Let Them Bleed, Let Them Wash Away; A Tyler Open Post

[lockwood]

[ooc: Basically, this is free range for people to set up scenes with Tyler. Can be canon, crossover, whatever. There will probably be spoilery things bc I am not dealing well with the events of the last episode, this is the warning for that. Also feel free to comment oocly with an idea, and I can set something up too.]

Comments

she is the loudest of the hoarde

[dontkanyeme]

[If Tyler is smart, which Bo hopes he is, he probably got out of town for a while. This is why when Bo opens her door on her way out and finds him standing there, she's surprised, but at least he's somewhere where Klaus won't rip his heart out.

Which really is better for everyone.

She hasn't seen him since he broke the sire bond, and he looks like hell. Even she isn't blind to that.]

Tyler? What happened?

that is perfectly acceptable <333

[lockwood]

[Tyler doesn't have the brain to be smart right now, or anything. He just knew he couldn't stay in that house, that empty giant house all by himself.

And he and Caroline are on the rocks, he can't trust Hayley, and he failed his pack and everything just hurts. He got in the car and just started driving and somehow, he ended up here.

When he looks up at Bo, it's probably easy to tell he's been crying.]

My mom died. I got her killed.

[dontkanyeme]

[The words don't make any sense at first. Bo can't believe that Tyler would get someone like his mother killed, but that doesn't really matter. She doesn't hesitate to take his hand, and pull him in the door and into a hug. Talking will come later.]

I'm so sorry.

[lockwood]

[Maybe that's a simplification of what actually happened, but still. His mom is dead because he tried to take on Klaus. He can't help but feel it's his fault.

He takes the hug easily, not saying anything else. He's not sure he could talk much right now anyways.]

[dontkanyeme]

[She'll hold him for as long as he needs. She's still trying to process it herself. Kenzi's out and Hale and Dyson are working, so they don't have to worry about unexpected visitors.]

[lockwood]

[He finally pulls away, taking a deep breath.] I didn't know where to go

[dontkanyeme]

You can stay as long as you need.

[she pulls back a little more, before gesturing to the couch.]

C'mon. Let's sit. Tell me what happened.

[coy]

[ Caroline's stomach drops, her heart feels as though it may rip from her chest as she presses the END CALL button on her phone and gets into her car. Carol Lockwood is dead, Caroline. She was found in the fountain. It looks like an accidental drowning. And no one ever dies in Mystic Falls by accident. Not anymore. And her mom knew it just as much as Caroline did.

Her blood runs cold because she knows exactly who's behind it, who else could it be?

Fighting back tears with gasping breaths, she tries to call Tyler at least ten times more but he doesn't answer so she just goes to his house, hoping he'll be there, hoping she can find him before Klaus does or anyone else as she pulls into his driveway.]

[lockwood]

[After finding the bodies of the hybrids, his pack, Tyler went straight home. He can't think straight, except he has once again let everyone who was counting on him down. He's poured himself a glass of whiskey, but he's barely even drunk from it. All he can see is the slaughter. The ripped off heads, the ripped out hearts.

He was their Alpha. They trusted him.

When she gets to the door and lets himself in, he finds himself relieved to smell it's Caroline. He's expecting Klaus to show up any minute from now to finish the job.]

I'm in my dad's office.

["You're a leader of the people, like him," his mom had said. Yeah, about as good of a leader as his father had been.]

[coy]

[ The thing is, the moment Caroline gets out of the car, she can smell blood. The air is cool and crisp but full of the smell of it. It's not the appealing sort of blood, the kind she craves, so she knows it's bad, she can sense something went wrong, and her hair stands up on end.

She's quick to get inside and before she call out for him in a panic, she hears him, her whole body losing it's tension for about ten seconds before she remembers what she came for.

Trembling, she goes into the study, quickly going to him to see if he's hurt or anything, her eyes darting rapidly over his body for any sign of injury ] Are you okay? I smelled blood. What happened? [ Besides his mother dying. Did he know? God, how is she supposed to tell him? How can she even...? ]

[lockwood]

Hayley tricked me. There was never any plan to take down Klaus.

[It's hard not to feel like a fool, in this moment. But he thought for once he could finally just take down that asshole. Even if it had meant giving up his own body for it, it would have been worth it.

He takes another deep breath and a long drink from his glass before turning to face Caroline.]

They're dead Caroline. All of the hybrids. My pack I swore to protect. They're dead.

[coy]

What? [ Her eyes widen at that and she moves closer to him, moving to touch his arm, distracted by the news of Hayley's betrayal and the death of all the hybrids.] All of them? Who did it? Was it Klaus?

[lockwood]

It looked like his work. [The gore of it all. He didn't just kill them -- he ripped them apart.]

[forsake]

Matt wouldn't be anywhere else.

Tyler asked him if Caroline had sent him to check up on Tyler, but it wasn't Caroline at all. Even if she likely has voiced her concern, Matt would come on his own. Tyler is his best friend, and his house, while nowhere near as big as the Lockwood mansion, is just as empty. And Matt knows how that feels.

It sucks.

So he sits across from Tyler, and he helps him with the bourbon.

Matt doesn't break the silence just yet, only lets Tyler know that he's there, quietly drinking along with him. It's not about condolences and it's not about being sorry. That doesn't help any. But Tyler is not alone.

[lockwood]

Tyler's grateful that Matt's here, he is. He's been so sick of being alone. The house had been so filled with his mom, and Hayley, and the hybrids and now it's just empty. Not even Klaus shows up to taunt him anymore. Maybe he thinks the loneliness is better punishment.

He's probably right.

He's almost drained another glass before finally speaking.

"I never thought I'd be an orphan, you know?" Which is weird, he's almost eighteen (at least in theory, who knows when anyone's birthdays are and TVD time is weird but whatever) but it still feels that way.

[forsake]

Loneliness is a terrible demon. Matt comes home to an empty house every night, and he hates it. Or well, he used to. He's been staying over at the Gilberts, for now, to hopefully get the Jeremy situation under control. This he knows how to do. Help, be someone to lean on if need be.

Moreover, he gets where Tyler is. The condolences, the funeral preparations, that feeling you're left all alone in the world, like you don't have proper footing.

"Don't think any of us did," he says quietly. How many of them are orphans now? Sure, maybe he technically doesn't count, but he sure feels like one. Elena, Jeremy, April, so many of them. Now Tyler, too.

God, he hates Klaus.

[lockwood]

"No. I guess we didn't."

It's fucked up, how many of them there was. Elena, Jeremy, April, himself, Matt might as well be one. Both Caroline and Bonnie are just one parent away from joining them.

What the hell happened to all of them?

This isn't how their lives were supposed to be. Too many funerals. Too much loss. It feels claustrophobic. It claws at Tyler's throat and he can barely breathe these days.

[forsake]

"I can take care of it," Matt says after a moment.

The funeral arrangements. The stuff Tyler really shouldn't need to be worrying about, though he'd understand if he wanted to in hopes it would keep him busy. Matt would want to help him with them all the same, and he went through it after Vick.

He doesn't know how it all happened. He doesn't know when they all lost their way.

When life became a series of funerals and the lack of choices.

Good ones, anyhow. Whatever course you ended up choosing, it seemed like you were fucked anyway. He hates it. How all his friends had been stuck. How he feels stuck now, too.

[lockwood]

"I should be the one to do it. You know my mom, she'd be pissed if it wasn't the funeral of the season."

It's a joke, albiet a really weak one, but a joke none the less. His mom was always so particular about parties and gatherings, no doubt she would have wanted the best for her funeral.

Her funeral.

It feels like just yesterday it was his dad's, sometimes, and then other times it feels like a lifetime ago. Back before he was a hybrid, before he even triggered the curse. Before he realized just how little control he has in life.

Before he realized no matter how hard he tries to fight back, he always seems to lose.

/forever late and so sorry about that ;;

[misfitted]

[if you wanna ignore this, i understand but i had to ]

Of course.

Of course, everything goes more to hell when Jeremy just starts to think that maybe he's fixed, maybe it's better, maybe they can- he doesn't even know what he was thinking except he was relieved that he wasn't going to black out and suddenly try to kill his sister at any given moment. There's all these shitty vampires in his life, and for some reason, it was Elena that his hunter thing made him go after.

Of course.

And of course, it all goes to hell when he's not there. Klaus kills all the hybrids and Tyler's mom. It's not okay. There aren't words for how... not okay it is, for how much he hates it for Tyler, all of it, and the killing of people Tyler cared about started with him. Guilt's a funny thing, how it sticks to the ribs like oil. It started with Jeremy and the axe, and decisions made by two vampires who have no right to play with any of their lives. Jeremy's going to go to the funeral. He's going to be there... whatever Damon says, but he's also gonna offer Tyler a way to get some distance from there.

Because Jeremy knows what happens now. A stream line of people will be showing up at his doorstep with their casseroles and their pitying gazes. People he probably doesn't know or care about, and they'll all offer their condolences, their advice, their platitudes, and it'll be bullshit, and- He hated it and wanted an escape back then when it'd happened to him. It's part of why he turned to the drugs to make the pain stop, to get away, and now Matt's supposed to help him train so Jeremy thinks it wouldn't be too hard for Tyler to come up with him... if he wanted an out. If he didn't, it'd be okay too.

Just- there's a way out, and now they're up at the lake house. Damon's gone, and Jeremy is sitting on the edge of the dock with a beer in his hand. Everything changes for Tyler from here on out. He's an orphan now, and fuck. Fuck, why can't anyone ever be saved? Why does everyone have to lose, have to die all the time?

They never win, never keep anything, and fuck. There's so much anger in him sometimes that he doesn't know how it lives in him at all, but beneath that there's grief, pain. Always.

;; never ever too late and omg I would never ignore this ok.

[lockwood]

The few days after the massacre of the other hybrids and the death of his mother are like a blur. Caroline and Liz helped him set up most of the arrangements. Bonnie's dad comes out of the woodwork to step as the new mayor and everything in town seems to keep moving, and Tyler just feels trapped in time, in the heaviness of it all.

The Lockwood estate is huge, he's always known that, logically, but he's never really truly realized it before now. It's so empty. He's the only one who lives there now. He's barely eighteen years old, a monster, and now he has his own mansion. It'd almost be hilarious if it wasn't so damn painful. It life is beginning to feel like some sort of joke but he isn't quite sure he wants to know the punchline.

He used to be such a selfish dick, and sometimes he wishes he still was. It'd be easier. It's easier not to care. He had cared about helping the hybrids, to help them break the sire bond the way pretty much no one helped him. But it didn't do anything except get them all killed anyways. Klaus holds the trump card always, somehow. He always ends up winning. He hates it. He's so fucking sick of it.

It's even worse that these days Caroline seems to eye Klaus with pity in her eyes. He doesn't know what that's fucking about he hates that too.

A distraction is what Tyler needs and then some. And even more than that, he needs an escape. He can't stay in that house, so when Jeremy extends the offer he leaps to take it. Maybe he couldn't save the hybrids, but maybe he can still help someone. As far as he can tell, being a hunter like this isn't much different from being sired. There's no free will, no control, of course Tyler wants to help. He's been there. It sucks. And Jeremy deserves someone who actually wants to help, bot just people who want to use him as an ends to a means like Klaus and the Salvatores.

He's sitting next to Jeremy now, making quick work of his own beer. He's probably been drinking a little too much lately, overcompensating for the grief that's constantly crushing him, but he doesn't always know how to deal with it.

Clarification: he never knows how to deal with it.

Finally, he breaks the silence.

"Do you ever wonder what would happen if we just left and didn't turn back?"

Mystic Falls, he means. His mom and Liz had tried to help him and Caroline go on the run together. He wishes sometimes they had. That they had just escaped all of this.

But is escape even an option anymore?

;; lmfao okay good ;_____;

[misfitted]

Sometimes the things that would be easier aren't always better, but Jeremy can't blame Tyler for wanting to go back to a place where he cared less. Sometimes he really wouldn't mind going back to a place where he was high all the time, but he can't afford it and he didn't like who he was then and how he'd feel. It'd be easier though.

No one could blame Tyler for doing whatever the hell it took to make things easier even if it meant caring less, even if it meant shutting some things down. It's hard enough dealing with that kind of grief without it having wrapped up in all this supernatural bullshit too. He didn't ask for this. None of them asked for this to be thrown into a world where the people they loved were either killed or constantly in danger.

They've tried so much, and Jeremy knows how hard Tyler was fighting to save those hybrids, how each of them fought to gain their own freedom. It took pain and torture for them to get it, and the end result was death. It's not fair, but everyone's a lamb to the slaughter in the end except Klaus, the Salvatores. The power is there, and everything else is collateral damage, a lesson, whatever the fuck. So many people, they've died because of Klaus.

Jeremy knows he's only an ends to a means to either Salvatore, to Klaus too. A part of him doesn't even care what he's used for anymore as long as it means Elena will come out the other side okay, but all of these people he's been made to kill- It's nice anyway to have people here who actually want to help him, who actually care about him outside of what he means to his sister anyway.

He won't be calling Tyler on any excessive drinking. They're out in the woods, far from everything else. He ca drink as much as he wants. It's the very least he would be doing now, both parents dead, and-

Jeremy breathes in sharply before he looks over at the question.

"Back when that thing happened where Klaus made me stand in the middle of the street, I said we should all get out, because it wouldn't stop until we were all dead. Then I went to Denver, and it still... followed me, but yeah, I've wondered before."

He just doesn't know if it'd do any good. He wouldn't leave his sister alone, and his sister wouldn't ever leave the Salvatores, and the Salvatores going along means-

Means it all follows all of them anyway.

"Where would you go if you could?" Or would they just have to keep running, keep moving. It's not much of a life, but it's better than dying one after the other.

[lockwood]

Tyler hated who he was back then. He doesn't really want to regress, he just wants a break. He wants something to not feel so heavy for once. But it's all been a downward spiral since he killed Sarah that night in his dad's study. One disaster after another. And then Klaus snapped his neck in a gym and everything only got even worse. Maybe he's been stupid, thinking it could ever get better.

To think they could ever get a win.

The worst part is Tyler wishes it had been him. Klaus should have taken out his rage at him. Not the other hybrids. Not his mother (he'll never get that image of finding her in the fountain out of his head). Him. But no. Klaus thought it would be better to keep him alive and isolated and hurting and well, it's working. Fuck if it isn't working.

It's not that Tyler doesn't want to help Elena (though for the record? he could personally give a fuck less about the cure. He doesn't need to be a werewolf again, turning every full moon) but right now? He's more concerned about Jeremy. Sure, they've had their differences, but he likes to think they're friends. Jeremy gave him the benefit of the doubt when no one else did when he was sired, not even Caroline. Hell if he isn't going to return the favor.

And besides, he needs all the distractions he can get.

He takes another long swig, listening to Jeremy for a moment until the question is posed.

"Well, when Caroline and I were going to leave town because of the council we had planned on going down to Florida." That's where Mason used to live. There was land he could have stayed on. It had made sense, at the time.

"Of course, then I talked to Bonnie and I ended up having to give up my body to Klaus so you know, that never happened."

[misfitted]

Regressing would be bad, but it'd also be understandable given all the shit they have gone through. Even a one or two step back thing. It's hard to hold on to the present when all this shit keeps coming up, trying to knock them backward again... and again.

He just wants to win once. He wants to not be used, not be shoved around, not be bullied, not have choices taken away from him. That's all they all want.

Jeremy hates Klaus. He hates him for everything he's taken from all of them, and he still wants to call the shots, wants the cure for his own reasons. Jeremy doesn't really know how much sentencing his sister to a life as a bloodbag is much, but she never wanted to be a vampire.

He knows that much, not like he did.

They are friends despite... everything. Honestly, Jeremy wouldn't have been surprised if Tyler didn't want to come at all out here, because of what- what he'd done. Guilt can weigh like lead. They're claws of their own.

"Florida? I could get behind that. Beaches, sun. Hurricanes, but I'd take that over this bullshit any day of the week."

Jeremy swallows thickly as he breathes in at what Tyler says and then he nods, remembering it, remembering Klaus did and how his fingers dug into his chest like he'd rip that heart right out. "...fuck," he mutters quietly in remembrance of it, of how he felt powerless in that moment, because two people he didn't want to die were once again... up on the chopping block.

And that was a time when Tyler had no control over his body, Klaus inside of it doing whatever the fuck he wanted with it. How many of them are gonna get possessed? Is it like the whole dying thing? Eventually they all go through it? It's bull shit.

[lockwood]

It's always Klaus. It somehow always comes back to Klaus, it's funny how many fucked up things in his life are threaded back to Klaus. He triggered the curse so he could be the werewolf sacrifice (not that he knows that's how that happened), he was the first hybrid, he nearly killed Jeremy and then Caroline, he had to give up his own body to the asshole just to make sure his girlfriend and none of the other vampires died in the process, and now he's lost his whole pack and his mother just because he tried to finally take the dick down.

Maybe it's foolish to think they could get a win. But Tyler had been so sure for once in his life he had a plan that was going to work. But Hayley had used him for her own agenda. Like he couldn't have helped her find her parents if she had just asked. The Lockwoods were loaded. Lives didn't need to be paid just so she could figure out where she came from.

But those lives were paid nonetheless.

But Jeremy's one of the few people who's never really turned his back on him. Even back when he was a total asshole, Jeremy was trying to help him, not that he knew how to accept it back then. When he was sired, Jeremy gave him the benefit of the doubt

He's not going to turn his back on him now. Maybe he can even help. Not that his help seems to actually do anyone any good in the long run. He freed the hybrids but what does that matter when they are all dead.

"Right? Sand, sun, no crazy Originals trying to kill us. My uncle Mason had a house out there, that's where we were going to stay." Cause you know, he's not using it anymore. But that part goes unsaid.

It's just another victim of Mystic Falls. How many people have they all lost by now?

He tenses as he watches Jeremy's reaction. He doesn't really remember anything from when Klaus was in his body, though Caroline's clued him in. He's not sure if that's a blessing or not. And yet here had been willing to do it again if it meant getting Klaus trapped somewhere in the long run.

He takes another long swig of beer. "I really thought for once I had outsmarted him. That I could beat him and it would --"

He stalls there. What would it do exactly? It wouldn't take back everything Klaus has done to him, to everyone, but it could prevent it from happening to anybody else.

Secretly, there's another reason Tyler doesn't want them finding the cure. If Elena's human again, Klaus can make more hybrids, more slaves. And he doesn't anyone else to go through that.