OT3: Angel/Caroline/Ric (I thought I’d keep messing with you, lol.)

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A couple of months after Damon and Bonnie returned from behind the veil, rumors of vampire activity hit campus. Oh no! Even though there can’t be any such thing as vampires, the fact that there are a bunch of them eventually draws in hunters. The Mystic Falls Gang scatters, at least all the ones with teeth.

Alaric is a bit lost, initially, without his buddies helping to keep him on the straight and narrow, but he eventually learns to get by on just enough human blood to keep him from losing his mind, heavily supplemented by animal blood supplied by butchers. He keeps hunting, keeps moving, but he misses being part of a family.

After a few years, he floats into Los Angeles. Seems like a good plan, it’s a big, anonymous city, and he doesn’t have to worry about the sun. He hears a rumor about a vampire private investigator, and when he goes to check it out, who does he find in the office but Caroline Forbes, living embodiment of the 100 emoji, with a plaque on her desk that says ‘PARTNER’.

Joyous reunion! They agree to meet after Caroline has done a few things in the afternoon, and Alaric asks if her boss might come. Caroline says he’s a big-time brooder and couldn’t meet them until after the sun went down, about 8.30, anyway.

Alaric starts picking up a little work for Angel Investigations, mostly just taking photographs and doing some research (it’s best he doesn’t talk to customers). He doesn’t even need to do it but it gets him out of the apartment and on the lookout for anything that might need staking.

Alaric and Caroline get closer, just skating the edge of flirtation. It seems like a bad idea, though, until one weekend Bonnie comes to visit, and she’s fifty years old and still beautiful but suddenly the age difference doesn’t seem remotely relevant.

Which also, sort of, makes them both glance sideways at Angel.

He’s difficult to read, harder to draw out, but eventually they get him coming out with them occasionally (by ‘out’ I mean usually drinking in the back room of the office, and by ‘occasionally’ I mean twice in the span of two months, at first. And then it’s a couple of times a month, and one night Alaric admits he knows Angel’s story inside out and really doesn’t give a crap. He just likes knowing the Mikaelsons aren’t as special as they think. Angel actually cracks a smile at that. Caroline waxes lyrical about all of their terrible friends, and how Stefan and Angelus should compare kill counts some time, they’re close enough in age. It’s nice, he thinks, spending time with people who know him, but have no vested interest in his guilt, just their futures.

First time they share a bed there’s a lot of complaining that Angel’s bed is far too small. Caroline orders a California King the following morning, and after that, she and Alaric more or less move in. True love? Probably not, but they’re all pretty happy, and that’s honestly enough.