sharp with need.
She closed her eyes when he bit her, finally allowing her tears to tumble over her cheeks.
"Don't be afraid," he murmured, as if he could hear the silent screams that rang in her mind over and over. He kissed her tears away with a mouth still stained with her blood.
"I protect what's mine."
It was the last thing she heard before she surrendered herself to unconsciousness.
Author's Note: Please Review! It's quite different from anything I've tried before.