[ for eluding ] i'm sorry about the blood in your mouth. i wish it was mine.

[badever]

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?"

Comments

[badever]

From the moment they were dragged to that dinner table, most of them knew it was over.

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.

[eluding]

They had no control, no power, no way to stop it from happening or expect it happening at all.

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.”

[badever]

Elena has never underestimated the importance of the element of surprise.

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."

[eluding]

It’s what got to them. They had grown comfortable, complacent.

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.