I know, I know. I have an Steroline fic I still need to finish, but right now in the middle of the anxiety waiting for admission letters and hundred of other worries, I cannot find that "feeling" I need to work on My never-ending love.
Instead, I decided to write this short, three chapter story to go back a little bit and reconnect with my love for Steroline. I found there are not stories with the theme of Hanahaki in this fandom (correct me if I am wrong and you know some)so here it is, a short fic for the fans of this couple.
Flowers curling from your lungs in interwoven vines
Petals bloom across your tongue like soft exploded mines
A braid of love and longing in the taste of rose and pine
A fatal growth belonging to the want you couldn't hide
Hanahaki (Bloom) by mollyofgeography
i.
"Caroline, you and me, it's not gonna happen. Sorry."
It hurts when he says this, and Caroline swallows his taste sour in her mouth, and they settle heavily in her core. Trying to get rid of this feeling, she allows his brother to fool her and use her, and what is Stefan's rejection compared to what Damon does to her?
Nothing. Stefan means nothing to her.
He is only Elena's boyfriend now, and Elena is her friend.
"She's with Stefan."
"Riding to his castle on his white horse."
Bonnie tells her not to be bitter, and she tries, but sometimes she just sees him and wonders… Why can't she have someone like him?
It does not have to be him.
It can be Matt, she decides. He is kind to her, and why not?
But this, too, turns out to be a dream that doesn't last long.
Sometimes she wonders if there is a version of the world where she could have remained human, would she have ended up with Matt?
He was good to her, even though sometimes she wondered if his heart really belonged to her at all. That was okay because she is used to this. She is not Elena, people don't gravitate towards her. Her father left and her mother who hunts vampires pays her so little attention that she didn't even realize Caroline was used as a blood bag for one of them. But now this is what she is, a vampire, and Matt… he will be just another one who got away.
It is Stefan that stands by her side during those trying days. When she struggles to control her blood lust, and when she thinks that she will never live a normal life again.
Stefan, who embraces her in that school bathroom and promises he would not let anything happen to her. Who believes she can do this, when not even Bonnie thinks so.
Stefan, who listens to her more than anyone else has ever done, who does not treat her worries and fears like they are non important, even when he does not agree with her actions.
Stefan, who saved her from Damon, saves her from herself, and then saves her from the werewolves. He is the first person who always comes to save her.
The feeling she does not recognize yet sneaks upon her, every single kindness from him becomes a seed.
She tried to be a bit like him, being the same kind of support to Tyler as Stefan was to her, but it backfired horribly, and now she is in pain.
"You don't have to pretend with me." He tells her, even if she continues pretending.
And later, when she stares at herself in the mirror thinking about how her life has changed for the worst, the look of concern in his face comes back to her.
He cares so much so that he later brings Elena and Bonnie to stay with her, and at the moment she only takes comfort in the presence of her friends, but it is Stefan's thoughtfulness that continuously waters the seeds in her heart.
When love takes root, Caroline doesn't know she will die from it.
It happens for the first time after Elena tells them Stefan is gone. Gone with Klaus, sacrificing himself for his brother's sake.
She realizes, then, how little she actually meant to him.
Of course, Stefan had been kind to her, and she thought them to be friends, but what is her friendship compared to his repulsive brother?
Damon doesn't even love Stefan enough that it will stop him from coveting his brother's girlfriend.
But Stefan left.
And the feeling of rejection comes back, ten times stronger than the "it's not gonna happen" from that stupid party at the falls.
Caroline drives home, and she cries. She cries until it is difficult to see, even if she is a vampire damnit, so she stops by the road before she hits some weak, unfortunate human.
Suddenly, she starts coughing violently, she cannot stop. She coughs until the white petals stained in red come out from her mouth.
Can vampires get sick? And what kind of sickness would this be?
Horrified as she is, she keeps the petals hidden and doesn't tell a single soul about it, which is a good call, because whatever caused this phenomenon, it does not happen again.
She has almost forgotten the incident with the bloody petals as months go by in the blink of an eye in between facing original vampires, hybrids, witches that have come back from death, a boyfriend who almost got you killed, and a lost friend with humanity turned off.
Caroline should be happy that Stefan, her Stefan, is back. Of course this means he wants Elena back, but that is okay, it really is. She would rather see him with Elena than being a jerk without humanity who goes on killing sprees. The Stefan she loves is in love with Elena, so Caroline does the only thing she can do: tell Elena to invite him to the ball.
It is easy, how the words roll out of her mouth. They are each others' epic love, and between Stefan and Damon, the choice is obvious.
But the pain in her stomach grows to the point it is difficult to keep smiling.
And then she sees Stefan's eyes brimming with tears because he fears for Elena's life. His pain reaches her and somehow doubles in intensity, twisting her insides. He leaves to go after her, so fast and without saying a word, there is no way to follow him.
Caroline could not have followed him even if she wanted to. She starts coughing again, and this time two daisies come out of her. White petals, stained with her blood.
She should be happy. She has Tyler. She loves Tyler. And truly, she is happy for a while (not even Klaus, with all his flirting and the bad boy persona being soft on her is enough to shake her conviction).
But while her boyfriend is away in his most important quest of finding a way to oppose Klaus, it is Stefan (not Elena, not Bonnie) who spends nights drinking with her on her couch, laughing at jokes made at the expense of their troubled love lives. He is not only her friend now, he is becoming her best friend.
Her best friend who mops over Elena. Caroline plays her role as the supportive confidant to perfection, and when it comes to declare where her loyalties are, she chooses him over her long time friend after Elena tells them she has slept with Damon.
She can't lie to him.
But there are things she keeps to herself. Such as how after seeing him broken and lost, all because of Elena, she drives home and throws up bloody daisies until she is weak and starving for blood again.
Coughing daisies does not get her killed. It leaves her weak for hours, even, and starving to the point she can barely stand the blood lust. Still, she refuses to tell anyone about it, which limits her possibilities to understand what is happening to her.
So far, she has not learned anything about the reason for this illness (for it is an illness that has been slowly taking over her).
Caroline knows one thing only. It gets worse when Stefan is nearby.
The logical thing would be to avoid him to no end, but this is not an option.
He needs her now, and perhaps she needs him too. Earlier she told him someday he will fall in love again, with all the optimism she could gather, but she cannot have the same optimism when Tyler comes to say goodbye.
She cries her heart out, but there are (at least) no bloody daisies in her mouth.
It will be okay. She has her best friend.
Later, she finds out he left town after the issue with Silas was solved, a single text message tells her he will be away for a while. It is understandable, this is what he needs to get over Elena.
All of this she knows, and it still sucks that she doesn't hear from him all summer long.
"Let me be there for you." He tells her, at a moment when she thought their relationship will be the least of his concerns in her mind.
Something shifts in her friendship with Stefan when he loses his memory, a deep unsettling truth she does not want to acknowledge but looms around after he is back to being himself.
The result is an ugly feeling Caroline will not admit, because admitting it means…
Bonnie brings it up after her experience of dying and coming back to life, on one particular evening, when Caroline comes back from the boarding house and heads directly to the bathroom, coughing until she feels there is nothing left inside her.
Stefan and Katherine…
How could he?
Well, she understands. Katherine is now human and vulnerable and everything that brings out the most sympathetic and kind Stefan Salvatore. She also wears the face that Stefan (and even his ancestor before him) has always been obsessed with.
Caroline has no right to feel upset. To feel so… jealous.
It is absurd that this makes her cry, but her friend comes to the door and confronts her about the daisies and the blood on the sink.
"Won't you tell anyone about it?"
"I have no idea what you are talking about, Bonnie."
"You have been coughing up flowers. For months, I saw it when I was watching over you from the Other Side."
"Hanahaki…it is the illness of one-sided love. Even since Tyler left Mystic Falls, and now that the two of you have broken up… you have been like this."
The illness of one-sided love. So that is what it is. The flowers that grow inside her consume her because her love is not reciprocated. It kills people, Bonnie says, but there is a spell to erase the root of the problem. One spell and all feelings of love she ever had, and the possibility to feel love ever again, would both be gone with the wind.
Except Caroline knows she has been sick for way longer than Tyler (that she does not mourn him anymore).
All this time, her body has been trying to tell the truth of her heart.
"I am a vampire. I am already dead, this won't kill me."
It might kill her.
Not the daisies, but the love she now realizes has been growing inside of her for a long time.
Of course it's Stefan.
And it is so obvious that it can only be explained this way. She refused to see it, because it was impossible anyway.
They are not going to happen.
She won't go through any spells, but is Caroline Forbes, and nothing can defeat her will. She can forget about Stefan.
She can be okay with being only his friend (hasn't she always been?) and she can defeat her traitorous heart.
Perhaps she is thinking along those lines when she hooks up with Klaus.
It does not work, and later she feels a double guilt, when Stefan pins Tyler to a wall in an attempt to protect her.
"What, you don't know? She screwed Klaus."
Tyler is mad at her, at her betrayal, so he wants to hurt her. He probably does not imagine just how much the flash of disappointment that crosses Stefan's eyes manage to inflict her pain.
She cannot take it, so she leaves.
But this is her curse, that he is the source of the ache in her chest, and also the only one who can heal her. Deep down, she knows this, because she ends up at his house anyway, waiting for him until he comes, saying he's been looking for her. The warm look in his face assures her they are okay.
"When you found out about me and Katherine, what was your first thought?"
He does not know how difficult this question is.
"Honestly, I thought… eww."
So much it made her throw up flowers.
"See. And if you held that against me, you would not be sitting here right now."
He smiles, and when the same words she has grown used to be directed at her come from his mouth with a smile, it is a weight that is lifted off her shoulders and she laughs.
Stefan is on her side. She wishes he would always be. It is stupid to think she can stop loving him when she never wants to stop.
There have been moments when this one-sided feeling took a toll on her. Back then, she did not know what it was.
When Stefan keeps secrets with Elena, chooses her again over Caroline, it is different.
They are supposed to be friends, at least.
That time the coughing gets worse to the point it is hard to hide it from others, and yet, it is nothing compared to the day he leaves town, after Damon and Bonnie are gone.
Caroline has lost her home, her friends, and her love.
It is fortunate Elena does not seem to care or notice anything anymore, for Caroline spends whole days coughing daisies, until the day comes she needs to steal from the blood bank to keep herself strong.
Caroline wishes Bonnie was there, with her.
She wishes she had said yes to the spell to get rid of this illness back then.
Maybe she can find another witch to do it for her.
How stupid was she? It's because she is an optimist at heart, so she held onto the hope Stefan, her best friend, would come back to her even if that hope was killing her slowly.
She was fooling herself. Because Stefan, this time Stefan has purposefully abandoned her. This time is different. There was a stronger bond between them, and he still left.
To get himself a new life, a new girlfriend, and pretend Caroline never even existed.
This Stefan is not her reliable friend. He is not the caring man she always knew him to be.
Most importantly, he doesn't love her, even as a friend.
Isnt it funny, that Enzo, in all his misguided way to be friends with people, actually shows more concern for her well being? She would be touched, if she wasn't trying to hold in the sickness until he disappears from her view.
After she and Enzo part ways, she starts coughing up so violently that she ends up on her knees in the street. There are blood and full flowers and branches around her, a proof of how hurtful this unrequited love actually is.
She is so pathetic. And Caroline does not have the strength to keep being an optimist.
The coughing gets so violent she almost loses control and kills someone for blood that night.
There is a simpler way out of this, she realizes. Vampires always do it when feeling becomes too burdensome. Elena did it and it worked out just fine.
Maybe it will solve things for her, too.