𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭
- - -
❝Your heart is home
Now and forever, I'll be your shelter❞
Safe With Me
~Megan Nicole
- - -
Change is never kind. It disrupts your life, pulls you out of your version of normal. It's unforgiving, natural but above all it's the scariest fucking thing that had the potential to uproot Kat Gilbert's new life.
Losing consciousness isn't everything the teen books chalk it up to be. To Kat, it felt like she was thrusted out of the loop, betrayed by her own body. The darkness was scary, nothing new for her as she felt like she was sleeping on a bed of needles.
Somehow the unending darkness all around her put up a fight when she tried to wake herself up. In the end though, Kat won the fight, gasping into the Land of the Living.
"Vivi? Hey... It's okay, it's me." Stefan's concerned eyes were the first thing that Kat's panicked eyes caught, and she felt a knot loosen in her gut. He brushed a thumb over the small of her back from over her bedsheets, while gently holding his fingers over her forehead.
Kat gulps, "Wh-" parched. She cleared her throat before whispering an octave lower, "What happened?"
"You fainted" Elena says from behind her boyfriend. She was back in her normal clothes, a shawl wringing in her fists from over her shoulder. To Stefan, she sounded her signature mix of chagrin at her sister. But he wasn't concerned about Elena at that moment.
Kat flinches, visibly shrinking her face into her blankets as her eyes burned with too much light in her face. She felt like she was sitting right in the middle of a diamond and the brightness coming her way had somehow magnified to blind her. Everything buzzed in her ear and she felt... too much. She craved the silence she felt in the darkness before.
"What's that noise!"
"What noise?" her sister looks around cluelessly. Kat hears shuffling to her right towards the window, only to see her favourite tree banging against her window. Something crackles somewhere else and the sound sends a chill down her spine.
"Viv?"
"Too much" she squints her eyes shut. She sticks her palms to her oversensitive ears with a small sob. She hears a dog yelping somewhere, a child crying in the night. Each sound echoed.
"Stop it. Get away from me," Kat mumbles.
"What's wrong Kat?" Elena's question is the loudest in her mind.
"I said stop it!" Kat's face whipped out from the blankets, and her eyes flared a mean streak of amber before she blinked it away. A TV buzzed houses away, she heard people talking, fighting, shouting. She hears air whizzing by all around her, leaves whistling, branches banging. "Why doesn't it stop!"
"Stefan, what's happening to her?"
"Hey hey! Look at me, come on, Vivi" Stefan pressed his palms protectively over hers, blocking her ears. He looked into her eyes that was flashing between her normal kind green and an unnatural golden.
"What's wrong? Tell me what's wrong."
"There's so much noise!" she shook her head with bitten lips. She wanted to scream in pain at the feeling of her ears almost bursting.
"Listen," Stefan stopped her shaking, "let's get out of here, huh? Shh..."
Before he can completely calm her down, a whoosh sounds - evidence that the girl sped out of the house.
Forest, by Steven's quarry
She sits with arms around herself as more mellow sounds float into her ears. The moon looks too bright, and the waterfall sounds louder than before. She tries to think of happier times, when her father and uncle John would take her out here to paint and follow glowworms.
Her knees were pulled up to her chest as she hugged herself, rocking back and forth only ever so slightly like her mother used to do when she couldn't fall asleep. The only thing missing was her and her lullaby, or she would have put rest to nightmares long ago.
Kat could have gone to Caroline's, or caught a bus to Jenna's dorm. But she didn't trust herself with anyone else after what she did to Vicki.
Vicki, who was her friend.
Somewhere deep among the trees behind her a dove coos shyly, breaking her out of her thoughts. And it's only fitting that the call was followed by Stefan's light footsteps.
"Hey..." she heard him a few feet away from the tree she was sitting under.
"Get away from me Stefan," she sniffles into her knees. What if she did something to him too? She couldn't lose him, not after she realized what she still felt about him.
He wouldn't be Stefan if he had heeded her panic and ran away. No, he kneeled down on the ground beside her, drawing her focus on his breath which was so near to her that she felt it like her own heartbeat.
"I'm a monster."
He sighs, "You're not a monster Vivi."
"I killed someone, Stefan. I killed a girl who was a sister. A friend. She wasn't supposed to die!" her voice was hoarse and struggled under the weight of guilt that was knotting up in her throat.
"It wasn't your fault Viv. It's the fault of the person who turned her. We'll find out... Everything will be fine, I promise."
A sob bubbles up. But before it can escape, Kat bottles it in with a shivering palm. She won't cry. Not now. She just needed her mother.
"Hey..." he cradles her, "It's okay..."
She buries her shaking head in his chest, "What am I Stefan? What did I do to Vicki?"
Everything stopped spinning for Stefan that very second. He nudges closer to her, his hug tightening as he kissed the side of her head, "You're someone I care about. No matter who you are, you'll always be my Vivi. Is that alright for now?"
The only answer she gives is a sniffle as a small smile trembles on her lips. He runs a hand through her hair, "You're my Vivi, and I'll never let anything scare you. Human or not, always."
"Always?" she looks at him, misery giving more beauty to her jade discs than hope would. She hated being this needy, hated being so scared of loneliness. But something in Stefan's tender grip convinced her over and over again that he understood her silly fear. And he wanted to be here.
Stefan brushes his cheek against her tear-wet hair with a sad smile that wrenched Kat's gut apart, "I'm not leaving Viv. Ever."
She chuckles wistfully as Stefan wipes her tears with the sleeve of shirt, "That sounds good."
"Come on, Elena must be worried..." he slowly leads her out.
Maybe times won't be as bad when you're supernatural. And Kat hated herself for actually seeing any hope.
𝐈𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐞'𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐫
Just... don't talk to me. I'll be in the corner dying of cuteness. They're just so... ✨Stivi✨