Story: Control
Chapter: Seven- If The Only Thing You're Running From Is Yourself, Jump
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.
He's restless. Or at least he thinks he is. There's this sort of gnawing feeling in his gut that says don't get too comfortable here, although he had been pretty certain he never would be comfortable here again anyway . But lately he's been all too aware of the routine. And he hates routines; once you pass fifty years of looking like a twenty year old, you do whatever you can to avoid feeling the mind numbing repetition. Back in the nineties he spent an entire year base jumping from famous landmarks, and when he was feeling spectacularly bored he would hire a guide and watch the horror on their face when he "forgot" to open the parachute and got up from the ground without a scratch. Sadly, he can't say the same for the guides but it wasn't like he could let them go having seen him defy death and all, besides extreme sports entailed a risk of death and he was simply seeing out the disclaimer.
All those years passed in peak physical condition trying to out run, out smart and control that numbing sensation masquerading as déjà vu. It's a good thing he had revenge to preoccupy himself with or he probably would have staked himself long ago out of sheer boredom. Base jumping, swimming with sharks with an open vial of blood, cave diving, pissing off the mafia just because, bull riding and forgetting to hold on, heroin and cocaine cocktails in the back alley, tsunami chasing, stolen car racing …Stefan had called it self destructive, but he had seen his straight laced brother emerge from his piles of books on more than one occasion. Living forever, being all but invincible is the most potent form of potential boredom anyone could ever prescribe, and he has spent the latter part of his life avoiding it at all costs.
Still lately, this exciting venture into his home town is starting to feel a little too comfortable, a little too familiar. And he can't be settling in, he simply doesn't do that.
Wake up, feed off Caroline, use compulsion if necessary, go home taunt Stefan, pine for Katherine…sort of, observe Elena, seethe about the necklace, take it out on Caroline, rinse repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. He's not bored per-se, but he's paranoid; every nerve in his body is alert and waiting to feel the first signs of monotony and it's really fucking with his head. He thinks he should be bored, he knows it actually. He's been here too long and not much has happened. He's restless yes, he wants to do something, his nature is impatient and he has spent the last hundred years learning just how much faster instant gratification is. "Why wait?" is his motto, and he's had to control that impulse because his calculating side, the side of him that sees and acts with a meticulous precision needs more time.
Well actually, that side of him needs that necklace. Which somehow is in Bonnie's hands and somehow he can't physically remove it from her, but he's working on it. His fingers clench with agitation, this had not been part of the plan at all.
Caroline, in a move he had to give her credit for, had decided to let him know Bonnie had it while they were having sex. The little minx had shown some smarts, letting it slip while his was…preoccupied. Still after he found his teeth gnashing against her skin with little restraint, and in frustration he had thrown her against the wall. And she had lain there, shaking soundlessly while he paced and he fumed and then swallowed his annoyance and picked up that porcelain doll blood bank and tucked her in to bed with a kiss on the cheek. Because you know, he can be sweet sometimes. He erased the memory of his violence from her head, and congratulated her on the bruise; a victory mark from the killer cheerleading routine the day before.
Still, he needs something to do. This waiting, this calculating and this necklace issue are all eating at his insides and he needs a distraction or something. Fuck. It's one-thirty in the afternoon and although time doesn't really mean much to him, even he isn't desperate enough to start drinking; not even the kind of drink that's served at 98.6 degrees.
Stefan was smart about some things and enrolling in school was actually a pretty smart choice: it was something to do; there was fresh blood in every direction and he always did enjoy out-smarting a teacher. Too bad Mystic Falls hasn't developed enough in the last century to open up any sort of post-secondary institution, not that it would be any fun, but it would be something to occupy his wandering mind.
Twenty minutes later finds him rifling through the neighbor's medicine cabinet; he notices that they're both on blood thinners and decides to abstain from ever choosing them as a snack. After so many years one learns to filter out the B negative (too bitter), obesity does not taste as good as a hamburger and those stick thin models always taste like celery cigarette smoke and occasionally ipecac. Always choose type O if it's available, and when he does circle the dinner crowd, he likes to feed on those who feed on lobster, cheesecake, and summer salad, oh, and chocolate too, but only the really dark kind. He rifles through the liquor cabinet as well, swipes the bottle of Baileys and replaces it with a bottle cheap wine. He takes a swig of the whiskey and pockets it for another day. The lady of the house gets out of the shower thirty seconds later; he's already gone and he's snatched her freshly laundered socks while he was at it.
Forty minutes later and apparently Stefan has gotten tired of him leaving post-it notes on everything. Although he was certain his love-blinded brother was in need of the message " She's just a Katherine 2.0". His black eye heals in .03 seconds and he pulls the knife out of his arm without a second glance. The blood stains his sleeve as he leaves the room. "This is John Varvatos, dude. Dick, move"*
Fifty minutes pass and he finds himself parked outside of the high school, feeling strangely like some sexual predator at a playground; he takes his sun glasses off as if to assure himself that he isn't quite there yet. He's been immature today; he's been impulsive and incredibly unproductive and far be it for him to admonish himself for this he still feels the need for more…More something; more excitement, more danger and always more blood.
He gets a kick out of Elena's furrowed brow when he corners her in the hall. The smart, studious girl left him quickly with a " I have to get to class", brushing past him with a preoccupied air. He feels infuriated when she returns to pull Bonnie away from him as he makes yet another failed attempt to get the necklace from her freaky electric shock protective shield. Why does it do that. It tugs at something in his memory but he's distracted before he has the chance to really analyze it.
Caroline loops her arms around his neck when she sees him and flashes him an unsettlingly large smile. The necklace is walking away arm in arm with Elena and his hands clutch Caroline angrily; a little too tightly. She doesn't cry out but he feels her flinch and lets her go abruptly. Somewhere in the back of his head he feels a little guilty but guilt hasn't been something he readily recognizes in a long time.
If she's hurt she doesn't let it show. And with the practiced ease of someone who's learned to let these things slide for years she smiles tightly.
"What are you doing here?"
The necklace and Elena have disappeared around the corner and his agitation seeps through in the clench of his jaw and the tension running through his muscles like a barbed wire pulled through soft skin.
He grabs her hand on impulse and pulls her toward the door. She lets out a squeak but he's already made up his mind and already his footsteps are leading to the car.
She looks secretly thrilled but she stops him outside the car and he wonders, not for the first time, just how much his compulsion will affect her in the long run.
"Damon…what, what are you doing?"
"We're going for a ride" He barely swallows the impulse to say "duh!"
He's already in the driver's seat when he notices that she hasn't gotten in. So the kid has got moxie today, interesting... maybe but at this moment her reluctance is just annoying and clearly a time waster.
"Get in. I promise it will be fun"
Her teeth gnaw at her lip, and he makes a mental note to get her to do it again later.
"I've got class"
He rolls his eyes. This is not what he needs right now, and despite her protests she clearly wants to go.
His pupil's contract and she is locked in his gaze before he gives it a second thought: .05 seconds later she is in the car and smiling excitedly.
"Hurry up babe, let's go."
He puts his arm around the back of the seat and backs out with the expertise of someone who could drive in his sleep.
"I knew you'd come around"
It's been a while since he's done something crazy, and in his experience it's always more fun when there's a flighty girl screaming bloody-murder beside him.
She's been trying really hard lately. Not to, you know, love him. But today her heart is screaming fuck that. Today her rules, her sense of self control and apparently her brain have decided to jump ship and her heart is beating faster and harder then ever.
This is what boyfriends do. This is what those charming, loyal and loving boys do to their girlfriends. This isn't him. The last time he picked her up from school he had had his teeth in her throat and his fingers on her skin before they were even out of the parking lot. He doesn't do this. He is not her boyfriend. And it's freaking her out and turning her on all at once.
The entire ride she kept waiting for him to pull over, she kept waiting for his eyes to turn black and his teeth to pierce her skin. Every time he looked her direction, every movement he made, however slight, had her jumping and spazing out until halfway to the city limits he had asked if she was okay. She all but fainted at that.
Whatever little resolve she had been saving to herself was broken the moment she fiddled with the radio and he didn't change the song. Whatever little self control she was trying to cling to imploded when he grabbed her hand before they jumped.
She is kicking herself now, because the entire afternoon she had been paranoid and confused and she had analyzed every one of his moves with the eye of a doctor looking for a bad diagnosis. Skydiving? She had always wanted to go skydiving, ever since it became on of her dad's broken promises. But she had spent the duration of the fall staring at his back and waiting for him to do something …She had barely noticed that the ground was 13,000 feet below. If she could have let go it would have been one of the perfect, impulsive romantic afternoons…well aside from him feeding on her in mid air. Sure, he had been agitated and restless for the majority of the time -on the plane ride up his leg was shaking at a frantic pace, his hands wandered in every direction and he kept muttering something about...witches?- but all the same it was sort of romantic and she knows he doesn't do that.
When they were on the ground he had voiced his surprise that she hadn't screamed when he didn't open his parachute. She didn't bother mentioning she had been too fixated on his actions to notice they were in the air.
She doesn't want to read into this; doesn't want to make anything of his impulsive adventure, of his tolerance and his kisses and his hands on her skin. But she's only human and as much as she is trying to keep her head afloat, part of her can't help but love it when he pulls her under; some masochistic part of her is just waiting to drown. He is dark and twisty and angry and impatient and apparently she doesn't care about self preservation, or what her skin looks like covered in bite marks: Apparently now all she wants to do is smooth the lines on his forehead, apparently now all she wants to do kiss the frown off his mouth and melt into him forever and ever and ever.
When he acts like this she can't help but imagine this that means more than it is. She can't help but wonder that if this- her sleepless nights, her bruised skin, constant dizzy headache; her sheer dependence on him- could turn into something more.
When he acts like this, even for a second, she can't help but entertain ideas of relationships and soft kisses and all the things she thought she used to hate.
She closes her eyes and leans into his chest. She hasn't slept more then four hours this week but her heart is racing and she feels wide awake. She wonders if her heartbeat is loud enough to wake him.
She is seriously pathetic. And she is seriously in love with him, and that may just be the death of her.
* direct quote( in a slightly different context) from the show.
Imagine all the crazy shenanigans you could get into if you lived that long- I can see Damon partying it up Woodstock, and at Studio 54 and shooting heroin with all the grunge rockers in Seattle. I was gonna write a bit about his sordid past in that light but extreme sports sort of fit the theme for this chapter, and imagine all the crazy activities your could get up to if you're invincible and impulsive!!!! hmmm...maybe a Salvatores through the ages is needed haha!
Damon is so .....evil at times that it really is hard to get to his other sides. So I went back to the episode where he's dancing with Viki and took my ques from there - especially the part where he talks about boredom being a side effect of Vampirism.
Hope you like this chapter ( despite, I'm sure. the numerous grammar errors). I've figured out where I want to go with this now and I really needed that because I have definitely been losing steam as of late.
Thank you so much for sticking with this so far and I would greatly appreciate any reviews!!!!!!!!!!!
-Merci