Story: Control
Chapter: Six-Prince Charming Never Quite Cut It
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.
It happened at 5am. And she couldn't for the life of her stop it.
She had been on the verge of sleep, her eyes closed, her lips relaxed and her hands wrapped around his arm. She felt strange, she thinks now that she had been feeling strange all day. Sort of foggy, and happy and dazed and nervous and something she can't for the life of her put a name to. It wasn't as if she had paid it much attention, she has been losing a lot of blood lately, she hasn't slept much and she never really bothers to sit down for dinner with her mom anymore. No blood, no food, no sleep and lot's of coffee; she likes to think of it has the college kid diet – you know, if every college kid had a vampire feeding on them at regular intervals.
The feeling made sense, sort of. But somehow, lying in bed after god knows how many hours spent in bed with Damon, it grew stronger and stronger.
He had been oddly attentive too; a little softer and little gentler- not that she is reading into it or anything.
But at 5 am. On the brink of sleep, her arms on him, her mind on him, her half-closed eyes on him, she recognizes the feeling. She feels the name beneath her lips and freaks the fuck out.
Five minutes of trying to quietly hyperventilate without him noticing and looking at her with those stupidly knowing eyes of his. Her heart rate skyrockets. Six minutes with an anchor bolted to her chest, her mantra is breath and do nothing, just breath and don't move a muscle.
She can feel the panic rising in her chest and he cannot see this, he cannot see her like this. This situation between them is doomed and she knows if he finds out she feels this way he'll end it right now.
There were never any spoken rules to their tryst but he had handed her invisible chains at the beginning – don't tell anyone, don't show the bite marks, don't make this into anything more than it is; don't expect him to care – and willingly or unwillingly she had tied them around herself, and now she can't, wont get out. She is tied and she doesn't want him to let her out. She can't have that; she can't let him see her like this.
She needs to get out of the bed; she needs to get out of the house.
With a silence she didn't know she possessed she slips out of bed, sneaks past her door, down the stairs, always avoiding the left side which creaks more and she slides out the door.
Then she runs.
When she was five she fell in love with Prince Charming from Snow White. She liked his dark hair; she liked his smile and his noble steed. She liked his voice when he spoke and she loved it when he sang. Her mom had given her the video for her birthday and she must have watched it like sixty times that year. She told her parents that she liked the cute animals and little Dopey, she told her parents she liked the singing and the pies, she told her parents she liked Snow White's pretty dark hair and pretty blue eyes.
Her mom told her she couldn't watch TV before bedtime, go read a book instead. Her dad had let her watch it when her mom was working a nightshift, which luckily was most of the time.
In all honesty she thought Snow White was a dumb girl. In all honesty she never could grasp the fact that she was trusting enough to let the creepy old lady inside, she never could fathom going out to pick flowers while a knife wielding hunter watched over. She never really like Snow White because everything she said was too naive and giggly in that breathy voice of hers. She would have done differently had she been in her shoes.
But she did adore the movie.
What she really loved about it was that Prince Charming loved Snow White, like truly, truly loved her from first sight. He loved her even though she was too trusting and too silly and flighty. Whenever she dreamed the movie in her head, she would be a blond Snow White, and she would let the witch put her too sleep too but only because she knew Prince Charming was coming to love her, flaws and all.
She drives through town in a panic, pulling over twice because her hands are shaking too much to change the station and turn the wheel at the same time. She keeps her mind off herself by changing it by the second. Where to go. Where to go. Bonnie's? No. Bonnie is at her grandma's house and she only knows her dad's address…besides, Bonnie has been way too weird lately and it's not like she would want to understand her and Damon in the slightest. Elena's is out of the question, she's only just stopped asking about the bite marks, and that's because she thinks it's over with Damon.
She's running through her friends in her head, picking them off one by one because they aren't her friends, because the cheerleading squad only listens cause she's popular, and she's only popular cause she never bothered to listen to anyone else, and her real friends want it over with Damon, and everyone else she knows is afraid of her, afraid of her mom. She doesn't doubt that some of them could care less about who she is, as long as she is blonde and toned and knows how to use a pushup bra. They're all afraid to loose their place in the high school monarchy and she's familiar enough with the social food chain to know that an injured shark in a weak moment doesn't go to a hungry piranha for comfort.
She wonders if this should make her feel alone. But she's always known this, and tonight is no different than any other.
But it is, but she is different tonight and she's not in control of herself right now.
And that scares her more than anything else in the world.
When she was nine she fell in love with Leonardo DiCaprio, well, more specifically she fell in love with Jack Dawson from Titanic. She had been home sick the first time she watched it, it was playing on a woman's television network and all the commercials featured beauty products; she thought he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. From the moment she laid eyes on him- playing cards and drinking with that careless infectious smile- she was smitten.
It was her favorite movie for the next two years and she gushed about his eyes and his third-class charm, and his artistic abilities.
She was in love with Jack Dawson, her dad joked that he was too and it wasn't until later that it struck her as odd, because at the time it didn't make sense not to love him. And even though she totally thought nudity was gross at that age, she never once closed her eyes, even when her mom told her to during the sex scene.
She wasn't the biggest fan of Rose; she thought she took the easy way out of everything and somehow she thinks his life could have been saved if she had just come clean about the two of them from the get-go. But she did like her red hair, and she had loved the necklace, which is why she hated it when Rose threw it away at the end.
What she really loved about Jack was that he was the most unlikely savior, and yet he was always saving Rose. What she really loved about him was his careless ability to go from dabbling with those in a less than honest lifestyle to charming the pants off of high-society misters and madams. What she really loved about him was how deeply he cared for this girl who was struggling to go on. What she really loved about him was the smile that never left his face, no matter how bad things got. What she really loved was his charming devotion; he loved her enough to die for her.
When she imagined herself on the boat, she spends every waking hour with him, and when the iceberg hits, she moves over half an inch and shares the door with him. When she dreams her life with Jack, they live happily ever after with all the money they got from selling the necklace. And whenever she is struggling with those high-society expectations, Jack is there to rescue her and make everything better.
Because those careless charming boys are destined to find beautiful troubled girls and save them again and again. Right?
She thinks it's stupid to be panicking this much. This has happened before, she has felt her heat race and her skin flush and her tongue tie like this before, but it's never been real, those boys were always trapped behind a screen.
The drive has led her past all those familiar houses, all her familiar haunts, even the forest doesn't call to her. She feels stupid and over analytical right now but she just needs to get away and sort things out.
She thinks of all those other boys, how cold she had been, how carelessly she had stepped on their big hearts and clumsy hands. She thinks of Brandon and her first kiss; she remembers the tentative, wet touch of his mouth and she remembers pressing back hard, because she always wanted more. She thinks of Eric and his self assured smile when he got her bra off, she remembers his blush and his fumbling fingers when she took off her pants – it was never enough. She thinks of Alex, of his blond hair and his smile, she thinks of how perfect they looked together: perfect and boring, just like his sex. She remembers his sad texts and his angry calls after he found out she was testing the waters with his older brother Andrew, and still she wanted more, and still it was never enough.
She thinks she feels regretful; all those snubbed dates and ignored calls. She thinks she feels mean; her cruel smiles, her cool rejections but she can't go there right now; she can't acknowledge the little cloud of irony that's floating over her head. She's fumbling and she's nervous and she's desperate for him, but she cannot admit that, ever.
A sign marks the city limits, and she drives right past it.
When she was fifteen, she fell in love with Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl. The TV show of course, not the books – he was way too ambiguous and slimy in the books for her to think of him as anything but weird. But in the show, he was bad; he was a cruel womanizing, controlling, alcohol abusing, scheming asshole and she loved him for it.
Elena had pointed out that in real life guys like that were nothing but trouble and guys like that never did fall in love and change the way everyone secretly hopes they do. She had said that she didn't want him to change, that his cruelty was his charm. Elena had laughed and called her ridiculous. But they both agreed that he was hot, so it was all okay.
And hot he was: That self assured smirk of his sent shivers down her spine, those manipulative little games he played, well, she wanted in on them. She wanted that seductive control he had, and she wanted him the way he wanted everything.
She liked the way he went after Blair even though she was dating his best friend. Blair with her preppy hair and preppy tights and little black ballet flats – She annoyed her: Too uptight, too spoiled, but she liked her attitude, she liked that she took what she wanted; it made sense that people admired her. And she loved that it was the bad boy, the dark prince that got her to unravel in the end.
She liked to reinvent her first time in her mind, she's in the back of the limo with Chuck and he's peeling off that Victorian little baby-doll of hers, and she is just as ambitious and blunt as Blair, only she doesn't have a blond complex, because he is running his fingers through her golden hair.
She loves the way the he loves her, and in some way she loves that it's doomed from the start because no one makes deceit, seduction, lying, games and manipulation as sexy as Chuck Bass.
It occurs to her later that loving a bad boy is easy… but getting them to love her back is never as easy as it looks on the television.
It happened at 5am.
In the 24hour diner on the edge of town she is picking at her fries with listless hands, only the coffee touches her lips and it warms her some.
For whatever reason he hasn't come looking for her. She could placate herself and pretend he's still asleep but she saw a light in her room as she drove away. She could pacify herself with the idea that he is giving her space but she doesn't give herself the luxury tonight; she is here and he is not and she is not going to read into that.
In some way she yearns to be bored again. In some way she wants so badly to be in the back seat of a car with some nice gentle boy, who is being sweet and gentle and loves her more than she likes him. That was nice and safe and boring but right now she feels she could use a little of that.
She needs a little control here, something to stop her from needing him all the time, from wanting him all the time in ways she know he will never be available. She doesn't want him to change and at the same time she needs him too. He can't, she knows this, but she can't help thinking of his half-smile before he kissed her, she can't help thinking that his hands were a little less rough a little more tender tonight, she can't help wondering if he is softening the tiniest bit…But she knows him: He is angry and dark and controlling and somehow she is always willing.
She needs some of her control back – just her self-control, she won't ask for anything else.
The bell at the front of the restaurant rings and she looks up to find him sitting across from her, eating her cold fries and smiling softly. Her heart skips a beat.
She needs a little perspective because most of the time, he is all she sees.
She closes her eyes and opens them again, the seat across is empty and a well worn stranger makes his way to the counter and orders a coffee. She is sitting alone in the early hours of the morning, with untouched food and an aching in her chest.
She needs to not be in love with him.
Sorry it took so long for the update. As much as I want to support this couple, the episode in which he calls her useless etc... kind of threw me and I've been trying to find a way to address in this story - it will probably appear in the next chapter or so.
I'm still on team Caroline/Damon though, (as cute as Caroline and Matt are turning out to be) and i intend to see this story through.
There are probably 1001 areas in the chapter that need editing but as always I am a terribly lazy editor.
please please please please review, it really is what keeps me going.
-Merci