AN: So, it's been a while. Just over two months, in fact. I wrote about half of this chapter, didn't like, re-wrote it… and I'm still not entirely happy with it, but it gets the plot to where it needs to be for what I have planned. So, please enjoy…
Thirteen. Closer
"You let me violate you, you let me desecrate you. You let me penetrate you. You let me complicate you." ~Closer, Nine Inch Nails
"So is this going to be my version of the Hunter's Curse? I don't get hallucinations of my loved ones, just the actual guy I killed glaring at me?"
"Do you think this is funny? When did you realize that the curse wouldn't work as long as there was no other side? How soon after that did you decide to betray me? To betray all those precious friends of yours?" Galen hissed at Caroline. "You bloody well killed me! And why? To climb into bed with the very monster that ruined you?"
"Funny, I seem to be in bed all alone right now. Want to join me?" Caroline patted the mattress next to her. "And I didn't know it would work for sure… but even if it hadn't, it's not like I'm exactly in the mind set to be haunted by mommy Forbes." When Galen just shot her another glare, Caroline sighed. She had a hairband on her wrist, and with an almost idle motion, she snapped it against her skin. "Honestly, you can glare at me just as easily from the bed. It's got to be boring just standing there glaring, and it's incredibly comfortable. I guess being a two thousand year old psychopath pays well. Or maybe he just used his creepy mind rape powers to get this place. Either way, it's rocking."
"You fucking bitch!" Galen snarled, his face screwing up into a wild grimace. "You kill me and now you make light of it? I am Silas' little pet to order around now! And I can't stop it!"
"Oh, get over it," Caroline responded with rolled eyes, her fingers snapping the hairband again. "So you died. I'm sure it sucks, but we all do crap we don't want. That's life."
"She's full of wisdom, my queen. Isn't she, Vaughn?" Caroline and Galen cut off their argument to look at the doorway to Caroline's room, where Silas leaned against the wall.
"Wonderful," Galen muttered. "Weren't you off doing… something. That didn't require you being here."
"I was, and now it is done. And I wish to spend time with Caroline." Silas strolled easily up to Caroline and ran his fingertips along the skin of her shoulders left bare by her tank top. "Leave, Vaughn."
"Of course," Galen replied with a mocking bow. "I wouldn't dare interrupt your time with your… queen."
His look to Caroline was full of derision, but she merely shrugged, and with another scowl the undead hunter blinked out of existence.
"That has to be kind of handy," Caroline mused, pulling up her legs to sit cross legged on the bed. "The whole blink-and-you're-gone thing. I mean, can he go anywhere? Could he be in Tokyo right now? I have a soft spot for Tokyo."
"When my work is done here, I'll take you there."
I'll take you. Wherever you want. Rome. Paris. Tokyo.
Snap. The band hit her skin again, and Silas frowned at her wrist as he sprawled his body out next to hers on the bed. When her fingers held the hairband once more, he reached out his own hand and stilled her fingers before they could snap it again.
"You shouldn't mar your lovely skin," he said, pulling the hairband off of her wrist and tossing it aside, lifting her wrist to his lips to kiss the skin that was already fading from red back to pale ivory. His tongue flickered out, touching her pulse point and Caroline felt a brief flare of arousal at the sensation.
"You're sort of beautiful," she commented, bringing her free hand up to rest on the one that held her wrist. It was idle observation, the same sort of comment she would make about a painting. Silas curled a lock of her hair around a finger and tugged on it lightly. He leaned forward, pressing a kiss to her pulse point. He nipped lightly, then snuck his tongue out to soothe the sting. Caroline allowed her eyes to drift closed, enjoying the sensation, and considered the best way to shove the cure down Silas' throat.
She couldn't do it now. Oh, Silas was very much engaged in his activities, but she was no fool. She had seen the calculation in his eyes when he approached her. He expected her to betray him, to react much as she had the last time they had been in this position and she had shoved a piece of wood through his heart. But this time… this time she was smarter, she was colder. The Caroline she was before had been suffering from the fresh wounds of grief and hadn't been able to turn that switch off all the way. No, Caroline wouldn't make those mistakes again.
She needed Silas off balance. She needed him to believe her, to trust her. She needed him to put his faith in her, not just so she could successfully kill him, but because it would make him suffer that much more when she looked into his eyes and killed him. In order to achieve that, she had to do the things he would never expect her to.
With a quick move, Caroline flipped Silas onto his back and straddled him. His hands came up in an automatic response to the position shift to steady her, and Caroline smirked down at him.
"For a supposed all-powerful being, you're acting rather submissive," Caroline purred, running her hands down his chest. "I'm a vampire, not a virginal school girl. If I wanted some frat boy to paw at me over my clothes and drool on my neck, I would have compelled myself one. Are you going to fuck me or not?"
Silas narrowed his eyes and watched her for a moment, as though trying to determine her sincerity. Caroline looked back and raised her brows, and then gave a frustrated huff, the type she thought she would give if she were truly innocent of deceit, and began to climb off of him. Silas grabbed her wrist before she could get off the bed and pulled her back, pinning her arms above her head with one hand and using the other to trail down her body before he grabbed the bottom of her tank top and bunched it in his hand.
"I am," he said, and with a smirk he shoved the tank top up.
STILL-DOLL
"Heard you died. That sucks."
Bonnie raised her brows at Elena as the brunette entered the Mikaelson manor. She was followed by both Salvatores, Lexi, Alaric and Jeremy, who gave Bonnie an apologetic shrug. He looked weary, and Bonnie suspected he'd spent the better part of the night trying to kick start Elena's humanity to no avail.
"I heard you turned off your humanity," Kol drawled out from where he leaned on the couch behind Bonnie. "Funny, since you committed vampiric genocide in order to regain it. Then again, you never have made a choice you could actually stick to. Pity all those vampires can't be brought back as easily as you can hop between the brothers Salvatore's beds."
"I want to want to punch him for that," Jeremy muttered to Bonnie, sitting next to her. "But all I can think is that she kind of deserves that. She's a bitch like this."
"I can hear you, you know," Elena muttered. She was next to the fireplace pouring herself a scotch and turned to glare at Kol and Jeremy. "So, where are the rest of them? I mean, if Klaus wants to trust us with his scotch that's awesome, but I doubt it's true."
"Have as much as you want if it keeps you silent," Klaus declared, sweeping into the room with his other siblings in tow. "I see we have some more members of the dead-but-here club amongst us. I do hope you learned not to attempt to kill me while on the other side, Alaric."
"Honestly, I didn't waste a whole lot of time thinking about you, Klaus. Even dead, I just had better things to do with my time."
Klaus laughed a mirthless laugh and, in an instance, was behind Alaric. The one-time hunter's body slid motionless to the ground, leaving Klaus standing there with his bloody heart in his hand.
"Well," the hybrid commented idly, dropping the heart with a squishing thud onto Alaric's prone body. "Perhaps having you lot around won't be so irritating after all. Great way to burn off some anger, that."
"Holy shit," Jeremy swore, staring wide-eyed at Alaric. "You killed him."
"Don't be an idiot, Gilbert," Kol replied with rolled eyes. "He's already dead. Nik tearing out his heart won't change that. Give it an hour, and Alaric will be free to amaze us all with his sharp wit and tolerance for fine liquor. And less than fine liquor. He wasn't particularly picky, was he?"
"We are all getting distracted," Elijah interjected before Jeremy could lift the crossbow he seemed to carry around like a lifeline and shoot and shoot Kol. "The fact of the matter is that, while many of us hate each other, we do all have one common goal. We all wish to find Miss Forbes. Perhaps we should concentrate on that?"
"It won't do you any good. Your precious Miss Forbes has turned."
It was almost humorous, the way the group turned almost as one towards the new, but familiar (to certain group members) voice.
"Galen Vaughn. I thought you were with Caroline, teaching her the ways of the Hunter," Rebekah purred in what many of the others recognized as her time to kill someone voice.
"I was. Then she woke up one morning cold as ice and decided to kill me in return for a nice, comfortable position in Silas' bed." Galen sat on the arm of the couch, resting his elbows on his knees. "Makes a man regret training her, really."
"That doesn't sound like Barbie," Damon commented, his brow furrowing. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I didn't have much of a use for her half the time, but she was always loyal."
"This is your doing," Klaus said, turning on Kol and Bonnie. "Your little plan has completely destroyed everything human in her! Did you plan this? What was the plan? Let Caroline share his bed to distract him while we plunged a knife through his back?"
"Do you think this is what I wanted?" Bonnie demanded in return, standing nose to nose with Klaus. "Do you think I wanted to hand my best friend over to Silas? But she's our only hope, and we have to have faith that she will come through for us."
"From Silas' bed?" Rebekah asked with a snort. "I'm sure it's comfortable there. Why would she leave, without her humanity to ground her within your little group?"
"She doesn't!" Bonnie snapped in reply. "Her mom is dead. Her dad is dead. She killed Matt. There isn't a reason in the world for her to reclaim her humanity and return to us. But I have to believe that this sacrifice won't be for nothing. I have to believe that I didn't strip Caroline of her identity for nothing!"
Bonnie whirled angrily away from the group, closing her eyes tightly against tears, and when she opened them again, she was looking into the cold, apathetic eyes of Caroline Forbes. She sat cross legged on a bed in nothing but a man's button down several sizes too big on her.
"It took you long enough to show up. We have plans to make."
STILL-DOLL
Caroline rested her chin in her palm and watched Bonnie steady herself. The dark girl was off-kilter, and her expression was confused.
"Where am I?" she asked, looking around blankly before her green eyes came to Caroline again. "And what are you wearing?"
"Silas' shirt," Caroline replied, raising her brows. Who else's would it be, really? Caroline was beginning to think that humans, as a rule, weren't particularly observant. When Bonnie's mouth fell open into an unattractive gape, Caroline leaned back with a sigh. "Don't go all judgemental on me, Bonnie. You got Kol to compel the humanity out of me and then left me to deal with Silas without a plan. I need his trust, and the fastest way to achieve that is through his cock."
"So you kill Galen Vaughn and sleep with the enemy? Yeah, we know about that. He showed up and informed us. That isn't how this was supposed to go, Care!"
"Good, he did make it to you. I was worried he would be foolishly male and decide to try and win this thing on his own. I'm glad I overestimated his idiocy. But I apparently underestimated yours. How did you think it would go, Bonnie? That I would walk up to Silas and his obsession with me would grant me automatic trust? I already snapped his neck and staked him – his trust won't come easy this time. So yes, I killed Galen – because it was expedient and he holds too much knowledge about me. I needed him dead so his mind would be closed to Silas."
"That's cold," Bonnie retorted, fighting between dismay that her friend could be so frighteningly pragmatic about something as important as human life, and relief that she and Kol had been right in their bet – Caroline might not have humanity, but she still had a code of honor, and that code demanded Silas be eradicated. She settled for sighing when Caroline just silently watched her. "Cold, but incredibly practical. Where is Silas now?"
"He's off conferring with some witches," Caroline replied. "Apparently Lucy wasn't strong enough to survive the spell to bring down the veil, so he needs a new plan for unlinking the bloodlines. I'm surprised he hasn't summoned you to him for that."
"He might not realize I can still do magic," Bonnie explained. "That's a point in our favour. It means he'll want Qetsiyah, which is even better. We need her too, but I can't find her. I searched before the veil came down, but she was always a step ahead of me."
"So what… we let Silas find Qetsiyah and then steal her? That will be super easy," Caroline drawled, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Cause, y'know, he totally trusts me."
"You said you'd earn it… that's why you're all… can you put some pants on, Care? Or at least a shirt that doesn't belong to the guy who killed me?"
"No," Caroline replied coolly. "This is comfortable and I don't want another shirt ripped when he comes back."
"God, is he that freaking horny?" Bonnie asked before really considering her words. Once they registered in her mind, the witch opened her mouth again, planning to retract the words, to say they didn't matter, but Caroline responded first.
"No… but I am. And if I have to seduce his trust, then I might as well get my money's worth. Why do we need Qetsiyah?"
The topic change was rapid, but it was a distraction from the revelation that Caroline actually enjoyed sex with the evil blood sucking warlock, so Bonnie grasped onto it.
"Silas is bound to the other side. It will take more than just the cure to kill him now. You have to shove it down his throat to make it human, and then we need to perform a spell to destroy him and the other side. It's… complicated. You just need to do your part and turn him human. Just know that we need Qetsiyah for more power."
"Okay," Caroline agreed, before cocking her head to the side, as though focusing on a far off sound. "Silas is coming. You need to leave. I'll contact you when I know where Qetsiyah is."
"Okay… how do I leave? I still don't know how I got here." Bonnie spun around, as if looking for some sort of exit.
"The same way you moved in the spirit world I would assume" – Caroline gave a delicate shrug – "Galen just appeared and disappeared at will. I'm not dead-dead, so I wouldn't know how it works."
"Thanks for the help, Care," Bonnie muttered, but the advice apparently worked, because a moment later Bonnie blinked out of existence. Moments later, Silas entered the room, smirking when he saw her sitting in his shirt.
"My, my, my… this is a lovely welcome," he mused, grabbing Caroline's hand and pulling her off the bed and into his arms, swinging her around before kissing her deeply. He tasted like blood, and Caroline felt her eyes darken as she let her tongue do some exploration.
"Mmm," she hummed when they separated. "You're in a remarkably good mood" – her eyes narrowed slightly as they focused in on his face – "why?"
"Oh, I managed to find a loose end on which I've been wishing to tug. Nothing for you to worry about yet, Particularly not when we have other matters on which to speak."
"What other matters?" Caroline asked, her fingers beginning to undo the buttons on his shirt.
"Not those matters, though I am happy to see you so eager. I must admit, I worried a little, that once the chase was done I would be disillusioned with you. I am pleased to say I was wrong." Silas removed her fingers from his shirt and tumbled her to the bed.
"No, my lovely deceptive minx," he purred, his hand shooting to her neck as he pinned her body to the bed with his. His expression turned cold and dangerous, violence humming just under his skin, and Caroline found herself holding perfectly skill, instinctively knowing that one wrong move would result in a snapped neck. " The other matter on which we must speak refers to the cure… and when you were going to tell me you had it."
AN: Okay, so… yeah. Don't hate me? Caroline is not herself, and her actions are in no way influenced by emotion in regards to Silas. She slept with him to get under his skin, that's it. Because she was left to gain his trust on her own, so that's what she's doing.
And Klaus is one of the things that can get under her skin… just go back and read the first Caroline scene. You can see that!
I had a lot of questions about the Hunter's Curse… and as you can see, it no longer exists. The Other Side is, technically, gone. Which means Galen is still around without some curse. If he so chose, he could dedicate himself to driving Caroline insane. He's just not going to, cause my boy Galen has priorities.
I'm going to go hide for a little bit. Just until I see how much (if any) hate I get for this chapter.