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

;; 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.

[misfitted]

Klaus needs to be destroyed, but they have been trying to kill him for so long now. Their attempts have only resulted in more deaths despite their best attempts. The deaths aren't their faults. The blood will always be on Klaus' hands, but it is never ending, and Jeremy doesn't have words for how much he hates it. He- there just aren't any at all. They never win, but they have to believe they can win sometimes.

If they don't believe it, what is there? Might as well end it all now, because what's the point of anything otherwise. Sometimes he really doesn't know how any of them are still alive. Somehow they are. Somehow they keep going, they keep pushing even when they shouldn't have reason to get up again.

He doesn't know if that makes them dumb or stubborn or both, but he's right there with Tyler. Somehow he's still getting up.

His sister has killed him, and he has killed three people, and there are endless amounts of innocents who are dead now. They continuously get used by people they trust, by people they love or care about, and somehow-

Somehow they keep going.

Then Tyler mentions his uncle Mason, and there's another wave of guilt. Mason is another person who is dead now, dead. Jeremy walked in on it. Listened to the torture. He tried to stop it, and it wasn't enough. It never is. He somehow swallows past it. Just take care of Tyler. Make sure this never happens to him. He doesn't know how anymore. How does he live with all this guilt anymore? Jeremy doesn't know. Doesn't stop to analyze it. "Seriously. Alcohol, sun, sand, that'd be nice," he says in a quiet voice. "Hell, even a vacation from all this shit would be nice for awhile, but it's never gonna happen."

It would be nice though. They all would deserve it. That break, that freedom from it.

Jeremy looks over at him after a moment, feeling something clench in his chest as he speaks, and Jeremy shakes his head.

"I know. I know, man. It was a good fucking plan, and it wasn't your fault," he says as he looks at him, and there's something tangled in his chest. There's an intensity to it, but he means every single word.

It wasn't Tyler's fault. It wasn't.

He was trying to save them, and hybrids don't live long under Klaus' control. Tyler was doing everything he could for them. Tyler is the best of all of them along with Matt and Bonnie. They're all the best of them, and they should just-

"You should get out. You and Matt and Caroline and Bonnie."

Just get out before it's too fucking late.

[lockwood]

"I just wish Hayley had said something, I could have helped her find her parents, I don't know why she'd need a sacrifice for that. I told them I'd help them, but what good did I do." No matter what, part of Tyler is going to still blame himself. He can't help it. The guilt is heavy in his chest, like it might crush him.

It's already too late.

Even if he left now, the damage is done. And maybe once upon a time Tyler would have said fuck it and left, fuck everyone else it's not his problem. But Tyler's not that guy anymore. And even if he should walk away, he can't. He can't just try a blind eye and know Klaus is still around terrorizing everyone else. He can't.

Besides, Caroline would never leave. She'd never abandon Saint Stefan and he's not entirely sure she even wants to leave Klaus these days (and that bothers him on so many levels, watching your girlfriend slowly fall for the guy who abused you? it's fucked up shit). And Bonnie wouldn't either. Or Matt. They're too good. They care too much.

They all care too much and it doesn't do any fucking good. It doesn't change anything.

They never win.

"Where would I go? You think he'd let me?" Tyler's made himself a target, and he knows now that for the rest of his life (however long that is, and it could be forever as he's part vampire now) Klaus is going to be breathing down his neck, making sure he's miserable.

"Besides, it wouldn't be right."

Friends help their friends. He remembers standing idly by while Jules and the other wolves tried to hurt Caroline. He can't stand idly by now. He just can't. He wishes he could sometimes. It'd be so much easier.

[misfitted]

"I don't know either," Jeremy says as he shakes his head, breathing in. "It's getting to the point where you really can't trust anyone, y'know? I mean, the moment you do..." There's the betrayal there, and it's not okay. Jeremy wishes that Tyler wouldn't blame himself, but he also knows in his position he would blame himself too.

It's not even completely about having a guilt complex so much as...

There's all this shit that constantly happens, endlessly happens over and over and over again, and it's out of their control, and he just- if he blames himself, if it's his fault (when Vicki was killed, when Anna was dragged away, when Jenna died, when Elena and Matt went over that bridge and she became a vampire), if he wasn't enough to stop it then it- then there's a reason for it. Then he can pretend like he has some kind of control over anything, he can pretend like what he does matters or makes a difference.

Because if he'd only tried harder, fought more, this never would have happened. It's damaging too, but living in a world where it feels like he has no control ever has its own damages.

Jeremy lets out a breath at the question, shaking his head. "I don't know." He really doesn't know, doesn't know what is going through Klaus' head, but he wants this cure so damn bad that he might not be willing to separate himself from it at least until it's all seen through.

He doesn't know.

"I just don't want-" He shakes his head, sliding a hand over his face. "Anyone else to die. You just lost your mom, and you shouldn't-" His voice cuts off in spite of himself, and he takes a drink.

Shouldn't have had to.

No one should have to but because of Klaus, because Klaus wanted to make him suffer, it just-

How do they live with all this anger and grief inside of him? He'll never know. Maybe that's why they never stop going. Why it's good they never stop, because if they did, they wouldn't be able to.

[lockwood]

"Everyone has their own agenda these days." You can't ever trust anyone. Even people who helped him like Hayley or Jules (who died instead of him for Klaus, another death he has to take ownership of) still used him. Hell, so had his uncle Mason. Even Caroline didn't just help him without other motives at first. And well, they all knew what a big mistake trusting Klaus had ever been. "But if you can't trust anyone, then what's the fucking point?"

Tyler doesn't know anymore. What's the point? Why are they still fighting these stupid useless fights like they can make any sort of difference? They're just kids. Sure he's a hybrid and now Jeremy's a hunter and everything's so fucked up but it doesn't change the fact that they're also just kids. He's barely eighteen. Jeremy's younger than that. How in the hell are they supposed to deal with this crap? How do they keep outliving the adults in this town? What the hell is going on?

It's an acute and dull pain all at once when he hears Tyler mention his mother. He knows he has to go home eventually to deal with the estate and things she wanted donated to the town's historical societies and everything else but all he can keep thinking is he just wants his mom back.

All she had wanted was to see him graduate. But now she's dead and whether he should or not, Tyler's always going to feel guilt over that. Over the hybrids. He can't help it. They died because of him. Because of what he tried to do.

Because he was dumb enough to think he could take on an original.

There's a lump in his throat and Tyler takes another long drink, finishing off his beer.

"I'm just so sick of burying people, you know?"

Of course Jeremy does. His parents had been the first to go. The start of all this.

[misfitted]

Jeremy lets out a really long breath at what Tyler says. There is so much truth in it that it hurts. Something like an anvil being shoved down on his chest as he shakes his head at the question. "I don't know," he admits, because he really doesn't. Like hell he trusts either of the Salvatores, and here Damon is trying to train him. His sister trusts Damon to do it, and Jeremy trusts him to turn him into whatever he has to be to get this done, but beyond that?

There's no trust, because he knows Damon doesn't give a shit bout him beyond curing his sister to find out if she really wants to be with him or not. Take away the sire bond. Stefan wants it for another reason, and Jeremy is caught in the middle of all of it. He's killed three people- vampires (two hybrids and a vampire) now.

He thinks he's supposed to feel something but he doesn't (other than guilt for Tyler's friend). Maybe if he ever stopped to think about it more, he would feel more, but he can't- he can't afford to stop. Ever. It just buries itself.

God, Tyler's mom never should have had to die, never. The feeling of it seeps into his chest and tries to explode there, but it doesn't. It never does. Grief has grown quiet. Grief has become apart of their skin. They wear it, but they never really feel it completely or for long.

There's just never time.

The question sends something spiraling into his chest as he looks down but then nods, achingly quiet with it. His throat tightens.

"Yeah." He doesn't know how he gets the word out at all. There's a small pained smile. "Me too. I'd give anything for it to just... stop."

For them to go a few months without losing someone else. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to help." Even if he obviously couldn't have been because he had no control over himself at all, which would have made him a liability, which means he wouldn't have been able to do anything anyway

And maybe Tyler wouldn't have trusted him after how Jeremy did as Stefan said, after what he did with the axe. Just like that.

[lockwood]

Trust comes at a cost. He trusted Hayley and she handed the hybrids to Klaus like leading lambs to slaughter. Hell, he trusted Caroline and she blabbed everything Stefan (though she just didn't want him encased in concrete, that one is easier to forgive even if he hates the hold the younger Salvatore has on his girlfriend).

He should have known after Chris died that things weren't going to work out because his priorities rarely seem to ever line up with anybody else's so why should they matter? They don't matter. Not to anyone else.

At Jeremy's words something twists in his chest. It's dark and painful and he wishes he could push it out but he can't. That feeling is with him all the time now. Despair. Hopelessness. Resentment because this is their lives and there seems to be nothing they can fucking do about it.

"Even just for a little while, so we could actually recover."

Because it's always one thing after another and no one gets a chance to actually deal with anything. There's always another tragedy around the corner.

This isn't how their lives should be.

At the apology he shrugs his shoulders a little. "You've had your own stuff to deal with." And he gets it. And he's not sure how Jeremy or anyone else could help. Liz's version of helping has been telling the town his mother drowned. It's a terrible accident. The whole town makes cheap shots about his mother the lush and he's really just glad to be away from it all more than anything else.

Even if only for a little while.

[misfitted]

There's no pushing it out. There's no escaping any of it, the despair, the hopelessness, the grief that should have crushed all of them at this point. It's like some endless cycle that they are chained to. Death, grief, anger, death, grief, anger. He doesn't really know if there is anything else.

"Yeah, anything... at this point would... be better than nothing. It just... doesn't ever stop."

They're all so fucking tired. Why would they be anything but tired?

Exhausted. It's not living. It's surviving, and it sucks.

Jeremy breathes in through that really heavy feeling over his shoulders. He's gotten used to it being there so he doesn't really notice, but sometimes it feels heavier than others. He wants all the violence, all the pain, all the death, all of it to stop for everyone. Tyler, his sister, everyone... it just doesn't stop.

"Yeah, there's just been... a lot of shit. Like always," he says softly, looking down at his arm where the mark is at as he breathes in and then takes a drink of the alcohol. "The shit doesn't ever really stop for anyone either." There's a small but sad smirk as he shakes his head. "At least out here it feels like you're away from a lot of it."

From the town, from the condolence casseroles, from people talking about shit that they don't know like they know.

[lockwood]

"Nothing ever stops in Mystic Falls."

It's one thing after another. One tragedy after another. Everyone dies in that town at least once if not multiple times. How are they supposed to deal with that? How the hell are any of them still getting up and out of bed anymore? Tyler doesn't know, it doesn't make any sense to him, not anymore.

Nothing really makes sense to him. He's still in shock, in some ways. Even for Mystic Falls...so many deaths on one night. His whole pack, and then his mother. How he is supposed to process that? Like how do you even begin to deal with that? Not to mention his father and Mason and Jules...

He nods a little at Jeremy's words. "I think I would have gone insane, staying in town. Do you know they're calling her death an accident" Tyler's words are strained because he knows damn well his mother didn't get drunk and fall into the fountain. It was Klaus. And now even her memory is being tarnished because of that asshole.

It never ends. There's always something else to lose.

[misfitted]

"No, it never does."

Jeremy doesn't know his sister said Nothing bad ever happens in Mystic Falls before the accident that happened where everything else started to spin out of control. It would seem really, really ironic to him now though, but it's true. Bad things didn't happen there, and then his parents died and... good things stopped happening.

The world went to hell. He felt like he was in hell, some type of numbness that he almost clung to, pain and grief that he couldn't express and couldn't get out. Then blood and supernatural and death, death, death... death.

At least when the blood is spilled with his own hands, it meant he had control... or it was supposed to mean that, but it doesn't. He doesn't have control even when he has these powers, these abilities that he never has had before. There's no control, just an endless spiraling.

Jeremy looks over at Tyler, wincing at what he says. "Seriously? Fuck. That's bullshit," he says, rolling his eyes as he suppresses the urge to toss the can of beer into the lake, and it's not even- It's just not fucking- He slides a hand over his face, closing his eyes as he shakes his head. "Jesus. That's not fair to you or to your mom."

It's bullshit.

Bullshit that he can't get justice for it, bullshit they are stuck in a world where they have no control and no choices, and what's the point of anything?

[lockwood]

Tyler was ignorant to most of it until his father died. Maybe that's what starts all of this in motion, someone dying. A parent dying. His father died his Uncle Mason came to town and suddenly he learns that there's a family curse. Werewolves. He triggers it and it's all downhill from there. One thing after another. So many deaths (including his own, including Caroline's, and Jeremy's) and changes and no matter how hard they try they can never get a win there.

Not even one.

Tyler nods in agreement, crushing his own can into a ball before he throws it at one of the trees. "It's complete bullshit. It wasn't an accident she was murdered. That bastard was upset that I freed his little slaves and took it out on my mother and now everyone just thinks she's some sloppy drunk and it's not right. It's not fair."

He has to take a deep breath then, trying to calm that anger, the rage that comes with being a werewolf (not to mention amplified vampire emotions) that seems harder and harder to manage these days.

Part of him doesn't want to manage it, that's what he doesn't say. It'd be so easy to just give in. To just turn it off.

[misfitted]

Jeremy remembers when his father died how they talked about everyone coming around and telling him his father was a great man, but Tyler said the difference was that his father wasn't a great man. His father was a dick, and Jeremy agreed with them and they had a drink before Mason interrupted. Now it's like the whole fucking situation was flipped around.

People are saying sorry while having that look in their eyes like they know some great, scandalous thing when they have no fucking idea.

He looks over at him, sensing the rage there in the way he crushes the can and throws it at the tree.

It's not fair. None of this is fair, but going over how it's not fair isn't going to help, it's not going to help Tyler, it's not- not going to do anything. Jeremy swallows a little as he shakes his head, reaching out a hand after a moment to set it on his shoulder. Tentatively, ready for it to be thrown off too.

He just-

"Hey, not everyone thinks that. I know differently. Most of the town thinks it, but they're all idiots and assholes anyway who just want someone to look down on while they go around their lives feeling safe and having no fucking clue. It's not fucking fair." It could never be fair. They can't fix it. The story is out there, and none of them would know what to do if they had any idea of what was really out there, of the threat that all of them have to face every single day. "But your mom was great. She loved you."

She did her best for Tyler.

And all of those fucking people can fuck off..

[lockwood]

It's the worst kind of switch. His mom wasn't perfect, no one is, but she had loved him, and their town and she had tried and all she wanted to do was see him graduate and now she's not going to. And everyone keeps whispering about her and her fate like it's some kind of joke.

But it isn't funny.

Tyler shrugs the hand off his shoulder, his body tensing more. It's not that he doesn't appreciate the gesture, but he doesn't trust himself right now. Sometimes, when his rage gets like this he wonders how long it'll be until he hurts the people he cares about. Like his father did. Like Klaus did. It's in his blood. How he's wired.

"She did." He remembers transforming in front of his mother, how she just blindly accepted him, monster and all. How that same day she told him how proud she was. He was a leader. A terrible one. She paid the price.

He opens up a new can, taking a long, long drink.

"I was supposed to pick her up that night." But after finding the hybrids he shut down emotionally and by the time he could think to move...Liz had already found her in the fountain. It was too late.

[misfitted]

Jeremy knows what it's like to not trust himself now. How many times has he held a stake up to his sister, stabbed her in the neck, fought off the urges to kill her, kill any vampire? So he doesn't think anything of it, he just lets his hand fall, looking ahead as he takes a drink from a fresh beer.

He'll give him the space he needs to deal with it. Tyler's been dealing with it for much, much longer than Jeremy has.

He breathes in at what Tyler says, and he shakes his head, looking over at him. "You... just found all- all those people, your friends, who were killed, Tyler. You couldn't have known what he was doing while you were... just trying to process that shit," Jeremy says, but he knows the guilt will remain there anyway. They have no control over any of this shit so why wouldn't it- why wouldn't they cling to guilt because at least then it would feel like they did, it would feel like there was something.

Even when there wasn't anything at all.

"...even if you had gotten there when you wanted to..." Tyler would have run into Klaus, and they'd both be dead, mother and son.

Klaus doesn't really let people escape the lessons he gives. One way or another, it's Klaus that has all this power, and they're looking for a way to stop.... that. No, they're not. They're looking for a cure. He wants to get that cure for his sister, but he really doesn't know... how he's gonna do it.

[lockwood]

Tyler doesn't remember being able to trust himself, not really. Even before the sire bond bullshit he's always had that werewolf rage. That need to destroy. It used to rule him. He hurt so many people because he just couldn't stop. He sometimes thinks he'll end up like that again. Sometimes he doesn't' care if he does. He doesn't ever tell anyone that part.

"I know," He breaths at Jeremy's words, and it stings in his chest. He's not sure that guilt will ever go away. That pang he felt every time he passed the taped off fountain. The way he stopped going outside and just stayed in that empty house, drinking alone because it was better than feeling any of this. His mother's dead. And it's on him. That's what he knows. "But none of them would be dead if I hadn't -- but I had to. I couldn't just let him destroy their lives like he did mine. They thought I was their leader, they just wanted freedom."

And now they were dead. Klaus trumps all. He always wins. Tyler doesn't care about the cure (except for the fact that he'd like to see Elena free of her sire bond, because no one deserves that). He's just here because Jeremy deserves that same freedom the hybrids did.

No one else seems to care about that.

[misfitted]

Jeremy can't remember what that would be like. He really can't. He has been flung into this feeling of not being able to trust himself lately, and it's terrible especially when it comes to giving him the urges, making him hurt people that he loves. His sister.

He shakes his head, and he doesn't know what's better for Tyler to feel the guilt or for him to feel like it's pointless. It's something Jeremy has been struggling with for a long time. If only he'd been stronger, if only he'd had more power, he could have saved Vicki, Anna, Jenna, his sister, someone but everything he has ever done to try to save them was never enough. The only time he ever did save someone he had a crossbow in his hands, he had the meat cleaver and blood on his face and hands.

That was what hunting was supposed to be for him. It was supposed to be power and choice finally, some say in what was going on in the world around him. It's why he got so excited about the new powers he could feel, and then- then it ended up being like... this.

Now Tyler helped so many people break free of something that turned them into people who had to fall orders of a ruthless vampire who would use them and force them to do terrible things. He helped them break free at it at great pain and cost to themselves and to Tyler and- and he's left thinking that it was his fault they died. It's just- it doesn't seem right when Tyler did more for them than Jeremy's ever been able to do for anyone. And not by being something supernatural (not only that), he did it by being himself, by talking to them, by pushing them, by encouraging them when they were afraid and needed it.

"You gave them that at least even if it didn't last very long. They could make their own choices. They didn't have to feel grateful for being enslaved," Jeremy says quietly, and he looks over at him slowly, because it still hurts. It's always going to hurt. "They were meaningless to him. You remember how easily he sent in that hybrid to die when Connor took over the Grill. He would have done that to all of them eventually, made them kill people, do things they shouldn't have to do, and that-"

Knowing now what it feels like to kill without having any choice in it, knowing what it feels like to hurt the people he loves without hesitation because something inside of him is telling him to do it even though he doesn't want to-

He'd rather be dead than to have no other option.

Jeremy can't speak for everyone of those that died, and he won't, and maybe having died so much, having lost so many people makes him think dying's not the worst thing, but... What Tyler did for them was amazing. "I know you're always gonna feel guilty for it, but you gave them something really important... that I don't think anyone else could have done for them."

[lockwood]

The guilt is new, or at least guilt like this is. He never felt that bad his father was dead (okay, so maybe he feels guilty about that) and there's no way he could have saved Mason. He's felt guilty about Jules though. She died in the sacrifice instead of him. While her intentions weren't always great she had tried to help him. And then she died in his place. At Klaus' hands.

It always comes back to Klaus, doesn't it?

But this. This was because of his actions. He tried to do something good, something right for once in his fucking life (he used to only care about himself, now he'd die to just get all those other lives back) and it just blew up in his face.

Tyler tightens when Jeremy mentions Chris. He can't help it. It was one of the first times he realized how his priorities didn't matter to the rest of the Mystic Falls supernatural bunch. Even Caroline hadn't stopped to think about it being his friend she was trading a date for. Jeremy himself had been the one to chop his friend's head off.

He remembers Klaus' words that day. Your existence is to serve me, to please me. No one deserves that. Chris deserved better. So did Kim and all the others. And maybe Jeremy's right, he got them that freedom, if nothing else. But it doesn't feel like enough.

"They just wanted to leave, not take on Klaus." That had been his idea. If they took on Klaus, if they stuffed into the ground in concrete then everyone could be free with no risk or consequence. It had seemed like such a good idea, at the time.

He takes another long swig of beer at Jeremy's words, nodding a little. "I just did what's right. No one should be forced to kill, be forced to do anything. Sire bond, hunter's mark, compulsion, it's all the same bullshit."

And they all deserve better than that. They deserve choices.

[misfitted]

Jeremy swallows at the response before he shakes his head again. "Leave and have to run forever? It's not much of a life, and you had a full proof plan." Until he was betrayed, and it's not Tyler's fault even if he knows he'll always feel that way, think that way.

He knows, because he'd feel the same way.

He has felt the same way about things other people would say aren't his fault, were out of his control, but he needs that blame to a certain extent to hold on to some false sense of control.

Jeremy stares down at his drink, thinking of Chris, thinking of Stefan in that cave with that freshly turned murderer, thinking of how it felt nearly killing his sister, how he completely blacked out to something else.

"No, no one should," he says quietly, staring out at the water though he half wonders if they'll ever get choices. They break those bonds, and people still end up dying around them one after the other.

It scares him what grows across his skin, what it carries, what it means, what it feels like because he doesn't always know if what he's feeling is his own, but...

"Still. Thanks for doing what's right. Not many people can do that lately either."

And he's including himself within that group.

For the choices he's made, for Chris.

[lockwood]

"Yeah. Too bad i trusted the wrong person." Why did he trust Hayley to get a witch? Why didn't he talk to Bonnie? Tyler's asked himself all these questions about a million different times and he can't find any answers to them. No matter what, it'll always feel like he could have done more. That he should have. He could of prevented this somehow.

He had been their chosen leader. Their alpha. For all that meant.

They grow silent, and though the other boy doesn't say anything, Tyler imagines he has to be thinking about his own situation.

"We'll figure something out. If there's a way to break sire bonds, there's a way for you to learn to control the mark or whatever."

Tyler has to believe that. Has to believe somewhere, there's still control for Jeremy. He knows how it feels to have that ripped away. To not even know what actions are yours anymore. How do you own something like that? There has to be a solution, an answer, something.

At the gratitude, Tyler shrugs a little. "I couldn't imagine not doing it."

No one really helped him when he was sired. Jeremy gave him the benefit of the doubt, which is more than can be said about anyone else really but ultimately, Tyler had been alone with the sire bond.

He doesn't want anyone else going through that.

[misfitted]

"Hey, we've... all done that," Jeremy says quietly like literally all of them have put their trust into someone that would betray them in the end. It's a wonder they're able to trust anything or anyone at all.

He takes another drink, and he nods at what Tyler says, grimacing slightly.

"Yeah, I- I hope so."

He'd give anything, sacrifice anything if it meant he didn't have to harm Elena anymore. Even legit feelings he is entitled to have /narrative tableflip.

He shakes his head with a slight smirk. "You know, you could just say you're welcome." But he's kidding.

But seriously, there's no need to downplay it or to downplay what this means to Jeremy too. Cause it means yeah. It means freedom... hopefully. It means someone giving a shit about him, and he's really aware that most people are here for his sister first.

And he gets that. She's Elena, and he's Jeremy but.

"It's... cool that you came up here or whatever." Even if he knows Tyler was really happy to get away. It does... mean a lot to Jeremy too and that's his best way of being... able to express it.

[lockwood]

"You'd think we'd learn." But to do that would mean never trusting anyone at this point -- and where would that leave any of them?

"There has to be something." Tyler has to believe that. Cling to the idea that people can be free in some real way in this world. Maybe it's foolish -- it probably is -- but he still has to believe it.

Tyler smirks a little. "But where would be the fun in that?" There's a beat and then. "You're welcome, though."

Jeremy deserves someone who's concerned about him. Not that Elena doesn't matter but it's kind of shitty of everyone to put Jeremy's well being and sense of self in the back seat just to save her. All sorts of fucked up.

"Well, it's cool that you let me"

Which is as close as Tyler is going to get to admitting he's glad Jeremy invited him.