No, it’s never about that for Lucien, because he doesn’t care about anyone else.
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.
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.