Who: Jeremy Gilbert and Tyler Lockwood When: Backdated: Just after Tyler's father's funeral Where: Jeremy's House What: Jeremy tries to help Tyler in his grief. Tyler has other ideas of how to cope. Rating/Warnings: Mostly Family Friendly. Mentions of death. Status: Complete
Tyler couldn’t put words to what he was feeling right now. He was a mess of emotions that he couldn’t describe - both grief and relief over his father’s death. He’d hated Richard Lockwood more than he could put into words, but his death left a hole in Tyler’s heart that he wasn’t quite sure how to fill. And since he’d moved of his parent’s house six years ago, their relationship hadn’t exactly improved, but it had kind of calmed down.
He wanted to talk to Caroline. He wanted to talk to Caroline more than anything, but they’d broken up as per Klaus’s orders, and, as per Klaus’s orders, Tyler couldn’t talk to her. Not now, not ever again.
Jeremy was the next best thing after Caroline though. He was Tyler’s best friend, and if Tyler couldn’t be with Caroline, at least he could be throwing back a few drinks with Jeremy. Even if most of what Tyler was doing was sitting in angry silence, throwing back drinks.
And if anyone knew he grief of losing a parent, it was Jeremy. Sure, Jeremy had had a different relationship with his parents than Tyler had had with his father, but that didn’t change the fact that his best friend was still grieving and Jeremy what kind of friend would Jeremy be if he wasn’t there for him?
It was a little strange when he thought about the fact that real life was once again imitating the dreams now that Tyler’s father and Caroline’s mother were both dead. In a way, he was glad that Bonnie wasn’t around, because he didn’t want to test things and see if her father would be next.
“Let me know when you want another one. I have plenty in the fridge.” Jeremy said, gesturing towards Tyler’s beer as they sat on the back porch.
Tyler nodded at Jeremy’s statement, and then finished off the rest of his drink in one, angry gulp. There was so much that he had wanted to say to his father. Things he had never had the courage, or, apparently, the time, to say. He wanted to yell at him for making his life miserable. He wanted to scream at him for the terrible way he’d treated both Tyler and his mom. Yell at him for the affairs. There was no word on what he’d been doing at the Crown and Hand, an exclusive single’s bar, but Tyler had a good idea of what exactly it was that Richard had been doing there.
At the thought, he stood up, and threw his now-empty beer bottle across the yard, and it shattered against the fence on the far side of it. “Why did he have to die?” Tyler snarled at Jeremy. “Why did he have to die, or why couldn’t he have died earlier?” Before he put Tyler and his mother through everything he’d put them through.
Jeremy didn’t fault Tyler for being angry. He didn’t know everything that went on between Tyler and his father, but he knew enough to have been angry on his behalf in the past, “I wish I knew the answers to those questions. I wish things had been different.”
He made a mental note of where Tyler had thrown the bottle so that he could make sure he picked up all the pieces later. “But if I had to guess, it’s cause the universe likes to fuck with us.”
“It would be nice if it could just give us a fucking break,” Tyler snapped. “Between the dreams, and needing to break up with Caroline, and this.” It was too much. It was way too much.
“Needing to break up with Caroline?” Jeremy quirked a brow at his best friend. He’d known that Tyler and Caroline had broken up, but he didn’t know all the details and after that comment, he felt that there was definitely a piece of information that he was missing.
“Klaus told me to break up with her,” Tyler said, bitterly. “When I did it, I thought it was a decision I came to on my own. But now…” Now, he wanted to talk to her more than anything, and he couldn’t. Part of it was about protecting her from Klaus, but he knew that that couldn’t be it. Not anymore.
Jeremy was not the least but surprised to hear that name and he shook his head as he took a swig of his beer, “Of course it’s Klaus. Why does he even care about your love life?” He didn’t know Klaus quite as well as he did in the dreams, and even there he didn’t know the Original vampire super well, but somehow Jeremy didn’t think he was all that different from his dream alter ego. At least in the waking world Klaus had never gotten someone to run Jeremy over with a truck.
“Why does he care about anything?” Tyler spat. “Because it was getting in the way of how he wanted things.” It seemed unfair, and Tyler almost immediately regretted the words, but then he forced himself to remember that that was just the sire bond, and that Klaus deserved every nasty word Tyler said.
Jeremy couldn’t resist rolling his eyes, “Is it too much to ask that he would have ended up different in the real world? Or is nice guy Klaus just such a difficult thing to accomplish in any world?” He hated that at a time like this, when Tyler needed Caroline the most, Klaus was screwing things up for them.
“I thought he was different,” Tyler growled. He had seemed great at first, at least until Tyler and Caroline started dating - the one instance of Klaus dragging Tyler out on a murder spree aside.
And then, suddenly, it occurred to him that he didn’t have to feel this way. He didn’t have to long after Caroline, who he could never speak to again, or grieve his father who he’d hated in the first place, or even be frustrated at Klaus and the stupid things he made Tyler do. There it was, the switch in the back of his mind. And all Tyler had to do was flip it.
Jeremy sighed and finished off his beer, “That’s just what he wanted you to think,” Jeremy was glad that he’d never actually come into contact with Klaus in the waking world, because while he knew that Klaus wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if he tried anything, Jeremy wasn’t sure he’d be able to control his Hunter instincts at first. Then again there was the problem of not having a White Oak stake, so even if he couldn’t control his instincts, it wasn’t as if Jeremy would be able to actually kill Klaus.
He was caught up in the thoughts of how satisfying it’d be to stake the Original vampire when he realized Tyler had gotten quiet, “Ty? You okay?” He knew it was a dumb question, but he asked anyway.
Tyler turned to Jeremy, smiling, though his smile was more of a smirk. The kind of smile he used to have on his face all the time in high school, back when he’d still be considered a bully. “Oh yeah, I’m great,” he said after a moment. “Just bored of listening to you.”
With all the humanity switch experience Jeremy had from the dreams, he knew almost instantly what Tyler had done, “Tyler, this isn’t going to help.” Sure, it would make Tyler feel better for now, but eventually, when he turned his emotions back on, he’d just have to deal with his grief all over again.
“It’s already helping,” Tyler said. He felt better now than he had in months. In years even. “In fact, I don’t know why I’ve never done it before. I sure as hell don’t know why I never did it in the dreams.” The dreams, which seemed to get some sort of sick joy out of kicking him every time he was down, and he’d just roll over like a good little dog and take it. He didn’t have to take any of that anymore.
“But it’s not a good idea. Tyler, Elena burned down our house with my body inside it when she turned off her emotions, in the dreams.” Jeremy was trying to think of anything that could possibly get Tyler to turn his humanity back on, “You might feel better now, but it almost always backfires on you and on everyone around you. Think about your mom.” It was worth a shot.
“You say that as if I’m supposed to care,” Tyler said. It would only backfire on him if he chose to turn his humanity back on, and, well, outside of Caroline - who would, no doubt, join him - what did he really care about the people around him? He definitely didn’t care about his mother, that was for sure. With his father always around, Tyler had never gotten a chance to grow close to her like he had in the dreams. And besides, even if he had, Klaus would just use that relationship to control him.
“If you’re going to keep harping on me about this, I’m going to find better company,” Tyler said, and then decided that he’d do that whether Jeremy kept harping on him or not. “I’ll catch you around, Jer.”
Jeremy wished that there was a way to keep Tyler there. To try and convince him to turn his humanity back on, but this wasn’t the dreams where they conveniently had vervain on hand at almost all times or really anything that could keep Tyler from leaving. So in the end all Jeremy could do was watch his friend leave.