There’s no way to know, and now more than ever, it seems like it would be a miracle if they all died early.
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?
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?