InsaneJournal

Who: Caroline Forbes and Peeta Mellark
What: Caroline tells Peeta she's a vampire recreating the Twilight woods scene
Where: Peeta's place
When: Backdated to October
Rating: PG-13 (mention of vampirism and blood bags)
Status: Complete


Caroline had been trying to go about her life as normal as possible. It helped once she got her daylight ring and could actually go out during the day. But it was also hard having a boyfriend who didn’t really know her. Had no idea what she was. Part of her wondered if she should just end things with Peeta, the way she had done with Matt in the dreams. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it, even if she had tried to push him away.

Caroline knew she couldn’t keep this going for long. Peeta deserved to know who he was really dating. And then he could decide what he wanted from there. She would just have to be okay with it.

Caroline had asked Peeta if they could spend the night in. She brought a little cooler with her to his place, filled with blood bags. Hopefully he wouldn’t look inside before she was ready. Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves Caroline knocked on the door.

It had been a bit weird between him and Caroline since the hospital and Peeta really hoped that nothing bad was going to happen. He had wanted to make sure he kept in contact with her, but not push her too hard. Finally she had permitted him time to see her now that she was feeling better than she was before. He had done a quick clean up before she came over and once he heard the door knock and moved to open it up.

“Hey,” Peeta gave her a happy smile when he took her in, noticing the cooler in her hands, “want me to put that into the fridge for you or anything?”

“Hey,” Caroline replied leaning in to give him a quick peck on the lips. She was doing her best to act as normal as possible even though her life had completely changed. And she was nervous as hell to tell Peeta about it.

“Oh, that’s okay,” Caroline replied, still standing in the doorway unable to walk through the threshold until Peeta invited her in. “It will keep.” Mostly she just didn’t want Peeta to see what it was until she told him. Hell maybe she shouldn’t have even brought it. There was a good chance he would kick her out before she actually needed to feed anyway.

Peeta noticed that she hesitated at the door and gestured for her to enter, "Come on in. And sounds good." He had some snacks if she wanted some, but he wasn't quite sure how this conversation was going to go. Hopefully everything would be alright in the end.

"So…" he drew out the word once she entered and he led her towards the living room, "How are you?"

She let out a sigh of relief at his words, finally being able to enter his place. She set her cooler down by the door for now before following into the living room, trying her best to ignore the tension in the air. How awkward things felt between them. She hated this. Hated what her dreams had turned her into, what it meant for herself and for them.

“As good as I can be,” Caroline said, tentatively taking a seat on the couch. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” Peeta admitted with a small smile. There was tension in the air, but it was because they hadn’t actually talked about what was going on. Things had been strained and that was never something Peeta wanted in a relationship and he wanted to know what was going on with Caroline. He moved to sit on the couch with a bit of space between them, “So what’s been going on, Caroline? Are we good?”

Caroline had absolutely zero clue how to go about this. It wasn’t like she had ever told anyone she was a vampire before. Even in her dreams. People just already knew and had to tell her what she was. But she couldn’t go on seeing Peeta and lying to him. He needed to know what she really was.

“That’s up to you,” Caroline finally said, taking a breath to calm her nerves. “I mean I certainly want them to be…” she trailed off still not entirely sure what she was saying or doing. “But um… there’s something you should know.”

Peeta’s brow furrowed at the comment about it being up to him on if they were good or not. That was definitely not boding well for this conversation. Then she told him that there was something he needed to know and those simple words made his heart drop to his stomach. What in the world did she have to tell him? It didn’t sound like it was a good thing, so when he spoke it was measured carefully and slowly, “Okay….? You can tell me.”

Caroline’s eyes remained on Peeta as his brow furrowed. She saw that confused and concerned look on his face. Her heart twisted. She didn’t want to do this, tell Peeta what she was and possibly lose him forever. She took another breath. She had to. She had to say it now before she lost her nerve. “I’m not human anymore.” Okay, it wasn’t exactly everything but it was a start. She kept her eyes locked on Peeta, trying to read his reaction.

“Not human?” Peeta drew the word human out, his voice heavy in confusion, and he furrowed his brow even more. That didn’t make any sense at all, but it also didn’t make sense that they were having these strange dreams either. He reached over to grab her hand and held it, “Is this something that happened from the dreams?” That was the only explanation that he could understand, but he was also nervous about what not being human meant.

“Yeah,” Caroline confirmed, unable to keep the sadness out of her voice. She could almost hear the fear in his voice. “It happened when I was in the hospital.” She knew she should just say what she was now, but she was still scared to. And she wasn’t even sure if Peeta was ready to hear it, he still seemed to be processing the whole not being human part.

“Is that why you suddenly didn’t like how bright things were?” Peeta questioned. The pieces were starting to add up and she definitely didn’t seem like a zombie, so it was probably either werewolf or vampire. He couldn’t believe that the dreams in this place had the power to alter someone to this level. It didn’t seem fair at all and was a little scary. He knew it was still Caroline, but he had to be a little cautious in approaching this to understand what it meant now.

“Yes,” Caroline answered honestly. It seemed like Peeta was figuring it out on his own, that she was now a vampire. So Caroline just left it at that, leaving him to continue to process everything. It was probably better that way. That he put it together on his own instead of her just blurting it out. At least she hoped it was.

“Vampire?” Peeta asked with a concerned look on his face as he awaited her response to confirm it, “So, do I have to be worried that you’re going to try and drink my blood or whatever else vampires do?” He honestly didn’t pay much attention to vampires in general or even much in popular culture. He just wanted to make sure that if they stayed together he would be able to be safe with her.

“Vampire,” Caroline confirmed, her voice low a hint of sadness in it. “I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “I mean I’ve been using blood bags.” Ugh was this too much information? She really didn’t want to scare Peeta or freak him out. “I think as long as I’m well fed it should be fine. But I don’t really know for sure. What I do know is that the last thing I ever want to do is hurt you.”

“Blood bags?” Well at least that was better than drinking from someone, but Peeta still wrinkled his nose a little bit in disbelief, “Man, didn’t realize that would actually be a thing. Wow, this is really a lot to take in. And I’m glad you don’t want to hurt me. We have to figure out what to do so we don’t accidentally cross any lines that could lead to something bad to happen.” He didn’t want to spend less time with her, but he was also nervous about accidentally triggering something.

Caroline’s eyes dropped. She did her best to keep her face neutral, trying not to react to the way Peeta wrinkled his nose at the mention of blood bags. “I know,” she finally said. “I broke up with my dream boyfriend because of it,” she admitted. She didn’t want to do that here. What she had with Peeta felt a whole lot deeper than her high school romance with Matt. But being close to Matt had triggered her, she could feel her face change when she was close to him. She caught herself before she bit him, but still who knew if she would be able to have that control here.

“Oh…” well that admission wasn’t something that Peeta liked hearing. Did it mean that she would break up with him as easily here? He definitely didn’t hope so because he didn’t want them to break up. It was just something they would have to learn to adapt to, but it was a little more difficult because of the dangerous nature of it, “I think we can figure it out, Caroline, I want to make sure we figure it out.” He reached over to take her hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“Me too,” Caroline said a look of relief washing over her. She wouldn’t have blamed Peeta if he wanted to break up with her but she was beyond happy that wasn’t the case. She chewed on her lip for a minute before an idea suddenly dawned on her. “Oh!” she said almost unable to contain her excitement. “There is this like plant in my dreams. Vervain. It’s poison to vampires. Maybe we could find some for you.”

“A plant? Huh, well we can certainly try to see if it exists here. I don’t want to poison you, so what exactly does it do and how does someone normal like me use it?” Peeta certainly didn’t want her to get hurt with something like that, so he wanted to know all the details before committing to that plan. At least this didn’t mean they were going to break up and the conversation was going better than he expected when they sat down.

“There is a way for humans to drink it and then if I try to drink from you it will taste bad,” and hurt her enough to stop but she knew Peeta wouldn’t like that part so she left it out. “I’ll figure out a way to get some for you.” It was for her own piece of mind too. She didn’t want to risk hurting Peeta. And she didn’t want to stay away from him either.

“Interesting, wonder how that evolved or was figured out,” some unfortunate vampire had apparently suffered for that information. Hopefully the plant grew in this world or the dreams would be kind enough to bring a plant for Caroline. Stranger things had happened, “Alright, now that the weirdness is out of the way, should we watch a movie or something?” He wanted to move past their conversation and settle back into normalcy.

Peeta had taken all that a lot better than Caroline expected. After all it wasn’t like people found out their girlfriend was suddenly a vampire every day. But she was beyond relieved he still wanted to be with her. “A movie sounds perfect,” she agreed. Caroline was more than ready to get back to normal and watching a movie with her boyfriend sounded like the best way to do that.