iluvroadrunner6 | meme } { kissy faces

Entry tags:

meme } { kissy faces

Word Count:
30,094

The problem with Cora and boys is that she doesn't exactly know what the cue is to push things from two people who like each other to two people who like each other, and are both aware of that fact, and who maybe casually make out every once in a while.

Or something.

It's the kind of feeling that makes her feel inadequate as a teenage girl because she's pretty sure that this is something that girls like Lydia and Faye mastered freshman year and when she was supposed to be in her freshman year of high school, she ... had other priorities. She would be lying if there weren't moments where she wishes those priorities were different so that she would know the answers to these questions and not feel like an idiot for having to ask him.

There's also a part of her that tells her that she shouldn't want this, because Peter is her friend. Her good friend. The kind of friend that she hasn't really had and the pragmatic side of her says not to risk it. Because if she takes the risk and she's wrong, she loses him, loses this thing between them that makes everything else easy, and she can't figure out if that will hurt more than not trying at all.

The problem is, the teenage girl part of her, the one with no logic and no remorse makes her feel like if she doesn't just kiss him sometimes, that could kill her. The need makes her feel like she can't breathe and it's only gotten worse the more time she's spent with him. It's gotten to the point where it's all she thinks about when she's with him which is distracting because she should be paying attention to what they're doing and what he's saying, because Peter can get into the kind of rambles where if you get distracted for two seconds you could miss an entire tangent and Cora doesn't want to.

She likes his tangents.

(He also never seems to catch that her attention somehow always drifts down to his lips when he talks. Honestly, when he's talking is when she thinks about kissing him the most which seems pathetic and obvious and being a teenage girl sucks.)

She could ask Faye or Sarah for advice, see what they would do in this situation because they both have more experience with boys than she does, but she doesn't. Vocalizing it makes it real and there's still that part of her that's terrified of rejection, one way or another. She could just talk to him about it, like a normal person, but she can't do that either, because she can never figure out how to start.

Cora isn't really a person for words anyway. She's impulsive and does before she thinks, so in the end, that's what she does. He's talking about a movie or something with genetics - she lost track somewhere in the middle - and she moves before she can think about it too much, her hands coming to rest against his chest for balance, closes her eyes, and -

- her forehead collides with his nose. She's really supposed to be more coordinated than that.

The silence that follows is deafening, Peter pulling back just slightly, looking at her in confusion, his eyes scanning her face as though he's trying to see what she can't manage to say. Her cheeks feel like they're on fire and she can't hold his gaze, glancing away first before starting to pull away, but his hand catches her wrist and holds her in place.

"Wait."

Her eyes go back to him again, equally confused, but she lets him pull her back in, his hands moving to her waist. He nudges her in gently, not stopping until her hands were back against his chest again, lingering so closely in her space that she can't misinterpret it any other way. Her eyes look up at him, darting between his eyes and his lips, but he doesn't come the rest of the way and kiss her. She still gets to take the initiative and for some reason, that endears her to the moment even more. She takes a breath, takes her time, and slowly - carefully - leans in to kiss him again.

It only takes a second for him to kiss her back. She's never been so relieved to have a risk pay off.

Edited 2015-08-13 18:33 (UTC)

“So how much of a punch do these kisses of yours pack?”

They’re sitting in the Gull after hours, a line of shot glasses between them and Bo pointedly looks at him as she picks one up to toss the shot back. It’s not that she isn’t feeling inclined to share, she just knows that he’s seen her in action before. He knows how easy it is to knock a person out with a touch, let alone a kiss.

“Previous evidence not enough for you, Duke?”

He smirks at her as he reaching over to toss back one of his own, holding the shot in his mouth for a moment before swallowing it down. There’s that brief wince at the burn before he turns and looks at her again.

“Well, yeah. I mean I know you can do that succubus thing you do, but you also like to punch people in the face a lot, so it makes me wonder. Is the Black Widow trick only for special occasions or do you just like to mix it up? Keep people guessing.”

She considers for a moment before shrugging. “Little of both, I suppose. Why so curious?” Her eyes narrow for a moment, playfully, as she picks up her next shot. “Worried I might use it on you?”

He grins at her, waiting until she finishes her shot before he speaks again. “Well, while it is safe to say that you would not be the first person who tried to suck out my soul, you are the first woman I’ve met who could actually do it literally. And while it’s a much better way to die than what I was originally told, I’d still prefer not to die at all – with a smile, or otherwise.”

“Then, I think you should make every effort to stay on my good side.” She finishes off the last shot, and pushes the glasses back towards him. “And right now? That means more booze.” He smirks at her, before reaching for the bottle and starting to fill up another line of shots. She waits for him to finish, watching him as she does, before picking up one of them and bringing it to her lips. She swallows, waiting for the burn to subside, before she looks up at him again, a bit flirtier than before. “Besides. I thought you’d rather have something a little … friendlier.”

“Friendlier,” he pauses for a moment as he considers, before turning to face her again. “I would always prefer something friendlier. Personally, I like to think I’m a nice guy. I like people being nice in return.”

He leans over the bar across from her as he speaks, and she turns to match him, folding her arms in front of her for a moment. Her eyes meet his, and she lets one hand inch up his forearm, curling into his shirt a bit.

“That’s good,” she says softly. “Me too.” As she finishes speaking, she leans in to kiss him deeply, using the hand in his shirt to pull him closer. He responds almost instantly, one large hand moving to rest against her arm to steady her while the other sneaks up to cup against the side of her face.

And it’s good.

She always thought it would be good. Duke has this swagger about him that makes him a walking temptation, especially when it comes to Bo’s particular taste. But now she knows for sure, and that’s something she’s going to relish. At least for a little while.

Eventually, she breaks the kiss, leaving him just a little bit wanting. Then she pulls back completely, taking the final shot off the bar and downing it, turning promptly on her heel as she does.

“Thanks for the drinks.”

The only sound as she crosses from the bar to the door is the sound of her heels against the wooden floor, but as she opens the doorway to head out into the rest of the world, she can’t help the grin as she hears him speak.

“That … I don’t think that was very nice.”

Edited 2016-01-05 00:21 (UTC)

The problem with Teleios is that sometimes you go home.

It’s not by choice and there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. You go home and you forget your life there, forget how you’re raising your friend’s daughter, or how there’s a bar of people counting on you, or how there is someone there who wants Hope dead and there’s nothing you can do to protect her. You forget your friends, forget the people you love, you just go on with life as though nothing has happened.

That is, until that life stops.

Cami wakes up on the floor of the temple a few weeks after the day she disappears, the first of the month, just like everyone else. The only difference is, when Cami comes to with a sharp gasp, feeling the tacky layer of blood coagulating around her throat (from where she slit her throat), she doesn’t have to ask the question most newbies ask when they arrive in Teleios.

(Am I dead?

Yes. Technically. Though right now, she counts as neither.)

She feels so exposed like this so she scrambles to her feet as quickly as she can, brushing off calls of concern and taking herself as quickly as she can to Rosseau’s front door. Stefan tries to stop her on the way, and when he catches her wrist, she wonders if he can see what’s happening to her, if his one hundred and fifty years as a vampire means he just knows when someone is caught in the in-between, and if she paid more attention, she might be able to tell from the look in his eyes that he does.

But now isn’t the time to talk about it. The light is too bright and sounds are too loud, and she just wants to get home to a shower and to Hope and make a decision. It’s not a decision she wants to make. It’s a decision that should be easy after all. Cami’s never wanted to be a vampire, and she still doesn’t. But Teleios isn’t New Orleans. There are different rules and a hundred different things that could force her hand, and she needs to settle this now.

She makes her way back to Rosseau’s, closed for the day, and just slips past the door and up to her small apartment over the bar. There are a lot of things she’s expecting to find there, but what she actually finds isn’t one of them.

“Ethan.”

He’s sitting in the middle of the room with Hope, walking her back and forth and not quite facing her at first, just starts talking, his voice low and soothing so as not to disturb Hope. “You’re back. Figured you would be. She was just having a little trouble – ” He turns to face her finally, and she can see the way his eyes widen when he sees her, black dress soaked in blood (her blood), and he almost doesn’t finish the sentence. “ – sleeping.”

He watches her for a moment, and she watches him back, unsure of what to say, and instead she swallows hard.

“Yeah. I’m back.”

There are a number of different sentences he starts, until he finally settles for the one that probably has the most obvious answer, but one that almost no one back in New Orleans would ask. “Are you okay?”

“Not really,” she admits slowly, and he starts to speak again, before she holds up a hand to stop him. “I need to talk about this, I do, but … can we not do this while I’m still covered in my own blood?”

Admitting out loud is like a punch to the gut for both of them, quiet but solid, because it solidifies the reality of what happened to her. She died. And now, thanks to Klaus’ psychotic ex, she’s stuck in this in-between that she can’t get out of. But Ethan doesn’t ask for clarification. He doesn’t demand more of her before she’s ready to give it. He just nods.

“I’ll put her down. Go.”

“Thank you.”

She turns the water up so high it’s nearly scalding and scrubs every bit of blood from her body until her skin is red from the effort, and in a lot of ways, it’s sensory overload. Everything is so much sharper when she’s like this, and she almost feels lightheaded as a result, but soon she’s back in soft, comfortable clothing and making her way to the couch, looking up at Ethan as he comes to join her.

“Did she go down okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. I think she just missed you and wanted to be awake when you got back.”

She smiles softly and nods as he goes to sit next to her, taking her hand in his gently as he stays close. There’s a silence that follows, the weighty kind where he’s not going to force her to speak before she’s ready but he’s not going to speak first either. It’s an effective tactic too, because sooner rather than later she spits out:

“I’m in transition.”

Ethan, to his credit, doesn’t drop her hand, but she can feel the concern rolling off him in waves. While they’ve compared and contrasted the differences between his vampires and hers and how they become what they are, she knows it doesn’t stop the shock from setting in. If she hadn’t drank Aurora’s blood before she slit her own throat, as she was compelled to do, this would be an entirely different conversation. She would be talking about how she can’t go home, so she had nowhere to move but forward. She would still have her humanity.

Now, she doesn’t have that kind of choice. She can either die in Teleios, like she will probably going to die in New Orleans (she doesn’t want to be a vampire, doesn’t want to change the person that she is, doesn’t want to see if she can learn to live with being the predator, rather than the prey), or she can live on here as a vampire.

There are costs to either option, but in the end, she knows that there’s no true choice. She can’t leave Hope with no family and no protection. As much as she knows Ethan may promise to take care of her, he doesn’t know what he’s getting into. Not really.

Suddenly, as though he already knows what she’s thinking: “You don’t have to do this. To complete the transition. Not if you don’t want to.”

She glances over at him, her face softening for a moment. “I can’t just abandon Hope, Ethan. I can’t leave her alone. Who’s … who’s going to tell her about her parents? Her aunts and uncles? Her legacy.”

“They could come here one day.”

“Sure. From any time or place. Before she’s born, maybe, when they think she’s an impossibility and want nothing to do with her? I can’t … I can’t do that to her. She’s just a kid.”

“This isn’t about her, though. This is about you. You can’t be all those things for her if you wind up … resenting her for forcing you to make this choice.”

He has a point. She knows he has a point, and she agrees with him, to an extent. But she looks at that little girl, and she knows that this isn’t just about what she wants for Hope. “I want to be there for her. I want to watch her grow up and tell her about boys – or girls, I won’t judge. I want to be that person that she can count on, and can ground her when the magic gets to be too much. And I can’t do that if I’m dead.” There’s a huff of a laugh, before she shakes her head. “Besides, who knows what being dead means in a place like this anyway.”

Ethan smirks a bit in response. “It’s not as though you don’t have a plethora of afterlives to choose from.”

“That is true,” she nods as she turns to lean into him a bit. “I’m just … I’m worried about how this will change me. About the person I’ll become if everything suddenly becomes more. I don’t want to get lost in it.”

“I’ll help,” he says gently, giving her hand a squeeze. “You know I will. Whatever you need.”

“You sure?” she teases. “My new undead-ness won’t clash with your werewolf-itude?”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Stiles.” He smirks. “But I think I can make it work.”

“Good. Because I would hate to do all of this to stay here and then lose you too.”

Ethan looks over at her, one free hand coming up to brush against her cheek softly. “Never. You will always have me, Cami.”

There have been so many starts, stops and missed opportunities, and she doesn’t want this to be another one. She pauses for a moment, before pulling him in closer and kissing him soundly. Her feelings for Klaus are complicated and haven’t been forgotten – in a lot of ways they will always be there – but Ethan is the one here, and she’s sick of letting opportunities go because she doesn’t think she should have them.

He kisses her back, soundly and surely, almost as though he needs the reassurance as much as she does. When she finally pulls back, he watches her for a moment, confused. “What was that for?”

“I just wanted to do that once while I’m still me,” she says softly. “Before everything is different.”

He nods in understanding. “How much longer before you absolutely have to … ?”

“A day, I think? Not long.”

“A day’s long enough,” he says softly, before pulling her in for another kiss and relaxing back into the couch with her.

There are probably better ways she could spend her last few moments as a human, but for right now, this is good enough.

Edited 2016-02-19 20:10 (UTC)

[Follows this.]

Bela isn't a girl who's used to things going her way. After Chicago, where most could argue she had it too well, she finds herself dumped in Teleios where all of her familiar faces fail to recognize her, and all of her pillars of support are gone. She's building herself up from scratch, again, and while she didn't dislike it the first time, this time it seems like a waste when the only clear pattern is that she's going to lose it all again.

Still, she tries. She goes out to bars, attempts to be social and for the most part blends into the background. That is, when strangers aren't accosting her out of nowhere.

She barely has a chance to respond to the sound of the name before suddenly someone is kissing her, and her fight-or-flight kicks in. She tenses at the assault, hands coming up to push at his shoulders, fingers digging into the meat of his shoulders until she gets the leverage to push him back, her hand flying across his face with a smack!

It isn't until after her hand connects with his skin that she recognizes the familiarity of the kiss. All the pieces fall into place as her hand comes to cover her mouth, staring at him in shock more than anything else, because it shouldn't be possible. It shouldn't be something she gets to regain, no matter how much this place is supposed to be perfect.

"Oh my God."

But he's there. He's real. And he called her Bela before he kissed her, not Rose. The realization that it is in fact her Damon comes hard and fast, and she doesn't give him much of a chance to be annoyed with her for slapping him. Her hands find his shirt as she draws him back in again, kissing him soundly for existing, and hoping that he won't take it too personally.

She'll probably never live it down, but that's a topic they can sort out for themselves later.

Edited 2015-08-12 17:10 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

meme } { kissy faces

Word Count:
30,094

rizzy }

cora/peter | (could have been) teleios | 741 words

bo/duke | psl-land | 684 words

ethan/cami | monkeybars-ish | 1,657 words

damon/bela | monkeybars | 335 words

meme } { kissy faces

Word Count:30,094

rizzy }

cora/peter | (could have been) teleios | 741 words

bo/duke | psl-land | 684 words

ethan/cami | monkeybars-ish | 1,657 words

damon/bela | monkeybars | 335 words

Word Count:
30,094