Caroline Forbes is full of light (miss_mystic) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-01-28 15:24:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, caroline forbes, tyler lockwood |
Who: Tyler and Caroline
What: Tyler comes to help Caroline unpack and ends up stuck on the doorstep
When: Yesteday
Where: Caroline's (Liz's) place
Ratings/Warnings: Low/none
Status: Complete
It had been over a week since Caroline ran into Tyler. She hadn’t really talked to him since. It was good seeing him again, but he had a serious girlfriend. One he was apparently thinking of proposing to. He didn’t need to be hanging out with his highschool girlfriend.
It was weird, she hadn’t seen him in five years. Sure she had thought about him on occasion, but now that she had seen him again, now that they were in the same area she couldn’t seem to get him off of her mind. So when the rest of her stuff finally arrived from New York, she found herself contacting Tyler so see if he could help her unpack, and of course he agreed.
Caroline was dressed for the occasion in skinny jeans and a white t-shirt, her hair in a ponytail with a few waves escaping framing her face. The second she heard a knock on the door she broke into a smile. “Hey!” she greeted Tyler as she opened the door wide enough for him to enter.
Tyler had had a serious girlfriend. One that he had hoped he would spend the rest of his life with. But a family emergency had called the whole Utonium family away, and Tyler was left feeling like a part of him had walked away.
It had been nice to see Caroline again, but lately all he’d been thinking about was how to not think about Blossom. His usual go to, working out, wasn’t nearly as useful as it had once been now that he was a hybrid. And so when Caroline had called him over to help her unpack, he’d jumped at the chance. It was better than downing yet another bottle of whiskey - another one of Tyler’s favourite forgetting techniques, also made harder by his being a hybrid.
When Caroline opened the door, Tyler was struck by how good she looked. But the thought didn’t last long. Especially not when Caroline just stood there, holding the door open for him.
Oh no, he thought.
“Hey,” he said, not moving from where he stood on the doorstep. After a moment, he looked down at the bottle of whiskey in his arm. “I thought we might need some booze.”
Caroline raised a brow. Booze for unpacking? That was a more after they were done thing. She looked at Tyler again. Something was… different. She couldn’t quite place it though. “Isn’t it a little early?” she questioned. But then figured it was probably best not to push the topic. Tyler was here to help her after all.
“But I’m not one to say no to free booze,” she continued stepping back into her house expecing Tyler to follow. “Mom’s resting but I’m sure she’ll want to say hi later. If you’re staying of course. We can just head back to my room,” she called over her shoulder. Even if Tyler wasn’t exactly following he still should know where it was. The same room he had snuck into so many times back in high school. But why wasn’t he following? She turned to see him still in the doorway. “You coming?”
When Caroline turned away, Tyler tentatively extended his hand, but the barrier was there sure enough. There was definitely no way to enter Caroline’s house without getting an invitation from either her or her mother, but he didn’t really know how to broach the subject. “Hey Caroline, nice to see you again. By the way, I’m a werewolf-vampire hybrid now, so you’re going to have to invite me in. Sure, he might have the conversation sooner or later, but he hoped that would be later. Maybe after she’d had a few dreams to ease into it.
“Oh yeah, I’ll be right there,” Tyler said, and casually looked behind him in the hopes that he would find some excuse to not go in just yet. “It’s just… it’s such a nice day out, isn’t it?”
Um, what? Why did Tyler have the sudden urge to check out the weather? Yeah, something was definitely off. Still Caroline found herself walking back to the door glancing past Tyler to check out the weather. “Um yeah,” she commented. “It’s nice…” her voice trailed off not really sure what was going on. “Do you still want to help?” she questioned. “I know unpacking can be a total pain. I get it if you want to enjoy your booze and… the nice day.”
Tyler turned back to Caroline. “Yeah. Yeah, I still want to help,” Tyler said. “I mean, sitting out and enjoying the weather with a bottle of booze wouldn’t be bad either, but given the choice I’d rather help you.”
Yeah, enjoying the weather was nice. If you were like on a date or with a friend or something. But just sitting outside and drinking? That sounded a little depressing. Was Tyler turning into an alcoholic? It was all a bit strange. She brushed it off though. It had been five years since she had seen him. She didn’t know him like she used to. Besides there was unpacking to be done, furniture to be put together. “Well then what are you waiting for?” Caroline said with a smile. “Come on in.”
Tyler almost let out a sigh of relief when Caroline uttered the magic words. “Happy to,” he said, grinning and stepping over the threshold. He did still remember where Caroline’s bedroom was, but he decided he’d let her lead the way. “So, how’s the move back been going so far?”
Okay, that was a little odd. But whatever, Tyler did seem to want to help and Caroline could use it. Putting things away and organizing? No problem. Moving furniture around and building new pieces? Tyler would definitely be useful.
“Pretty good,” Caroline said as she led the way up the stairs to her room. “I had a few interviews this week, so just waiting to hear back.” That was the hard part. Well actually everything about applying for jobs was the hard part. Waiting to hear if you got an interview, sitting through the interview, waiting to hear if you got the job. She was confident that her interviews all went well, but how many others had amazing interviews? There was no way to know. “What about you? How’s everything going?” she had to keep herself from asking how his girlfriend was. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know anyway.
“I’m sure you aced them,” Tyler said encouragingly. It wasn’t just lip-service; if anyone could ace a job interview it was Caroline. He was quiet for a little longer after Caroline asked how he was, wondering just how into things he should get with her. But she was Caroline. She’d been his best friend and his girlfriend in high school. In his dreams too, she had always been there for him. So, after a moment, he said, “Not so great, actually. Blossom and I broke up.”
“Thanks,” Caroline beamed at the compliment. No matter how confident she felt about the interviews, it was nice to hear that Tyler had faith in her.
Caroline’s room looked different than it had in high school. Her bed was in the same spot, but her green and white comforter had been replaced with a plain white one, extra fluffy. Her vanity had been removed, a desk would go in it’s place once Tyler put it together. Her dresser was still there as well as her old bookcase. But still it didn’t look the same as Tyler probably remembered it. Not to mention the boxes everywhere.
They reached her room just as Tyler answered her question. Caroline paused turning to face him, genuine concern on her face. “I’m so sorry, Tyler.” There was a tiny part of her that was happy he was no longer taken. But for the most part Caroline felt bad her friend was going through pain. “I’m guessing that’s what the bottle is for?” she added looking down at the bottle still in his hands. Of course she was dying to know what happened. But she didn’t ask. She didn’t want to make Tyler talk about it if he didn’t want to.
“Yeah, kinda,” Tyler said. Now really wasn’t the time or the place to let her know that day drinking was a regular thing these days. Not for any getting drunk to kill the pain kind of reasons, but alcohol was a good way to help dull the bloodlust that vampires felt, and was also a pretty good way to temper his werewolf temper.
Caroline didn’t need to ask. Tyler knew that she’d want to know, and now that he’d said it, it wasn’t too hard to talk about. It wasn’t like he’d killed her, or was forced out of town on some stupid quest for vengeance. “There was a family emergency. Her and her whole family just suddenly had to up and leave town.”
He shouldn’t have been so upset about it. After all, Orange County could be a pretty terrible place to live sometimes. “Where do you want me to start? I’m going to guess you have some kind of system already set up.”
“Wait,” this whole thing was sounding oddly familiar. “Are Blossom and Bubbles… related?” Because really how many guys could recently break up with their girlfriends because of a family move?
Tyler guessed right. Of course Caroline had a system. “I was sort of hoping you could help with the desk?” she nodded at the box all the parts were in. Unfortunately the instructions went missing in the move. “Then I can start putting everything away.”
“No problem,” Tyler said, making his way to the box and opening it. “You talked to Stefan, huh?” Tyler asked. He couldn’t think of any other reason why she’d know about Bubbles. “Yeah, they’re sisters. Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup.”
What a family of unique names. “Well,” she paused opening up a box full of color coded binders to begin putting in her bookcase. All full of different event themes. “At least you’ve already been through this type of break up,” she was referring to theirs of course. They only broke up because they were moving to different places. “It’ll get better.” Although she was sure his break up with Blossom was worse. He had been about to propose after all. And she was just his high school girlfriend.
“Yeah,” Tyler said, shooting her a bit of a smile. Sometimes it was hard to remember that that was the real reason he and Caroline broke up. Not because of Klaus. Not because Caroline didn’t approve of him getting revenge for his mother’s murder, and not because Caroline slept with the man he hated most in the world. Not because Tyler had some kind of desperate death wish.
At least now he knew that there were worse ways to break up with someone than having them move away, but it didn’t stop him from often wishing he’d gone with her. “I know. Thanks. Alright. Does this bad boy come with an instruction manual or am I going to have to wing it?”
“So here’s the thing,” Caroline replied letting the subject of his break up drop. If he wanted to talk about it more he would. Caroline trusted that. “It was put together back in my apartment. And the movers sort of took it back apart and packed it up. I think I threw the instructions out the first time I put it together…. So yes, you’ll have to wing it.”
Tyler let out an mock-agonized sigh. “The things I do for you,” he teased. But really. How difficult could putting a desk together be?