#which i didn't intend but we have over like 2k words of barolena and i'm not mad about it

[guineverist]

hello i am back at it with my fic inspired by is it over now? i've now cursed my spotify wrapped with 144 more listens and have realized that getting this done by christmas was insanity and new years might be a pipe dream

first, i'd like to sincerely apologize to everyone who thought tyler was on a crime spree. but! while he is not homiciding people he is also not in the narrative besides like 3 mentions including the one here, which might help?

second, i couldn't decide for a hot sec what snippet to post but ended up on this one. unlike the last part i posted this is a place where we are is it over now?-ing instead of friendship/barolena-ing

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He enjoyed this side of her. It wasn't something he ever expected to see, not when it came to him.

Rebekah used to rant to him with grudging respect about the particular brand of petty ruthlessness Caroline used in high school politics. She quickly stopped when she realized exactly why he was actually listening, of course, but that was still another snapshot he never imagined he'd be able to witness for himself.

He was experienced with her insults and her very thin mask of neutrality, but not this. He couldn't even be sure which of his crimes she was extracting such vengeance for, but there was no doubt it was about him.

(In his more pessimistic moments, he convinced himself it was his crimes against Tyler. Revenge for driving him off, using him against her, whatever she had on her mind at the time. But other times he was sure that she was angry at herself, for the things she didn't allow herself to feel but couldn't stop anyway. And wasn't that a curious thing?)

Sleeping around? Preying on jealousy? It was so human, exactly the type of pettiness one would expect from the average American high school student. But Caroline had never been average, had she?

It was the threat, he eventually decided, that made it so intriguing. The fact that she knew who he was and decided to prey on jealousy of all things. She had to have done the calculations and chosen this course of action anyway, knowing that she was likely signing the death warrant of whoever she spent the night with.

He would likely never tell her truth on that matter. It would give her the wrong ideas about redemption when he much preferred her anger; but he owed them, in a way, for the window into her soul that they unknowingly opened. These traits of hers, divorced from the places where they would be “acceptably” used, showed who she could be, given enough time.