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eluding ] i'm sorry about the blood in your mouth. i wish it was mine.
Elena was stupid.
She was stupid and forgetful and selfish to think for even a moment things could be different here. That she could go to college and make a life for herself and so could everyone else. To think for a moment it wouldn't be like this and they wouldn't end up here.
Here, in the darkness where the screams echo down every taunting hallway, bones cracking under the weight of an iron fist.
It wouldn't matter as much if it was only hers, but it's never only hers.
Is it? (She was so stupid.)
She doesn't know how many days it's been since she was captured, but it's felt interminable. Elena is being dragged down into a basement, a man flanking either of her side. The scuffle can be heard from a mile away. She would be much more compliant if she was assured everyone else's lives would be spared, but her compliance isn't necessary anymore. She's always known her choice: between her and her family, it would always be the latter. Somewhere in between Where's Jeremy? and Go to hell she's picked up and unceremoniously thrown into one of the cells below.
She lands on her knees, palms flattening over the harsh floor. She grunts at the landing, wincing as the side of her stomach throbs in protest.
The cell itself is poorly lit, and all she can hear is the faint rustling of chains. Her shoulders stiffen and a tremble is effectively stifled.
She knows she's not alone. "Who's there?"
She was stupid and forgetful and selfish to think for even a moment things could be different here. That she could go to college and make a life for herself and so could everyone else. To think for a moment it wouldn't be like this and they wouldn't end up here.
Here, in the darkness where the screams echo down every taunting hallway, bones cracking under the weight of an iron fist.
It wouldn't matter as much if it was only hers, but it's never only hers.
Is it? (She was so stupid.)
She doesn't know how many days it's been since she was captured, but it's felt interminable. Elena is being dragged down into a basement, a man flanking either of her side. The scuffle can be heard from a mile away. She would be much more compliant if she was assured everyone else's lives would be spared, but her compliance isn't necessary anymore. She's always known her choice: between her and her family, it would always be the latter. Somewhere in between Where's Jeremy? and Go to hell she's picked up and unceremoniously thrown into one of the cells below.
She lands on her knees, palms flattening over the harsh floor. She grunts at the landing, wincing as the side of her stomach throbs in protest.
The cell itself is poorly lit, and all she can hear is the faint rustling of chains. Her shoulders stiffen and a tremble is effectively stifled.
She knows she's not alone. "Who's there?"
no subject
How does anyone prepare for this? Adam told them, and they-- it isn't something you can wrap your head around how much of a twisted fuck your father is until he's ripping apart your brothers and your loved ones and your family.
Because he can.
Because people aren't people. People are toys for him. You were made to be a toy for him before you were even born, that is how much of a toy that you really are. Not human. Why did you ever fucking fool yourself into believing it?
Ethan doesn't know when-- how long it's been. It is impossible to keep track of days when there is no light that reaches the basement, when there is nothing (no sound) but the screams of those he loves and his own to follow, which he has become so familiar with. Lucien's orders, Lucien's desires that they all recognize what it's like, know what it's like to hear each other scream.
A slow descent into madness is what he wants for them all, madness and breaking and reshaping.
And he doesn't know if anyone else is alive, who else is alive. They have to be alive because sometimes he hears them screaming too, but there's nothing- no news. Complete separation, only Lucien for company and his constant orders, ones he wants Ethan to obey without having to force him. If he doesn't, that's where the pain comes in. That's where the rest of it comes in.
He hears the doors open of the cell, and he doesn't raise his head because he doesn't think for one moment- It's her voice, and it's so familiar, and it's the first thing he's heard in hours that has given him any kind of hope, any kind of sense of who he is (so, so stupid to hope).
There are chains on him, keeping him from reaching close to the door for when it's opened. It's her voice that he hears though outside of all that. Her voice, and he'd been so afraid she- she was dead. Tears burn at his eyes as he looks across the floor through the dim lighting.
"Elena?"
no subject
At the very least, Elena knows it's been days since she saw any of them, since she was able to reach for them. She could hear them faintly from where she was locked up, the bone-chilling screams that'd make her try to break down any of the four walls surrounding her to no avail. She doesn't know what was worse. Hearing the screams or not hearing anything at all, knowing it could mean they were dead.
They were dead, and she wouldn't be able to live with that.
History is repeating itself all over again, and she promised herself that she would keep that from happening. She would do everything in her power to keep it from happening again, to keep anyone from dying but she can never seem to stop anything.
It doesn't matter how hard she fights and what she plans and negotiates.
She's moments away from resting her head against the bars when she hears him. Elena lifts her head at the sound of his voice, at her name, the hope she should've trampled down immediately climbing up her throat.
The relief that floods into her has tears welling up her eyes. They don't fall, and they remain there instead, stinging. "Ethan?" she asks in return, his name caught in between her sharp breath, uncertainty and relief warring against each other.
Relief eventually wins out. Elena doesn't invite the fear in, not for a moment. She's never been able to afford it, and it's no different now. There's no room for fear, there's no room for doubt, she simply has to keep going and finding a way out of this.
For all of them. Her name on his lips reminds her of this.
She brings herself to her feet as quickly as she can to make her way over to him, grabbing his face once the distance has been erased. "Oh my God, what -- " she glances down at the chains cuffing his wrists. The fury quietly rages on inside at the sight of him. "What did he do to you?"
no subject
But Ethan wouldn't be surprised to learn that it has only been days since it's all happened. The screaming, the pain, the all of it made every hour seem like it was weeks and eventually time lost its meaning completely. There was no such thing as time.
There was no such thing as Ethan. The only times he remembered himself eventually as it got deeper and deeper was when he heard the screaming, when he heard the screaming of all the people he loved, and he remembered. He remembered his brothers, Elena, all of them, and it reminded him of the part inside of himself, the all of Ethan that loves and wants to protect and to be loyal.
Not the rage. There has been so much anger and violence, and it hasn't only been Lucien's despite Ethan's attempts to fight against it, fight against being the violent, hungry werewolf that was born and bread inside of him. It's what he was made to be by this father, by Lucien before he was even born.
That is his purpose.
Lucien has been brilliant at bringing that purpose out again and again, and Ethan has fought against him, has said no, has screamed and shouted and refused. Despite the fact Lucien holds all the cards, and he keeps pushing and showing how he has every single card in his hand.
There is nothing Ethan can do but remain, remain in the cell with the-- with the chains to weigh him down and to keep him in place and to keep him from reaching the door. Where he'd bang his fists against to the point the door would shake and his fists would be bruised.
It's Elena, and he knows it as soon as she says his name back to him even if he's never heard her say his name like that before. His expression crumples at the sound of her voice. It's the most beautiful (
really terrible though he doesn't know it yet, so stupid) thing that he has heard in his whole life maybe. It feels like his whole life."Elena," he says her name again, and his hands reach up despite the sound of the chains, the shackles that hold him there.
His hands reach up for her hands, shaking like he can't believe it, and he can't. He almost can't believe that he's holding on to her, that his hands are over hers, and he almost-- All that violence that's been built up in his chest over time, he shakes his head at the question. There's no way to answer that question, and he knows... knows Lucien touched everyone. Didn't leave anyone without scars.
"I-- I thought you were dead," Ethan says, voice tightening painfully as he feels her, and he can feel that she is not dead. His voice is shaking as he tries to look at her in what dim light is available to them. "You're not dead."
And he doesn't-- it's sinking in slowly.
Why is she here? The trepidation, but he's-- he's so relieved to see her that he hasn't-- it hasn't occurred to him yet. The steps heading toward them that he can hear distantly.
no subject
She doesn't know where Damon is either, and Ethan is honestly the first person that she has had contact with since it all began. It's the not knowing that's killing her. It's having no bargaining chip whatsoever, because he's winning. Lucien (she could never think of him as Ethan's father) is winning, and he holds all the cards, and why would he let her family go when he can have them all at his disposal?
She should've seen it coming from the start. She shouldn't have let her guard down, not for an instant. Elena feels so stupid and she's always known better, always known better, so why should this time have been any different?
It's the story of her life.
It's who she is and how it leaves nothing untouched. It creates destruction and loss wherever she goes. There isn't any escaping it. Whether she's here or she's in Mystic Falls, it ends the same, and she wonders if that's the whole point. If there even is a point to be found. She can't reach any of it, not when the guilt threatens to drown her instead.
Lucien wants them to suffer.
The sadistic levels he reaches are unlike anything she's ever seen before. The ceremony could be over and done with but he wants to draw it out as long as he can. He wants them broken by the time the moment arrives, and she's terrified he'll get his wish, that much more resistant to giving in so easily and yet --
She swallows past the bile threatening to rise up her throat, fingers digging slightly into the skin on his cheeks as he says her name again. She brings him closer, her chin resting briefly against the top of his head as she looks around, as if she'll find anything worth helping them. There's nothing.
"It's me," she whispers, blinking away the burning in her eyes. It stings, threatens to blur her vision whole, threatens to make her feel weak and she doesn't think she can afford that, either. She draws back long enough again to look at his face. She can make out the shape of it, the brightness of his eyes in spite of the dimness, and it makes her chest hurt.
"I'm not dead. We're not dying," she says, the firmness in her voice leaving no room for doubt, even if it all -- it all seems hopeless but it can't be. It isn't something she's willing to accept, not now, not ever. Everything that's happened, it couldn't have been meaningless. "Okay? We're not dying."
It couldn't have been for nothing.
All the fighting, all the hoping, all the preparing. They're not simply marionettes being lead by cable wires. She's not leaving him here to die and she's not letting anyone else get hurt in the crossfire, either. The alternative isn't something she's going to contemplate.
(And yet.)
Elena grows quiet at the steps.
They're distant until they're not, until she can see the shoes as they inch closer. Her grip on Ethan tightens reflexively, protectively as if that changes anything, as if she's ever been able to keep anyone safe. Elena lifts her head, blinking through the darkness, the constant, harsh pounding of her heart giving it all away.
no subject
They're told nothing, and it's part of it, isn't it? Keep them separated, confused. It leads to madness more than anything Lucien can touch them with, and he would know that. As someone who has never loved (couldn't have ever loved), he somehow knows how to use that love against all of them to splinter their minds into pieces, and he can't-
It's his father that has done all of this to all of them. The reason that he exists at all is the reason they are all here, and he needs to know where everyone else is. He needs to know every single thing that has been done to everyone he loves so he can pull it on himself, so he can feel it himself, and so he can rip something apart for it, so he can rip himself apart for it that's what he really wants...
so he can use it to destroy himself before he becomes what his father wants him to become, because he can't.
He can't become someone that does this to people. He can't- He can't- It's what he wants, and he cannot.
Ethan lifts his head as she brings her head up to him, resting her chin on his forehead. He closes his eyes briefly, but it's her. It's her, and he lifts his hands up to slide over hers, shaking.
"It's you," he repeats in a low, hoarse voice, pulling it into him as it slides in like a knife into his throat, into his chest like a blade of knife. He can't breathe through it, and he swallows back the feeling in his throat. It all hurts. It all has hurt over and over, but he hasn't given in.
He's good. No matter what he's done to him, Ethan hasn't given in. The blood spilled, the bones broken and rehealed, it didn't matter. He wouldn't give in. He wouldn't-- wouldn't- he stayed strong despite the type that he was the one to run, to avoid always, nonstop again and again. Ethan didn't avoid, knew he couldn't, knew he had to take a stand.
And he did, he said no, he said hurt me and break me and make me bleed and scream all you want, I will not. I won't. You can't make me a monster too. You won't make me a monster too. You won't make me do what you want, you are not the ruler of me.
Ethan looks at her through the darkness, the bare light there when she says that she is not dead, they will not die. How- and he lets out a laugh that is empty and broken in its sound, shaking his head as the pain strangles his throat. How can she still have hope? He doesn't understand it. He doesn't understand if she's hoping because she needs to... and not because it's real.
"We're not," he says, and he says it because... because he knows she needs it, and he can do so little after all this, after how he is shaking. His hand slides around his arm, and he forces himself to find the strength to hold on to her arm.
And he... lets out a helpless sob. The steps are happening, and he hears them, but it's not until she tightens her hold over him, her hold over him. It's not- He should be protecting her. It should be him protecting her, and he- he can't- It should be him, and it's why he lets out a sob, strangled in the sound of his throat.
Before he pushes his head up to glare in the sound of those foot steps. He is so familiar, so familiar with the sound of it that he doesn't wonder who it is.
It's Lucien. It's his father.
"What a beautiful reunion," he says calmly, taking a drink from his wine as he looks at them both. The sounds of it enter his head, ticking away, bounding way into a melody of its own. Lucien tilts his head to the side, and he can see through the darkness at them. "You're welcome. I believed that you two might have missed each other especially with how you continued to scream her name, Ethan."
Nothing but red.
Ethan shoves past the pain and the weakness and the rest as he lifts his head, and he glares at the man that made him, terrified all at once, terrified more than ever before because it's not just him. It's Elena too. "Leave her out of this, please." And he nearly chokes on it, nearly hates himself for begging.
no subject
It pierces at something inside of her, and while she keeps her hands on the side of his face, her own expression nearly crumbles as it reaches her. The mournful sound rushing past her ears until it's all she can hear. She doesn't know if it's hope or sheer delusion at this point.
The greatest secret of all is Elena is a fatalist where it really matters, and she should've never forgotten that to start with. There's a hatch in the high, high ceiling but it's sealed shut, and impossible to reach. The hopelessness wants to seep in through the cracks and Elena can't allow it, not when he sounds the way he sounds and looks the way he looks.
She hasn't been tortured much as of yet, aside from taking her blood and setting it in bags, but the real torture for her has been listening to what has been done to everyone else. To the broken bones and the broken screams and not able to do anything but pound against the door.
Nothing could be more torturous to her than that, whatever they could've done to her own body, and Elena doesn't doubt their own strength or bravery. They aren't so easily broken down, and they've fought against it as it's all they can do, it's all she knows how to do.
We're not, he says, and her eyes close against him, lips briefly resting at his temple since she doesn't know that he believes it, that she believes it anymore either, but she holds on tighter as if that means something. As if she can hold on to anything and anyone in the end.
"Just hold on," she whispers. There has to be a way. There were people aside from them that were looking into the Society, that know they were aware of it as well, and they could be searching for them. It's not much, but it's a thought Elena had when she was trying to grasp at straws. Once the ceremony begins, there's no turning back, but --
It's not about her surviving this time.
She just wants everyone else to.
It's her blood that needs to be spilled, ultimately.
Her palm splays over the side of his face as she brings him over, glancing upward but there aren't any windows.
She grows cold at Lucien's words, but Elena isn't one to cower, and she refuses to react to them. It's what he wants and Elena never wants to give him what he wants, even as her face grows visibly pale at the mention of Ethan screaming her name. Her eyes tear themselves away from Ethan to look at the bars of the cell.
There's no where to run and the solid realization of it has her heart picking up its speed, beating painfully against the bars of her ribcage as it fighting to make its way out.
It isn't as if she's devoid of fear.
Fear is certainly coursing through her veins strongly along with plenty of other emotions, namely hate and apprehension. The dread sinks into and pools at her stomach, balling it tightly into a knot. In spite of this, her back straights like a rod, her jaw sets stubbornly, and her eyes darken with purpose.
They practically glower with the hate and revulsion that she feels for him, her eyes, jaw still locked tightly enough she feels the strain of it at her teeth. "What more do you want?" she asks, breathing through what feels like fire swarming her chest.
He has everything he needs for the ceremony.
He's had plenty of fun at their expense. What is the point he's trying to make before it all comes to a head? Elena had been comforted by the belief he'd needed her alive. As long as she was a bargaining chip of some kind, there was something to bargain, and she could just as easily plunge a knife into her stomach the way she did with Elijah.
Elena wouldn't think twice before she did it, and it's Ethan's reaction that reminds her how there is nothing she will not do so as long as there was something she could barter with.
Now she's not so sure.
no subject
It's helpless how it comes out of him though. He doesn't know-- there-- they are probably alive ,but he doesn't know that that is a comfort anymore. After everything he has went through, after all these hours, it's no comfort to know they are still out there too, suffering again and again day in and day out. His brothers. People he loves and cares about, and he knows even if she wasn't physically touched, the worse torture of all this--
It's not knowing. It's hearing the screams and not being able to get to them. It's knowing someone you love so much is feeling more pain than you would ever want them to feel.
Everything-- all of it still hurts, and it's not so much the physical pain of it anymore, and he knows there are scars on him though he is healing. The healing too (as fast as it is) it's Lucien's. Every pat of him is Lucien's, and he hates it, he hates himself, he wants to tear himself apart until there's nothing but Ethan left... knowing even if he could, he couldn't survive that way. His body is not his own.
That has been made fantastically, terrifyingly clear to him, and he knows it, thudding in his chest like this constant reminder that none of his body is his own.
He doesn't know how she's doing it. Delusion or real hope, he doesn't know. He doesn't know, but he knows she needs to believe it, and it's all he can give to her after everything that has happened. It's the very least he can give to her, and he'll believe it too, because without it, it means believing he becomes what his father wants for him, for his brothers, and he can't- he would rather be dead. He should be dead instead of that.
His hands slip up against her face, and they're warm but they are shaking and they are weak and uncertain, because he doesn't trust his own body if it is not his own. His hands slip through her hair, and he closes his eyes at the-- the feeling like a fire in his head and his chest.
I'm so, so sorry.
"I won't leave you alone," Ethan says finally when he can manage words, and he has gathered all the strength inside of him, all the Ethan that is still there even if he is there in pieces. He reaches his hands up to slide around her face this time, and he looks at her through that darkness. "I won't leave you."
She doesn't have to tell him to hold on. He will be there, now that he knows she is alive too. There's no part of him that could ever abandon her, and it is nothing that he has to try at, nothing that is impossible for him to do.
It's natural.
If she's alive (and she has to stay alive that- there is no other alternative for him), he will survive. He will live. He will hold on as Ethan, and he won' let his grip on sanity lessen, he won't let his grip on hope and on fighting and on a fire that barely exists inside of him go.
He breathes in as her palm presses against his face, and his hand slides over hers, taking it in his own as he looks at her, so much tangled in his chest, always tangled there. An I love you he should have given her before they were ever shoved in a situation like this one.
his father knew it, his father would use her name against him to make him scream, to make him--
Ethan glares from his spot, hands still on Elena, but he knows-- he knows who has the power in this situation, and it's not him and it's not Elena even if her bravery, her fight is ... breaking him. His heart cracks open, and he tries to keep himself from shaking. It's his fucking father.
He shoves himself up to his feet though the chains remain around his wrists still, shackled there. And he's shaking as he does so, wincing as he does so, resting back against the wall behind him, pain flooding through him.
"There's no need to use such a rude tone," Lucien says, tapping his finer tips on the bars and the sound echoes into the cell as he shoots her a look. Such fire, Elena. If you were a witch, he would take you in a heartbeat, less than a heartbeat. Never enough birds in cages to play with but this will do, this purpose will do, and he wonders how long she'll keep that fire tonight. "I know you've both been quite busy. You likely didn't know what day it was today."
Ethan keeps his hand on Elena until his own fury gets too much, and his hands become fists at his sides, tightening and shaking. His nails press into the skin of his palm and start to bleed. "Get on with it," he says, the fire and hatred coming out in his voice.
"You've only got a few hours until the full moon. I thought you'd appreciate the company, boy."
Less than a second later, Ethan has sprinted forward with all his strength and speed at the bars that he can't reach. Panic and rage enter him in equal measure beyond words as soon as he realizes, and he screams, growls at him all at once. It's nearly inhuman the sound and as soon as he realizes what sound he's making, the fact that he probably knocked Elena down in his desperation to get to his father, he'll feel terrible.
But he can't-
he can't-
not her not her not her not her not her
"This is what happens when you disobey me," Lucien says plainly, unmoved by Ethan's shoving himself at the bar, his fists flailing at the metal there, shackles digging deep into his skin.
"You can't. You have to take her out of here- You have to get her out of here you can't do this to her! You can't do this! You can't." And he's screaming, practically trying to escape his own skin, his own bones, fire running like a wildfire over his chest and his eyes and the whole of himself. Lava shoving through him, burning deep in the pit of himself.
And Lucien laughs from his position.
He laughs.
His father laughs.
this is what he wants.
this is what
ethan was made for
because he stopped running, because he said no instead of caving
elena elena please don't please no no not her not her he can' hican't ican't
It's not hit him yet, not fully, it hasn't, it can't as he tries desperately to reach the bars but ends up on the floor of the cell instead fighting against something that can't be fought againtinsteadhe
he ca
he n
he can't
"I wouldn't tell me what I can or can't do."
Echoing in his head.
no subject
Not the sounds, not the grief, not the fear that he's feeling.
She's been agonizing through it all, wondering how he'd be fairing, how all of them would be fairing. They've learned well by now that death is nothing if not the most merciful of their options, and if surviving wasn't so ingrained in her she would see that maybe their not being a way out of this for everyone else isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Elena, from the moment she was apprehended, knew she was going to die. There wasn't any way around it. Once the ceremony has been concluded, in either world, the doppelganger has to die. It's called a sacrifice for a reason, and she's nothing if not too willing to be what is sacrificed so as long as everyone else is spared.
There isn't any option of sparing them.
Not when the people involved are his sons. Not when it's someone as twisted as Lucien who has so many agendas she can't keep them straight. It's more than just restoring his full power. It's more than just gaining back his immortality. He wants his army. He wants his witches. He wants to break them just to prove he can.
The tears well up in her eyes again once he holds her face, and she feels the warmth in his hands, the trembling in them as he holds them. Her grip on his own face tightens, as if a reminder he needn't be so cautious. She isn't scared of him, and while he may not trust himself at the moment, she does.
"I know you won't," she says, her voice thick with the tears that won't fall. Her face finally crumples because she sees it. The pieces. What's left of him. The once lively man filled with energy and restlessness is now in pieces and it hurts. "I know you won't leave me. I trust you."
She doesn't look away from him, as painful as it is, her palm sliding further up his cheek until it's resting at his neck. Her fingertips are directly against his pulse line, the reminder he's still alive, and as long as they're alive it can't be hopeless. It can't be, and she brings him over to her, her forehead resting against the side of his face.
The emotions tangled up in his chest are the same ones that are tangled up in hers, tightening it until she doesn't think she can breathe. It shouldn't have ended like this, it shouldn't have been like this at all, and she doesn't know how to change it.
She doesn't know how to go back.
"I'm not leaving you, either."
Elena is literally incapable of doing so.
There's no way to know where everyone else is. If they're alive or if they aren't. If their brothers -- she doesn't allow herself to finish that thought or she'll finish breaking. There's no way of knowing anymore, but he is before her and she knows that as long as he's breathing, in whatever condition he finds himself, Elena will not leave him.
You've only got a few hours until the full moon.
Her heart stops.
Her heart actually stops for several beats when he says it. It stops right in her chest before it all but stumbles out of her, as if it's dropped onto the floor, and the rest of what is said between Ethan and Lucien is drowned out by the palpable quickening of her heartbeat once it's rammed back into her, full throttle.
Elena stumbles when Ethan races towards the bars.
The shock hasn't worn off, not by a longshot, and she doesn't try getting back up. At least, not at first. She backs up against the wall instead as it slowly dawns on her why she was brought here. The full moon. That means Ethan -- Ethan is going to turn into a werewolf while they're both in the cell.
She feels sick to her stomach along with the horror that rams into her all at once. The panic she's been fighting off so successfully bubbles up to the surface helplessly, and she should've known she wouldn't be allowed to see any of them if it wasn't for a price.
That's the lesson everyone learns in this godforsaken universe, isn't it?
Elena shakes her head, her eyes burning, her chest flaming with it. "N-no."
Her eyes drop to the ground as she tries wrapping her head around it, wrapping her head around the thought of anyone sick enough to do something like this, and to their own son, no less. But he doesn't think of them as sons, does he?
They're projects.
Disposable ones, at that.
The evidence of it only fuels her anger and hatred further.
"I hope you rot in hell, you sick bastard," she practically spats out, unable to hold her tongue in spite of what she knows they will not be changing, for all their protests and all their fighting against each and every challenge that's been posed on them, as if they're lab rats trapped in a maze.
Her hands curl over the bars, gripping them tightly as her eyes flash with hatred. It is all-consuming. Not even the thought of Klaus could bring forth such a visceral reaction anymore.
"You can't do this. You need me alive, at least until it's all over. You don't know how much blood you require for the ceremony. You don't know how it works because it's never been done before. You wouldn't risk it," she says, forcing the panic to stay out of her voice in csae it's not true, but everything about what was written in the books was vague.
A doppelganger had never existed before in this universe.
The blood of the doppelganger must be drained.
There's no word on how much of her blood he needs.
This has to be another test.
It has to be unless he's found a loophole he isn't being forthcoming about and she needs to believe there isn't any because the thought of her -- the thought Ethan being forced to rip her to shreds is not something she can stomach.
Please, no.
Anything but this.
Anything but this.
no subject
His walls, which there never were many really beyond what he would run behind and hide behind, have been unceremoniously torn down one after the other after the other until they were lying crumbled at his feet instead of around him. There's no strength, no energy to run anymore, and it is impossible to run from something that is Inside of you, that made you, that has you in a cage.
It's everywhere.
Inside, outside, touching him, in his head, screaming at him all the time, but it's his screams.
Ethan never wanted her to die. He had hope. He had so much hope that the ceremony wouldn't happen, that she wouldn't die, that she would be saved, because it is not right-- it is not right for his father to kill the one person he loves the most outside of his family. It is not fair, and it is not right for a second that he do so.
It can't be--
It can't be how it ended, and he wouldn't let himself think about it as terrified as he was. He wouldn't let himself think that there was an ending where any of them died, where she died as she was 'meant' to do so, a sacrifice. Fuck all those words and ceremonies and bullshit, she is so much more than the fucking doppleganger.
And fuck Klaus and fuck his father and fuck everyone that has ever reduced her to a blood bag and used her and abused her in any fucking way, because she is so much more than someone that reminds them of their former girlfriends or someone to be compared or someone who should be sacrificed for their own desires of more power.
She is a person. She is an amazing and wonderful fighter who changes the people around her for the better, makes their lives better, and fuck.
Fuck, he wouldn't let himself think for a second that it was a possibility, because he wouldn't have been able to live with it.
Ethan is strengthened by her tightening her hold on him, hearing what she doesn't say out loud that she trusts him, that there is no need for uncertainty. His hands slip back into her hair as he looks at her, removing the uncertainty from his motions for this brief moment.
I know you won't, she says, and he can see her face crumple in what little light there is, and i breaks-- breaks something further in him, because he- they shouldn't be here at all, and he wants her safe, them safe, and far away from this. Back to the nights they shared, the movie nights and the times when they were sick and had to shove each other in their beds and not this.
I trust you, she says, and his face nearly crumples but instead because it is Elena and he can hear the certainty in her voice. Instead of his face crumpling, he leans forward, hands till on her face, and he kisses her with everything that he has, everything that is Ethan while Ethan is still around, because there aren't any guarantees.
There are no guarantees that she will be allowed to live.
There are no guarantees that he will be allowed to remain himself, and he pours everything, months of tangled up feelings that he never allowed himself to examine and untangle that would have been too late- it's too late.
He pulls back breath shaky as he feels her hand reach, find his pulse, and he nods against her. Ethan is still alive too. They're both still alive. His hands remain against her face, keeping her close to him.
Ethan nods, voice a mess, a tangle of emotions. "I know you wouldn't. You never would," he says even if he'd understand. He knows she wouldn't. She's a fighter, a survivor, and she wouldn't abandon him here to be on his own here. He never would, and she never would.
It's that loyalty. Their core characteristics that connected them when their outward ones seemed so wildly different on the surface level.
They won't leave each other, and it's a comfort.
...it was a comfort.
Until Lucien takes that too.
The whole of it rushes down on him in waves, and he doesn't recognize himself or find himself in his hatred and his panic and his pain. The panic is pushing forward above all else. It's what he wants, but there is literally nothing that has ever been more terrifying to Ethan than this, than having anyone be on the other side of that violent force within him, the animal and monster that is more a part of him than he is when the moon is out in full.
...and at other times it feels like,, like it would be too loud if he ever stopped running, stopped moving for too long.
It bred his restlessness. His terror bred his restlessness, his refusal to face anything of his own, to have anything real, and now it's-- now it's manifesting in the worst possible way. It's not just anyone that would be on the other side of it. It's elena.
It's elena with no way- no where to go, no- there's no escape, and it's squeezing down on his chest like two boulders smashed together.
He's pounding, fighting against the bars that he can't even reach because of the shackles digging into his flesh, and it's-- the pain is nothing that he feels,, because it's nothing in comparison to the pain that he feels at the thought of ever hurting her even a little bit. Even a little bit. Not- not not ripping no-
Ethan can't. He can't-
This can't be happening.
This isn't happening. He needs to die. He needs to be killed. He needs to not be alive, and he can't reach and he's breaking his bones in the attempt, already- already it's loud. already it's loud in his head, and it wants to tear him apart ,tear Lucien apart, taer himself apart but never her. Why her? He can't.
There's nothing but rage. Once the rage leaves, it'll be panic instead.
Lucien who is by the bar only smirks at Elena. "This is hell, and the only one who looks like she's rotting is you, filth," he says, ignoring Ethan who is practically incoherent at the moment still.
Well, not completely ignoring, he turns to look down at him. "Pathetic," he says cleanly, crisply like he is talking about a dog. Not his sons, no. Never his sons. He has no need for people but for an army, he would enjoy having one of those, someone to stick their necks out so he won't have to. Someone else to get their hands dirty.
And now he has several someones that he spent years cultivating and engineering to be exactly what he needed before that bitch took off with them.
Ethan only calms down at what Elena says. She's right. She has to be right. If she's right, it means he won't do this. There's nothing more important than the ceremony to him, and it would waste all of it.
Her protests are... useless but smart almost. Huh. "I think we are both aware that I have more than enough blood at this point," Lucien says as he finishes his glass of wine, crashes the head of it against the nearest wall, and digs the broken glass into her finger where her hand is gripping hold of that bar. "What I don't already have, I am absolutely certain I'll get tonight." He lights a nearby candle which provides enough light so that he can gesture at the floor of the cell which has a drain in the center of it.
"Isn't that right, Ethan?" Lucien smiles politely to them both. "Have a good evening, I look forward to the symphony."
And with that, he turns...and leaves.
And the world comes crashing down on them.
Ethan has a very physical reaction, physical need to-- it's dry heaving because he hasn't eaten and he hasn't had much to drink, and he's not-- He's not. Ohgodohgodohgod. "No, no, no, this can't- this can't- I can't," he- it's not quite settling in yet.
It's not quite settled into his head yet, what it means.
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Not when Elena doesn't know how long they'll allow her to be here. Not when she doesn't know if it's the last time she could see him before the ceremony begins. The relief that she feels at seeing him, it's momentary clouded her thoughts, or she'd have wondered from the start what the catch was. Why she was being brought to Ethan if what they wanted was to torture them as much as possible.
In retrospect it would all seem far too obvious, now that they've had more than their share of glimpses into Lucien's psychosis.
For now, she's just -- she's so relieved she gets to see him. The not knowing has been gnawing at her from the inside out. They've been all but quarantined in separate places scattered throughout the castle. Elena was starting to think if she didn't die in the ceremony she'd just as well lose her mind before it could even happen. She'd never -- she had never been confronted with this kind of evil. Even Klaus loved his family, despite his twisted, sick way of showing it. He was capable of his own brand of love.
Lucien doesn't love anyone or anything.
He is utterly void of humanity and he has absolutely nothing to love, and nothing makes him more dangerous than these two facts. There isn't anything he won't do to them, now that he's collected them as some kind of toy factory. He's testing the limits, seeing how far he can push before they break, before he does decide to break them completely and mold them to whatever his intentions dictate.
And she hates that this is Ethan's father. That this is their father and this is the whole reason he wanted to have them like they're puppets or soldiers instead of people. He is so much more than what he was 'made' for and she hates that Lucien has made him doubt it, for even a second. That he's torn away at all those things that make him who he is so that there's nothing left but that hunger.
She knows he's been starving them. Angering them. Forcing them to hear as the other is brutally dealt with, over and over, and taking that into consideration -- she doesn't know what she hopes for anymore. Whatever makes it stop for them. Whatever is best, even if it means they all die here. Elena would never pretend to know she has any idea what she's doing anymore. She lost that ability the moment they were taken, and she's acted on sheer instinct which is always to protect and save the people she loves at no matter the cost.
If she has to be a bad guy along with the others to make that happens, she would be more than willing to do so but there's nothing.
There's nothing to negotiate with. There's nothing to fight against anymore. They're in their cages, and they're just waiting for the moment where it can all be over. There's no plan, much less a back-up plan. She doesn't know where to begin, or how it could end other than the worst case scenario they'd envisioned, the one they'd tried to stop from happening at all costs and it still ended up being true.
Because that's their lot in life and there is no safe.
It's all she's ever wanted for them, too. She's wanted them safe and whole and happy, away from this whole mess. There's just no going back to what it used to be like, before their knowledge of Lucien, before the confirmation that what she is spells the exact same disaster that it did back home. Her life is no more important than everyone else's, and Elena was determined to not lose anyone else at the cost of hers though there is always collateral damage.
It's inescapable, and she pushes that aside too, keeping her hands on his face as she wills him to believe it. Elena trusts him, and she believes in him, whatever happens tonight. That's not going to change. She knows who Ethan is and what he'd want.
She isn't expecting him to lean forward but there's no hesitation on her end. No sooner he has moved forward she's kissing him back, tightening her grip on his face as she brings him closer, deepening the kiss against him. The tears stinging at her eyes in spite of herself as she gives it her all without leaving anything for herself, without leaving anything behind. All those things they never said. All those things she should've realized sooner and she didn't, and it's too late.
It always seems to be.
There have never been any guarantees, and Elenea breaks off in a gasp, keeping her hands on his face once he pulls back, too. She looks at him, swallowing back thickly the tightness locking up in her throat, pinching it painfully. "I wouldn't," she repeats, shaking her head almost stubbornly, and her voice is quiet now but no less certain. "Whatever happens, you have to know that."
There are so many stark differences on the surface it was hard to see at first, the core similarities that would later tie them together so strongly. The loyalty and their need to protect their loved ones only two of many, and Elena had always caught glimpses of it here and there at first, but she'd never understood how deep it ran until later. If there's something she does know, it's that Ethan doesn't leave.
It should've been allowed to remain a comfort.
She should've known better but she's been so stupid and foolish and selfish.
Elena doesn't know how she remains motionless on the floor when the whole of her wants to lunge forward and fight it with everything that she has. The horrified panic starts crawling up her chest until it threatens to seize the whole of her, and it cannot end this way. She grips the bars of the cell that much tighter, shaking them as if her strength has ever been competition for anything that's come her way.
She isn't half as strong as they are. She isn't half as fast.
She could just as easily be crushed under the weight of them and it doesn't matter how much inner strength she does have. She keeps clashing against them as if they'll budge because no, this cannot be happening. This cannot be happening and he can't do something like this and Ethan will not.
He would not.
Elena has never been confronted with the violent side of him. Elena has never seen him in his werewolf form, even, when the moon isn't full and she knows that's a very deliberate choice on Ethan's behalf. This is the sickest thing anyone could ever do to him and the rage swells in her chest until she thinks she might possibly choke on it.
"Ethan," she whispers helplessly when she sees the shackles dig into his flesh.
The urge to pummel him into oblivion is so strong when he smirks. The rage makes her shake quietly in place, and if she was alone she could even possibly manage enough snark to remind him those with glass houses shouldn't throw stones. The only filth here in her mind is him, but she can't bring herself to say anything in the face of what he's just revealed.
There's the horrifying realization still sinking down and down and down until she all but caves under the weight of it.
Elena yelps when the broken glass digs into her finger, jerking her hand away from the bars. The blood drips to the floor. Just one drop of it, and she immediately brings her finger to her mouth to suck on it so it's not -- the blood would only be temptation right now and he knows that. The fury and the indignation are only momentarily replaced by confusion at what he says. "What are you talking about ... "
Her voice trails off. She didn't think she could be more horrified except somehow he's managed to outdo himself. Elena stares in sheer mortification at the drain, realizing she's standing just directly below it. She takes several steps back, nearly stumbling along the way, her back once again meeting the stone wall.
She lets out a breath that's almost a cry, but not quiet, watching him leave in disbelief.
Her legs feel like they will give out on her at any second, and it's a miracle she remains standing. Lucien's form keeps retreating and the drain is still below them and Ethan's heaving in place and this is the nightmare. Lucien was right, of course, this is the real hell and they're the only ones living it and she kicks at the bars uselessly, not caring if she's bruising herself in the process.
"No! Wait. There has to be something you want more. Please," Elena calls out after him but it's useless. She rests her forehead against the metal shutting her eyes closed as if that alone will block out the rest, as if the gesture will make this not true but none of the nightmares she could ever dream up for herself would be quite this horrible.
The silence is deafening once the hatch above them closes and they're left alone.
There's no relief or comfort in the fact anymore.
Not now when they both know and the clock is ticking. She doesn't even know how many hours.
There's no telling, and she can't --
This can't.
"Ethan," she says again, dropping to her knees a few feet away from him. His reaction is painful, but her own is -- is difficult to conceal as she can't stop herself from shaking.
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This is the last time. Could be the last time. They’re all at the end of their ropes, and there’s no telling what the future holds. Even if his walls hadn’t been torn down, he would still not be holding anything back. What’s the point of holding anything back when it’s all Ethan and it’s Ethan that he wants to hold on to so badly, that he needs to hold on to more than the louder, stronger force inside of him that always has been inside of him.
He should have known too. Ethan has seen enough, recognized the sound of the footsteps, but he thought Lucien needed Elena still if she was still alive, didn’t realize he’d been systematically draining her like a fucking blood bag.
This whole time. It wouldn’t have occurred to him, and it’s likely good that it hasn’t yet. They don’t want to think like him.
There’s only that relief though, and he’s- he’s grateful for it honestly even later knowing the truth, Ethan is grateful they have these few moments that aren’t tainted by what it means. If he’d known, he wouldn’t have embraced this moment like he has, wouldn’t have embraced her as fully as he is at this point out of sheer relief and this—this need to see her that is finally being met now that she is here in front of him and physically in one piece relatively. She’s not dead as he thought she was, as Lucien toyed with him.
His father is not human. His father is nothing but a monster, the worst kind of monster that he could never imagine in his entire life.
There has never been love in his life, and Ethan refuses to believe otherwise at the same time—at the same time he knows someone could not utilize people who do love in this way, use their love as a weapon without understanding intimately how it can be used, which takes understanding the love itself. At one point, he had humanity. He had to have. Hundreds of years ago, he must have had humanity or he would lash out blindly like the animals on the full moon who have never been human do without thought or need beyond hunger.
It is his father, their father. It’s their reason for being at all, and it’s all because of what eh wants them to be. It doesn’t matter who they are to him, to Lucien, because that is not why they were made. They were made to be the perfect army, and it’s what he wants from them. It’s what their bodies have been built for. All of it, it points to this one thing again and again and again.
They have nothing. It’s why hopelessness has taken over. It’s been days, and no one has seen each other, and they have fought as hard as they could, but it didn’t make a difference. They didn’t break the surface, didn’t push through the bars at all. There was nothing they could do. No matter how hard they fought.
No matter the stands they took, and Ethan finally did take his stand again and again, and this—the results are what happens tonight. That’s what happens when you fight back against Lucien.
Why wouldn’t you give in? Whatever it made of you?
As long as the people you loved were spared of torture, of being ripped apart by your own hands, why wouldn’t you spare them of that? When you have no other choices as it is? When there’s nothing else you can do and no hope to change things on your own?
The answer will be simple.
It’s all they have all ever wanted for each other, and it comes naturally wanting it for her, for Elena, because he loves and cares for her. It’s not that he thinks her life is worth more than others, but his father made him and she didn’t ask to be in this universe. It’s his father. If his father didn’t exist, if Ethan and his brothers didn’t exist, none of this would be happening at all.
The worst possible conclusion has happened despite how they fought against it, how they believed for such a long time they might have a chance.
Ethan closes his eyes, focusing on her hands on his face as his hands slide against her face and into her hair. He can believe it miraculously so. It hits him then through everything else he’s feeling that she trusts him, and he believes her in that moment. If he didn’t believe her, he wouldn’t kiss her, but the kissing is natural.
The need, the all of it pushes through him, and he pulls her into him and kisses her intensely. There’s need and want and love and pain and concern all wrapped up into that one kiss… desperation too. The intensity of it would floor him if he had time to think about it, but it’s intense on both sides, and his eyes burn helplessly so as he cradles the back of her head and deepens that kiss.
Until she has to pull back, and he breathes out, breaking off with a gasp too. His forehead rests against her forehead, painfully. His hand remains against her face too, tangled up in her hair until they fall resting against her shoulders instead. “I do know that, Elena,” he says, and there’s a pained smile on his face at the stubborn shake of her head. “I’m certain of it.”
If nothing else, he is certain of the fact that she will never leave him as long as she has the choice not to. She will be right here if she can be, and God, how they’ll both wish that wasn’t true so soon, so fucking soon, and he should have known.
Ethan’s fighting against it but he can’t reach anything, can’t do anything. The metal digs into his wrists, but he can’t feel it at all. He is completely unaware that it is happening, and it wouldn’t stop him from pulling on them, wouldn’t stop him from breaking his own wrists if he could to get out of them and get out. He can’t though, and he barely hears that whisper. It’s the pain of it that alerts him, but there’s still panic and rage flooding through his head again and again, and he yanks harder, ignoring the pain shooting up his arms. It’s just—it’s no use. These were built to hold him like he was built to be a certain amount of strong and fast and all… the rest.
This is exactly what his father can and will do to him, and he hasn’t let it settled in yet.
There’s still the fighting. The incoherent rage. The all of it shoving him forward, as he yanks at them again and again, and they’re bleeding- his wrists are bleeding and it’s making it worse, and he can’t. He collapses on the floor there, rage making him shake too as he glares daggers up at Lucien, staring in hatred and nothing but rage.
It’s not until he hurts her that Ethan is on his feet again, screaming out something incoherent, something that makes no sense. Leave her alone, and it makes Lucien laugh, knowing… knowing that it’s not him that will be touching her, spilling her blood next, and Ethan knows it too.
It’s what makes him sick, what has him dry heaving so he’s on the floor when his father points out the drain, the drain that will catch Elena’s blood, and he can’t- it makes it worse. The panic is sliding over him, and he can’t do this. He can’t live, he needs to be ripped out of his own skin. Someone needs to kill him. He needs to die before this happens.
Elena never would have seen him in the wolf form. The only times that he has ever shifted were when he felt he had to, when he was trying to protect someone that he loves… those—that was the only time that he ever would, because he hates being a werewolf, hated everything about the animal part of himself, and he never, ever wanted to let the monster out near anyone. It’s what he is terrified of, and it’s that terror that is rocking through him.
He doesn’t know how she’s so brave and amazing and beautiful and he loves her, and s’e's up there, to talk, to fight against his father. And he loves her even more, impossibly so, at the same time that he learns that he will be the one to kill her.
It should be him up there. He should be there beside her fighting too, but he was—has never been as brave as she is, as much of a fighter as hse is. And he hates himself a little more that he’s not standing by her side right now being half as strong as she is, but he is so terrified and he can’t push himself up from the ground that he’s on. The pavement that’s under him, he can’t push himself back up from it.
There’s nothing Lucien wants more than to break them down and remake them, rebuild them. No matter who is taken out in the process, and he is shaking and heaving, and tears burn at his eyes as his hands slide over his own skin, trying to figure out how he can kill himself.
If it’s even possible to do so with these shackles on his wrists and this-
He’s going to be sick but he can’t be sick, he can’t be sick because there’s nothing in his stomach to be sick with.
fuck.
The silence has never been more deafening. He can hear her forehead hit the metal, hear her drop to her knees but he doesn’t raise his head up. She’s shaking. He’s shaking too, the whole of him is shaking, and he lets out a pained sound when she says his name, the whole of him… shaking. “Why—why are you trying to comfort me? I’m going to kill you.” And it’s a sob finally, his hands slipped up against his ace, blood on his arms as he shakes his head, pulling his hands away again.
It’s all shaking as he cries, lifting his head up again so he can look at her. “I’m so sorry.” It screams through him, the strength and the whole of it, all of it panic and despair and his hands slide across his skin looking for a way to rip himself apart because that's all he wants right now for her to be safe from him.
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The only real guarantee there seems to be is there isn't any future to hold anything for them anymore. There aren't any choices. There's only the one and it isn't a choice. She'll fight it to the very end because it's all she knows how to do, but Elena would be lying if she said she didn't see it the way the others did. She shouldn't never lost sight of that, not from the moment Damon's only friend was brutally murdered outside of his apartment without any sort of regard for his life or the life of the person he loved.
This is what they do. They are as expendable as any disposable thing. Even she as a doppelganger only has her limited use, and they'll be done with as Lucien sees fit because he has that power now. Elena shudders at the thought, at the constant reminder, at the darkness of these walls and the vastness of what it holds.
It is good that it hasn't occurred to them, that they haven't started thinking and feeling in such a twisted manner.
It means he hasn't won yet, in spite of what will happen later when the truth is revealed. It means there's still some of Ethan left, still some of Elena left, and days of what's been inflicted on them hasn't been able to change that. Shouldn't be able to change that and Elena wouldn't want him to doubt himself, even while helplessly understanding why he would. She meant what she said, however. She is not scared of him and she trusts him.
That was true before this ever happened, and it's true in this dungeon now, and not even the werewolf would be able to change that. It's Ethan she trusts.
None of them could've ever imagined it.
They prepared for it as best as they could, in spite of the circumstances and the odds stacked heavily against them. They steeled themselves for what they thought could be the very worst of the possibilities. They researched and they trained and they kept vigilant. They did nearly everything right and it didn't seem to matter, either. Elena could've never imagined the kind of monster their father is. Elena could've never imagined that it was all so painfully, closely linked the way it was, couldn't have imagined the very friends she made that fateful September would be the very friends she'd be thrown alongside this terrible disaster.
It's terrifying to think that he was once human, but it's true that he must've loved at some point. It's true that he must have understood what humanity is like, what love is like, or he wouldn't be so good at twisting it so fully, at exploiting it the way he does, understanding what makes them tic, what makes them yield, what makes them fight that much harder. It's like everything about this is a whole chessboard and he's playing with the bloody pieces, knowing exactly where he needs to further the pawns along to get to the queen.
Elena thought she understood monsters.
She thought she understood the darkness inside of people but nothing Katherine did, hell, nothing Damon did could ever hold a candle to this kind of sadism. It makes all the more sense now; why Ethan's mother would run with them, why she would've been so terrified to be caught, why she would've wanted it all kept from Alek, why she tried so hard to keep Adam from leaving and seeing it for himself. But how could anyone imagine this kind of evil, this kind of darkness?
There isn't a name for it.
Elena stands her ground. It's what she knows to do until there's nothing left. She stands her ground and she fights and she thinks after tonight she'll learn her lesson, too. Her whole life the past few years has been nothing but endless fighting and surviving, and maybe she wouldn't feel so bitterly toward it if it hadn't turned out to be so meaningless. It's never saved people. It's never changed the course of what is destined. It's never kept people safe.
It's never stopped them from being hurt, physically and mentally.
What else is there but to give in?
Ethan didn't ask for any of this, either. He didn't ask to be made and certainly not with this purpose in mind. He didn't ask to have that violence imposed on him, much less did he ask for the father he has. It's not his fault, the way it isn't hers, and she couldn't fathom him not existing as it is. She understands the feeling. Hasn't she thought it before so many times?
If she didn't exist, if she wasn't a doppelganger -- how much could've been spared?
And even the darkly spun thoughts of their own hopelessness don't change the fact they are here and this is happening.
He looks so hurt. It pains her to see him, to try and imagine what was done to him out of some twisted form of lesson. Elena winces inwardly at the sight of his wrists, at the look on his face, but she doesn't look away. She keeps her hands on his face, her touch gentle, aware that he hasn't -- he hasn't been touched in any gentle way in what feels like a very long time and neither has she.
It hurts to know it as her fingers slip down his cheeks softly and he closes his eyes.
It's simple, in the end, really. It's very simple, and Elena's looking at him until she's not, until her eyes close along with him and she's pulled in. She's still on her knees as they dig into the ground, and she's mindless of that when she leans into him, hands curving further over his neck until the tips of her fingers dig into the back of it. She would be floored if she had the time to think of it as well but there's no time to think. She isn't thinking.
There's just the feeling.
Several of them, unfurling in her chest as she brings him closer, matching the intensity, the desperation with her own. The love breaks through all the rest, but there's unmistakable urgency in her movements, in the way her mouth remains crushed against his like if she moves away something might cave in.
Her face nearly crumples again when his forehead rests against hers. She wants to say it's not hopeless. She wants to say they'll find a way. She wants to say it doesn't end here, but she can't find the voice to say any of it. She slips her arms around his neck to hug him tightly instead, fresh, hot tears slipping down her cheeks. "I love you, Ethan," she says, and she doesn't know if he's certain of that, too, and it feels too late either way, but she says it.
She loves him and she's sorry.
There is nothing else she has anymore.
Elena's breath gets stuck in her throat, aware that her calling out isn't something he registers, not with the threat hanging above them, not with his father on the other side of the bars, but it's a helpless thing.
"Ethan, stop," she says, flinching as she sees him yank at the shackles. She doesn't know how he hasn't dug to the bone yet, and she shakes her head again as her eyes burn with unformed tears once more. She looks down at the drain and -- her eyes dart toward it and back up at the hatch and toward the drain once more as if there's going to be some way she can use it to escape instead.
She turns to Lucien in disbelief at his laughter. Her mouth parts open, the air barely trickling in. All she can feel is how fire hot her cheeks are, how her fists tremble when she hands her balls so tightly her nails dig into the skin.
Elena's not letting him die.
And it's terrible that she doesn't understand the full extent of why he was always running until now. It's terrible and painful all at once, and she can't stop the way her heart starts pounding loudly, violently against her chest until it's all she can hear, until she's almost swaying against the strength of every beat. "Don't say that," she whispers, and she kneels down before him again, a hand reaching out to him but freezing in place when he sobs, aware of... aware of how terrified he'd be of himself right now, but she's not. "Don't say that. It has to be a test. Ethan, it has to be, and we'll get through it."
I'm so sorry.
The words cut through her. How many times has she said it before? How many times has she felt it so deeply? Elena shakes her head, blinking back the tears at the pained sound he makes. Somehow, the cell seems that much smaller, that much darker, that much more constrained. The air thicker, palpable as she tries to keep breathing.
It's all she can do now.
"It's not your fault. Ethan, none of this is your fault," she says, a hand curling over the shackle as if that'll get him to stop, stop trying to rip himself apart. She kicks at the drain and grabs at the bars of the cell again, shaking them as if that'll do anything, as if she has ever been able to save them from anything.
She falls back on the floor, sitting across from him, her back against the bars.
She is not just waiting it out until the full moon is out.
She's just not.
no subject
Escape hardly seems like a possibility at all, and it hasn’t for him until Elena showed up again and then—then maybe. Maybe those other people after the Society, maybe they find out about it, maybe they can get through, maybe the Society itself, but that’s a bad alternative too at least it would spare them of Lucien even if they would mostly end up dead. Death doesn’t seem like a bad alternative anymore, not after all this time, all of them in their cages, screaming and fighting and surviving and pushing their body past every limit.
They are expendable. They are his father’s toys and things, which he’ll throw away when he’s done breaking them or use until they can’t be used anymore. Their selves, who they are gets lost in the pain and in what he will want for each and every one of them. There’s no room for it here, for them here.
Somehow they haven’t started thinking like Lucien yet, and he feels- fears it is only a matter of time before his brain shifts, switches.
It’s the point of all of it, not to make him like Lucien but to make him a soldier, a toy to be used and turned into something that thinks and does what Lucien wants him to think and do instead of what he’d actually do. It’s about the remolding process, and Ethan can’t help doubting himself in the face of all this information, in the face of what Lucien is and how good he is at tearing people apart, that’s—it’s inside of him. This monster is inside of him, and it is a part of him.
It is an incredibly strong part of him that he can’t tear away from himself. If he could, he’d trust himself, he’d trust his own hands, eh’d trust who he is and that he is more than his purpose.
They couldn’t have known, and Adam tried to explain it to them again and again. They all wanted to fight. They all thought they could fight. Adam thought… they could fight, and it was why he ended up in Chicago, what his oldest brother wanted was to destroy Lucien. They were all happy to help as if it could be so easy, and they all anticipated blood and pain, but none of them anticipated this. There was no way to know that the girl they befriended was the same girl that their father wanted to kill, sacrifice.
It’s absolutely terrifying to think of Lucien’s once humanity, because he thinks of himself and thinks of his own capability and wonders how long until he loses all of his own and becomes like his father. How much does it take before it happens? What’s the point where it all shifts over? Is it time or is it suffering? Is it some endless combination of the two? How… long?
There’s no understanding this.
There’s no anticipating the strength and the weight of all of this. Ethan loves his mother. He loves her so much, but he can’t count how many times he has half hated her through all of this, how many times he wishes so much else had been done differently. She gave them themselves, and she saved them… saved them only to what? Become monsters now? It’s so ingrained inside of them and it’s-
There’s no names for any of it.
Elena does stand her ground always, and it’s something he has admired and loved in her from the very start. It draw him to her as she challenged him, as she didn’t let him be complacent in what he’d do or say when it made no sense, when it wasn’t really who he was. She shouldn’t have to feel like all that fighting, all that standing has been useless, pointless.
Meaningless.
It’s meant something to him. Even now, it means something to him. Maybe it means everything to him right now, he doesn’t know, but it speaks to him. She has always spoken to him, reached to him when nothing else could or would or does, and it’s reaching to him now that she is hoping…. Even when there’s no reason too.
No one asked for any of this, and he can’t imagine her not existing either. It’s nothing he can contemplate in his head, doesn’t hav any idea who he’d be, what he’d be without her in his life. What it would have meant ifs he wasn’t here, he honestly can’t contemplate even a little bit.
She looks so hurt too, and it breaks him to see the look on her face in that dim lighting. His heart hurts, aches with it, and he doesn’t look away either can’t- can’t think to look away because he hasn’t seen her. HE didn’t think he would see her again. His hands finally find their certainty, and they’re sliding across her face and into her hair equally gently. It’s not hard at all to recall that gentleness with her both in his own motions and in hers.
Even if it’s like water, like a glass of water after walking in the dessert for so long.
They haven’t been touched with gentleness, with softness, and his hands cradle her face with that gentleness, with all the love that he feels for her and that he has felt for her for much longer than today. The intensity of it nearly knocks him back, but it is the best thing he’s felt despite the pain also thudding through his chest- it’s the best thing he’s felt since he was taken.
There’s only feeling and reacting and nothing else.
Desperation pushes through all other feelings, and he’s deepened the kiss, intensified it until all he feels is the love in his chest that would burst but there’s somehow room for it. He doesn’t know how there’s room for it but there is, and it swells and pushes through his chest, and tears slip down his face.
His forehead rests against hers, and he can feel her face crumple against his hand as he keeps her close to him. She doesn’t have to say any of those things to him. Elena has always had so much hope for everyone around her, and she doesn’t have to say it right now. Hope or not, he will be there for her. And it hits, aching, pressing in on his chest.
“I love you too,” he says, and he is so certain of it. It’s not too late. It’s not too late, because it is good to finally say it out loud while they still can, and his eyes are shut as he keeps her close to him and he knows it’s true. He loves her. He loves her, and it’s a relief, it’s amazing to finally say it even if it took them too long to get to this place where they could realize it and say it.
She doesn’t need anything else.
They don’t need hope. If she’s alive, he will live.
He can’t hear her. Even if he could, it’d be so hard to stop because of the rage that is pushing him forward. He needs to get to him, to Lucien. The strength of his pulling has created cracks against the walls behind him, that’s how strong he is, how strong he has always been but he’s never used it, never used the entirety of that strength except to save people, to help people.
Now it’s pure rage and his pulling apart his own wrists in an attempt to get free and get his hands around his father’s neck.
It probably has dug into the bone, but he can’t—the pain of it is nothing in comparison to the pain of knowing why she’s here with him, the pain of knowing what he is going to do to her. He can’t live with that, but he can live with metal digging into his bone, tearing off his skin, bleeding down his arms but it’s no use. And he stops when she tells him too, somehow. Because she reaches beyond his rage.
He stops, staring at the floor underneath him.
He needs to die to stop this from happening. He needs to die. He can’t live with this. He can’t live with this.
The animal is coming. They have hours, but his senses always pick up more and more as the full moon approaches, and he can hear her heart beating wildly from his spot and he can hear his own. Screaming in his ear, in his head again and again and again. Ethan looks up at her before he backs away when she kneels in front of him, and he is terrified, he is terrified and there’s- there’s no way out. There’s no way to save her unless he dies. “A test o- of what? I’m going to kill you. I’m going to kill you, and I can’t- There has to be a way- a- a something, there has to be something, I can’t- I don’t want to hurt you. I can’t hurt you.“
His face crumples painfully as his head duck down, back against the wall, and he swallows thickly with the weight of it lying over his back and pressing down into him. The tightening of it in his throat, it’s-it drives it through him like a spike until it settles into his gut, and the whole of him is shaking with the panic, can’t catch his breath.
If he could, the chains… if he could get them around his neck… maybe then he- he could… he could kill himself but he knows before he has even tried there’s not enough slack on it to get it around his neck enough, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to try- won’t stil try, won’t still get him-
His fingers slide over himself, and he’s trying to dig into his skin when her hands are there on his shackles, and he pushes through the shaky breath in his chest, in his throat. He coughs and wants—needs to be torn apart, and it’s all he can think of until her hands rest on the shackles, and he’s looking at her hands instead, her beautiful hands that he will- that he will tear apart.
He’ll make her bleed like so many other people have, and he can’t-
Even killing himself in front of her would be—it’d be traumatic but he’d prefer it to being the one to rip her apart with his own claws.
“I need- there- I have to die,” Ethan says through that panicky feeling in his head as he tries to get enough slack on the chain but he can’t… can’t get enough of it. “There has to be something that ca- can kill me.”
There has to be because he won’t be responsible for ripping her apart. He loves her. He loves her so much, and how can he be what tears her apart? How can nothing he feels- how can it get lost completely in the animal?
How can none of be left?
How can he tear her apart?
Why can't he tear himself apart instead?
no subject
Lucien doesn't want the most merciful course of action. Not that she has any real idea what he does want beyond his army and the ceremony. Maybe that's all. Maybe he's so terrifyingly laser-focused on those things that everything else, literally everyone else, is nothing but an expendable obstacle that can either be removed or used to his advantage. She's still going to hope someone comes and finds them. She's still going to hope maybe Damon wasn't taken along with them and he can find a way.
Elena doesn't know what she's hoping for, except she cannot accept that it is all hopeless.
She might feel differently sooner than she thinks, but for now, she has to believe that there's something that can be done, even if she can't see it at the moment. She wracked her brain for any possible exit strategy, she tried striking up every deal she could think of that might be worth their while, there isn't anything she hasn't tried, since there is honestly very little Elena won't do to save those she loves if she can help it.
The thought that there's nothing to be done, that she's once again powerless to stop the chaos and the destruction from reigning down on them, it's almost paralyzing. It's almost too much for her to process so she doesn't. Elena doesn't stop and linger on all the painstaking ways in which she knows they are doomed.
Elena doesn't reject the reality of their circumstance. She's always been aware that vampires are vampires and werewolves are werewolves, she's just always seen them as people, too. Elena doesn't doubt him even if Ethan is doubting himself, and she's warred with a similar predicament involving morality and the nature of from a very long time ago, before she ended up here. From the moment she was pitted as Katherine's opposite, some symbolic quest to redemption juxtaposed perfectly by the doppelganger that came before her who spelled everyone's ruin.
She cannot ignore nature, but she cannot ignore the process of nurture, either.
Elena and Katherine may not have been polar opposites, but she never was going to become Katherine. They have the genetic code. They have the Petrova fire. They even have the survival instinct ingrained in them so deeply that's all they seem to know to do, manifesting in very different ways. Katherine's self-preservation is strictly for herself. Elena's preservation is strictly for others. They are both not above manipulation. They are both
capable of reprehensible things. They are both capable of love, as well.
The difference lies in how they define the word, and how their experiences have shaped the way they see the world, see themselves, and see those around them. Ethan and his brothers were raised in a loving way. The part of them that was human was nurtured from a very young age. There may be the werewolf inside of him but that doesn't mean Ethan isn't still there too, and it's Ethan she's going to be fighting for.
There's no tearing away his nature, the way she can't change the fact she was born the doppelganger, and how terrible it must seem to both of them when it can cause so much destruction and pain and death. She's caused so much of it by just existing, that she can't help but wonder sometimes if she's just a monster, too.
It's not an easy burden to live with.
They'd all thought there was a chance. They'd all thought there was a possibility they could come out of it the other side, maybe not unscathed, but triumphant. If they hadn't believed that, they wouldn't have charged forward with all they had. The witches on their side, the objects they'd gone to the ends of the earths for, the secrets they kept, the enemies they took down as they piled up, and there were always many. She made decisions she wasn't proud of, and she did things she wouldn't have ever done if she hadn't been pushed to the extreme, but everything she did, she did with the belief that it would get them somewhere.
It wasn't that she ever thought the fight would be easy, but she did think that it was possible. She has expectations and she needs to believe things can be a certain way while also knowing there is a darker side to anything. There is a darker side to anyone, including her. She is not above this, and she never has been.
She just thought it was possible to overcome this.
Elena has to believe this, because something supernatural and deadly is always going to come after her, it seems, and she has to survive it but she cannot survive it alone. She cannot lose anyone else that she loves to this. She can't end up here, again and again, with the exact same results, and still end up Elena.
There isn't any reason to hope.
There isn't any logical reason to keep going after what they've been through, but she places it aside to reach him instead. She'll always want to reach him. She'll always want it to mean something, and it does mean something, that in the possibly darkest of moments she still reaches out and he can still feel it. The darkness remains but so does he.
The illusions and dreams and hopes she'd hold on to as tightly as she possibly could are all falling, piece by piece. The curtain is being pulled and she's seeing things for what they really are. She's seeing the ugly. She's seeing the brutal, hopeless thing for what it is. And in spite of all of it, despite the fact that all the things she believed to be true are now lies, the softness of his hands on her face, the tenderness of her own hands on his, that's still there.
It's still left when not much else is, when she could easily lose herself in that dark place filled with the guilt that comes with surviving, and Elena can do nothing but hold on to it. It's a comfort, as hard as they've fallen, and she can let herself be as hurt and as broken and as hopeless as she wants to be as long as it's in the darkest corner.
Her hands slip over his face, and over, her own face close to his. She can only faintly make it out in the darkness, the lines of his bones and the brown of his eyes, but that's as much as she needs. Elena can feel the moment his hands find their certainty, and her own hands never lost theirs, slipping further up his face until she's cradling the side of it. Her forehead rests against his, fingers curling into his hair, always gently.
It is the best thing she has felt since she was taken, too. Elena only brings him closer, deepening the kiss along with him, loving along with him, that soaring reminder that they still can. They can still love. They can still hope even when it's hopeless.
"I know," she whispers at him, her hands remaining on his face. Maybe she did before this moment or maybe she didn't, but she knows it now, and she lets it fill her when the rest is threatening to drown instead. Her lips rest against the side of his face, grazing the side of his warm skin softly before she holds him in place.
She is horrified to see what's left of his wrists and his hands. She is horrified to think of what could be left later, and she -- as much as she is able to face what is true now she can't stop herself from stopping him, in turn. "You're hurting yourself," she says, and it sounds almost as hopeless and helpelss as everything else that has ever been said. The fact that he's stopped, it's only a small comfort, because she knows what he's thinking and she's been there.
She knows what it's like to feel she has to die, and it hurts to know he's there now, too, and because of her and why she was brought here.
"I don't know. I don't know how his mind works but he needs me alive." The drain would -- it would hold all her blood she's sure, but up until that moment, it's not certain whether or not she is needed alive. She's getting restless with the urge to move, to run, to do something as opposed to just standing here but there's nowhere else to go, nothing else to do. "He's playing games with you, he wants you losing your mind. Ethan, it has to be possible."
She doesn't look away from him, not as he lies back on the wall, not as he can't catch his breath. She can't seem to catch her own for all her efforts, and it's only until she sees him trying to dig into his own skin again she moves forward again, unwilling to let go of the shackles if that means he'll keep digging.
Elena can't --
He won't do this to himself.
"I know what you're doing," she says at last, when she trusts herself to speak. "And I know you're doing it to protect me, but I can't let you. I'm not going to let you kill yourself, Ethan."
She won't.
He's not killing himself in front of her. She's not giving up on him.
She gasps softly, looking up at the hatch as a howl pierces through the quiet, distantly from up above them. She swallows thickly, looking down at her wrist but there's no watch there, only the tell-tale sign that she used to wear one. They didn't want them knowing what time of day it was, or even what day it was, and that makes sense now, too.
Elena stands there, incapable of moving, and she doesn't demand that he fight this.
She is no longer the naive girl that demands love owes her a damn thing, that love is stronger than compulsion, that it could be stronger than a transformation where he loses all semblance of himself. She's no longer that girl, long since hardened by what's been done and what they've seen. It doesn't mean she believes in his love any less. It doesn't mean she believes in him any less.
It doesn't mean she's giving up.
It simply means she knows it's not up to him once the moon hangs low enough.
Love always wakes the dragon.
Time is running out and she can't let him die, and he can't kill her, and
time
just
runs
out.
no subject
He doesn’t want them dead. He wants to have them, to use them, to make them do whatever he wants them to do. Lucien uses their love for each other against them. If you don’t do this, your brother’s arm gets broken and then let you listen to the scream when you don’t obey and he does just that. And it’s not one bone but two that he breaks then, and there’s no telling what it is that Ethan didn’t do this time.
Lucien got tired of it, and he had the means to up the lesson, make it more powerful. He should have known that it was going to happen. Ethan knows Lucien told him something about lessons to be learned, but he never—didn’t imagine this. Couldn’t have imagined this, funny how that keeps happening.
Hope. Hope is so impossible to grasp hold of, reason for living is equally impossible to hold on to, and he doesn’t know how he is still living except that he is, except Lucien won’t let him die, except he doesn’t want to die knowing his brothers and her and others could be out there alive still. It’s impossible for him to abandon them or abandon her, and he wouldn’t— wouldn’t unless he thought he had to like he’s going to think he has to, because the alternative is too much to think of.
He knows it. Ethan knows she always faces reality head first and doesn’t hide from it. She always faces up to it directly, and he doesn’t know how she manages to do so, how she manages to get hope in the darkest of moments, the most painful times that they could possibly ever manage. She is still—There’s still hope in her somehow, and he believes it, but he doubts himself so much. He doubts who he is and what he is capable of and who he will be when all is said and done.
He doesn’t doubt for one second that Lucien can turn him into what he wants.
Lucien already knows how to bring out that rage, bring out the animal better than anything else ever has now. He doesn’t even have to try, but when he does try it’s maddening. It’s a mad dog, attacking the bars that keep him locked in a cell with no thought, no plan, no idea of what he’s doing. There’s just the attacking again and again and again.
And he has no doubts at all Lucien could train him, break him and remold him and shape him into this thing if he wanted to.
Part of is genetics, part of it is the scientific experiment they all were before they were even born, part of it is what Lucien can and will do to get what he wants and understanding so well how to do it. He doesn’t have a lot of faith in himself when Elena is thrown in but he’d stood tall, strong against what his father had wanted him to do. Ethan had resisted, and he should have known that would come at a price, at a price that he would never want to pay and a price that someone else would have to pay because of him.
There are so many differences, and Ethan hopes that his mother teaching them and raising them will give them the strength to not become what Lucien wants them to become. However, when this—when it comes to this? When it comes to her life being thrown in front of him like she’s meat? That’s what the werewolf will see her as, that’s all she’ll be to it and that is a huge part of him, and to think that is all she will be, it tears him apart to think of it to think of what she’ll be to the monster, to the animal. His claws and his teeth will tear her apart, this beautiful, fighting, compassionate, challenging woman that changed his life and chose to believe in him and love him
will be torn apart
piece by piece
by him.
No, it’s not an easy burden to live with, and he has avoided it and run from it so long and from what he was afraid of that he couldn’t- there’s no more running. There wouldn’t have been any more running after discovering the truth about his father and what his father did to them and what he wanted for Elena, doppleganger. He was the only one who knew- the only one that knew what that meant, that knew that all the pieces could easily fall into place when Adam was explaining it, and he left without looking back.
And he came to her because- because it was right, and he should have known then.
Ethan should have known at that point, at his visceral reaction to all of it but especially to knowing what their father wanted for him, for Elena, for all of his brothers, and it made him sick, sick with it.
But he should have known that night when he showed up at her doorstep in the rain how he really felt about her.
There had been so many tangled emotions leading up to that point in little moments between them like when she mentioned having been in love and how that person was in Chicago now too, like when she fell on top of him at the park, like when he was lying in bed beside her as she told him about her life and listened to him without judgment as he talked about his own and about things he hadn’t talked about with anyone else, like all of those times and so many more than he can count.
He loves her, and he should have realized it one of those other times instead of right now in this dark cell right only hours before he’s going to have to kill her.
She is familiar. His hands on her face, following the lines of her face and down to her neck and tangling in the strands of her hair. He has certainty as he slides his hands over hers, and he didn’t think he’d reach certainty again. He closes his eyes as he rests against her forehead. It’s the best thing he has felt, and he holds on to it, he holds on to it with all his might, losing himself, losing this cell, only feeling and knowing her in this moment.
He smiles a bit, painfully as she whispers I know to him, and it takes hold of his heart, filling it. She knows now. It’s better than never, better than her dying and never knowing, but she knows he loves her and he knows she loves him too. Even if it was the worst timing that it possibly could have. He’d rather it come at least the once than not at all.
It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what’ll be left later if she’s dea- if he’s killed her. What does it matter? What does it matter what comes of his wrists which heal? They’re werewolves. Lucien set them up with the highest possible healing fucking mechanisms, and he doesn’t want them, why keep a monster alive? And he only stops when her voice reaches through to him, not for his sake but for hers. “It doesn’t matter,” he says when she says he’s hurting himself. He can hurt himself all he wants but he can’t stop it.
He can’t hurt himself enough to stop it, and he would if he could, if there was some way to knock himself out to break all his limbs that might slow the werewolf down. They’re attached, and he has to- to find a way.
“But—the drain, he has the drain there to- he said,” Ethan closes his eyes, and he wouldn’t put it past Lucien to lie but he also wouldn’t put it past Lucien to tell the truth. There’s no telling which it is, but he knows. He can feel it, can hear her breathing and her heart beating from her and everything coming to life around him. It means time is running out. And he closes his eyes, expression breaking, crumpling. “That’s- this- it would do it.”
His heart is thudding heavily in his chest, and he can’t hear it, can’t hear through it. If Lucien wants him to lose his mind, he picked out the perfect way for it to happen in a snap without anything else needed, knowing what he is and what he does and the power he has is what’s ripped her apart and taken her from him. It’s him.
It’ll be him, his fault, his claws, his monster that’s done it.
There’s no way he won’t- no way it wouldn’t break him beyond repair to have been the one that killed her.
Ethan looks up at her when her hands rest on the shackles again. His hands are shaking as he turns them, and he wants to touch her but he won’t trust himself with it. He looks at her hands instead, stopping—stopping the digging as soon as her hands rest over his, and he keeps his eyes shut at the onslaught of panic and tears takes over him.
“I’m not- I’m doing it because I have to. I can’t-“ The fire captures up the words, and he sobs, tears slipping down his face as he tries to work the chain with shaking hands and arms, tense and moving and not stopping. “I can’t be what kills you. I can’t kill you. Don’t let me kill you. I can’t- I can’t- I can’t, Elena- I- I’ve got to die instead and if you want to die after that I understand but I can’t-“ his voice is trembling, and he’s shaking and having trouble catching his breath. “I’ll tear you apart.”
He needs to kill himself.
The other option isn’t an—an option. It’s not except there is no option but the one thing he would never ever ever be willing to do.
He hears the howl too, and he stares upward though there’s nothing to see, but his whole body is tense, and he moves as far from her as he can even if it won’t make any difference at all. The whole of it- the moon- it’s there, and he can feel the transformation taking hold and he’s screaming because he is fighting something that’s impossible to fight because he can’t be what kills her, tears her apart, makes her bleed, hurts her ever.
“I’m so sorry.”
It’s the last thing that Ethan manages to sob out in his own voice, filled with pain and fear and horror all at once.
It only prolongs the transformation, it only makes it longer and hurt more than it ever has before every muscle, every part of himself fighting against the need to turn but there’s nothing- there is no way he can stop it or control his body, and the shift isn’t quick at all. It takes over.
His hands sliding into claws, claws that are already lashing out toward her without thought.
Because Ethan is gone.
All of his love for her is gone, twisted up and shoved away into a tiny, tiny locked chest within the animal.
And all is left is the monster, the cuffs and chains sink into the werewolf, angering it but keeping it from reaching the full length of the cell except for the claws. It’ll break out of it soon, the more it pulls, the more it smells the blood and the meat of the young girl in its cell too.
That’s it
That
Is
It
it’s hungry, always, always hungry
no subject
Lucien excels at zeroing in on a weakness. It's why Elena herself hasn't been physically hurt as much as she could've, after he and the rest saw it didn't matter what was done to her, she'd martyr herself till kingdom come if she had to. It was hurting anyone she loved about that was the real torture. It was remaining intact herself while everyone around her was made to suffer, with the silent understanding it was her reluctance and lack of compliance to blame.
The more they played on that, the less difficult she became, and her Achilles Heel was quickly spotted and she starts to play the game accordingly.
(Elena long ago learned the consequences of selfishness. They want her to think more of herself, to put herself first, and everyone forgets that when she did, her parents got killed and she held the proverbial blade.)
It's the same with everyone else, for no one has remained unscathed from this. If someone in particular could be used as a weakness for someone else, they would be without question. They'd put brothers in adjacent rooms, and the moment questions weren't answered or cooperation was refused, they'd make them sorry. The horrible part of it all is the physical torture is nothing in comparison to the mind games that have been played.
Oh, Ethan. Elena doesn't always face reality. Elena's constructed the reality she could live with and she's held on to her ideals and her beliefs as if they are the only ideals and beliefs that could be. There's a lot she's hid from, there's a lot she's refused to examine. She isn't any more brave than he is, and if there's anything that's kept her going it isn't courage. It's the sheer incapability she has of losing anyone else she cares about, the paralyzing fear that she'd be the only one left standing, and she'd have to keep going because it's all she does.
It's what she knows.
She survives and she holds on as if life depends on it. (So as long as that life is never hers.)
And that's the biggest irony of all, really. That's the stupidest thing she's ever heard and known. She was the most ordinary girl living the most ordinary life. Her importance in the scheme of the world was largely inconsequential. Then her parents died and the gates flew wide open, inviting the misery in. She learned the truth, because she'd wanted it, and Elena never believes she's just a girl anymore.
If that was true, none of this would happen, much less keep happening. People wouldn't keep dying. Her blood wouldn't be needed, and it's ironic, you know, she'd dreamt of adventure and maybe even a hint of danger. She blames the part of herself that wanted to be a novelist some day, inspired by great, fantastical worlds so she could escape from a mundane life she felt she was chained to.
Isn't that the most horrible joke of all?
People die around you, she'd said to Damon, hatefully, spitefully.
It wasn't only Damon she was accusing, and that's the most hateful thing of all.
And now they're here, now she's here, and it's a world away and it doesn't seem to make a difference. She doesn't need to be told that monsters exist. She's been well aware of that for years now. She'll never accept Ethan is a monster. She'll see the claws and she'll see the teeth and it won't be Ethan to her. It's what the werewolf will make him and she will not see it any other way, will not accept any other truth in her heart, and maybe that's what makes her so brave and stupid, Damon would say.
She'll always die for them and living is so much harder.
Living leads to these dark corners where it's pain and it's on the edge of loss and all those reminders of how easy it is to get hurt, how easy it is to lose more people and more people, until the whole of you just becomes pieces of ghosts you used to know.
Elena remembers that night he came to her. The way the rain soaked his jacket and the heavy cloaked look in his eye and the certainty that whatever he wanted to say to her would change their lives forever. She'd never admitted it to anyone else before. Irony pokes its head again since she admitted it to him because she thought the danger was a world away. She thought it wouldn't haunt her in this world, that such a curse didn't exist, because the Rift doesn't make hybrids, and she should've realized differently.
She's not meant for more than this.
And maybe she should've realized it, too. She should've realized it when he made her smile easily when no one else could quite manage it, and she should've realized it when saying the name Stefan in front of him was so hard, and she should've realized it when she'd look over at him sometimes, catch herself looking for longer than she was supposed to, when she felt attracted to him and it felt wrong, because it would always be stefan she said once upon a time and she didn't understand that that wasn't true.
She should've realized it but Elena doesn't always face the truth, see? She wanted to keep fulfilling the role she always had but the more she grew up and the more she understood, the farther away she was from that girl. The one that refused to believe compulsion was stronger, the one that said it would always be Stefan, the one that was supposed to die on the bridge with her parents and never did but still felt alone.
All those moments that could've served as a lightbulb have come and passed them.
The moment that's left is this one. The dark cell and the rustling of the chains and the look in his eyes as his hands follow her face. Elena loves him. It's something that's so simple and undeniable to her, and it's so terrible that it's realized until just now but it's evident and obvious to her, something as certain as the cold of the room and the soft of their breathing. Whatever happens, she knows her truth and his, and she doesn't have to think about the rest, at least not just yet.
Elena smiles back at him, the painful quality found in her own expression, and she brings him back to place one last kiss against his mouth. They both know now and it's better than never, always better than never. She doesn't care about the timing. She doesn't care how long it took. She cares about the smile on his face and the warmth of his hands and his forehead against hers, and how, brief as it may be, the night doesn't feel as hopeless.
"Of course it matters," she says to him, unwilling to believe anything else. He's not a monster and of course it matters. It always matters. Elena isn't going to let him believe the crap Lucien's been drilling into his head because it's not true. A monster doesn't hold her like he did. A monster doesn't feel like he did. It wouldn't be keeping a monster alive. It would be keeping Ethan alive and that will always matter.
If not to him, then to her.
"I know what he said," Elena says, the tears rushing to her eyes. She holds them there as she looks around again, frantically this time. She doesn't have to ask him to know how quickly it's approaching. She can gauge by his reactions at just how close they are and Elena can't -- she won't let herself belief it until it's finally happening. "I know what he said but he has to be wrong. He has to be. It doesn't end like this, do you hear me?"
He can't risk the doppelganger being dead and he can't -- maybe they tried their luck too many times by defying him but he wants his arm. Ethan with his mind broken past repair is not useful to him and Elena has to grasp on to what reason she's able to so that she can make herself believe that it's -- they aren't just going to leave her here until he's torn her apart.
Elena slips her hands over his when she sees them shake. Her thumb covers the surface of his hand lightly. She trusts him with it. She does. The moon isn't out and it's Ethan here with her and she trusts that. Ethan would never do anything to hurt her. It's the resounding thought in her head, along with the terrible reminder that it all ends in violence and death if she's involved, that it's all she seems to be created for.
All she knows is Ethan can't die.
No one else is dying to spare her life. No one.
"Yes, you can. You can, Ethan. I just need you to hold on a bit longer," Elena says, wincing at the sight of his arms, specifically the part of his arms that are working at the shackles. She shakes her head, ignoring the wetness in her cheeks, the violent pounding in her chest. She doesn't step back. "You won't. You won't kill me. Listen to me. Listen to me very carefully. Ethan, just fight it, okay? You fight it for as long as you can."
There's defeaning silence at his declaration.
I'll tear you apart.
Her chest clenches painfully at the words, and how they sound coming from him, and the shakiness travels all the way to her lungs, to her throat, taking hold of everything even as she stubbornly shakes her head. "You won't," she says, and -- he won't. It won't be Ethan. It's not Ethan. Her mouth parts open and she takes several steps back at the howling, moving back to the bars to kick and flail at them but they never budge.
She backs away as far as she possibly can, backing up agains the wall opposite where he transforms. Her lungs freeze, and she stares in horrified fascination, unable to tear her gaze away as the claws come out, as he slowly and painfully turns. She expels a panicked breath, backing up as far as she will go, her hands flattened against the stone wall.
"N-no," she says, moving back, always far back. "Ethan, don't --"
His screaming is soon met with her own when he lashes out. The claws successfully latch on to the skin at her arm, piercing into the flesh there. She kicks at him with her feet but he's too strong for her to fend off. The screaming shifts into howling, and she cries out against him, pushing away with every ounce of strength she has.
She hits the floor with a rough thud, the scent of blood spreading out the area. Pain shoots up her arm and she promptly ignores it, screaming at someone to open the gate.
Elena gasps in a breath and crawls as far away from him as she can and -- there is the certainty that she will die. This isn't a test and Ethan was right and the werewolf will tear her apart. It keeps pulling at the chains and she can see how they'll soon break off of the wall, as if he might just bring the whole wall down with him.
She backs away again, never quite able to avoid the claws when they reach for her.
And there it is. The sound as the metal snaps, mixing with the hungry growls of the beast.
The werewolf breaks free of the chains and lunges at her, all bare teeth and claws, monstrous in its design. Elena screams again and closes her eyes, bracing herself for the violent collision, and it never comes. A pair of arms snake around her waist and with inhuman speed lift her off the ground.
When she opens her eyes again, she's being hauled out of the cell.
The iron cell door close again before the werewolf can follow, and her eyes remain wide and terrified as it throws itself against the bars, as if trying to reach them. "Ethan," she whispers, her face twisting painfully at the sight of him, the sight of him she knows he never wanted her to see. Her heart is still pounding painfully fast in her chest, and she can barely feel the blood trickling down her arm.
It's staining the man's suit and it reminds her she's not alone. She'd fight him off but she doesn't have the strength to, at the moment, and he doesn't seem concerned with doing anything but keeping her distanced from the werewolf.
"What are you doing?" she asks the suited man in abject horror. He doesn't answer her so she asks again as he begins to carry her away. Elena's eyes remain on the cell, on the man that stays directly outside of it with a bag of blood, as if waiting. She draws in an unsteady breath and jerks against him again. "It was a test, wasn't it? You can't do this. You need to -- he needs to know I'm alive. Let me go -- "
The man ignores her, as if she hasn't spoken, moving up the stairs with his arm still securely fastened around her waist. She kicks a little but that only makes his grip tighten around her. She starts to scream again but a piece of white cloth is placed directly over her face.
The smell of chloroform fills her and it isn't long before her vision starts to blur.
Her head lolls to the side as the man continues on his way up, on step after another. She can barely lift her head to look back at the basement below before blackness swallows her whole.
And there's nothing.
1/2
It’s not about caring. It’s about what he wants and how he can make it happen. There’s a sick sort of fascination in his eyes. Sometimes it is half anger and half glee while he’s tearing into someone, destroying them, watching as they scream uselessly for something to change when it never does. It won’t change because Lucien holds every single card, and Ethan has started to understand that in his days here.
He doesn’t know why he thought to fight back, continues to think to fight back except the only thing more terrifying than what is already going on is the idea that he could become anything like him if he were to give in.
It’s fear (as always) that drives him. It drives him to fight. It drives him to take a stand and to push back and to refuse to cower and to fold, because he needs to remain Ethan and Ethan always needs to be nothing like his father. Any alternative is literally the most terrifying thing he can think of (outside of what he’ll be made to do in a few hours) that somehow it hasn’t- he hasn’t thought of it as a possibility.
He wasn’t even thinking about the full moon, about the fact he would need to transform soon. Ethan thought plenty about the monster , the werewolf inside of him, but he barely thought about how he’d be forced to shift when the full moon came out. The sad thing is the few times that he did think about it, he thought it might be a reprieve from the torture, a reprieve from his own mind, and he never once fucking considered his father would throw a person in here with him… more than just any person but someone he loves, more than just someone he loves but Elena.
His father threw Elena in with him.
Ethan doesn’t know when Lucien realized that Elena was a good subject to torment him with. He knows the man followed them all around and likely saw how close they were. His brothers were—they were used frequently too, but he also knew his father couldn’t kill them, whatever else happened. Not until the ceremony, he could hurt them all, but it wasn’t until that night that he would have the power to kill any of them permanently.
It wasn’t much, because they are all starting to learn there is something much worse than death. There is being trapped. There is being tortured. There is being broken and remade. There is destroying people you love. There is becoming like Lucien, the worst fate of all, and he can almost imagine it.
Days into all of this, he can almost imagine it. He can almost imagine becoming something like his father instead of like himself. The monster that is always back in th edges of his mind, he feels it now without being able to avoid it or escape it because it is right there, and he knows-
Knows how it feels when it takes over without the full moon out, without him shifting into the werewolf because Lucien brings out that rage and that violence that is always around in any werewolf whether they have shifted at that time or not. It’s so many emotions that he has never stopped long enough to feel, and he knows what it feels like to be in his own skin (what he thought was his own skin) and feel nothing but rage and wanting to rip something- someone apart.
Even if it was only Lucien that he’s ever wanted to tear apart so far, it’s more than he has ever wanted as himself before, more than he has ever felt when in his own body. If he had a weapon, he would have torn him apart, not just an easy murder either. It would have been slow. He wanted it to be slow in those moments, and it is that thing that his father wants to cultivate.
Erase Ethan, break Ethan, take the pieces he wants to use and make what he wants from it, take the pieces and do what he wants with it.
It’s not that Ethan doesn’t know there are things she doesn’t really face. If Elena ever did, she would be stuck in bed some days, all day long, and he doesn’t think there is anything wrong with that. Elena just pushes forward, every single day, one after the other, and she doesn’t face everything, but she has always faced more than he has whether that’s just one day to the next or in people around her. She demands more of people, and it’s enough for him to admire even knowing there is a lot that she must not face, that she can’t face.
Ethan never thinks she is anything but human, doesn’t put her up on any pedestal, but he loves her for that humanity, for the mistakes, for what she refuses to face along with all that she does face every day. She is sometimes very grumpy and childish when she lets herself be, she has trouble seeing things fully sometimes unless someone speaks up, she doesn’t think to have things for herself as much as she thinks about what those around her need and should have, and she has a hard time letting go even when it’s important for her to do so. But he loves all these things about her like he loves the rest of her, everything in her that makes him admire her as a person without blinding him to the fact that she is a person.
A wonderful, amazing, challenging, headstrong, heartstrong (yes, that word was made up just now to describe her), beautiful, funny, talented, relentless, young woman.
Who came into his life and changed it forever, he will always admire her for that and there’s no need to put her up on any pedestal but he can do that seeing her exactly as she is, knowing she’s wrong sometimes and that’s okay too.
They should have both realized it much sooner than they did.
He should have realized it when she got through to him and reached to him when very little else could or did. He should have realized it at how it felt when he’d look over at her even when she wasn’t the one talking, the focus of the attention of the room…just to check in on her. They both had their reasons for not figuring it out earlier.
But now they are here in this moment with this reason, and they know the truth now, better late than never at all, better now than before either of them is lost for always. His hands slip through her hair as he closes his eyes there, remembering this, this kiss, this moment where they both know with absolute certainty. Despite how much it hurts to look at her and the pain in her expression, he doesn’t look away.
“Not if I’m going to kill you, Elena,” Ethan says as he looks up and over at her, breathing- not able to breathe through the panic that descends on him. He shuts his eyes tightly. He doesn’t want to live now if it means that she dies because he is alive, because of that monster that is a part of him that will rip her apart- not just kill her easily, no. It’s never easily.
It would be slow, and he’s sick—sick with it.
Ethan shuts his eyes tightly, and he wants to believe it. He wants nothing more than to hold her but he doesn’t trust any part of himself long enough to get to her. And what right would he have taking those last moments with her when he was the one that would shut it all off, kill her where she stands, tear her into pieces and he can picture it so perfectly, too perfectly. “I hear you,” he says in a quiet, thin voice if only because he’d go mad right here if he didn’t believe it wouldn’t- it couldn’t-
He doesn’t know what he has planned, doesn’t know what he’d do, but he has no doubts his father could mold even a broken mind into whatever he wanted it to be. It’s not reassuring though so he doesn’t think about it. He thinks about how he wouldn’t risk it, wouldn’t try it until it was too late, thinks about all of that instead.
Tears burn at his eyes when he sees and feels her thumb slipping over his hands which don’t shake anymore though bile rises up in his throat at the thought- the thought that she is reaching out to him, comforting him, reassuring him ,and knowing. Knowing he can feel it, sense it, everywhere, her heart beat, her breathing, his senses come to life vividly, intensely.
He looks across the darkness at her, shaking his head when she says that he can, and he breathes through the fire, the need, the hunger and violence building in his chest. Ethan nods.
“I will. I’ll hold on,” Ethan says, not feeling the pain in his arms, the blood that drips down them, he can’t feel any of it in his panic and horror and in the fight to keep himself here. He can’t- can’t reach for her, but he knows she is near and it gives him the strength to push it back further, and he listens to her and like before when nothing else could get through to him, it does. He is listening to her, and he nods,jaw locking tightly. “I’ll fight it. I’ll fight it with ev- everything I can.”
Everything he is even if it’s just going to hold off the inevitable.
He doesn’t know how to do anything else, knowing not fighting it means that much more quickly, she’ll be ripped to pieces.
Ethan shakes his head again when she says that he won’t. It’s part of him, and he has been trying to deny it for so long and he should have- he should have known. He should have known but he’s always been so stupid when it comes to this. “I’m sorry,” it’s all he can say through gritted teeth in a forced, quiet whisper as he fights against this body that he is trapped in.
He fights with all his strength, all his will, all he has and the pain is unlike anything I thas ever been before, like his veins are on Fire, and he can hear the howling meaning- meaning the other werewolves have already shifted, are already there, but he can’t- it screams through him and it’s him that is screaming, heart beating wildly, limb by limb becoming something not him- not human-not even close.
And he's horrified and terrified as he fights every second of this violation of everything he ever was. He's horrified and terrified that she is right there so close to the violence, and it's not okay. It's not fucking- not fucking okay that she'll be on the other side of it.
Only faintly-
Only very faintly he can hear her
Ethan, don’t-
It’s the last thing that he hears before his claws dig in, and Ethan- Ethan can’t be there anymore physically or mentally or the rest of it, blood being spilled, and the werewolf takes over. The screams that were there becomes the howl instead from him, and the werewolf is angry- the werewolf is hungry, the werewolf is fighting without stopping, shoving and pulling and yanking at the chains behind it.
It wants her, wants her blood, wants to tear her apart until the heart stops beating, fresh, live-
But she’s taken.
The door slams open, and the werewolf lunges at the door, at the bars, at the walls of the cell in anger and rage, howling and growling like the trapped animal that it is. There’s a carcass of a deer tossed in, there’s blood tossed in too, and the werewolf doesn’t know why, doesn’t think of whys. It hungers, and it tears it apart, the carcass, the all of it- it tears it apart until it’s gone.
Blood stains the wall and the dark fur of the beast as it eats and howls with the monsters kept in cages
It eats what’s living
And howls alone
And that’s how the night finishes for the monster in the cage.
2/2
There's this insistent feeling, thudding in the back of his head along with his heart beat which almost sounds too quiet in the near silence that surrounds him.
This feeling he needs to- there's something. There's something that has happened, and he aches with it, screams with it, howls with it in the back of his head. It wasn't only his screams at all. It was....
It was hers, and he shoots up to a sitting position. The strength of the movement sending a wave of pain through him that he ignores. His heart beating at a hundred miles per minute.
"No, no- that's not-"
It couldn't have happened. It didn't happen. Elena's not dead. He didn't kill her. Please, please, please, make it a nightmare, make it not real, but he kissed her and that- that was real.
He searches through his head, tries tries to piece it all back together as he pushes himself up in the cell, slipping slightly, and he hasn't even thought of what he might be slipping in. It hasn't occurred to him, because he is still in shock, pale and shaking and sweating. He's covered in it too but he hasn't thought about it yet.
He paces back and forth and back and forth with his shaking hands and fingers sliding through his hair as he pieces it together, one by one, bit by bit, the very last moments, why she was in the cell with him, what it-
What it meant, it can't have meant it. It can't have meant it, but he remembers- a flash of his claw digging into her arm and her screaming as he lashed out. There was no time. The- the- ohgod the shackles. The shackles are broken and off the wall, and they aren't on-
They're not on his mangled wrists anymore.
"No, please-"
And it hits him like someone has shoved a sword in him, his hand resting against the wall to keep him up right, shock and grief and guilt and pain all at once like he has never felt before, nearly doubled over from it.
That's when he notices the blood on his hands, and he jumps back as if jolted, as if something's struck him, and he lands roughly on his back in something that's-- it's not quite the ground. He turns his head back horrified to see what it is but unable to not look, moving almost against his own will without thinking about it until he sees-
"No! Elena, I-"
you killed her
The blood stained all across the floors and the wall, staining the drain that was supposed to catch it all... horror and shock hit him and his reaction is instantaneous. Ethan doubles over in pain and sickness as it rises up in his throat and he vomits, pukes everything out of his stomach and it only takes him a second to realize--
you killed her
to realize-
she's dead
and this is her
blood
to realize what he is puking up is more blood, which twists his stomach in a fire, making him sicker, making him puke further at the sight and the horrific realization that crashes down on top of him, hands, the whole of him shaking where he's lying until there's nothing left, nothing-
"Can't be, you can't be- I can't have-" His voice is hoarse and strained and almost crazed, the sound of it, and nothing like his own, what it used to be.
But it's there, the realization, the knowing, the thing he is trying to fight himself not to know but he knows anyway because it is splattered everywhere, all over the cell and all over him and inside of him- and he lets out a sound that's not human but pure pain and grief.
No more blood inside of him. It's all been coughed, hacked out underneath him, tearing at himself with shaking fingers and hands that are too weak to do more than scratch at his skin, tear it back but not- and ignoring the fire in his wrists and his arms as he sobs and screams incoherently, trying to make it not be true notbetrue don't let it be true please, his stomach on fire, the taste of blood in his mouth, her-
He didn't think he could puke anymore, but he does bile and blood as he lashes out weakly at nothing- there's nothing.
And he's lying in her blood with it dripping from his mouth, and tears are burning in his eyes as he stares at it feeling hate for it and hate for himself and hateandhtanteandhate and so- he- he's so sorry elena, please, i and how much did it hurt? how LONG was he ripping her to pieces before it was finally- how much did she scream? how much did it hurt? why did she have to die that way alone? why couldn't he have killed himself right then and there, and he can't- he can't- he-
somewhere in the sobs and the screaming, he stops.
he just stops.
his brain shuts down. turns off without warning. one moment it had been breaking into pieces and then it's gone, can't take it, can't take anything, can't hear, can't speak, can't move.
ethan shuts down, and he lies there on the bottom of the cell, unmoving.
done.
They come in later and tell him the ceremony will begin tonight.
And he doesn't move.
[post-ceremony]
Or rather, she doesn't know how it didn't end up happening. They'd all but lost hope and somehow, the ceremony they were ready to welcome with open arms if it meant an end didn't come to pass. The events of the past five hours occurred far too quickly for her to process and there's no time to stop.
Once they were saved from the ceremony and they attacked Lucien at his most vulnerable, no time was wasted. Those that were injured were all carried into two separate vans and it sped off, leaving Chicago behind. She isn't sure where they are, though they couldn't have gone too far. Just stopped at the most remote motel they saw to hide in until they received news.
No sooner has Elena stepped out of the van, she's walking, her laser focus keeping her from being aware of anything else. Jeremy is alive and safe. They are all, somehow, miraculously alive and safe.
"I need to see him."
The words come out urgently, almost beseeching, though she has no idea who she'd be begging to.
She doesn't want to rest and she doesn't want to heal and she doesn't want to eat. She just needs to see Ethan. She needs him to see her. Elena wasn't allowed to say a word to him when she was brought out for the ceremony. She wasn't allowed to get close to him and she tried. She fought shackles and she yelled at him from her spot, rings of fire keeping them all separate. She fought as hard as she could
The ceremony will remain unfinished, and Lucien is most likely dead.
They're still waiting for confirmation before they can decide what the next step is, and Elena can't be bothered to sit around and wait for it. She can't even be bothered to pray and hope that the monster is dead even if it's all she wants.
Well, not all she wants.
"I need to see him," she repeats stubbornly, pushing past whoever was obstructing her path. She keeps moving down the hallway, quickening her steps. There are several rooms which have been booked and she needs to know which one Ethan is in. "Ethan?" she asks, her voice loud enough to reach past the walls and doors. "Ethan!"
She simply isn't going to stop until she finds him.
no subject
They sprayed them all down and made them clean for the ceremony, but he wouldn't move, wouldn't dress himself, wouldn't eat, wouldn't drink anything of his own free will, of his own volition. It didn't matter if they hit him to get him to cooperate (and it wasn't even that he was resisting), and they did, but he didn't move. They pushed him along into the ring of fire, and he didn't flinch away from the flames that reached him, burning all of their skin.
People yelled at him, talked to him, his own brothers, and he didn't look at them, didn't say a word at all.
Nothing could touch him. Nothing could reach him at all.
His mind had shut down, and it was merciful in a sense.
As soon as it was turned on again, he would have sunk back down and been overwhelmed with the horror and the knowledge of what he had done.
The ceremony started.
He couldn't see or hear anything.
The times he thought he heard her voice, saw her there in a ring of fire too, he knew it was a trick. It wasn't real. It was Lucien trying to mess with his mind again when it was far past broken, and he didn't understand the point and didn't try to understand the point or to fight against the unfairness of it. There was nothing.
There wasn't even an awareness of it all being over.
He had to be dragged away from where he was standing when the ceremony failed and Lucien lay dying. Ethan stared at him and at the blood that spread out underneath the man, and for the first time he felt something, it was happiness, joy. Something like it, and under the rest, sickness. Maybe he won't ever be able to see blood again without immediately gagging.
So he had to be dragged away, and he sat in the van with his brothers and didn't react and didn't move and didn't say anything, and Logan and Connor brought him into one of the rooms. Logan was trying to talk to him, but he wasn't responding, not to anything, and no one knows why.
There was no time to talk and even if there was and even if he could speak out loud, how would he ever say it?
I loved Elena. I killed Elena.
Her blood was in my stomach, because I ripped her apart with my teeth.
I made her scream.
How does anyone say that?
He doesn't even think to say it, to speak, to look anywhere else. He's staring straight ahead, and Logan is shaking him but it doesn't do any good. He only stares ahead at nothing at all.
It's Logan that hears her, and he gets to his feet, looking at Connor before Logan walks out into the hallway to find her, and he shuts the door behind him for a moment as he looks at her. "Elena?"
There's a slight pause, and there's a lot from tonight that none of them have processed and he doesn't know if she'll even stop long enough for him to say anything. She does have that laser focus.
"He won't talk to us."
Won't do anything at all.
no subject
Elena knew but she couldn't say.
From the moment she was grabbed in the nick of time, pulled away from the cell, she hasn't had contact with anyone else. The ruse had to be believable. Ethan had to believe that she was dead, and that meant she was taken somewhere farther from the rest, where not even her screams could be heard.
She tried to break free, she tried to get to him so that he wouldn't -- so that this wouldn't happen, but to no avail. It felt as helpless as it had before she was brought to him and she saw him for the first time in days. Before they were told why she was brought there to begin with.
Elena attempted to reach him once again as she was brought out for the ceremony but they were far away from each other. She could see him, and she was positive he could see her, but it doesn't surprise her he wouldn't believe it.
How could he when he'd wake up to all that blood?
It's sick. She was sick to her stomach imagining what he'd wake up to, what they -- what they would make him believe and how she'd be unable to stop it from happening, from tearing down the bars of that cell to reach him and shake him and let him know it was all a lie.
Elena has been able to think of nothing else from the moment they were saved. She wasn't in the same van that he was, and they had to be taken far enough away from Chicago they wouldn't be caught. Lucien had alienated most of the Society, but that didn't mean he wasn't without his henchmen. It also didn't mean the Society was suddenly on their side.
All it meant was they had to sides working against them, that would also be working against each other. It only meant more enemies, no allies, more people to hide from.
There's no relief yet at the prospect of Lucien being dead, at the prospect of it all maybe being over, because she hasn't seen him and she hasn't been able to explain. And all the explanations and the answers have been choking at her from the moment she was dragged off and chloroformed.
Elena does stop at her name, but she never looks quite still.
She doesn't move from her spot for the length she's spoken to, but it's obvious she wants to bolt and it takes effort to stay in that place long enough to understand what Logan is telling her.
He won't talk to us.
She turns to Logan, a devastated look in her eye, and her gaze slowly travels toward Ethan. How does anyone explain what happened down in that basement? How does she put into words what he believes happened? Elena can't. Not until she's talked to him first, gotten through to him, and she has to believe that she still can.
They didn't die, and this couldn't have been for nothing.
A hand moves over to her stomach as she forces a breath in, a deep breath that does nothing to remedy the unsteadiness she feels. She still feels sick with it, with everything that happened, and she doesn't know that she ever will not feel sick, but she pushes it aside to walk over to Ethan.
She half-kneels down before him, her hands on his face, tentatively. As if she's worried she might only make it worse, might only remind him of what happened. What he believes happened.
"Ethan," she urges, shaking his head gently so that he'll look at her. Her expression is that of imploring. Her eyes are imploring but her voice is firm. It means to reach. "Ethan, it's Elena. I'm not dead. It was a test. It was all a test and they wouldn't let me come back. I need you to believe me. Please."
no subject
They were all separated into different cages, into different areas so no one would know.
There would be no way to tell how well someone was doing or if they were hurting or if it was their screams you heard or someone else’s. They all became familiar with the sounds of them, the screams. For the most part, he could pick them apart. They all probably could.
When it wasn’t them being tortured in some way, it was someone they loved. In that way, it was almost better when it was them so they knew or hoped the others would be left alone as long as they were there. He didn’t hear screams.
He didn’t hear or see anything after it happened when he woke up in the blood and vomited blood and curled up in the blood and sobbed and screamed. Even if she had been closer, her screams might not have reached him there, because it was the moment that he was puking her blood out on to the pavement under him that he knew without doubt what he had done.
Ethan knew and what flashes returned from him didn’t do anything but confirm that belief.
She was screaming. His claw sunk into her arm. She was saying. Ethan, don’t.
The flashes that returned to him in the middle of the screaming and the sobbing and the tearing at himself as if he could destroy himself right then and there. It didn’t matter that it was too late. He shouldn’t exist. A monster like that shouldn’t exist. It doesn’t matter the cost.
And then it was all gone. It turned off in his head, in his mind.
There was nothing, and it was merciful.
Ethan has not been himself, has not been anyone. There’s nothing there or so it seems. It’s all locked up so tightly in his head. He can stand and sit if he’s made to, but then he doesn’t move, wouldn’t breathe if that was a choice but it’s not a choice. Breathing happens automatically.
The heart beats automatically, shoving the blood through his veins even when he wouldn’t choose for it to do so.
He doesn’t know where he is, hasn’t thought about what happened. It’s a wonder he even recognizes his brothers but he does. He recognizes them, and they’re here. Connor and Logan brought him in, and they’re trying to get through to him, trying to talk to him, trying to see him react.
There’s just nothing.
He doesn’t even hear what they’re saying. It doesn’t reach him so the words don’t even make a difference. They could be telling him that Elena would be coming soon. They could be yelling and pleading, and he wouldn’t- hewouldn’t- he wouldn’t know.
Logan sees that devastated look in her eyes, and he knows that she knows. It’s something, everything maybe. Without someone that has any idea, what do they have? How do they know what to do? And he doesn’t want it all to be for nothing, he refuses to lose one of his brothers when they’re right there, when they are alive. There has to be hope.
Ethan doesn’t look up when she enters the room. He doesn’t look up at the screaming of his name, because he doesn’t hear it at all.
He’s still staring at that spot away from her when her hands rest against his face, and he- he doesn’t feel it, can’t feel it, it’s not real. It’s not real. None of it is real. He looks at her when she shakes his head, but it’s not really clear if he’s seeing and the first movement he makes that is his own, his own choice, his own movement is to close his eyes when she says it.
it’s Elena.
I’m not dead.
He closes his eyes and breathes in and then out and in and then out, slowly.
“This is a trick,” he says, manages to say, in the quietest voice like saying it any louder would be wrong.
This isn’t real. He doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not real anymore, but this isn’t real.
she's dead.
i killed her. i vomited up her blood myself.
that was in my stomach, her blood. i made her scream.
A hollow pain slides across his chest.
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The way he sounded when he said he was sorry.
The pain he was in every time he tried to fend it off.
There is no way she can explain all of this. She doesn't think she'll ever be able to and maybe that's for the best. Maybe what happened that night, in that cell, should only be for Ethan and Elena to know. They should've have had to experience something like that to begin with. It never should've happened but it did, and she can carry that with him.
The worst didn't come to pass. Despite their fears, it was a test, and it's -- she's not dead and she has to convince him of that somehow. She has to bring him back out long enough for him to realize what's real and what isn't and she's terrified of that vacancy.
Of that nothingness.
Elena gives pause once Logan says what he says.
It was only a few short words but they carry a punch. Not that it's anything in comparison to the punch that travels right to her gut when she turns a fraction and spots him.
The sight of him terrifies her. More than being locked in that cage did. It's like he's not there and much like Logan, Elena refuses to lose any of them when they're somehow all alive. They learned in a terribly difficult way that death is not the worst of options but they somehow made it all alive and it has to mean something.
Elena scans the length of him, watching his face in confusion, watching as he doesn't -- as it doesn't register. Not the sound of her voice and not the touch of her hand and this is not the same Ethan she left in the cell before he began to transform. She knows it, the same way she knows she is not the same girl that was carried off, but it is still Ethan.
And she does still love him.
Nothing would change that, not the claws on her skin and what they almost made him do.
None of it.
Elena glances back at Connor and Logan before she focuses on Ethan once more. When she speaks, it's as quietly as he does, for only Ethan to hear. Connor can't make out what they're saying but it's just as well. He's leaning against the door as if guarding it, as if not -- not wanting to let anything else touch any of them, but especially Ethan.
His whole body aches and the anger threatens to consume him, the force of it nearly sending him to the floor but he remains standing, back against the wall, vigilant. Hoping.
Hoping.
"No," she says, shaking her head. Her voice manages to sound tearful and strong at the same time. The narration doesn't know how she manages it but she does. She swallows past the unsteadiness that threatens to make her voice crack. "No, it's not. It's not a trick. Ethan, it was an animal. They replaced me with an animal so you'd think it was me. The blood was not mine. I tried to tell you."
Elena picks up his hand and places it over the side of her face.
"This is real," she tells him, willing him to believe it. "I'm real. Ethan, you have to believe me."
She doesn't say anything else yet, only keeps the palm of his hand directly over the side of her face. She holds it against her cheek with her own hand, fingers splaying gently on top of his own.
It's real.
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He set up the camera, and he saw the truth, horrified, terrified at what it is that he was.
Why take the risk? He’s asked their mother. Why take the risk at all? And he doesn’t remember her answer now, can barely remember anything a all, he only remembers she looked very sad.
It’s the sadness that stays like Elena’s expression when she was insisting that it wouldn’t happen, insisting that he not hurt himself and that she knew what he was doing, but she wouldn’t let him die. Not that there was any way that he could die that night or he would have without hesitation.
He didn’t have that option though. It wasn’t given to him in any capacity. They were in a small cell with only the two of them, and he broke his wrists trying to free himself from the shackles, and it didn’t do any good at all. It didn’t change anything, and he couldn’t even use the chains to stop his own breathing.
And the aftermath and waking up and knowing-
The nothingness though it stays with him is merciful.
It’s much more merciful than what he was reduced to on the floor of that cell in the morning after it had all happened and the full moon went away to be replaced by the sun though he couldn’t see it from where he was. There was- there was only the blood that he saw everywhere.
This isn’t Ethan at all. He is locked away so far inside of himself that- it’s the ultimate means of avoidance, the ultimate coping mechanism that was practically instinct. There was no way that Ethan would have survived knowing that. His mind would have splintered apart, and it already started to before it all shut down, everything shut down. And it’s still shut down.
Logan is standing near Connor, and he reaches a hand over to rest against his shoulder as they wait there as if he can sense the anger. Likely because he feels it himself, he feels it intensely. They all do after everything that happened, and the shock and all of it hasn’t worn off yet.
They all made it through, all made it through alive though, and- He looks at Connor for a moment before he looks at Elena again. He doesn’t need to hear what happened. A part of him will always wonder because it’s his brother, but he- he just needs all of them to make it through this.
Maybe he is hallucinating. If it’s not a trick, maybe-
It seems so real. Everything has tangled up in his mind but if it is a hallucination, wouldn’t he rather believe that than reality anyway?
He shakes his head as he stares at her. “I killed you. You were screaming. I- my claws-“ Ethan stares at her arm, but there’s no blood there. There’s nothing, but it happened last night. There wouldn’t be blood. It happened last night, not right now, not right now. He breathes in through the fire in his chest.
Bile rises up through his throat as he closes his eyes tight and then looks at him again as she lifts up his hand, and it’s that- that that has him reacting.
Ethan shakes pulling his hand away as if it burned him but it wasn’t- he’s the fire and she’s what gets burned. His hand pulls back, shaking- trembling visibly as he looks at her, no more nothingness, the pain and the guilt in his eyes. “How could you-“
Let him touch her, let him touch her after that. How could she? How can he trust his body? He can’t. He can’t, and he feels sick, nearly doubles over with it again, head bowed low, one hand pressed against his stomach, and he lowers his head until it's resting against her shoulder. That feels like her too, that feels, it feels real. He’s shaky and he feels sick, but it’s not nothing anymore. It’s Ethan being pulled back, being reached by Elena, and it shouldn’t and isn’t surprising she’s the only one that-
Is she real? How else is she here? Why would the nothing hallucinate Elena? God, he wants to touch her but he’s afraid to. His hands slide into shaky fists, the whole of him trembling slightly as he shuts his eyes and then forces them open again, tears burning in his eyes.
Does he dare let himself think for a second? That he didn’t rip her apart and eat her, that he didn’t spill her blood on- all-
"Don't care if I am hallucinating." He wants- needs- he can't.
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Hers, his, but mostly -- she understands now in a way she couldn't have possibly understood before how every night he would turn is a complete and total violation of his free will. She talks a good game, and she sees the humanity in supernatural beings that not many other people would, but it's another thing to see their supernatural side at its very worst without anything to save you from it.
And just when you think it couldn't possibly get worse, Lucien was sick and twisted enough to throw her in there with him while he lived his worse fear. She just couldn't let him kill himself, even knowing what that could mean. Elena couldn't, especially not to spare her own life, and she doesn't linger on what that means.
All she knew was he couldn't die, and she grasped at straws that ended up being true.
It wasn't a test, though. It was just another one of Lucien's mind games, and Elena had no way of knowing Ethan would be made to believe what he did, much less would she have been able to find a way to get to him enough to stop it and she tried. Everything about the past weeks has been all about trying far past what should be anyone's human limits, and it never made any difference.
The reason they were saved had nothing to do with how hard they fought and how they hung in there. It just gives it more significance entirely by accident, and she couldn't quite help the bitterness of the thought aside from the relief that wrapped her hole.
Relief that it wasn't over. That they're not dead and that's all she could think about as she was locked away in one of the farthest rooms away from everyone else. She'd think about their dying, she would think about more gravestones, and they did learn there is something much less merciful than death but that didn't stop the fear, the horrifying thoughts.
Not the most horrible of them.
How can one allow themselves to believe the truly horrible, the most horrible of it all, and still be expected to go on? You can't. It's not possible, so you believe the delusion even if you know that's what it is.
Nothing could've, not until the end, and Elena still isn't sure how it all happened.
She hasn't given herself time to stop and think and process. She's only been able to handle one thing at a time and as soon as she could, her only thought was to get to him. Without even letting her think he might not believe her, that it might not work, she doesn't allow those alternatives to register because she has to make him see and he has to be okay.
Connor looks over at Logan, the heaviness inescapable in his eyes. He nods at the reassurance, and it is a reassurance in some way. Logan is one of the older ones and Connor still looks to him for guidance, because he sure as hell doesn't know what to do about anything now. There's the pain and there's the anger and there's the waiting.
It is agonizing to wait for confirmation to finally allow himself to believe that maybe it's over, but until there is, until there's some proof in his hands that he can believe beyond all doubt he's not letting himself rest. Not allowing himself to be relieved. Until then he waits, vigilant, and he does what he can.
As if he can do anything.
As he wonders, and he wonders as much as Logan, and Elena isn't keeping it from them but it's not -- it's not something that'll be coming from her anytime soon.
Elena shakes her head again, shovign down the pain that comes with those words. It's not like she didn't think what he was thinking, moments before she was dragged off. She thought it was the end. She was horrified to realize she'd been wrong and he would have to live with this, but it didn't happen and her grip on his face tightens helplessly so.
"No, you didn't. Ethan, it was the carcass of a deer. I'm fine. You didn't do anything to me," Elena says. It doesn't matter that the words might not reach him, she has to say them anyway, say them as many times as she can until she's blue in the face and he believes her.
Elena flinches when he pulles his hand away, and she doesn't try reaching for it again. At least, not that time. She understands. Why he looks at her the way he does, and the pain and guilt in his eyes is a punch to the gut. "It wasn't you," she says helplessly. "You didn't hurt me. I'm not scared of you."
If that makes her stupid, then she's stupid.
She doesn't move from her spot at his knees, and she practically holds her breath until his head is resting against her shoulder. Elena blinks back tears as her hand slides over the back of his head, her face leaning against his as she finally allows herself the breath. She cups the back of his head gently with a hand, not daring to move from her spot.
"Ethan, you're not," she whispers plaintively.
Elena draws back, but only so that she can see his face, touch it again with her hands. She draws back only so that she can look into his eyes when he opens them again. It hurts so much to see it all there, but it's better than the nothing. It's the nothingness that would really scare her, she wouldn't be able to handle that.
"You're not hallucinating. If you don't trust yourself, I need you to trust me."
Trust that what she is telling him is true.
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There’s no control. There’s no sense of Ethan, because Ethan gets shoved back and his body is taken. There are times when he doesn’t know whose body it really is, his or the thing’s. Ethan is taken and shoved away every time that it happens, and it’s something that eventually you get used to, but it is still equally terrifying each and every time.
And Ethan couldn’t let himself live couldn’t not kill himself, knowing it would mean he would tear her apart. There wasn’t the option there though, and Elena would have fought him every step of the way and he is helpless to do anything but be affected by her face and her words when she is sad and desperate.
It would have broken him, did break him to think he had killed her, and he never would have lived past that night in the cell anyway.
But he understood then even past the panic that so many people have died when she thought she should have died, so many people have died in relation to her being a doppleganger.
Never before had it ever become more clear to him how willing Elena is to lay down her life for anyone over her own.
She proved he would be more than willing to do that for him that night even though it meant that he would die later anyway. His mind wouldn’t have been able to take it. His brothers wouldn’t have gotten him back, and he would die, because he’d ripped her apart and ate her- ate-
His brain had to shut down. There was no other option at that point, because Ethan’s- he would have fractured if he’d stayed, and he wouldn’t have been- Elena wouldn’t have been able to reach him either. Because how do you live with that? How do you go on? For that time that he was still there, he couldn’t stop thinking about it, imagining it, picturing it in his head, and it was far too easy to do, and he never would have stopped thinking about it, tasting her blood and… all of it in his mouth, on his skin, all over him.
Everywhere.
Logan sees it. He sees the heaviness in Connor’s eyes, and it hurts. There were a lot of times when… he didn’t think he would make it out of there. Adrien and Logan would have been the first to go, but he is relieved to be here with his brothers, relieved to be able to help guide the younger ones because he knows how lost they all are right now, how angry and hurting and lost they all are, because of their father.
The man that brought them into the world for this purpose.
It’s agonizing and stressful to wait, to wait and have that be all they can do but Logan hopes they’ll see it soon, and he rests his hand on his shoulder tightening his hold for a moment. They’re brothers and that doesn’t change, whatever Lucien was trying to do to all of them.
Ethan stares at her, through her almost. It’s like shifting between who he is and the nothingness, back and forth and back and forth. He stares at her in confusion as she speaks, because how is this possible? He knew. He knew that he had killed her. There wasn’t any doubt, the evidence was all around him, and what was the point of doing it- of pretending?
It was deer. He was throwing up deer blood, not Elena- Elena blood, Elena blood twisted up in his stomach, in his gut like fire because his- because he’s eaten- he closes his eyes again, swallowing back bile, shaking. He’s shaking as he shakes his head at her, face finally crumpling at what she says.
“It was-It was me. It wa- I spit out your blood, there was s- so much blood, and I did it. Me,” he says, the words streaming out of him as he lifts his head enough to look at her, confusion and apologies and- “Why aren’t you scared? I’m scared. You should be scared. Everyone-” He chokes on the bile rising up in his throat, cuts himself off, tears welling up in his eyes and his hands shake as he pulls them in toward himself, away from her, away-
The panic descends on him, and he shake his head.
He shakes his head until his- his head moves forward and rest against her shoulder there. He closes his eyes tightly, tears burning at his eyes when her hand move to rest against the back of his head. They slip down his face as he shakes with that fear all over, breathing unsteady, not trusting his hands, keeping his hands away. Ethan you’re not. Ethan lifts his head up enough to rest his lips there against her shoulder too with his eyes closed there.
It’s not until she pulls back and looks in her eyes that he sees it, not even his own mind could reach him the way Elena can, always has.
He opens his mouth to protest. If she is a hallucination, then trusting a hallucination isn’t exactly smart, but either way he doesn’t care. This is what he needs to be true, this is it, this. It’s this or being lost inside of himself, shut down, accepting what he did.
And he can’t.
And he nods, expression crumpling again painfully. “Ye- yeah, okay,” Ethan says in a choked voice as he nods, chest tightening painfully. “I do. I trust you.”
He swallows back the bile rising up in his throat.
"Elena. You're- you're alive. You're alive," he says and he backs enough away from her to look at her, to look at every part of her to make sure and to see every pat of her, still attached, still whole. He wants so badly to touch her and to know, to know she isn't-- isn't in pieces.
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The sheer magnitude of what they were going up against made it impossible for him to see out of the hole he'd sunk into. None of them had been prepared for what was going to happen. None of them save maybe Adam were prepared for the monstrosity of what Lucien would force down on each and every one of them. Even Adam couldn't have fully prepared for it, as Lucien only grew more erratic and deranged after Virginia killed herself.
It made him that much more unpredictable and that much more sadistic.
He finally didn't have absolutely anything to lose, and the cards were stacked on his side once he had each and every one of them. Connor doesn't even really want to know how long Lucien was in Chicago, possessing someone else's body, watching their every step. He doesn't want to know if he talked to him beforehand, befriended him and invited him into his life and the lives of his friends without even knowing.
God, he planned it all so perfectly well.
There wasn't anything he didn't know when it all came to blows. There wasn't anything they could hide from him. Not the people that were important to them, not the places they'd frequently visit, not the events they'd go to and the schools they'd enrolled in. He knew everything. Every little tiny piece of information was one he studied and stored away, as if building up to those moments when he'd finally break them with it.
Connor doesn't know that he didn't succeed.
They all look broken. He feels broken, too. It's not all hopeless, and it sure as hell isn't over, but he's no longer as determined and willful as he had been when this all began. Logan's hand tightens over his shoulder, and he bows his head a little. There's no way to keep that downtrodden expression off his face, certainly not when Ethan looks the way he does.
When he wouldn't respond, no matter how many times he tried to reach his younger brother. He wasn't there. He was just gone, and it's horrifying to try to think of all the many ways in which their father could've caused this, could've brought Ethan to this breaking point.
Logan hopes and Connor wants to hope with him, but he doesn't think that he'll fully be able to until Ethan responds, until he sees something of Ethan inside the weightless body that has now shut down on him along with -- along with everyone else.
Elena has always been willing to lay down her life for those of others, for those loved ones and family that she has.
He just hadn't ever been confronted with the extreme willingness of Elena's and she doesn't even think twice about it anymore. As far as she's concerned, she's always known her choice. If it's between her or her family, it's always going to be her family.
Everyone is always so willing to die for her. Everyone goes to extremes to keep her safe and all she's ever wanted is to do the same for them. It wouldn't be hard, dying for someone she loves. (Living for them has always been so much harder.)
Elena's hands are delicatedly placed over his face, and she notices how he's practically seeing through her. It's terrifying, everything about this is threatening to let the fear take over, and she can never let the fear take over. She has to place it aside, and she has to get through to him, and Elena stubbornly refuses to accept another outcome.
"No. No, Ethan, it wasn't mine. It wasn't my blood. It's what he wanted you to think. This is what he wanted to do to you," Elena says, and she can barely keep the thinly veiled hatred out of her voice. The contempt swirls in the pit of her stomach, she can almost bitterly taste it in her mouth, but she places it aside because it won't help.
Her breath gets tangled up in her throat, a painful sob that never makes its way out catching in her throat. "I know you're scared," she says, and she hates that he is while understanding why he is and why he wouldn't be able to touch her right now. "I know why you're scared too, but Ethan, I'm not. I love you and I'm not scared."
Elena doesn't move back when he pulls away. She stays in place, giving him the distance, but close enough that she's still there when his head rests on her shoulder. She closes her eyes and blinks back the tears, shaking her head against him as he palm cups the back of his neck. She tightens her hold, only marginally, brings him close enough that she can hold him better.
Her hands return to his face when they pull back and he looks at her.
She shakes her head when he opens his mouth to protest.
"I'm real. Connor and Logan can see me, too. They're here with us and they know that I'm alive," Elena says, and she looks over at them as if willing them to corroborate this for her since he might not be able to fully on his own. She's reached him, but he still thinks she's a hallucination and Elena needs him to see that she's not.
Connor's throat tightens, eyes burning with tears as he steps forward, placing a hand on Elena's shoulder. "Ethan, man. She's here," he says, and he doesn't -- part of him wants to leave the room since it feels like an intrusion but he stays there long enough to give Elena's shoulder a squeeze before he steps back.
"Okay, trust me," she says in relief, slipping her hands further up his face as she stands up a bit more when he backs away.
She isn't in pieces.
She's in one piece and she's fine, as fine as anyone can possibly be after all that they've been through. She'll feel fine, or at least not quite so terrible, once she's reached him but physically she's more than fine. There was probably vampire blood in a lot of their systems at some point but as long as it does the trick.
"Ethan, it's me," she says, firmly. She's not stepping back or letting go.
Elena's never been able to die either of those things.
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There was no way they couldn't have had those moments, thinking they wouldn't get out of it again. Now that they are all here, now that they are all on the other side, it's different, and Logan refuses to lose any one of them after everything they went through. Logan doesn't know if it's hope that he has or if he- if it's just irrational determination.
They all look and feel broken down to the depths of themselves, and it's written on all of their faces. Mot of them aren't talking. Most of them are still waiting on edge. They're still waiting for something to shift and to change and to be told they have to go back, but they don't.
Lucien is dead.
He has to be dead. This has to be over.
And he doesn't want to think of the possibility that he could be anything but. Lucien needs to be dead after what he did to all of hi brothers, to all of these people. There was no preparing for it though Adam tried to, but even he couldn't explain how much worse it would get or anticipate.
All Adam knew was his time slowly unwinding, how he'd kill him when he was annoyed with him, and it was a sign to that psychosis but it didn't show how deep it really went. There was no anticipating it, and Logan hasn't had the chance to talk to Adam, because Adam stayed behind to make sure Lucien was dead but... he'll want to.
It seems stupid holding on to anything like anger when it's-- when they all figured out how easily it could all be lost. He was seconds away from death before Lucien was killed, fell dead. And he needs his whole family, everyone they care about to be- to be alive and to have a chance still at happiness... at something.
Logan stays close to him, watching, waiting, willing to run in in a second if there's-- if there's anything that he can do, and he has to believe something- it's not all lost.
No, Ethan has never faced and never seen that side of Elena up close. It wouldn't surprise him if he had time to think about it, and he has likely seen hints and evidence of it up until that point.
However, never was he put in that position where she was willing to sacrifice her life for his, where she was willing to let herself be torn to pieces. It wasn't even an easy death that was part of what was killing him. He can understand wanting an escape, but she-- she would have been torn to shreds.
Slowly while she screamed for it to end and it wouldn't have ended for such a long time.
It wasn't just death but inexplicable pain that she was willing to go through before letting him die even if he would have died anyway.
Ethan breathes in through the fire, the shakiness of the air in his chest as her hands rest delicately against his face. There is nothing he wants more than to grab hold of her even if it is not real and nothing he is more terrified of than trying and finding he just rips her apart instead. His hands curl in on themselves, trembling as they pull away from her.
"Not your blood," he repeats, and he doesn't think that his own mind-- if he was hallucinating, he doesn't think he's have Elena in his mind be so angry against Lucien when it was his claws that ripped her apart. Even if he is angry at Lucien, he'd want her angry at him if he did hallucinate her, tearing her apart.
His hands rest curled up against him, against his stomach as he looks at her with longing and wanting and needing to believe it, needing to believe it's true, but he's shaking. I love you, she says, and that's what breaks him, what makes his face crumple as he sobs just a little but it's feeling. It's not nothing, it's so far from nothing, it's starting to burn through him. I love you from the mouth of someone he would have ripped apart when he can't love himself, when he can't do anything but hate and fear himself, and she's here- someone like- she's here to love him and to be loved by him, and this has to be real because if he wakes up on that cell.
He will find the closest way to kill himself.
"I lo- I love you too."
And they were the only ones in the- in the dark cell, on the floor of the cell whispering that to each other. She is the only one who would know it so it can't- it can't be a trick. It has to be real or a hallucination or-
Ethan breathes in as he focuses on the feel of her hand against the back of his neck. It feels like her hand. She feels like her from what he can feel.
He looks at her for a long moment, and he shakes his head. If it's real, it has to b real. There are no other options, he wouldn't- he can't.
Logan doesn't need anything else othr than that, other than her looking over at them. He walks over to her side, placing his hand on her other shoulder. "She's here. We're real, this is really happening," he say quietly but firmly, insistently before he steps back again when Connor does.
Ethan looks at her when she slips her hands up to his face, and he looks at her, her face. God, he could never stand seeing her sad, and it's all- all coming back to him through the bile, the fire that's been shoved down into his stomach.
"I trust you."
He does. God, he does, and he doesn't trust himself, but he can trust her. He can trust what she is saying. Ethan can trust in what she is saying, and she is saying that she is real and she is here, and he didn't kill her. It's hitting, the realization falls over him.
"It's you," Ethan says almost wonderingly like it is finally clicking in his head, in all of him. His mouth slightly open as he shakes his head, and he is so over come with relief and with love for her that he doesn't think for this moment to be too afraid to touch her.
"It's you. You're not dead. I didn't ri- rip you apart, it's you." His chest tightens as his face crumples. "Elena."
He reaches for her, pulls her in against his chest, lifting her up against him, and wrapping his arms around you. Ethan buries his face against her neck as he keeps her close to him, ignoring how his arms shake, how the panic starts to set in again, because she's alive.
Elena is alive, and she's hurting, and she's-- she's alive.
Not taken from this world, not by him, not by anything or anyone.
no subject
No matter which way they looked at it, they were trapped, outnumbered, and easily overcome. It's painful how easily they were overcome when the time came, how it didn't take much at all for Lucien to swoop through the city and claim all of them as his possessions, as his newest toys to play with and break and mold again however he saw fit.
Those that had no use for him were quickly disposed of, and Elena doesn't want to think of all the many people that he killed.
Long before he ever came to Chicago, there were so many lives he took.
He ravaged a whole village, blackmailed, threatened, and intimidated innocent parties who weren't even directly related to them so as long as he could carve the path that would lead to them, at their most vulnerable.
Connor cannot contemplate any other possibility, either.
He has to be dead. After everything he did, after everything that happened, he needs to be dead. It makes him sick, the thoughts that swirl around his head, since -- it was too fast. Connor saw them take him down and it felt too fast, too easy, and it scares him that those are the thoughts. That his own rage swells and does not let him be because he didn't wrap his own hands around the monster's neck while squeezing his life away.
He brought out the worst in all of them.
He brought out the violence, the anger, the hatred.
Connor has never hated anything or anyone with as much consuming force the way he does that monster, and he needs Lucien to be dead. They all need him to be dead if they have any sort of hope of moving on. The thought of them always watching their backs, waiting for Lucien attempting to strike again, the thought of going through anything like this ever again -- it nearly makes his own brain shut down.
He'll stay close by also, however. There's nothing else he can do when his brother is staring off into the nothingness, unresponsive. They are all heavily scarred, they're all traumatized, but none of them have -- no one else has quite gotten like this, and the fact that Ethan isn't talking and they don't know why unsettles him that much more.
They tried everything but Ethan just shut down.
He shut down completely and nothing was bringing him back and that's how Connor knows whatever happened, it was so more unspeakable than anything he likely went through, so much more unspeakable than he can imagine.
He half doesn't want to.
The only reason he does is so that he can understand enough to do something that will help and like Logan, Connor has to believe there is something that will help. That it's not hopeless because there's so much that did end up being hopeless. Their all being alive has to be the one thing that isn't -- that won't be hopeless.
Elena wasn't thinking about her pain. She wasn't thinking about how slowly it would come or that she'd be torn apart limb by limb. She was only thinking about him and the way he fought those shackles and how he was trying to get them to his neck to kill himself. That's all she could think about while knowing she couldn't let it happen.
Needing to believe that it wouldn't happen, not for himself and not for her.
"No," she reassures him with the vehement shake of her head. The expression on her face is one that's similar to his, for the exact same reasons. She longs and wants and needs him to believe it. "Not my blood. They got me out of there and left you with the carcass instead. Ethan, I promise you that's what happened."
The expression on her face now twists into something painful at the sight of his crumpling face. She does not love him any less. She does not view him in any different way. The werewolf side of him, it wasn't something he could help and Elena saw how hard he tried, how he managed to successfully prolong the transformation for as long as he could so he wouldn't hurt her. It was nothing he ever meant to do and Elena will not and could not ever hold it against him.
"I know. We admitted it to each other, remember? I love you and you love me."
She's the only one that could know it.
She's the only one that could possibly remind him of it because she was there alongside him but she wasn't there for as long as he thought she was. Elena wanted to return as soon as it was all over so she could tell him the truth but it was impossible.
Elena looks over at them gratefully, when they stand behind her, when they tell Ethan what he should know. "I tried getting to you as soon as I could. They wouldn't let me. You didn't hurt me, Ethan, you have to know that," Elena says, with the same quiet insistence that Logan used only with an edge of a plea to it, as well. The urgency rushes through her and she's incapable of doing anything else.
She senses the moment where it finally clicks, and she almost sobs in relief.
"It's me," she repeats after him, smiling through her tears even if it is in no way a happy smile. Her hands drift down his face to cup his neck, keeping him close so that he can see for himself, and she isn't going to reach for his hand again if he's afraid to touch her but she is not afraid to touch him and she's not going anywhere.
Elena wraps her arms tightly around his neck when he pulls her in, looking at Connor and Logan in relief before she buries her own face against him, tightening her arms around him as she presses as closely into him as she possibly can, as if she wants to wrap around him whole. "It's me and I'm okay. I promise you I'm okay," she whispers against his neck, resting her lips there softly.
Her fingers curl into his hair with the same gentleness she's used thus far, despite how tight her hold is, practically clinging. Her hands move up and down his back, his arms, as she can feel the shaking there, despite the muted tremors running past her own skin.
"I'm here," she whispers. Again and again and again.
She's here and so is he and they made it through.
no subject
If there had been a way, they would have found it. They are all fighters in their own way, and they all would have died for the ones they love. It’s something that connected them, and it made them a dangerous, volatile group when they were all together. The first night after kidnapping was the dinner party, which wasn’t a party at all to anyone other than Lucien.
They got a taste then. They watched each other die, have their bones broken, and be forced into a torturous situation with no hope and no choices.
Lucien has taken an endless number of lives, not only this year but every year prior to it. It’s hard to tell whether it was the years or the murders that finally twisted him into what he is, someone with no remorse, no humanity left, nothing.
Nothing but his hatred and his innate ability to tear people apart, rip them from the inside out, break them until they are nothing more than birds in the cage. He wasn’t- was not perfect at it if he was, Virginia never would have died. They never would have been saved from the ceremony.
His problem was as much as he hated that fire and that insolence, he wanted it too, wanted it like nothing else. A smarter man would have gotten rid of fires that never went out, but he wouldn’t… or couldn’t.
Logan has to believe it. They all do, and he does believe it. He believes Adam wouldn’t come back until they were absolutely certain that he was dead and gone, maybe putting his body in a cement block, tossing it to the bottom of an ocean to be certain. Maybe setting him on fire and scattering the ashes around. Whatever it would take to be certain that he is dead and won’t be coming back to get them, to capture them again.
Lucien is so talented at that.
He is talented at bringing out the darkest sides of yourself.
Ethan didn’t know that he- that he had suck dark parts of himself that were separate from the monster that is also there, the anger and rage that were there even when he doesn’t have something to be angry at. Logan found his own dark parts of himself, and because he wasn’t going to be remade, he wasn’t broken in the same way the youngest ones were.
They were all broken, but the older ones would more frequently be used to motivate the younger ones. He did get to see some of his brothers through the torturing. Never Ethan, never Elena or Sarah or anyone else but a few of his brothers he saw, every time, it was more painful than the last to know they could be separated and dragged apart from each other.
Elena always has a special way of reaching to Ethan, getting through to him about things that’s unlike anyone else, but his brothers have always had their own ways of getting through to him too. About different thing, in different ways. He loves them all very much, and they’re important to him always and he hates what was done to all of them, worried so much about all of them those days but he couldn’t feel relief, couldn’t… react. There was just no way- no way he could have spoken again unless it had been Elena, unless Elena had lived, unless he hadn’t killed her. He would have- would have stayed that way until he wasted into nothing.
There’s no way he could live with it, with knowing he’d killed her.
Logan wants so much, needs so much for them to all make it through this, because he can’t- there’s nothing else he can accept. His brothers went through hell, people he loves and cares for all went through hell and torture. By some miracle, they ae all still alive, and it has to- they can’t lose anyone at this point.
Ethan was thinking about her pain, about what she would go through, about what he would do to her though he tried so desperately to fight it. He wanted so much to stop it even if it meant he had to stop himself, choke himself with those chain, find something sharp, make himself bleed to death.
And she wouldn’t let him. Even if they had been long enough, it would be hard to go through with it with how she was pleading with him. He’s helpless to do anything but listen to her even when he wanted so desperately to keep him from killing her by any means necessary.
He breathes in. The panicky feeling in his chest makes his breathing… unsteady, panicked almost like he’s- like he’ll hyperventilate if he doesn’t breathe more slowly. It wasn’t her blood. It wasn’t her blood. It wasn’t her blood, and he doesn’t know how much or how long it will take him until that settles in. He can still remember puking up the blood on the ground.
Ethan nods when she promises him that’s what happened, and he needs to believe her for the same reason she needs him to believe. They both—they both need to believe it, and he’s latching on to it. “It wasn’t you,” he says, tears in his eyes.
His throat is really, really raw. Ethan can see her expression twisting into something painful too, and it hurts. It hurts to see it, but he doesn’t understand how she can love him after that, after what she—she had to have seen it even if he didn’t tear her apart and he would have torn her apart. Ethan has never fought so hard against a transformation into a werewolf before and- and he probably will fight that hard again, can’t think- can’t think about having to shift again.
“Yeah,” he says a little brokenly but he nods. “I remember. I kissed you, and we said.”
They said what they should have known a long time ago.
Logan looks back at her, just as gratefully. Ethan’s speaking for the first time. His face is- he’s making faces, reacting to things. He’s grateful.
Ethan raises his gaze up to them, to his brothers. They see it too. He couldn’t hallucinate them too, right? He couldn’t hallucinate the entire situation, could he? “I- I know you would have. You would have if you were alive. You would have fought as soon as they took you away,” he says, and he does remember her. There’s not nothing. You didn’t hurt me, and he closes his eyes again, shaking his head as he would- he was so certain.
And then he it clicks that she is real, that she is with him, that they- she is alive and he wasn’t- she didn’t get taken and destroyed and torn to pieces, her beautiful… everything about her is beautiful and wonderful and Elena. And he wasn’t- she wasn’t ripped apart.
It’s me. Ethan looks at her, nodding, and he wants to touch her but doesn’t- can’t quite make his hands come up yet to do so. Her hands slide over him, and he reminds himself it’s real and she is real and she is alive as her hands slip over him. Ethan relaxes slightly, melting into her touch, because he never thought she’d reach for him again, touch him again.
Logan’s face has shifted into relief too, chest aching, and he finally feels comfortable taking a step away from the room. Whatever happened, Elena knows. Ethan knows. Logan has heard enough to… to have enough of an idea, and it makes him sick, but he wants to check in on Alek and his brothers, and this- they need this moment alone now that Ethan’s back, Ethan’s there. He feels like he can step away safely.
Ethan pulls her in. The relief that she’s alive and his love for her overpowers all that fear and hatred of himself and the parts of his body he can’t trust. He tightens his hold on her as his hands explore every part of her body to assure himself she’s all in one piece. His heart is beating so wildly, tears burning at his eyes as he buries his face against her hair and lets out a pained, shaky noise. “You’re here. I thought- I knew- They made me know I’d killed you. The screaming and the blood inside of me when I got sick, I was sick with—with blood, but it wasn’t yours. God.”
The word is strangled out of his throat, holding her close to him as he listens to every time she whispers it against him and he nods, tears slipping down his face.
“You’re here. You’re here and you’re safe, I’d never- never hurt you if-“ His face crumples and he rests it against her. “You’re here. I love you. I love you. You were going to- Elena.”
He breathes out incoherently almost, the words, all sliding together, but they’re there. He’s there. She’s there, and they- they made it to the other side.
no subject
He'd successfully managed to take all of them when they least expected it. Elena had stopped expecting disaster at every event that was held. She should've never let her guard down to that extent but unlike Mystic Falls, not every dance or party or milestone of a moment necessarily ended in disaster. It all changed that night, though, and she can still remember being dragged off, how each of them disappeared, one by one, until they were nowhere in sight.
People must think they're long dead by now, one of the casualties of the wanderer disaster. It's likely why no one looked for them to begin with, but Elena hasn't thought that far ahead. She has not been able to with everything that happened immediately after.
It was only a small taste of the insanity Lucien would unleash on them but it was more than enough.
The breaking of bones, the shooting them on sight if they so much as looked at Lucien in the wrong manner. So as long as they could come back, of course. He didn't want to harm them beyond repair yet, but it was that night Elena began to understand the complete meaning of the word monster, and to this day she cannot reconcile the fact that he helped give life to these -- these amazing people that she's come to love as family.
Connor hasn't been able to reconcile with it either, and it's likely that he never will. Maybe he has to so that he can get proper closure with it all, but how do you reconcile that your father is a monster like Lucien? How do you accept that his blood is the same blood that runs through your veins?
That if you live long enough, as many years as Lucien has, that could be your fate, too?
The darkness he was able to bring out in each and every one of them was terrifying. Connor's own rage was murderous, and -- he couldn't kill his father, that was the thing. He designed it all so perfectly that none of them that carried his blood could kill him even if that's all Connor wanted. To tear him apart with his bear hands and he'd never -- he'd never thought or felt the urge and hunger to do that while he was still Connor, while he was still in his human form with his human emotions.
The werewolf doesn't think.
The werewolf only hungers. It wants to tear apart. It destroys and eats whatever's in its path, a crazed, bloodlust animal with only instinct and desire to guide him. Connor is more than that werewolf, and still, as a person, he wanted to rip another apart. He still thinks of it, and his hands shake, and he doesn't let himself think of it for long.
Thankfully, thankfully, he wasn't perfect at it. His own dementia must've added chinks to an otherwise terrifying armor of destruction and guiltless violence. The crazier he'd get, the more likely he was to slip, as talented as he is at crafting the minds of those that he's broken into something that can serve him.
Something, not someone new.
They were toys and they were not to be viewed as human. Emotions were a weakness, and they belonged to the putrid mortality that they did not have to be bound to. He wanted them unfeeling, save for that rage and hunger, and for days it's all Connor seemed to think as he saw his brothers tortured, as he was tortured himself, as they were all kept away from each other unless it was another one of those godforsaken dinners.
Needless to say, Connor's appetite is not what it once was.
He can't seem to stomach anything these days, and he'll always have an aversion to meat and red wine now. Connor was in between the oldest brothers and the youngest and as always a balance was struck with him not that the balance was merciful.
He did get to see Logan a few times outside of the dinners, and it was -- what little kept him going, when he saw brief glimpses of his loved ones, even when they were in pain. It was knowing they were in pain that kept him going, because he could never abandon them, and Elena couldn't, either. And he does know if it hadn't been something so specifically tied to Elena that Connor would be able to reach him in a different way.
He just has no idea what happened, so...yes. Though he's starting to piece it all together like Logan. ;;
Just hearing Ethan say a few words, as few as they are, they -- they make it possible for Connor to believe that it's not hopeless. He has to believe the same thing that Logan does. All of this hell and all of this hurting and pain -- it can't have been for nothing, for them to end up like this, wholly unrecognizable and wasting away to nothingness. Connor refuses to let that happen and Elena refuses to let that happen.
She still hasn't processed anything that's happened in the past forty-eight hours. It's probably twisted and sad that this lack of time to process is something she's more familiar with than the opposite. She doesn't need to process anything yet. She's able to place the fear and the ache and the doubts aside to do what she needs to do, to keep moving and surviving, trying to keep everyone safe in the process.
Elena's exhausted, and she hasn't stopped since she was dragged out of that cell, but she can't feel the exhaustion, either. She's vaguely aware that it's there, bone deep, but she literally cannot bring herself to feel it. There's the adrenaline and the determination of something so much greater than her own human weakness.
She couldn't let him die. Whatever happened, Elena couldn't let him die, much less if it was to spare her own life. It's nothing she lingers on either, though it is a big trait of hers that manifests at an extreme in circumstances like this one. She hadn't even thought of how he wouldn't have been able to live with himself after the fact; she couldn't think past that moment and how she could not let him kill himself.
Elena presses her lips against his forehead when he breathes in. She cups the back of his head and keeps her lips there, taking a breath of her own. It doesn't matter how long it takes for it to settle in or how many times she has to say it, how many people have to confirm what she is saying and that she is real. What matters is she can feel it, feel him slowly coming back, and even the slightest hint of something is better than the nothingness.
She latches on to it and she'll use it since she's not giving up on him.
It's just not an option.
"No, it wasn't anyone," she says, wiping at the corners of his eyes. It wasn't her and it wasn't another person. It was an animal that was thrown in there, and it was already dead. It was already dead and then the blood was poured all over. "You didn't kill anything. You didn't kill anyone."
Elena doesn't know that she can explain it. It's not as if it wasn't terrifying. She'd be lying if she said it wasn't one of the scariest moments of her life. But she just -- she knew it wasn't Ethan anymore. She knew, after he said he was sorry, he checked out and it was something completely out of his control. It wasn't him and everything that happened afterward, it was the hunger of the animal that made him do it. He's never hurt her. And he as Ethan never would, Elena trusts that.
"Yeah, you did," she says, and she smiles even if it's brokenly, too. "About time."
Connor also looks back at her, before he turns to Logan, the sheer weight of the gratitude nearly making him drop to the floor. His shoulders sag with the relief instead and he leans back against the door, looking up, thanking -- he doesn't know who he's thanking.
He doesn't believe in a god or any greater power, but he's thanking them.
"I did. I fought every step of the way but they didn't want you to see me. It was all a lie, Ethan," she says. She doesn't know that she'd call it a test, though they did want to see how much of a motivator Gilbert(s) could be. It felt more like just another mind game instead, but it wasn't real. And the moment she realized it, the moment she saw those blood bags and she saw that man dragging up the carcass of the animal, she realized the horror didn't stop there.
Connor steps away from the room along with Logan. They need to check and see if Adam has returned with any news. They need to check on everyone else also. He wouldn't have been able to step away if Ethan hadn't spoken at all, but he does know that a moment alone is needed and he's at least secure in the knowledge Ethan isn't completely lost.
It makes it easier to step away.
"It wasn't," she says, face crumpling against him when he buries his own face against her hair. Her hand cradles the back of his nape, bringing him even closer, eyes shutting tightly as the onslaught of tears attempt to force their way through. She doesn't understand how anyone could be capable of doing something like this, of making him believe anything like this, and she meant what she said -- she hopes Lucien rots. "It wasn't, Ethan, I'm so sorry that I was used to hurt you like that."
Elena tightens her hold on him, bringing him as close as she possibly can. Her tears press against his neck as the incoherent words string themselves together.
It doesn't matter. What matters is he believes her.
She brings him over to her, lips softly resting against his before she pulls back to look at him.
"I love you. Ethan, I love you and I know you would never hurt me. I'm here now, okay?" she asks, pulling him back in. Elena breathes in and closes her eyes against him again. She isn't going to move until he's ready to, until he's assured himself she's in one piece and she is.
She's in one piece.
no subject
The whole gala went to hell as they were being driven away in separate vans to some place so far out of the city that it would be impossible for anyone to hear them scream. It’s what Ethan thought while they were driving out to the place that was so far away in the woods, didn’t even know it existed out there. He thought about how no one would find them there. No one would think to look there. No one would hear any sounds or signs of anything from that house because it was so far away from the city.
None of them have had the chance to think that far ahead yet. It’s all been about survival, about pushing through the really painful torture and trying to find each other again, which was made impossible. They never or rarely saw each other, and it was completely controlled as to who would end up at the dinners and who would not. Some more sick mind games to keep them occupied.. to keep Lucien occupied, entertained.
It’s what it all was about in the end. Lucien wanted to be entertained. He could have had his stupid ceremony if he’d done that first thing, but it was like he wanted to play with his food before eating it. Ethan has a feeling he was really testing the Hales out, seeing which ones would really be worth keeping, breaking, and molding, and which would be better killed. The default would have been to kill the oldest ones, because the younger ones were closer to perfection.
However, he likely wanted to make sure that the default decision was the right one, and what better way to do that than through tests? He wanted to play with Sarah to be sure that she had the fire that so draws him in, and he needed to figure out if the Gilberts were worth keeping around and to what capacity they were. They are very good motivators. It’s something he learned quickly into the game, the night of the dinner party after all.
Killing Jeremy got an immediate fiery reaction from Sarah, which resulted in a reaction of his own, but that is what draws him in and what keeps the game fresh.
It was not enough for him to be returned to his full power. He wanted toys. He wanted little birds to break and fires to put out, and the group together ended up being such a powerful cocktail of all the things that draws him in most. It was too much to resist, and it was part of his downfall. If he had only done the ceremony more quickly, that night that he’d taken them, it never would have failed and he never would have died.
And he has to be dead.
Logan doesn’t think he or his brothers or anyone else that had been there will rest until he is dead. They will always have to look over their shoulder otherwise, and he has to be gone, drowned in his own blood. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care as long as he’s gone, and it’s over.
They all need this to be over with, and he knows the dark sides of his brothers (of him) that have been brought out. The darkness in all of them, but he believes they can all remind each other of who they are, of who they were. They will never be the same. It’s impossible to go through what they have and be the same, and Logan doesn’t need them to be the same. He just needs them to be with him.
The expression on Connor’s face hurts, the nothingness in Ethan’s hurts, the look in Alek’s eyes hurts, and it’s enough to make him want to destroy something right now. There’s just nowhere to turn with that anger and protectiveness as much as it claws at his chest and tightens painfully in the center of him there.
And he just needs Lucien to be dead, for him to leave everyone alone and never bother them again because they are all left with scars now, they will all have nightmares. There’s no washing that time away completely, not for anyone. It’s going to be a part of them from here on out.
It would be exhausting moving and moving and moving again. Ethan, if he were thinking properly (and when he does think properly again), knows that she would not have stopped fighting to get to him that whole time that he was unresponsive in his cell. She would have tried everything so he didn’t have to live on more moment thinking that what had happened had happened.
They are just continuously shown that they are powerless in so many circumstances, but it never stops her from fighting again and again. Elena wouldn’t have let him die, and he wouldn’t have been able to go through with it with her right there and the look on her face as he tried. Her hope was something he held on to too, and it’s a good thing she didn’t let him die.
Given, the fact that it wasn’t real. It was all a test. If she had let him die there, he would have stayed dead and that would have been real and Elena would have been killed after that. No sense in having a motivator for someone who is no longer around, but it didn’t happen. They lived through it, and somehow Ethan is finding his way out of the nothingness because it’s Elena whose hands are on his face, whose lips are against his forehead, pulling him out of it.
Ethan looks up at her and nods. His hands are still shaking but they weren’t- they didn’t rip anyone apart, didn’t rip her apart.
“I didn’t kill anyone,” he repeats it, letting it hang out in the air between them. It feels wrong. He believed for so many hours that he had torn her to pieces and eaten- eaten her in the process, but to admit that it hadn’t happened… it’s something else. It’s something frightening.
Because he doesn’t want to crash down again if this isn’t true, if it’s some elaborate hallucination, he can’t- It was completely out of his control, ,and he tried so hard, harder than he had in his whole life to control it, but he couldn’t stop it, bones crunching lowly as he tried to hold on. And he would never, ever hurt her if he had the choice. He would hurt himself before he did.
Ethan looks at her, tears in his eyes as he nods. “N- no one ever said I had good timing,” he says finally, brokenly, somehow managing to joke along with her though which is something, which is amazing given he couldn’t even speak before she walked into the room.
There’s so much gratitude. Logan is thanking… thanking someone too, and he looks over at Connor, small smile, small smile of relief, because it is flooding through him. It’s a breakthrough. It’s that hope. It’s better than the husk that he had become, and now they can.. can figure everything else out.
It just wasn’t something he could leave alone.
“I… I knew you would,” Ethan says, voice hoarse but still that certainty in his tone. The tears that burn at his eyes slip down his face, but he nods, pushing through it, jaw locking a little as he works the words out from where they’re trapped inside of his chest. “You would have fought as soon as you- you realized, but they were too- too strong. It’s okay. Th- thank you for fighting for me, Elena... that night and the whole day after and- and just now.”
The sincerity that he says the words with is impossible to describe, but he means that. Even if he hadn’t been aware of it at the time, he knows- knows she would have fought people, walls a hundred times stronger than him, ran to him directly as soon as she could to not waste a second.
He pulls her in against him and then back against the bed with the weight of her on top of him. It’s that much easier to focus, because the whole of him knows it’s her, knows she’s alive with that constant reminder right there against his chest.
Ethan backs up enough to see her close her eyes tightly against tears and he shakes his head, kissing her eyelids. “It’s okay. It’s okay to cry,” he says after a moment. “It’s over.” Right now, it’s over. That night is over. It’s still with them, and it will always be with them but they’re on the other side of it, and he can’t linger on how terrified she must have been that night, terrified of that monster, terrified of all of it. Ethan knows for certain that he won’t always be able to touch her this easily, but the relief and the love that he has for her and the fact that she is alive overwhelms him.
Leaves nothing else, and he cradles her face and he kisses her eyelids as she shuts her eyes tight against tears, and he tells her, “It’s okay” to let go, to give in, to be here with him, to not keep fighting and keep pushing and keep trying to get through but to stop.
And he doesn’t need her to not cry or to fight for him right now, he’s here, she’s brought him back, and she can stop fighting, stop pushing on and on and on again.
He closes his eyes listening to those words. She knows he would never hurt her. She loves him like he loves her. They love each other. She’s here.
She’s here. She’shere. Sheshere.sheshere. here here here. Right here, with him, on top of him, inhis arms, and she was not taken.
“I love you too, and- and I’m here too. You brought me back,” Ethan says softly as he leans in to kiss her on the lips this time, sliding his hands and his arms across her back and keeping her there against him.
“It’s okay.”
no subject
As a human, she was taught that was her greatest weapon against people that are inhumanly stronger and faster than her. It was impossible to be one step ahead of someone like Lucien, who was always several steps ahead, ten of them, if he could help it. It hadn't been that long since they realized who he was and that he might come to Chicago. Elena just wasn't going to stop living her life because of what she learned could happen.
It'd seemed miles away. She had no reason to believe Lucien was already in Chicago. None of them did. Nor did they have any way of knowing he'd found himself a body to possess, that it was possible. If Elena had known the gala would go to hell, it's hard to say whether they could've done anything differently to have changed the outcome. Already so much was known about them and their whereabouts and their routines that if it hadn't been the gala, it would've been somewhere else.
The gala only made it that much easier, putting them all together in the same room, celebrating the same occasion, unaware of what would come next. It wasn't even hours after it all began that the lights went out, everything was dark, and suddenly she was plucked from out of the ballroom. The worst of it wasn't being taken in a van with people who would no sooner snap her neck if they could. The worst of it was realizing it wasn't just her.
The worst of it was being forced down the stairs and toward a dining room where everyone she cared about most, her very own brother, was there along with her, sealed to the very same fate. The stronger her reactions, the worst she made it, but she couldn't clamp down said reactions. At least, not at first. It was so much more than just the ceremony to him. If it hadn't been, the ceremony would've started the moment they were taken.
Lucien wanted to play with his food first. He wanted to test out his toys to see they were really as useful as he needed them to be and if not, he could make them so. Everything from there on became a test. They barely had utensils laid out in front of them, while Lucien held a butcher-like knife as if reminding everyone that he held all the cards, and they were his prisoners, and they might as well start falling in line.
They are all wired to fight.
Whether it's life or they were built that way, they were wired to fight back.
They wouldn't step in line immediately. Killing Jeremy, it was the first and final straw for both Sarah and Elena. The Hales were tested out to zero in on potential strengths and weaknesses. The Gilberts were tested as to how motivating they could be, and to whom, and at what end. It was horrible. Everything about it was horrible, and she doesn't know when he learned that Ethan and Elena felt what they felt, to the point he'd even think to use her for such a terrible means.
No one is invincible, however.
The Rift operates on a same wavelength Elena's own world did, in its own way. Everything must have its balance, its other side of the coin. Demons exist because angels do. Werewolves were made because vampires were. No being, even that which is immortal, is supposed to be invincible. There is always something that could lead to their downfall, the same way their is something that could lead to their rising.
There were several objects that could lead to his ruin if the ceremony wasn't completed. Even if the ceremony had been completed, nothing is set in stone, as Virginia aptly proved. No one is invulnerable to falling from great heights. As powerful as they may be. The Rifts and the fabrics of the very universe have made it so. Lucien's own psychosis, his own contempt and desire for that powerful cocktail, it slowly paved the way for his own demise, and some would say there's great poetry and ironic meaning to that.
And that's the problem, really. There's no where to really turn to with the anger. It's important that they don't let it consume them, that they remind themselves they still have each other, as broken as they may be, and Connor needs to focus on that instead. He needs to focus on his brothers and his loved ones, and hope somehow that Lucien is dead and this is all over.
As over as it can be. Lucien dying and the ceremony coming to a head doesn't mean it's truly over, and he knows that. There are scars and there's the aftermath of having to deal with everything they went through. Not dealing with it could be that much more dangerous. But the immediate danger and horrors -- it could be over, and they all need for them to be over so they can move on somehow.
Connor doesn't know how, only that they have to.
It is very exhausting. They just know no other way of living. Elena was thrown back into a world that is constantly filled with danger, speeding through its war path. She knows to keep moving and keep fighting, even when she's been knocked down. She can never afford to stop. If she does, it slowly starts catching up with her, the everything of it, and she would not be able to handle the full weight. She would just shut down.
In many ways, they are the same, after all.
Maybe she's done her own brand of running.
Elena looks down at him when he looks up, her hands covering his when she sees how they shake. Her fingers wrap around his and she doesn't move from her spot, watching as it keeps sinking in, as he processes it. It would be terrifying to try and believe it, much as he may want it, on the cruel offchance it might not be true, but Elena knows that it is, so she'll fight for it that much harder.
"They only made you believe you did. It's unforgivable, but it wasn't true," she says. In all the ways that she can think of, she'll say it. She'll say the exact same thing or she'll say it differently, but she'll keep saying it. She knows how hard they've always fought so that something like this could never happen. How they lock themselves up every full moon without fail so they never hurt anyone. How they've lived outside of the city limits so that no one would have to bear it, either.
They're good people. They don't want to hurt anyone. Nothing will make Elena believe differently.
Elena smiles tearfully, shaking her head. "It's okay. My own timing wasn't very stellar," she says, and it is something he can find it in himself to joke along. However brokenly. She doubts there is anything they would be able to do not brokenly at the moment, but she'll hold on to whatever small scrap she can.
Connor gives Logan a small smile back in return and he finally releases a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. This time, it's Connor who places a hand on Logan's shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze, before they leave the room together, stepping back so that their brother can have this moment.
Her chest clenches painfully when he thanks her. The tears sting in her eyes again as the sincerity reaches her, and there was honestly nothing else that she could've done. Not when she loves him and not when she's ... well, Elena. "I will always fight for you," she says, with the same sincerity in her words. "I would've never given up on you, Ethan, okay? I still won't."
Elena goes over to the bed with him, arms wrapped tightly around his neck and she doesn't let go. Her strength will not compare to his but she holds on as tightly as she can, as long as he needs that solid reminder, the tangible reminder. Her hands cover his own when he kisses her eyelids. It's what really does it.
The tears find their way out, in spite of the fact her eyes are closed, and she finally lets it wash over her. It's over, he says, and she knows that it has to be.
It has to be.
And she wants to take care of him. Elena knows that she needs to take care of him, while also knowing it's okay to stop. It's okay to stop with him, so she does, burying her face against his neck as she cries quietly, as it catches up with her. The horror and the exhaustion and the relief. She can allow it of herself now.
Elena lifts herself up a fraction to kiss him back, deepening the kiss before she draws back, leaving small kisses along his cheek and neck, peppering them quietly against him. "I love you," she says again, for all the times she didn't, for all the times she thought she might never get to say it again. I love you. I love you. I love you.
She will always try and bring him back. There will never be a time when she won't, and she listens to his own words, lets the tightness in her chest slowly unfurl as she wills herself to believe them. That it's over.
It's finally over.
Elena only looks up at the sound of a knock on the door. Her eyes are bloodshot but they're fully open, and she half-sits once she sees Adrien's head poke its way in.
He looks as haggard and tired as they all do, thinner than he's ever been, but relieved.
Like the relief itself might bowl him over. "Adam's here," he tells them, a hand cupping his own neck as he breathes in and steels himself for the words. "We got confirmation," he says, and he looks from Elena and settles on Ethan, on his brother, the tightness in his throat returning at the sight of him. "He's dead."
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Bad things don’t always happen to people at those events. Sometimes they’re just fun, and the event got right into the middle of it with everyone having a good time, an enjoyable time together. Then it crashed forward with a swift interruption, and there was no preparing for it. They were split up, and they didn’t even know until they got to the dinner that every single one of them was taken and none were left behind to escape this torment.
There’s a strong chance that they all would have still been taken even if they had been prepared, even if they’d had some warning. Lucien has way of being able to sense someone’s movements and figuring out where they would be, capturing them before they could get away. It’s no use thinking of regrets, thinking of how things could change if they were prepared. It happened as it did, and now they all have to figure out how to live with what pieces are left.
They are all broken, and they are all scarred terribly so. Death isn’t the worst that could happen to someone. Living can be more difficult. Living in a hell can be far more difficult, but Logan has to hope that that hell will go away, that they will be able to create a safe place for healing. He hasn’t thought far enough ahead yet to think of what they might need to do that. Right now, it’s dealing with one moment at a time, still shocked that he is even alive at all.
It half feels like walking around as a ghost almost except he knows he did not die. It was…just incredibly close, and he is only relieved to be here with his brothers, because he would hate to make any of them lose someone after all that they all went through. Somehow, miraculously, they all lived. They all went through hell but they all lived, and he is determined for that to mean something but for now it is focusing on one thing and the next without worrying about the rest.
There’s no time to worry about the rest, and he knows the first order of business is for them all to get as much rest as they possibly can… before they figure out what’s going on in Chicago, if they should go back or… or what.
It’s not like they’d be worth it in a fight against the Society right now with all their scars, all their brokenness. They’d get themselves killed, and as much as Logan is for fighting and taking a stand, he knows it might… not be the smartest thing. It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t contact people who likely think they are dead, but that will come in a few days once they’ve rested, slept for hours on end.
They got the rooms for one night, but he’ll increase it to another night before he even thinks about moving all of them to somewhere else.
The dinner was a terrible example of what they all would go through. Ethan is fairly good at controlling himself. It’s difficult- more difficult when people he loves are upset or hurt. However, he doesn’t react in a volatile manner when he can help it. It’s maybe one of the few good things that the avoidance has given him as he never exactly face anything immediately as it happens. It gives him the chance to clamp down on any reaction that he could have, but that dinner drove even him to react with that violence, that volatile nature that is in any werewolf even if he was likely the last Hale to be killed.
Lucien had fun playing with them that first night, and he has no idea he learned even more about them then during that dinner. They knew who could be used to rile who up and how it could be used. He learned how to ignite the fire in each and every one of them and how to get them to a point where they were more than willing to cooperate if it was someone else on the line. He figured out who had the most effect on who.
And Ethan hates, hate that it was all used against each other. He hates the love they have for each other was tainted and used in the way that it was. Ethan hates everything about those days, about not seeing anyone, about the night that will never, ever leave him. The idea of shifting again is literally panic inducing to the point that if he let himself think about it, he’d probably try tearing himself out of his own skin again.
If he lingers on it, he won’t know- won’t be able to live still even knowing he didn’t do it, even knowing he didn’t go through with it.
Knowing the possibility is there, knowing that if they aren’t kept away strongly enough, he could rip someone apart, rip Elena apart, rip anyone apart. It’s a big risk. It’s a huge risk. What right does he have to live with all he could do to someone? And he’ll have moments- moments of hopelessness in the future, moments where he’s ready to do it again, ready to end it all because he can’t.
Because that night will live with him forever, what he could do and nearly did and thought he did will always live with him, with the both of him and it will always make him sick to see blood, to think about ever putting anything in his mouth again because of what he last thought was inside of himself in his stomach, because of what he thought he ate last time.
He can shake with it, with the sickness and the rage and the fear and the grief that is still so easy to reach for even though she is alive and in front of him and convincing him piece by piece that she is still here. That his worst nightmare did not come to pass even though it was seconds away from happening. He wonders—wonders if it always would have been a test.
If it wasn’t going to be a test unless… unless she lived until when she did.
Maybe they were waiting for him to transform fully before they pulled her out of there or maybe they were waiting to see how far it would go, waiting to see if she would or could survive that long.
Ethan knows that there isn’t much that could make anyone last as long as he did against a transformation into the werewolf when the full moon is out. He’s never lasted that long before, and when he was a kid, he used to fight against it all the time, because he hated it and it terrified him every time especially after what he saw on the tape. The tape that he still has in his bedroom if they ever go back to their bedrooms like some kind of reminder of what he is and why he- why he can’t ever stop running.
His fingers are still curled in on his hands, but they stop shaking after a few seconds with her hands covering over them. It’s just- just like that night. How she’d rest her hands on the shackles,, and it was all that could stop him from tearing at his own skin. It is sinking in though, slowly, so slowly, and he’s not going to want to sleep in case he wakes up in that cell gain, still covered in her blood.
“It was… all a lie. It was a lie,” Ethan says, and he didn’t even consider the fact she might still be alive. He remembers her screaming, remembers her right there, remembers her Ethan, don’t. Before it all went black, he remembers those flashes and they stay with him too, but she’s in front of him, hands over his, making them stop shaking.
He would never want to hurt anyone. His brothers wouldn’t either. Their mother raised them differently, whatever might be inside of them.
Ethan smiles back at her, tears burning in his eyes. “Something we have in common,” he says, and he kisses that tearful smile because he can’t yet use his hands, but he- he-the sight of it pushes through him warmly like need, like wanting, like love. It’s all at once.
Logan breathes in when Connor’s hand rests against his shoulder, and he heads out through the door to give them space and time. It’s just good—it’s a relief to see some life in him, but it’s obvious they need this moment to themselves.
He feels the need to thank her even knowing she is Elena, knowing she fights for everyone she loves and never gives up on them. It’s such a powerful thing that she gives to the people that she loves and he wants her to know how important it is to him too, how much it means to him that she did. Even if it means nothing to the rest of the world and she wasn’t able to get to him until just now, it means everything to him. “Okay,” he says hoarsely, breathing through- through the fire in his chest. “I know… you will, you’re Elena but- I’ll always fight for you too.”
Even if it means, it means coming back to her, fighting against the nothingness to come back when a part of him didn’t want to in case none of it was true. The tight hold is a comfort though, and he knows she is holding on as tightly as she can, which is all he would ever ask for her. She may not hold on as strongly physically, but her non-physical hold is one of the strongest around.
He keeps close to her as the tears slip down though her eyes are closed. He kisses her tears away gently, gently. God, he doesn’t know how he manages gentleness, but he needs to-
It’s her. And he loves her and it overwhelms him more than the fear.
His hands cup her face before one slides behind her head as she buries her face against his neck. Ethan’s chin rests on top of her head, and he stays there, holding her tight around her waist with his other arm, protectively there though what’s hurting is inside now.
Ethan closes his eyes as she kisses him ,and he kiss her back, intensifying it for a moment before he rests back, slipping his hand through her hair as she peppers kisses along his cheek and neck. “I love you too” he says, voice cracking though he means it more than anything else in the world. He loves her, he loves her, and he never, ever meant to nearly tear her apart.
He never ever- he never would hurt her, and he- there are no words for the relief and the love that has practically overwhelmed him.
It’s over. The night is over. The torture is over. They are alive and together impossibly so. They’re here, and he tightens his hold on her, resting his face against her.
He looks over too when there’s a knock at the door though he doesn’t- couldn’t push himself up from the mattress. It takes a moment for it to register, his brother. It takes a moment before he finds… finds his way back to awareness beyond Elena and her being live.
There’s a sharp intake of breath at the sight of him, thinner and haggard and… Ethan keeps his gaze on his brother, shaking nearly with the- with the waiting for the answer to come. Adam’s here. Adam’s here, and it takes him a moment to process the fact that he wasn’t here and why he wasn’t here. His thoughts haven’t been working, and it’s all—all catching up to him.
And the answer comes and he rests his head back, hand sliding over his face. “Thank God,” he says, and it’s slightly cracked too before he shuts his eyes, remembering the joy that he’d felt when his father had gone down. the only emotion- the first emotion he’d felt since lying in the blood, the very first thing that reached him…
Even before Elena
And that’s sickening too but he can’t be bothered to care at the moment.
He’s dead, and he looks over at Adrien again, and he nods, eyes burning. “T- thanks.” For letting them know. God, they needed to know, and it’s over. “It’s over.” Nearly disbelieving, nearly afraid to believe it, but it's over.
Lucien is dead.