open ] [i am a wolf in your eyes and i'm filled with regret

[eluding]

[ooc: SO THEY ARE fighting for real. if your character wants to try to break it up, watch out, they're vampire and werewolf (though the cliffhanger moment i think someone could talk sense into Ethan rlkj;ea). also all the furniture/the bar/the alcohol on the deck and stuff is gonna be a bit destroyed for awhile. SORRY ABOUT THAT. someone should try to make them clean it up lol]

This has been building for awhile. Honestly, it's been building since Chicago, but being on this ship with Damon's constant jabs and comments (calling him wolfboy over and over again when there's nothing Ethan hates more than the werewolf inside of himself) and the knowing that Ethan not only fell out of a Rift after Elena when it was Damon that chose to go with her (and he hasn't seen her in decades, DECADES before now) and the knowing that they're in a relationship-- And part of always be in love with Elena even if she is his best friend first (and that dynamic can take over), Damon has always been in love with her too.

They end up on the deck alone together, and it doesn't take long to build into violence because it has been building for a long, long time. Ethan, for his part, tries to walk on by, ignoring Damon, but Damon starts in with the jabs and Ethan has a temper that he is no longer avoiding. He's done the worst as a werewolf. What more is there to avoid about it?

"I think I'm just going to have to remind you that I'm the one that was in that car with her that day." Damon is trying for the sarcasm but it's coming out sharp, angry. "Not you. You were perfectly good with walking away."

It's been building, and there's a certain level of too sharp, too real hurt when it comes to that particular accusation, and it's why the words come out in a shout, with bite. "I WAS COMING BACK."

"But you still thought you'd be good with WALKING away in the first place, didn't you? You left, and I stayed and I am always going to stay with her. I am always going to choose her like I always have, and that's not something you can say, wolfboy."

"Yes, because your obsessive fucking STALKER levels is something to wave around like a fucking flag." Ethan's hands become fists hard. The whole of him is shaking with rage and the need for violence. "Elena and I are together. She doesn't choose you, and it's her choice that is relevant here. Not yours. I understand that that is something you struggle to handle, but that never gives you the excuse to act like a jackass to me or to her. Do you understand? You need to back off or believe me, I. will. make. you."

And everything that Ethan is saying is striking a really, really hard nerve inside of Damon. The anger is growing and growing and so is the hurt, but he somehow manages to smirk (because if anyone is going to throw the first blow here, it's going to be her precious better man than Damon could ever be). He is used to burying down so much pain, and the smirk slides a bit further, something half sadistic in it. "Did you know Elena and I were together New Year's Eve? On my desk? It was really, really hot. Threw all of the things off of the desk, went wild. Y'know, now that I think about it, funny enough that was during the time you were once again strangely comfortable with walking directly out of her life--"

It is impossible to describe Ethan's reaction, because Elena and Ethan tell each other everything (almost everything, there are some things they were still working to tell each other, and it's true-- it's true that he wasn't-- it's something he regrets and guilt that he lives with every single day because the absence of Elena in his life is something he cannot--). There's a moment that it takes before it processes like he can't really wrap his head around the fact that this dickhead asshole and Elena actually-- And then it hits suddenly with visuals along with the grief and the guilt and the rage for Damon unlike he has ever fucking known it before.

Ethan lets out a noise of rage that hardly sounds human (and he's not really at the end of the day) and everything goes red all at once because he's picturing it and it's true that he wasn't there for fucking-- he wasn't there for her, and he lunges at him with both of his hands up, knocking him back so hard into the bar that they crash it open, breaking down the side of the wall completely as Damon hurdles back into the shelves of alcohol that all come crashing down on top of the both of them. Damon mutters a Finally before he shoves himself forward back at Ethan, fists are flying from both sides, and they're both bloody and furniture near by is getting broken in half or knocked to pieces along the way.

Neither one of them is really getting a leg up on the other. The rage and emotion inside of the both of them is intensely strong, and while Damon is much, much older than Ethan, Ethan's father made him and his brother to be stronger, faster than the average werewolf. It's not long at all until most of the deck has seen the results of this destruction (the furniture overturned or broken, bar broken, alcohol shattered), and Ethan manages to get that last punch in that has Damon sprawling backwards. The rage is still in every portion of his body (werewolves have so much rage, Ethan has had so much rage of his own, one and the same).

He reaches down gripping hold of Damon by the shirt and hauling him up violently against the railing (they're both bloody with bits of glass in them) as he shakes with that rage, intent on throwing him off the ship entirely at this point, because Ethan isn't exactly checking his strength. And that part inside of him that is violence and rage has clicked on.

If someone doesn't stop him, Damon is going straight into the water. Oops.

Comments

[eluding]

Ethan does hear the hurt in Elena's voice, and it makes his chest ache with it, but he can't calm the rage and the violence (and the guilt and the grief and the hurt and the regret and the fucking visuals that Damon put in his head that he can't get out of it). He's still trembling with it all as he stands there with muscles tense all over, and his jaw locks so hard that he is certain it is half certain it is going to crack. It's hard to breathe.

He can't even feel the pain of all the parts of him that are bleeding (and the parts that may be broken now for all he knows, they went at each other hard, and he knows he heard bones crack, Damon's healing so much faster than him and that makes Ethan even angrier). Ethan wants to make him bleed again and leave him fucking bleeding-- tear him apart with it.

It's Elena's hand against his arm that stops him. It's the hurt in her voice, and his eyes burn with that emotion and that rage and he can't swallow it. And he still can't find any words like his voice has been swallowed up. He isn't even sorry about doing this even if he knows he should be. He is fucking tired of being treated like shit by Damon.

He knows what Damon is doing, trying to show that it was Ethan that started it like that somehow makes him better in all this. Maybe it does. Ethan doesn't give a fuck.

There are the words.

"And I attacked him."

He can own it.

[believable]

As soon as Elena sees the threat in Damon's expression, however fleeting, she places herself directly in between them; her hands extend at either of her sides to keep them as far away from each other as possible. She is determined to keep this from escalating any further, and she is vigilant of every movement, every word. It's why, when Damon mentions striking a nerve when dredging up the past, Elena immediately grows still, as though something has struck her.

The flame rises to her cheeks. She doesn't need to ask for an elaboration. She knows what he is talking about. Her eyes close briefly, her jaw already setting, and when she opens, she doesn't mask the fury or the betrayal that crosses her features. Whether he acknowledges the hurt or not, he is going to see it. Growth or not, this is still Damon.

He isn't snapping her brother's neck but he's still doing something that hurts her. If Ethan was ever to find out about that night, it was supposed to be through Elena, but once again, Damon has made the decision for the both of them.

The truth is she has nothing to feel bad about, so she refuses to. Elena was single during her whole stay in Chicago, and she was free to do what she pleased - free to learn from her mistakes and free to own them, as well. She has felt bad and guilty for things that are her fault and for things that are not her fault for far too long. She isn't seventeen, this isn't her bedroom, and she isn't holding her dead brother in her arms. She is standing and she is facing him - facing her own choices - and she is not letting him get away with it.

"Are you done?" she asks flatly. Yes, she is speaking to both of them still.

[consumes]

Damon sees it all. He knows her so incredibly well after all, and he reads everything that she is saying in her expression. Damon sees the way the flame rises up to her cheek, the way she understands even before that anyone has elaborated exactly what he had mentioned to Ethan. It wasn't mentioned to him in an attempt to make her feel bad when it came out (it would hurt him if she did feel bad about it even if he is perfectly aware of why he would be someone she'd be ashamed to have made out with). It was mentioned because he knew it would bother Ethan to think about, because it was one more time Ethan wasn't around and one more time where Damon was and they are so, so much closer than Ethan realizes. He's lashing out, trying to grab hold of what-- trying to grab hold of what he never had to start with.

What he can never have not with Elena, not with anyone, because of who and what he is. He is a terrible, damaging thing who doesn't know how to love.

Damon sees it all. He sees the betrayal and the fury both of them crossing over her face (and yes, he sees the hurt too and it hurts like every single time he sabotages himself, like every single time he destroys what he wants, the relationships that he has with people that he loves.

He will never stop destroying.)

And it's been decades, but he's ruined this in the shortest of times, hasn't he?

Damon meets her gaze, and he doesn't look away even with the strength of all his emotions (upset and anger and hurt and loneliness). and I don't get hurt. This is not the Elena she was when they first fell through into Chicago. She's changed and grown (and he will never grow enough).

His voice is low when he speaks, "Yes."

[eluding]

Ethan is angry at himself and at Damon, but he would be very proud to know that Elena doesn't feel guilty, because he knows how much guilt she carries for things that she shouldn't (over the years, she's carried so, so much and it has weighed on her in terrible, painful ways) and she shouldn't feel guilty for this, for that night. They weren't together then at all. There's nothing to feel guilty about, and he's not angry that it happened. As much as he hates to visualize it and think of it in his head, he isn't angry about it. He's angry Damon said it as that should have come from Elena and not him, not like that, not with the reminder of how incredibly absent he had been from Elena's life during that time.

He can feel the guilt claw up at his chest. His eyes burn as he stands there, locking his jaw, breathing in sharply through that feeling in his chest that hurts and his leg that hurts. The pain is nothing in comparison to the many times that he has died so it's easy to ignore especially when the pain is nothing in comparison to the many feelings clawing and tearing inside of his chest like this. He can't breathe through it, through the anger and the violence and the pain and the guilt and the hatred that twists in his stomach all at once.

Elena has placed herself in between the two of them, and he never wanted to put her in that position where she felt like she had to, had to come between two men who are being violent with each other. He doesn't like his violence but it's his. His eyes burn, and his chest aches with it. Ethan can tell they're having some conversation even though they're not saying a single word out loud. He can tell by the way they're looking at each other (the last time he felt this small was--)

He does know how close they are. He was there at the ball when they said so much without saying a word out loud, when he watched them dance together. When he'd come over sometimes, Damon would be there, hanging out like he lived there. People mistook the two of them for boyfriend and girlfriend sometimes on the campus even if he didn't get it because every time he saw Damon, Damon was being an ass to someone. So he's never liked the guy, the ship made that worse though, the close quarters, Damon's reaction both to Ethan and Elena dating and to the fact that Ethan ended up with her in that other universe--

It's been a constant barrage, and he'd had enough. They've never really talked about Damon. Ethan and Elena. They've talked about so much, but never...

His voice is quiet when he speaks. "Yeah."

[believable]

There.

That's slightly better, not that Elena is necessarily comforted by this fact at the moment. Her heart is still beating all too fast, eyes darting from Ethan to Damon and back again. Her hands are still reaching out to her sides as though they could lunge for each other at any moment, despite the fact she can all but see the way the impetus to do so is gone. It's whooshed out of them, like the anger has mostly whooshed out of her in one fell swoop.

"We can't keep doing this," she says to them.

It may fall on deaf ears but she has to say it all the same.

"We have no idea where we are or where we are heading. We have no idea what's in store for us if this ship decides to stop, or it sends us somewhere else. We don't know what we're in for, and fighting isn't going to help matters," she says. Beyond the fact they should not be behaving this way, there's the ramifications they need to be thinking of. Elena doesn't want to be lulled into a false sense of security on this ship, not when they've experienced the way the rifts work and how easily it can turn on a dime. They don't know how the Red Door works, or what it could bring.

Much like the rifts, it doesn't mean only people could be pulled through that door. They need to learn to work together if and when the time comes, if nothing else.

[badcentury]

"Rousing speech, Elena," Damon says from where he is standing breathlessly, seeing the way her eyes dart back and forth, hearing the beating of her heart (too fast). She still has her hands out to either side of her as if they're going to lunge again, they're not. Ethan seems to not be looking at him at all, and Damon, for once, decides to not push it any further. He didn't get what he wanted. He's still not completely sure what it is that he wanted out of it or he knows but acknowledging it is something else after all.

Some may have a false sense of security. Damon doesn't really care about his own security or most other people's security. He does care about Elena's security (and about his brother's security) so that is about the only thing that would get him to fall in line.

In a relative sense of that phrase.

"If anyone needs me which is incredibly and most definitely unlikely, I'll be getting drunk." Very, very drunk. He waves the both of them off with a bitter, reckless smirk. "Have fun."

And like that he is gone.

[eluding]

Ethan releases a breath as Damon leaves, and he stares down at his own two feet for a second, trying to contain the strength of his own emotions before he looks back up at Elena again. There's an apology in his gaze, an intense apology in his gaze, because he is sorry for nearly throwing Damon overboard even if he can't be sorry for the rest.

"You're right," he says after a moment, and his hand reaches out for her arm to rest against it, grip hold of her. His jaw locks at the back with the emotion still inside of his chest and that feeling that he can't rip from himself even if he wishes he could. "You're right. We don't know enough about this place to start fighting and... tearing the place apart."

There's no way of knowing what will happen on this ship. It may seem relatively calm at the moment, but they all know better. Damon just doesn't seem to care, but it doesn't mean that he'll let Damon bait him again. Ethan is learning slowly but surely how to keep the vampire from getting under his skin, and he winces as he shifts slightly where he is standing.

Damon is fully healed now, but Ethan is most definitely not.

He feels that sharp pain hit his rib cage, and he is staring out over the mess that he and Damon have made of this deck. It's destruction everywhere, and it-- it didn't feel all that satisfying in the end to attack Damon especially when he seemed to want him to for whatever reason.