[fic] swim for your life [lies for your lover]; caroline/stefan, the vampire diairies; pg13

[krickets]

title; rating: swim for your life [lies for your lover], pg13
fandom, pairing; count the vampire diaries, caroline/stefan; 764
notes: for gigglemonster, au - post-vampire-apocalypse (sorta)


Caroline doesn't remember the last time Stefan mentioned Mystic Falls, and the truth is she likes it that way. They made their escape. People got left behind, and they still struggle on without them. Caroline would rather not think of that.

Still, she can sense when Stefan's mind wanders back to that place. He gets this look on his face that she recalls from the moments when he talked about Elena.

He doesn't talk about Elena anymore.

"What'cha thinkin'?" She asks him.

Stefan usually just shakes his head and shrugs, tells her he's thinking of the road ahead or some other untruth.

Sometimes a lie is better, Caroline tells herself. Sometimes a lie is all you've got.

-

She loses her ring in St. Louis to a band of young vampires, freshly made and and arrogant to boot.

Stefan lies next to her and holds her hand when they get back to the hotel, her wounds healed, but the bloodstains still remain. He tells her that the difference between them and this new, ever growing crop of bloodsuckers is that they value this world. It's their home, and the humans left in it, their friends. They'll do anything to protect it.

He slips his ring onto her finger and the cool metal feels heavy against her skin.

Caroline tastes blood at the back of her throat, feels her undead heart beating hard in her chest.

She wants to scream.

-

In San Francisco, things are better for a while. Somehow California escaped the worst of it. Stefan blames the sunshine. Caroline just laughs.

She laughs a lot these days.

She won't stop talking about going to see Alcatraz and Stefan teases her, tells her he doesn't understand the fascination.

Still, in the end he promises they'll go one day, and Caroline ruffles his hair.

"Thank you," she says.

"It isn't as if you'd give me a choice," he deadpans.

"No," she agrees in a sing-song voice. "But still."

-

They find out Bonnie is dead one day after sunset when they receive a well-worn and well-traveled envelope from a boy in a blue hoodie who reminds Caroline of Jeremy.

"From a friend," he says, and walks past them in the dark.

Inside they find a silver ring and Elena's handwritten scrawl.

"There won't be any more of these," she writes. "Keep this one safe."

-

That night, they toast to a dear friend and watch the sun rise from the roof of Stefan's car.

He drives back to the hotel, kicks up dirt as they walk from the car and grips her hand.

"Come to bed," he whispers the words, his lips grazing her ear.

It's not the first time -- they've been on their own for so long, and proximity is a hard thing to fight.

So is loneliness.

But this is the first time it's felt like something more.

She arches against him when he calls her name, his lips at her neck. Stefan's warmth surrounds her, covers her, penetrates her, and Caroline is reminded of the sun. She moves, closing her eyes and seeing nothing but light. She digs her fangs into his neck to keep from screaming when she comes. [A force of habit -- If a tree doesn't make a sound, does it ever really fall at all?] Stefan lets out a strangled sound, runs his hands through her hair and over her back, and whispers her name like some kind of religious recitation.

Caroline swallows the sound with a kiss.

-

When she wakes, he's still in her bed, asleep at her back. The double across the room unsullied.

"This is new," she says when she senses him stirring, turns to him.

"It is," he agrees, and kisses her -- a ritual they have never indulged themselves in before now.

Caroline sighs.

"Would you swim for it?" she asks him and a look of confusion spreads across his face.

"I'm sorry?"

"Alcatraz, the Bay, would you swim for it?" she clarifies. "I mean, even if you knew you'd probably drown or freeze to death or get shot, even if you had to leave people behind. If it meant getting out of there, would you swim for it?"

"You've been thinking about this a long time," he observes.

"Well?"

"You know we're vampires, right?"

"I know," she shrugs. "But would you?"

"I think," he takes a few moments before he answers, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'd swim for it. Every time."

Caroline kisses him again.

Sometimes a lie is all you've got.

Sometimes a lie becomes your truth.

-fin