Story: Control

Chapter: Three- Boredom is a Catalyst for Danger

Pairing: Caroline/Damon, with some Caroline/Other, Damon/other

Summary: "If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough" -Mario Andretti. A study in control; one who considers her life in control and one who does everything he can to control those around him.

His brother and Elena are laughing in the kitchen together. Stefan is cutting vegetables, stopping occasionally to touch her check, her hair, her lips – it makes his own smile grow to see his brother slip up more than once, to witness his brother pull away from a kiss quickly and hide his face until the bloodlust has drained from his eyes- idiot, no wonder they haven't had sex yet.

It sort of irritates him just how much Elena looks Katherine – it's not even a matter of resembling slightly, or the same eyes, or the same hair, or the same smile or whatever. She is a carbon fucking copy.

She laughs and tosses her hair the same way Katherine used to; she holds her head the same way. She smiles like her, he wouldn't doubt that she kisses just like her too and that thought makes him a little sick and a little curious all at once.

Of course he is drawn to her, it's impossible not to be. When someone is a living breathing clone of the love/the hate of his life, the notion of passing by and not being the slightest bit startled is ridiculous.

So yeah, he gets why Stefan is staying here- he's here for the same reason- but unlike his idealistic brother he is not going to make an idiot of himself and fawn over Elena like some devoted puppy with some serious blood complexes. Unlike his romantic brother, he is more controlled in his gestures, in his actions, he may seem reckless but he always keeps his own motivation in mind: there is something deeper at work, there has to be – for a girl to be so like her, absolutely identical in appearance, in the same town a century later- and even if there isn't, even if this is all some big genetic coincidence, well he can't say he is bored, Mystic Falls is proving to be as entertaining as ever.

Once or twice Elena gets this look in her eye, part naïve, part curious, part concerned, like she wants to ask something but is too scared to hear the answer. He whispers it outside the window, although neither Stefan nor Elena can hear. "Vampire, darling, vampire."

She is the same down to the cracks in her fingernails, but this 21st century Katherine clone has not garnered the same level of passion he held for the 20th century original. Stefan naturally, has fallen head over heels but he always thought a little too much with his heart and never quite enough with his head (or his teeth, but that's another matter).

He is interested in her all right, and make no mistake he will be keeping an eye on her just as much, if not more so than Stefan.

But he is not attracted to her the same way- she's hot, this Katherine lookalike but her voice doesn't tug his veins into painful knots, doesn't bend his body till he looses control – perhaps because Elena seems to be a genuinely decent, albeit bland, person with no apparent ulterior motive.

And therein lies the problem, thus far this 2.0 girl has nothing to hold him:

He has always valued an equal and he has always admired anyone with the guts to play less than fair. Katherine 1.0 was manipulative, was charming, was selfish – he understood her, and he could play against her hand. Stefan just wanted to fix, to coddle and to hold her and luckily it seems, Elena is long due for some holding, but that's Stefan's forte ( read : problem) , not his.

She's too nice this girl, but he's holding out hope; she can't look that much like her and not have some whisper of the original buried deep (deep) down in her heart. He holds out hope that she is going to crack a little, he holds out hope that Stefan cracks more than a little. This little town positively pulses with secrets and if only for entertainments sake (read: revenge), he is determined to reveal them all.

He leaps away from the window; he can only watch his brother fawn over her for so long before he wants to vomit. And also the cutesy, cutesy routine gets old a little quickly – call him a fool but he's always hungered for a little passion, a little adventure. Live fast, die young – only you know, he gets to skip out on the whole dying part.

It's dark out and he's bored; he's kicking himself for having set up the creature as the culprit so soon, he's sure he could have gotten at least another month out of the wilderness attacks before it became really risky.

He's hungry and he's itching to do something, anything to stir up a little trouble but he knows he has to wait and since patience is a virtue, he's pretty much ignored it his whole life, and this makes him feel wound up and agitated. But this requires patience, this requires pausing to think, this requires waiting it out in a small town and letting the secrets, the suspicion, the tension mount and percolate until the right moment and then he can pull the switch on his brother and move on… finally.

Part of him is tempted to grow a little mustache, because at the moment he feels a little too similar to some calculated, transparent vaudeville villain planning to tie the girl up to the train tracks.

And that reminds him … Caroline. She's predictable, she's selfish, and so far seems blatantly devoted to her high school cheerleader cliché, but he always gives credit where credit is due, and she is more than a little talented at alleviating his boredom- not to mention feeding his hunger, however, she is all but unaware of that aspect.

He enters her room swiftly and she entertains him till the sky bleeds red dawn and those fearful nightlights are extinguished.

Damon is harder to get into than I imagined, I'm not 100% pleased with this but I rarely am. I think I idealize his character a little too much ( which may or may not have anything to do with the hhhhot actor portraying him) so I'm going to try and separate that as the story continues.

The timeline in this story isn't consistantly chronological- but hopefully it will make sense as more chapters are posted.

I'm having lot's of fun writing this, and even more fun hearing your reviews and your thoughts. If my depiction of Katherine is a little off it's only because I didn't get very far at all in the first book. ( not out of disinterest more out of woah this needed to go back to the library like a month ago)

Thanks so much for reading, please review

-merci