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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
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.