prompts { 2022 } fictober

[iluvroadrunner6]

Going to do one fic a day in an attempt to buff my word count for this year. Is this dumb when I already have prompts that I'm working through? Maybe but I'm in for the challenge.



PROMPTS:
1. “I chose you.”
2. “Nobody warned you about me?”
3. “That was not my intention.”
4. “How would that even work?”
5. “No, anything but that.”
6. “Adaptable, I like that.”
7. “Check that again, are you sure?”
8. “Do you remember?”
9. “Sounds like a you problem.”
10. “It’s my name on the line.”
11. “Think! For once!”
12. “You’re making my head hurt.”
13. “I don’t want you to do that.”
14. “Yes. No. I don’t know.”
15. “What are you doing?”
16. “You’re looking, but you don’t see.”
17. “Are you serious?”
18. “I don’t think this is your problem.”
19. “Do we have a deal?”
20. “There’s only us.”
21. “I never said that.”
22. “Who said this is a good idea?”
23. “Not on my watch!”
24. “Is this safe?”
25. “You know I’d do anything.”
26. “I’m doing it, shut up.”
27. “That’s not why we’re doing this.”
28. “We all have our reasons.”
29. “You love this, don’t you?”
30. “I know what this looks like.”
31. “I’m not alone and neither are you.”

Request plurk
Completed: 31/31
Word Count: 63,823

Comments

10/12 ~ you're making my head hurt ~ tvdverse ~ 3,241 ~ part 2

[iluvroadrunner6]

* * * * *

Talking with Elena comes naturally, and as they bounce between topics. Palmer and Rhodes continue their fling, so it leads to a lot of nights at Bree’s where Elena and Tom get the chance to hang out while they pretend they’re not on a date. If Tom didn’t like Elena so much—more and more each time they talk—it might annoy him. But since Elena also doesn’t seem to mind, he doesn’t protest too much.

One night, however, after a rough shift, he finds her sitting on a bench outside the hospital. The chaos from an earlier massive pileup on one interstate put Tom and Palmer in the position of passing off the ambulance at the hospital, rather than the fire house. As he makes his way out of the front door, he finds Elena sitting on the bench, looking a little wrecked.

“Hey,” he says softly, and as she looks up, she brushes the tears from her cheeks.

“Hey. Sorry.”

Tom shakes his head. “Don’t be sorry. Today was rough.”

Elena nods, letting out a bitter laugh. “Yeah. Today was really rough.”

Tom watches her for a minute, before nodding towards the street. “C’mon. I know a great place for Bad Day Pancakes.”

Elena raises an eyebrow. “Bad Day Pancakes.”

“The pancakes you have on a bad day, so your day doesn’t end on so shitty a note.” Tom offers a hand out to her. “If that works for you?”

Elena offers him a small smile and takes his hand to get to her feet. “Yeah. I think Bad Day Pancakes sounds great.”

He takes her to a diner close to the hospital that’s frequented by more than a few familiar faces. After they’re seated and have ordered their pancakes, he leans back in the seat. “You want to talk about it?”

Elena shakes her head. “It’s nothing I haven’t had to do before. It’s not the first time I’ve had to declare someone dead or make tough calls, but…it is the first time I’ve had to do all of it at once, in such a short period. It was a little overwhelming.”

“I get that,” Tom nods. “It was rough on my end, too. With a wreck like that, sometimes you can’t get to them quickly. Wait for the firefighters and the cops to do their job first, and each time you do, you’re losing time.”

Elena nods. “They told us all of this in med school, but … I guess this is the first time it really sunk in. Made me question if I really can do this.”

Tom nods. The pancakes arrive, and he sits back for the server to put them down before answering the question. “What might you be doing if you weren’t?”

“I used to want to be a writer, and was thinking about journalism for a while.”

“What made you change to medicine?”

“Journalism requires you to be impartial. And you’re coming in after the fact a lot of the time. After the hurt’s been done. And maybe you can stop it from hurting other people with an exposé, but it’s not…not the same. Not really. But as a doctor, I can really help people. Figure out what’s wrong and help fix it. That seemed a lot more…fulfilling.” She plays with her fork, before picking up her knife to start to cut in to the pancakes in front of her. “What about you? Why paramedic?”

“Same reason. I wanted to help people. I didn’t really have the grades for med school, but I had a good memory for procedure and I’m good under pressure. I started out on the firefighter side of things, but they had me fill in on the ambulance one day, and the rest is history.”

“Ever thought about trying to go back to med school?”

He shakes his head. “I’m bad at tests. Which is funny, when I say that I’m good under pressure, I know. But it’s one thing to recognize the symptoms of anaphylaxis and know to reach for an epi pen, versus reading a question on paper—it’s like all the right answers suddenly run out of my brain and I can’t remember any of it.”

Elena nods. “Articulating it into words is way different from reacting in the moment. I get it.”

“Do you think you’ll work in hospitals forever?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Part of me likes it, you know? The rush of needing to react quickly and dealing with a lot of patients at once. It’s great for learning, but …” Her face looks briefly wistful. “Part of me also wants to go back to Mystic Falls and take over my dad’s practice one day. Give him someone to pass it on to when he’s ready to retire. But I guess I’m just sentimental like that. Who knows where time will go?”

It makes sense. But part of him warms to the idea of living in a small little town where everyone knows everyone. He’s never really had that, but maybe it might be nice if he was doing it with the right person. Elena’s fork finally sinks into the meal in front of her, and as she pops the first bite in her mouth, he watches the look of surprise on her face when the taste hits her.

“Oh, my god. Those may be the best pancakes I’ve ever tasted.”

“See?” Tom grins as he digs into his. “Bad Day Pancakes never steer you wrong.”

After they’ve finished their pancakes, Tom walks her back to her car, and he slides his hands in his pockets. He knows he just needs to spit it out, hopefully in a way that doesn’t make him sound like an asshole, but there’s still that pit in his stomach that worries about the potential rejection. Swallowing hard, he takes a step forward as she opens her door.

“Hey, Elena—would you maybe want to have dinner sometime?”

Her head pops up over the top of the car, and a slow smile crosses her face. “You mean like a date?”

Tom feels his cheeks burn. Why is he so bad at this? What is he, twelve? He’s a grown adult. He should be able to ask a beautiful woman on a date. “Yeah. Like a date. If you want.”

“Tom Avery, I have only been sending out ‘I want to date you’ vibes every time we hang out.” She grins and an awkward, relieved laugh bubbles up from his chest as she continues. “I would love to have dinner with you.”

“Great,” he nods. “Good. Because I would also love that.”

Elena’s smile widens, and she goes to slide back into her car. “I’ll text you, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.” He steps back, giving her room to pull out of the spot, and once her car disappears onto the street and slumps back against the car behind him. It’s a relief, but he also can’t stop the smile planted on his face as he goes to call himself an uber to take him back to the firehouse.

Today is a new day, and it’s already looking up. If only he noticed the eyes watching him from across the street.

* * * * *

They keep it fairly casual for their first date, heading over to Bree’s for dinner and drinks and maybe some pool. Mostly, it seems to go well, just like their usual hang outs but better. The air is charged with potential, and while he’s trying not to rush anything, Tom is more than ready to see what happens next.

He steps away from the pool table while she’s racking the balls to get refills for their drinks, and while he’s waiting, a smooth voice appears over his shoulder.

“Well, hello brother.”

Tom would have ignored it if the man speaking didn’t physically put himself in Tom’s personal space. He’s tall, with dark hair and striking eyes—handsome, if Tom were into that. But given that Tom has never seen him before in his life, he takes an awkward step back.

“Sorry. I think you have the wrong guy.”

He seems confused at that, before his eyebrows go up. “Oh, we’re playing that game, are we? You’re not still pissed about what happened in ’94, are you?”

Tom blinks again. “Dude, I’m trying to be polite here, but I have no idea who you are. You’ve got the wrong person.”

That seems to make him angry, and when Tom tries to step away with his fresh drinks, the stranger takes hold of his arm and grips it tightly—too tightly. He’s surprised his arm doesn’t break under the pressure.

“This isn’t funny, Stefan.”

“My name isn’t Stefan.” His voice sounds pained. “You’re hurting me. Please let me go.”

“Damon!” Bree snaps from behind the bar, but Damon, whoever he is, doesn’t let go. Not until Elena steps up behind him and seems to throw him for an even bigger loop.

“Is everything okay?”

“Katherine?” Damon finally lets go of his arm, and Tom stumbles back and feels Elena’s hand against his back to steady him.

“No. My name’s Elena.”

Damon’s face goes from shock to fury in a second and he steps back into their space. Tom straightens, putting himself in the space between Damon and Elena on instinct. Unfortunately, it means he makes direct eye contact with Damon, and that’s when things go hazy.

“Tell me who you are. Everything.”

“My name is Tom Avery. I’m twenty-five years-old. I was born in Savannah, Georgia—” He keeps going, unable to stop himself as all these personal details start flowing out of his mouth, unable to stop them. He’s dangerously close to rambling off his social security number when Bree intervenes again.

“Damon, stop!”

Damon breaks eye contact and steps backwards and Tom practically collapses back into the bar, but Elena catches him. His head is throbbing, and he almost misses the words, determined but barely over a whisper:

“You’re a vampire.”

Damon’s eyes snap to Elena while Tom is trying to make sense of that statement. “You’re making my head hurt. Did you say vampire?”

“So you do know about vampires.” Damon steps in towards Elena again and Tom tries to rally.

“You can’t compel me. I’m on vervain.” Her jaw sets. “I’m a Gilbert. A Mystic Falls Gilbert. Of course, I know about vampires.”

Those words seem to mean something to Damon, and a slow smile slips across his face. “Well, isn’t that a surprise? Damon Salvatore, at your service.” Tom catches a glare from Bree out of the corner of her eye, and Damon holds up his hands, preparing to walk away. “Guess we’ll talk again soon, Mystic Falls Gilbert.”

He moves towards the door, then turns back to Tom as he does. “I’d be careful about inviting that one in, Tom Avery. Just in case.”

The tension in the room holds until the door closes behind Damon, and Bree exchanges a glance with another woman down the bar. She looks at the two of them—really looks at them for the first time in all the years that Tom has been drinking in her bar—and sighs.

“Alright, you two. I think we need to have a little talk.”