NOTES & STUFF: i had this written months and months ago as a request on tumblr, and after months of anxious nail-biting i decided to finally post it up here. written for ishichan's Impromptu Ficathon over on livejournal.

NOTES PART 2: prompt by youcallitwinter/whenLighteningStrikes: "tvd. stefan/caroline. When he calls you, ignore the hundreds of ropes untangling themselves in your stomach. You are the best friend again. He invites you over for dinner and you say yes too easily. Remind yourself this isn't special, it's only dinner, everyone has to eat."

well, you cured my january blues

—

It was that goddamn song.

You know, the one that she hums coming out of the shower because it is that annoyingly catchy. It's the one Bonnie blasts while they paint their toenails; the one sometimes playing softly in the background when she and Liz grab a rare lunch at the Grille; the one that creeps into her head in the middle of Calc. The one Stefan leads her into the dance floor with after insisting he doesn't dance.

It's the one that starts playing when she's smashed and flailing in the middle of your best friend's ex-boyfriend's – uh, boyfriends' – boarding house, shoulders and knees and hips bumping into her from all sides, because what do you know: despite showing up like 35% of the school year, Stefan is still Mr Popular Hero Hair Guy.

And it's cool, you know, they dance. Decade dances, the ones with romantic music tangling in her hairspray curls, silk fingers warming inside his calloused hands, ornate necklaces, perfect little pocket squares, arms bumping, hips swaying. Barely touching.

PG stuff, you know?

But this—this is a new form of dancing. This is redefining dancing. This is his hand low on her back, his breath wet on her neck, her nails gripping into his shirt, his leg between hers. This is every inch of her skin burning underneath the wrinkled leather and snug cotton. This is her pushing her hips against his in a way that renders the 'friend' part of their best-friend-ship quite questionable. This is her pushing her goddamn hips against his, and him groaning into her neck.

And it's not even that: it's also her breath hitching in her throat and her fingers freezing in their trail down his chest, and it's the ice on her neck at the absence of his warm kiss. It's the way they stand there, suddenly all too aware of the three feet of space yawning between them.

It's the way the song ends.

It's him disappearing into the crowd.

—

But it's o-kay, she reasons, because they're best friends, it's cool, best friends dance, best friends – you know, the special ones that come with matching stringbraids around their wrists and probably a really weird secret handshake that comes with vicious poundings of the chest – dance, like, intimately.

"And I hardly felt your, um, little problem pressing into my thigh. Not that I'm discounting your abilities or whatever, I'm just saying, we were just a little dr—"

"Caroline," he says, "it's kind of hard to concentrate on Calculus with you hissing about my hard-on two rows away."

"Kind of didn't want that visual, guys," Elena snaps, and what the hell, isn't she from the class down the hall?

"Sorry," Caroline shoots, "kind of a private conversation?"

"Don't let me stop you."

Elena might as well said over and clicked off. The air fizzles awkwardly around them, and Caroline sees Stefan's sighing over his textbook. "You don't have to dance around it, Caroline. We danced. I got turned on. "

"Which is totally nor—"

"Not normal, Care. You even listening to yourself?"

"Tell me you're not beating yourself up about it."

"I'm not."

"…Oh. Well, that's cool too. That's normal, actually."

"Can we get back to optimization now?"

"If you're sure."

"Oh, he's sure," wafts Damon's voice from somewhere in the vents.

—

She's not saying she's thinking about it while she's washing conditioner out of her hair, but she's thinking about it while she's washing conditioner out of her hair.

Because according to Stefan, it's not normal, but it's okay. What he's basically saying is that It just happens? He didn't have to say it, but she heard it wide and clear, bouncing off the heads of the twenty-something other kids in Mrs Jenkin's class.

She tries it on for size.

"It just happens."

Her reflection grimaces back at her.

She doesn't know why she's even thinking about it. It's Stefan. Valiant Stefan. He of the Hero Hair, protector of puppies, slayer of whatever the hell decides to drop in on Mystic Falls that week. Her best friend, who is only doing what best friends do after weird occurrences like him grinding into her in a dim, smoky room do—

Continue being best friends.

"It just happens," she chastises Foggy Caroline, before wiping her out of sight.

—

"It does, you know," Stefan says, stealing the breath from her lips with a well-timed kiss, leaving her even more light-headed.

Another party, but the MO's the same. Free flow beer, same gyrating mess in the foyer, that goddamn song exploding from every speaker in the house.

The only difference this time is that neither of them are drunk, both of them are topless, and Stefan has her pinned beneath him on Rebekah's bed.

"What, two best friends who just happen to have sex?"

"Caroline," he hums, busy against her collarbones, "that kind of implies that there is sex to be had."

His hand wanders down to her panties. She guides him to the right place, right there, yes—her voice wavers, "Am I wrong?"

Stefan sounds a little breathless himself, with one of her hands entwined with his, her other tangling, rustling, pulling his hair. "I—no, not entirely."

She has to put her back into it a little, but she manages to flip them around, and now she's rocking against the slow buck of his hips, and his head falls back against Rebekah's bajillion-thread count pillowcase bought over at Chateau La Snob.

She presses her lips to his neck, his jaw, the soft fuzz of his earlobe. His fingers are digging into her hips, hard enough to bruise, guiding her into a rhythm that sends electric shivers up her spine. Her eyes close, and it takes every bit of her to ask, because she has to, because she needs to, "But why?"

Stefan sits up, and she nearly tumbles off his lap if he didn't grab hold of her shoulder, one finger at a time, leaning into her like he's teaching her to focus, to breathe, deep breaths, Caroline. It's not Being a Good Vampire: The Handbook, but he's looking at her the same way. All sharp eyes and furrowed brows, but with just a hint of a smile.

Just enough to make her believe that he actually wants to be here.

And he's good, Stefan is. Keeps his eyes on hers the whole time, doesn't even drop to linger on her lips, even though they must be plump and red from all the kissing. He does however, tilt her chin up before saying, "Maybe it's the natural order of the universe. Like a Bonnie and Clyde situation—obviously, you're taller than Bonnie, but I have been told I share the same—"

She flicks his ear. "Stefan!"

"Ow—alright, fine. Maybe—maybe it's just how it's supposed to run. How it's supposed to be. You and I fall in, and…" He takes a breath, runs his hands down her arms. Like he wants to warm her up. Her fangs tingle and her dead heart pounds. It takes him forever to let out that one breath he'd stolen from the space between them, to say, "…and we keep falling."

She's silent, her hands balled into careful fists in the folds of her skirt, her eyes darting, piercing, but Stefan's eyes aren't glazed over and he's actually looking worried about her nonreaction. She takes a deep breath, quick and pointed, like she's trying to show him how it's actually done.

And then she says: "That was good. Just the right touch of drama. How long have you been practising that in the mirror?"

"Eh, a few days. Weeks. Months, but who's counting?" Stefan waves it off, but then he presses his forehead to hers, closes his eyes for a kiss that feels like the delicious burn of a hot bubble bath. Her mouth parts, his tongue moves against hers, her back arches into him.

Before she even realizes it's happening, Stefan's rolling them over so he can settle over her, his knees rolling against her quickly dampening center, his nose nudging aside the cup of her bra, his tongue laving her nipple. She can still hear that song, a muffled thudding through the room, a nice sort of ambience against the sound of Stefan breathing against her skin, her swallowing a moan when his lips go lower, when he puts his mouth where she really wants it to be.

Later, Caroline will lie with her chest heaving and her arms thrown over her head after her second orgasm with his just his tongue and his fingers, panting, "Eager much?"

Even later, Stefan will point out that it was she who'd ripped his shirt off first.

She'll blame it on the song.

fin