Story: Control
Chapter: Eight - " The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men Often Go Awry"
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.
Notes: Title is from a Robert Burns poem.
He spends the first hour of the party medicating his anger with a bottle of whiskey. He makes plans. He likes making plans and he loves following his plans through. His plans work: his plans are thought out, his plans always include an element of risk but he always follows through with them and his plans always work.
This whole week has been fucking with his plans. This whole week has been fucking with his head. He's been spending way too much time with Caroline, if only because it's easy, if only because he gets fed and bedded in one go, if only because, in all her airheaded devotion, she is a welcome distraction. But he's been too distracted and now his plans have grown holes and now his plans are too risky and too impossible.
He needs that necklace. And this Bonnie bitch has it. He despises the witch- he's pretty certain she is one- and he was pretty certain she should have been easy to deal with. But she has the necklace. She was not supposed to have it. Caroline was not supposed to give it to her. He should not have kept it at her house in the first place, but it's not like he could have risked Stefan seeing it.
He texts Caroline a question but spots his answer a moment after he's pressed the send button.
The necklace is seated across the room with a knowing look on her face and an army of annoying friends by her side.
The whiskey barely touches his lips before it tumbles down his throat. He is agitated at everyone in the room, the conversation sucks, the lighting sucks, the music is good but the sound quality sucks. This party fucking sucks and he does not want to be here right now but somehow his plans are failing him and now he has to make all these detours and fight all these distractions:
Lexi is in town and she just reminds him of the past. She also irritates the crap out of him. Living with Stefan is his definition of hell, he is living with an emotional girl – always mooning and moping over Elena, it's ridiculous. Lexi is in town but there's another vampire too. Or else he is getting so good at attacking people he simply doesn't remember doing it anymore. The necklace is now in the hands of an emotional teenaged witch and he never could stand Sabrina.
He needs more time to formulate a better plan but he can't concentrate when there are attacks and night. He can't focus if the police chief is banging on his door for help while he is banging her daughter. And he can't fucking do anything without the necklace.
Caroline wraps her arms around him and he shrugs them off, distracted.
She is looking at him and smiling expectantly. " Like my dress?" She murmurs into his ear.
He sees a flash of purple and looks at her with an appraising eye, that, from the look on her face she is undoubtedly interpreting as approval. A half plan works itself out in his head and it's risky but it could work. He thinks of the necklace sitting across the room and looks at the blond girl in front of him.
He takes a chance and smiles despite the fact the gesture is fighting his mood.
"Wanna do me a favor?"
His eyes follow her blond hair as she approaches the necklace.
The whiskey burns the back of his mouth and he raises his glass to the bartender, in need of another.
She spends the first hour of the party getting ready. There's this warm feeling inside of her that she's been trying to ignore all week. She would say she's been pretty successful at holding it in, but sometimes it leaks out and she finds herself grinning uncontrollably, or skipping to class. Then there are moments in private when it all becomes too much and she just has to squeal and dance like a child, because as much as she hates to admit it…being in love feels good.
She's been trying to let herself down easy, she's been trying to prepare herself for the inevitable breakup. She's been trying to act cool and indifferent and (hopefully) alluring towards him but lately whenever he smiles she ends up grinning like a fool. Whenever he touches her she can't help but arch towards him a littler more; she can't help but hold him a little tighter to her neck. Love apparently is kind of like morphine because when he bites her now it doesn't hurt. When he bites her now, she just feels sort of happy and giddy and she can't help but hold him closer and closer until the last possible second, until he has to pry her way from him.
A couple nights ago he was drinking her blood and she had been smiling like a love sick fool and sort enjoying his smell and his closeness. Apparently, you can overdose on this kind of love because she remembers smiling and sighing and then suddenly it all went black. She remembers coming to in his arms as he shook her awake. She likes to think he looked almost worried and so she thinks nothing of her passing out. It sort of makes her laugh too that he had refused her offer for sex and dragged her out to a steak dinner. He made her eat the entire dish which honestly had been a little painful. Her appetite for food has kind of withered lately, but she is always hungry for him: for his touch, and his kiss, and the nearness of him with his teeth in her skin.
Of course, she is aware that she is slowly melting into a teenaged Juliette cliché. She is still a control freak and she always makes sure she is carrying herself with pride, especially around him. She may be a love-sick fool but she certainly isn't going to act like one. Or at least she tries not to, but he's been kind of attentive lately. Actually, he's been the opposite of attentive, he's been distracted and distant, but he has been around more, in fact, she can't remember the last day she spent without him. He's near all the time and he's even made an effort with her friends, asking about Bonnie, talking to Elena. If she's being perfectly honest she prefers him all to herself. If she's being perfectly honest he's been different lately, edgy and moody and if she's being brutally honest, she doesn't trust him for a minute. But he's near all the time now, he's with her so much and when he is with her, her thoughts kind of melt and puddle into one big sappy pool and she struggles to control herself.
That's why she suggested they get ready separately. Her brain has been a pile of mush all week and she needs some time to get a grip on herself.
She spends extra time picking out an outfit that she knows he will notice her in. She tries on the red one, the slutty blue one, the classy black one. She throws her clothes in a pile on the floor and spins around with her eyes closed. She opens her eyes and chooses the first dress that catches her eye. It's purple and silky and just short enough. She picks out the black ankle boots and sheer tights with a critical eye and as each layer of clothing touches her skin, she feels little more cohesive, a little more put together and a little more in control.
She spends extra time on her face, carefully accentuating her eyes, her cheeks, and her mouth. A round, wide-eyed face stares back at her. Her cheeks are flushed with an excitement she didn't brush on, and her eyes are bright in a way that has nothing to do with the mascara and liner. She looks like a doll she thinks. He had told her that once too and she wonders what he'll think tonight.
Her phone lights up and his name flashes across the screen, coinciding with the flash of heat she felt through her body. She opens the text and the heat coils low in her belly.
"Hurry up, I'm already here. Are you picking up Bonnie?"
She frowns at the latter half of the message, ignoring the flutter of her heart that is currently analyzing the possible conations of "hurry up".
It takes her five minutes to send a message back. She writes, "Are you excited" and erases it. She writes "Can't wait to see you" and deletes the entire message. She ends up writing a simple "No I'm not. Is it fun? See you soon". She adds an " xoxo" and sends it before she can change her mind.
She waits around to see if he'll reply, fiddling with her hair and pursing her lips at her reflection. Her phone remains silent so she grabs her bag and heads out the door. She's happy she thinks. This might be completely wrong and unnatural but she is happy…He makes her happy and shouldn't that be enough?
She spots him sitting at the bar and waits a breath before she walks toward him.
By the time Caroline reaches him empty handed he is so angry he can't see straight.
He feels his hand hit the bar top, he sees Caroline mouthing some words to him and he feels his mouth say something back but there's a ringing in his ears and he just needs to get the fuck out of the party.
Caroline's face is crumbling as he turns away but all he can focus on is the door.
Outside the air is cool and it hits his face with enough force to bring him back down. In front of him a couple is making out in almost the same spot he and Caroline fucked the week before. His eyes are on the couple but his head is whirling with half finished thoughts and pieces of a plan. He needs to figure out who the other vampire is, he needs to get rid of Lexi, he needs to deal with the chief, and he needs to get back on track: he needs the necklace or he needs a way to realize his plan without it.
Sometimes when he's really focused, he comes up with these impulsive, brilliant ideas and he acts without having to think it through.
His teeth sink into the boy's neck faster than he can comprehend. He is aware of the blood in his mouth and for a second he remembers how different Caroline's tastes but then he is smiling and the boy is crumpling to the ground and before him is a shaking mess of girl.
He looks her in the eyes and he tells her his new plan.
Okay, this is an unusual chapter for two reasons:
1) Because I never meant it to be a chapter. I had already written another one with a slightly more dramatic ending but I needed a beginning to tie it to the story and then the beginning sort of evolved into something much longer. That said the next chapter is already written and should be up soon once I tweak it a bit to fit with this chapter ( I'm sensing a cycle haha).
2) I have never written more than 7 chapters in a story before so I'm really happy I'm sticking with this one, even if the show isn't sticking with this pair. =)
Sorry if not much has happened in the story thus far. I'm trying to tie it to the events in the show a little more, so it will be following the show more in the next chapters. Just, you know with a little more Caroline/Damon action then you would get on screen =)
And I have two requests:
1) Write some Daroline stories please, I feel like they have more of a story to tell and it would be great to read it !!!!
2) Review, review, review. It's what keeps this story alive and it keeps me wanting to write more !!!!!
XoXo