dropping glasses just to hear them break

"Details better include something juicy about his forearms," she took a sip of her drink, tilting her head to the side to listen. She knew she came off as cool towards Caroline, but she truly did care for her friend… she only hoped that Caroline understood her well enough to see that. There was no education in emotions at the Erudite compound, no class on making friends, she wasn’t sure if she was doing this right. 

"Nothing about his forearms, but I did break his nose the other day," she told her. She was still pretty proud of herself for winning that fight, and even though Tyler was still kind of in her bad books, she was enjoying all the time they were spending together. At least it helped her to keep her mind off Stiles all the time. 

"Just take your time then, don't do anything you don't want to do," she told her, offering her a warm smile. "You know I'm always up for that. Coffee dates are good too, you know where to find me."

"You’re late," she perked an eyebrow, curious as to the reasoning behind Caroline’s tardiness (even if it was only five minutes). 

Caroline rolled her eyes at the girls version of a greeting, giving her an amused smile as she removed her bag and sat it on the seat next to her. "Hello to you too, and if you must know, I was training with Tyler," she told her, knowing this information would bring about a round of questions. The thing was, Caroline desperately needed someone to talk to about everything that had happened with the boys in her life lately. And Lydia was the person for that job. 

"My bad," he finally spoke, his voice low, still obviously tense. When he knew a fight was coming, like last night, he could control himself. But not when she took him surprise like that. That took a little extra effort Tyler didn’t have. "My bad," he repeated, "I didn’t think it through and I apologize." Tyler wasn’t against admitting when he was wrong, something he observed as Jackson’s fatal flaw, particularly on the field. Having to admit to his parents that he was wrong countless times, over and over again, made it no problem to admit it to Caroline. "But I couldn’t just—. There was nothing—." He couldn’t get any of his thoughts to completion. He was too wired now for thinking. His nose and his fist hurt too much.

Caroline didn't say anything as he struggled for words. She was too mad for forgiveness right now, and she was still kind of scared he'd try to hurt her again. "You couldn't what?" she spoke after a moment of silence, keeping a good amount of distance between them. "Let me win without humiliating me?" Caroline paused, trying to make sense of his stupid male brain to no avail. "Is this because I told you I care about you? Are you trying to prove that I shouldn't give a shit?" 

"Maybe it doesn't end that way sometimes," she shrugged. "Maybe there are people who just need a little bit of lovin' to heal those wounds. But a lot of the time they're just too deep Ellie. They can only fix it if they want to, and a lot of the time they're okay with being how they are." Caroline shifted slightly on the couch so she was facing the girl, her frown returning. "You know if you were ever going to put yourself out there, Matt would be the one to do it with," she told her. "Relationships are weird and scary if you've never been in one before, but you can trust Matt. He won't let you down. And he's incredibly patient too. Trust me, I know, I've painted several murals with that boy and he's the only one who stayed the whole time." 

Transfer from Erudite or not, seemed like those years had taught him nothing but how to do high level algebra. 

"You know my mom was in there, right? And Stiles' dad, and everyone I've known my entire life. Everyone thinks we slept together now, all because you couldn't deal with the fact that you lost a stupid bet." 

Without pausing, Tyler stood and shouted, gaining the majority of Dauntless’ attentions. Without further ado, he spoke loudly and clearly: “Attention, all you Dauntless bastards,” obviously already winning the crowd with his charm, he went on, “it is under agreement that I must announce that Caroline Forbes bested me in a fight last night and because of her, my perfect nose has been ruined.” The crowd had a reaction to this, jeering at Tyler, but he only smiled and waited till the noise quieted down a bit to speak again. “But fear not, for her or my reputation as a man — something I’m interested in protecting — Caroline made sure that I was okay after said fight. She nursed me up and I might even talked her into wearing a nurse’s uniform after spending the night in her bedroom last night,” and with his last word, he winked for extra effect, and while the continued their jeerings, they were more suggestive that they were before, and far more vulgar. Tyler laughed as he stepped down from where he had gained height, and after pushing off a few of his teammates who were giving him shit, Tyler looked for Caroline, almost half afraid to see her reaction because for a moment, he wondered if she would find this as funny as he did.

A part of her supposed she should have expected something like this. He was an arrogant, overly-confident Dauntless boy, just like she'd told him herself the night before. There was no way he'd let himself be shamed like that without bringing her down with him. Her face fell despite herself, and suddenly she wasn't hungry anymore. Tyler's eyes fell on her after he'd climbed down from his perch, a stupid fucking grin on his face. She glared back at him, putting as much hatred as she could into the simple look, something she was skilled at, before pushing her food away and standing up. Caroline turned and walked out of the room, ignoring the cat calls from the idiots Tyler's speech had inspired, knowing he would follow after her. 

Tyler shrugged because it was the only thing he could do. Maybe it was for the better, that she had no idea who he was. A “little-overconfident” was what kept him going most days. If he let that facade break for even a moment, he would be everything his father thought he was. Even in death, he would not give the elder Lockwood that satisfaction. “Whatever,” he muttered, lifting his glass to empty it, pouring himself a new one as soon as possible. “You’re a beautiful fool, Caroline, and I hope you make it.” Through Dauntless, he probably meant. Or everything.

"Whatever yourself," she replied, letting herself fall back against her bed. "I'm tired and I'm going to sleep. You can stay here if you want. On the couch, of course." The truth was, Caroline wanted to know more about Tyler. To understand why he acted the way he did. She wanted to know what he was hiding. Caroline wasn't sure why. Hadn't she just warned Eleanora about getting too close to the bad boys? It was just that... Tyler seemed different. Like he wasn't really anything like he wanted her to believe. "Goodnight, Lockwood." 

What do you wanna talk about? 

"Well," Caroline began, always eager to share a story, especially if it helped somebody else. "Bad, damaged boys are great for a time. They make things exciting and different, but it never ends well. You think you can change them, but you can't. You try anyway, because you think your love should be enough, right? And then when it doesn't work you end up getting hurt. It always ends in heartbreak, don't go there," she told her. Caroline knew she could only say so much, that even if Eleanora did listen to her words there would be parts of her that wouldn't believe what she said until she experienced it herself. That was how most things worked. "You and Matt! He's a great guy. You two would be so cute." 

Caroline frowned as she thought about his words. She didn't realise that the two had to be mutually exclusive. But she guessed it was that way for most people. If you didn't know someone why should you give a shit about what happened to them? But Caroline wasn't like that. She cared about pretty much everything, way too much. "I didn't know I had to know you to care about what happens to you," she told him, taking the bottle from him and taking a sip. "You seem okay to me so far. A little over-confident, like you're trying really hard to prove something. But okay nonetheless." 

So he hadn’t cared where they were going, but she ended up surprising him when she took them to her bedroom. Of the many things Tyler had seen since transferring to Dauntless, Caroline Forbes’ bedroom had not been one of them and that was a real pity, too. Tyler liked the blonde from what he had seen (and felt, after tonight) and he liked her well enough. He was pleased by which way the night had gone, even if his nose was broken. “Don’t we always have a choice in hurting people?” he asked softly, with an oddly sober voice, before looking back up at her and smiling. “I don’t care if you care or not, doesn’t effect me any.” But it would be nice, he supposed, though he didn’t dare add it out loud. 

Caroline was about to fire back a reply, but she paused at the tone of his voice. After all their banter she hadn't expected the conversation to turn serious. She gave him a small shrug of her shoulders as she sat back on her bed, holding her hand out expectantly for the booze. "Yeah, I guess so," she replied as she made herself comfortable. "Well, I do care, so you should start getting used to it." 

Caroline nodded. "Yup. And they're the ones who you have to look out for. The over-confident attractive jackasses." Caroline had had her fair share of those, and she knew exactly what kind of trouble they could get you into. She walked over as the girl made room for her on the sofa, dropping down next to her and letting out a sigh. "What I've learned is that you can't fix what's broken. Especially with that kind of damage. It's best to just stay away." Caroline raised her eyebrows in surprise, a wide smile following after. "Matt? Oh my god. That's actually perfect."