Ok super-quick recap… Caroline had taken Tyler back to his home after his ordeal turning wolfy. They shared a connection and made love. His changeable mood gave Caroline cause for alarm, and she was left feeling she needed to consult her friends.
Please do let me know if you like where this is going; I really do appreciate your reviews. Hope you enjoy Chapter 2….
(OK, and just for the record I'm British, so if I get some of my references wrong – I apologize!)
Dog Day Afternoon
Chapter 2:
"Awkward"
The shrill sound of coach's whistle drifted over the field towards them, cutting through the general noise of the team's calls to each other. He had them practicing corner routes after Tyler had just surprised them all with a Hail Mary pass that was the kind of stunt nobody pulled off at practice, but kept in reserve for the game. He was lumbering around the field now, pissing off the lesser players by fooling around then pulling off amazing moves just when everybody thought he couldn't possibly be concentrating. In short, he was laughing his ass off at their expense.
Caroline puckered her lips as she watched him. She took a drink of her slushy, and pulled her knees up onto the bench. It was a crisp cool day, and she could see her breath when she spoke. It really wasn't the kind of weather for iced drinks.
Elena looked from the field, back to Caroline.
"Ok, what's going on?" she said, a no-nonsense tone about her voice. Caroline shrugged.
"Nothing."
"Oh sure, and that's why we are sat here drinking slushies; which by the way, you only do when you are upset." Caroline looked at her friend, and damned her for her perceptiveness. "Caroline, what's happening? You've got to tell me."
"Look, if I tell you, you have to promise not to judge me," she kept her eyes on the field because if she looked at Elena, she wouldn't have the guts to continue. At that moment, Tyler romped past them performing a perfect forward pass that left Stefan cursing his inability to use his vamp skills and even things up a bit. He took a glance at Elena as if it to say 'WTF?' and she shrugged. Stefan jogged back to his position, shaking his head.
"I'm not proud of this, but I want you to know that it meant something to me, okay?" Elena furrowed her brow, but nodded solemnly. What the hell was this?
"I slept with Tyler." Caroline left a pause and stole a glance at her best friend to see how she had taken this. As expected, she looked pretty shocked.
"I didn't mean to, but we just bonded, and well… he needed me. I mean he really needed me." Elena looked back at the field. Tyler was a good-looking guy, hell most of the players were, but Caroline had never really given him the time of day before. He also didn't strike her as the needy type. There was more to this.
"Okay…" Elena said warily, unwilling to form an opinion at this stage, "you better start at the beginning."
Caroline waggled her feet and examined her shoes. They were her favorites; a pair of killer red pumps that were completely inappropriate for walking to the bleachers in. She realized that for the past three days she had done whatever she had wanted to do. It was like she couldn't say no to herself. A sure sign that she was upset.
Since they had slept together, it hadn't happened again. Afterwards, Tyler had gone for a run, and when he came back, he found that she had left. She had written him a slightly cryptic note to say 'When you need me, I'll always be there for you.' He had been confused by it, but nonchalant. He liked her a lot, but if she was going to go all distant on him, he would leave her be. Maybe he would just let things settle, see how the play evolved.
Caroline remembered how difficult it had been to leave the house that early morning. She felt odd about their time together. It had been seriously intense, both through the transformation and the sex afterwards. Actually, when she thought about that a little ripple of lust passed through her body. My goodness he was hot in bed, and she had to admit was probably the best she had been with. But she was saddened by the fact that he hadn't called her since. Not even a text. She supposed that she wanted reassurance that it had meant as much to him, as it had to her. She had to admit that if it hadn't, well, it wouldn't be the first time a guy had let her down in this way. She decided that he just needed more time, but deep down, she wondered if she was lying to herself.
"I was there Elena. When he turned."
"My God, Caroline! You could have been killed! What were you thinking?" Elena was really angry with her.
"No, it wasn't like that," she said turning to face her now, "you didn't see it. It was awful. Really awful. So painful, and it went on for hours. We had this footage of his uncle Mason transforming, which really scared the shit out of him, but honestly, it was nothing compared to what he went through. For a while, I didn't think he would make it."
She paused for breath and it was Elena's turn to look away. Naturally her eye went to Stefan. She wondered if the plays were too loud for him to pick up what they were saying. She tried to read his face, but he didn't give anything away before a quarterback lunged at him taking him off his feet.
"Go on…"
"I was there for him, and I took him back to his place afterwards. I'm not sure why, but I stayed because he was so… I don't know – ill I guess. I didn't mean to, but I fell asleep for a bit, and when I woke up he was there and he was really upset and he needed me, and then we slept together..." The last bit of her story tumbled out as one long sentence. She hadn't realized how much she needed to tell someone about it all. She wondered if she should share that he cried bitterly and that she had held him for a long time, but decided against it; there were some things a boy would rather a girl didn't share with her friends.
"It was incredible, Elena," She looked at her friend, who had the grace to blush. "We were very connected, I guess. It's never been like that before. I know I really helped him, but after he was weird. Kinda pumped, you know?"
"Not really…"
"Well, remember that douche-bag, Dan, I dated last fall?"
"Steroids boy?"
"Yeah, him. He was kind of like that guy. Jumpy. I mean he should have been exhausted by everything that had happened to him, but he just got all Energizer-bunny and wanted to go for a run. It was off: really off."
They were interrupted at that moment by Elena's phone beeping. A text from Bonnie.
where r u?
bleachers. boy, u gotta get here quick.
Bonnie found them moments later, and after customary greetings were exchanged she sat on the bench below them.
"Ok, what is going on? I get the distinct impression I'm missing something." She said, looking from Elena's face (raised eyebrows), to Caroline's (looking down at her feet).
"Tell her, Caroline. She needs to hear it."
So Caroline ran through it again, with the two women asking her questions when appropriate and just letting her speak when it wasn't. They were interested in the transformation (distressing), a little in the sex (turns out Tyler was as hot as he looked), what it meant for her and Matt (she couldn't process that right now), and a whole-lot-interested in the lack of communication since.
"No call, no anything?" Bonnie checked again incredulously. Caroline shook her head.
"So that's why we are here…" Elena guessed, watching the players doing goal-line touches. Caroline nodded.
"I don't want to speak to him. I just wanted to see him again…" Her voice tailed off.
Elena and Bonnie exchanged glances. This sounded serious. Caroline had had one night stands before, but she had never been like this afterwards, all self-reflective and worried. This required some thought.
"Look," Elena said standing, "I've gotta go because I promised Jenna I would pick up dinner, but this conversation isn't over, okay? We'll have a think about it and come up with some kind of action plan, all right?" She looked at Bonnie, who nodded quickly. "Okay?" she said pointedly at Caroline, who eventually nodded too.
"Later girls. We'll talk." She jumped down the bleachers and backed down the edge of the field. Caroline's head was hung low, so she took the opportunity to make a 'call me' sign to Bonnie as she did so.
Bonnie watched her leave, then turned to Caroline, putting a comforting hand on her knees.
"Its ok sweetie, don't worry. We'll figure out what to do somehow." She said. Caroline merely nodded dejectedly in reply.
In the locker room, Tyler was getting the cold shoulder from more than one person. Stefan walked up to him as he dried off.
"Dude, you really are a dick sometimes. You know that?" Tyler merely laughed it off.
Stefan looked at him as though he had lost it and walked away. He had never really gotten along with Tyler anyway; clearly that was not about to change any time soon. And that was not even taking into account their natural predisposition to be enemies.
Tyler spotted Matt coming towards him like he wanted to say something. At that moment a few guys passed between them and Tyler took the opportunity to duck away. He didn't know if it was the practice or Caroline that Matt wanted to discuss, but either way, he just didn't want to get into it right now.
Elena hurried her family through dinner. Jer had barely finished his last mouthful, before she had whipped the plate away from him and begun clearing down.
"O-kay… I take it we're done here." He said sarcastically, rising from his seat, popping his headphones on and heading back upstairs to his room.
Jenna called after him, "Don't forget to take the garbage out!" and received a grunt in response. She sighed, he had grown up a whole lot of late, but in many ways, Jer was just exactly what he should be: a pain-in-the-ass teen. She put her reading glasses on and walked to their study so she could work. "Thanks Elena." She called over her shoulder as she left.
Elena, took a quick look up the stairs to make sure Jeremy really was in his room, and a peek towards Jenna, who was shutting the study door behind her. The coast was clear.
She pulled out her cell and hit Bonnie's name on speed dial. She wasn't about to call her from the home phone, she had made that mistake before (goodness knows what Jer had heard from the upstairs handset – ok he was only eight when that had happened, but that wasn't the point).
Bonnie sounded excited as soon as she picked up. She had already pinged her twice during supper, which Elena had been forced to ignore.
"Oh. My. Fucking. God!" she began, her voice at squeal-factor eight. Elena giggled.
"I can't believe it, I mean wasn't she in love with Matt only two minutes ago?" Elena thought out loud.
"Well, to be fair, it did sound like they went through quite a lot. I'm not sure she was thinking straight." Bonnie surmised fairly, "I think she's pretty cut-up about it actually. After you left and practice ended, the boys walked off the field and he didn't even look our way. She didn't say anything, but I know that hurt."
Elena sat down with a thud on the living room sofa and put her feet up. Hell, this was one of those conversations which was gonna last a while - she may as well make herself comfortable.
They talked for a bit about their friend's predicament, and Bonnie came up with the observation that perhaps Tyler's change was supported by a big surge of testosterone. She said maybe the hormone that was still surging through his body after his transformation, making him act strangely. Elena remembered the time when her mom had begun her change of life. Before she had been prescribed HRT (known in their household as 'the wonder drug'), she had been really unpredictable; changeable moods swings from incredible highs, to unbelievable lows. She thought there was something to Bonnie's theory and she told her so.
"The question is, what are we going to do about? I mean, putting aside the issue of how she feels about Matt, she really seems to need to work this thing out with Tyler." Elena suggested and Bonnie agreed.
"I think she needs closure. She went through this big ordeal with him and now he's acting like she doesn't exist. She needs to talk things over with him and he's acting like a kid with ADHD."
"Hmm," Elena agreed, "it's gonna be hard. I mean, I would talk to him, but if he's unpredictable and as strong as she says, maybe it isn't safe for any of us to do that." She thought about it for a second. "I mean, I'd ask Stefan to speak to him, but its even worse for him."
Bonnie bit down the sense of annoyance that she was once again considering doing something which would protect a vampire, but she let it go. Right now there were more important things to worry about; her friend was in pain and she wanted to help.
"When you have hormone or behavioral problems, they prescribe tablets, right? Take off the edges. Flatten things out a bit."
"Yeah… but we don't know what's happening to him exactly. The hormone thing is just a theory." Bonnie replied.
"I'm not suggesting we drug him," Elena said, "but what about if we did the next best thing? What if you were to put a calming spell on him just long enough so she could talk to him? Something to repress his impulses, like a witchy Ritalin!" she said triumphantly.
"Hmm, I don't know. It sounds kind of risky."
"We'll make sure nothing happens to her. We'll tell her we think the best thing to do is for her to talk to him. And when she goes, she won't know that you have already cast your spell. But she can't find out. She mustn't think we've intervened, or she'll think that we have also put words in his mouth. He has to speak for himself, but if he's so punchy right now, he can't concentrate long enough to even talk to her."
"I suppose so," Bonnie capitulated, "I guess it could work…"
"It will. Trust me."
"When shall we do it?"
"It has to be tomorrow – any longer, and she will put up her barriers like she does after any date that goes bad. She'll pretend none of it matters; but I think this time, that would be really bad for her. We need to give her this chance to talk."
Bonnie agreed, and after talking the plan over some more and refining the details, she hung up.
Stefan was alone for the evening as both he and Elena had a pile of homework to do and he knew that if they saw each other it would never get it done. Of course, that was actually her plan, but he had gone along with it.
He was rifling through some ancient paperwork to see if he could turn in something he had written in the last 30 years on Jane Eyre. It was actually depressing how little curriculums had changed.
Finally he found what he was looking for, a University essay entitled "Jane Eyre and the 'id'". 'Close enough', he thought. He begin typing it up whilst simultaneously dumbing it down; this was a high school paper after all and not the doctorate it was originally written for. Besides, this kind of work acted as a good distraction. He hated spending time away from Elena, but he had to remember that this was her only shot at high school. Even when he didn't mean for it to, his vampire life and problems kept making her miss lessons and she was slowly but surely falling behind. She needed time away from him, no matter how hard that was for either of them.
One of the 'vampire problems' he was referring to, walked into his room now, unannounced and unwelcome as always. Damon flopped onto Stefan's bed, picking up a photo of the happy couple from Stefan's bedside as he did so.
"What's this? I haven't seen this one before." He remarked, gazing at the picture of them together at one of their dances. "My, don't you look just spiffing." He mocked.
"I assume you want something Damon, otherwise can you please leave my stuff alone and get out." Stefan said. Not that he actually expected his brother to listen.
"Oooh, tetchy. I guess you don't want to know about the dog then." Damon gloated, getting up to leave the room, and tossing the picture onto the floor as he did so.
"What dog?" Stefan called after him, with irritation.
"Oh, nothing much – just some kinky little sex games between the hairy one and my old squeeze."
"By the 'hairy one', I assume you mean Tyler Lockwood? And Caroline? Seriously?" OK, he had his attention, "You're making this up."
"Alrighty, then." Damon walked out the door. "If you insist."
"Hey! Hang on a minute, get back here." Stefan demanded. "What's going on, and why would you know about it anyway?"
Damon popped his head back around the door.
"Well, I just happened to be in the locality of our friendly neighborhood witch, and I just happened to overhear a rather interesting little conversation she was having with – now let me see – could it have been, Elena?"
Stefan looked irritated that he had to play the game to get the information. He also noted for later that he would have to discuss Damon's eavesdropping, which was becoming a real annoyance.
"Okay, what has Elena got to do with this?" he said, beginning to lose his temper.
"Well, where to start dear brother?" Damon said, assuming his role as 'giver of knowledge' with delight.
"I don't like it, Elena. It's dangerous. Tyler Lockwood is dangerous. You keep away from him."
He was stood in Elena's bedroom, giving her orders that he knew damn well she would ignore. Keeping her safe from herself was a full-time job.
"It's none of your business, Stefan. This is my friend we are talking about. My best friend!" she said tetchily. "Now, will you get out?"
He knew he wouldn't get anywhere with this line of approach, so he tried a new tack.
"Okay, okay. So I'm not going to be able to stop this, but if I can't, then I at least want to be there. In case things get ugly."
She opened her mouth to protest, but he kissed her quickly and was gone before she could.
She sighed. Time to get locks on her windows, she thought for the hundredth time.
Tomorrow 'Plan Awkward' would go ahead as they had discussed, and she seriously doubted that it would go as expected. Little did in her life these days.
