( rp ) look at this heart-shaped wreckage. what have we done?

[believable]

[ see elena.

see elena heading toward one of the bars on whichever deck you see fit.

see elena serving herself a drink because boys men suck and she has had it with this ship.



enjoy. ]

Comments

[aneurism]

Anna's drinking out of habit for the same reason that the Salvatores drink so frequently: alcohol helps to curb the cravings and make people smell less appetizing than they actually are. She isn't sure why Elena's drinking, but after he conversation with Damon on the deck he and that guy who almost through him overboard destroyed, she can hazard a guess.

"And that's yet another thing that runs in the family."

She's talking about Jeremy casually hitting the booze, not whatever booze-y habits Katherine still has. Anna washed her hands of Katherine's bullshit some time ago.

[believable]

This is actually pretty uncharacteristic of Elena.

It's not that she's averse to drinking - especially not if the drink in question is tequila - but she doesn't hit the booze every time something goes awry, and she isn't a vampire (in this universe) and doesn't need to curb the cravings. It's just been that kind of week. Month. Year. Take your pick.

She almost drops the glass she'd been holding, lifting up her gaze at the sound of that voice. She blinks, almost sputters, eyes widening with disbelief. "Anna?" she asks.

[aneurism]

Anna waves, smiling as if she isn't supposed to be dead, as if she and Elena didn't have a few uncomfortable and not entirely positive confrontations prior to the veil to the Other Side going back up.

If Damon is some sort of alternate reality DoppelDamon, then Elena might be, too. Who knows. She was somehow transported from the Other Side to a ship where she's apparently not a ghost anymore. Anything's possible.

Or she's massively hallucinating. That's also a possibility. Solitude does wonders on the brain.

"If it helps, he was a dick long before he met you."

Except he wasn't. Anna remembers Damon from 1864 when he used to come in to her mother's apothecary. Damon's a prime example of why Katherine can't have nice things, while also being something of a cautionary tale of what a series of bad choices blamed on something other than your own lack of control and will does to a person.

[believable]

Elena wouldn't exactly call them comfortable.

Anna tried to kill her, using her brother to get what she wanted; she understands it wasn't as simple as that. Understands it was all for her mother, for someone that she loved. If anyone can understand doing that, it's Elena Gilbert. She spares no expenses when it comes to her own people, but it doesn't mean she's any less wary.

Jeremy isn't here at this present moment, though - so not as wary as she could be.

"Somehow, that doesn't surprise me."

Despite the dryness, Elena is having a similar consideration. You should've met me in 1864. You would have liked me.

[eluding]

Ethan is approaching very slowly. At first, he doesn't say anything, he just looks at her. He rarely is the type to look tentative (and this is no different, he isn't tentative or uncertain), and there's still a lot of anger in his chest about a lot of things.

He knows he needs to have more control. He-- he knows a lot of things, but he is helplessly and forever drawn to Ms. Elena Gilbert in whatever state he may be in. Even when she may not want to see him at all.

"Do... you want to see me at all? Because I can leave."

Spoilers: he might not leave even if he can. It's just his way of... gauging something like how she feels about him currently.

[believable]

"What I want doesn't really seem to matter."

It's a low-blow; she's being unfair and Elena knows it. If there is anything that's ever mattered to Ethan, it's what she wants, even when he thought that wasn't him. She doesn't need to know the details of the fight to have an idea of how it all went down, but just because she understands it doesn't mean she has to like it.

Especially not with how close it got. Elena glances over at him despite her snap of a remark, however, giving him a glance over from head to toe, just - needing to make sure he's healing all right.

[eluding]

Ethan flinches despite himself, flinches despite the fact that he knows what she is saying is not true. His jaw locks helplessly, and there's still that anger inside of his chest that pushes him forward. No, she doesn't seem to want to see him at all, but he's not leaving.

"Seriously?" He swallows, taking more steps toward her as he meets her gaze when she glances over at him. "That's what you're taking away from all of this? When I have always cared more than anything else about what you want?"

It's unfair, and Ethan is very aware of how unfair it is. He has never been afraid to call her out on it when she is being unfair.

[convents]

It's not until the sun's set does Elena's latest visitor emerge from the decks below. The other vampires on board this ship are equipped with daywalking rings spelled for them by witches who didn't think of the disservice they were doing to society by giving monsters within men the ability to blend in better than most or not affected by the sun at all. Angel is neither of those, reduced to spending the daylight hours when the passengers are most active. He can smell them, hear them walking above him, but he doesn't dare mingle with them. Not when when the sun's still out.

But now it's down, having disappeared beneath the waves on the horizon. It's to the scene of Damon's fight he goes first, following the scent of something that smells human, yet not, to one of the nearby bars. He lingers for some time, watching as a young woman, clearly upset and frazzled, takes to easing her pain with the assistance of what's in the bottles available to her.

This must be Elena. He's watched, listened, and read. A lot of the conversations in the journals were unfiltered, open for anyone to read, not just him. It wasn't hard, putting two and two together, even if some of the pieces of the puzzle were still missing.

When she goes to pour herself another glass, he emerges — one single, fluid step from the shadows to the previously empty spot just behind her. He doesn't make sound, does nothing to alert her to his presence. (The well honed skills of a vicious predator come in handy for more than just hunting.) Not until he reaches for the bottle, anyway.

He's like a too-quiet cat in dire need of a bell.

Angel's fingers close around the bottle's neck to stop her from pouring any more of it out into her glass, tipping it back until it's sitting upright against the counter again.

"I think that's enough."

[believable]

Elena doesn't know what Angel looks like, but she has already spoken with him once.

They had one conversation over the journals as she tries to learn about those that are on board with her.

Elena lifts a brow in surprise when his fingers close around the bottle's neck. Elena coming here for a drink or two doesn't mean that someone - someone that doesn't know her, for that matter - is going to monitor her behavior and act as though she is going to get so plastered she'll fall overboard. She knows exactly what she's doing and she knows her limits.

"Excuse me?"

While it's still calm, it doesn't hold the friendliness she usually reserves for those she is meeting. She doesn't appreciate what he's trying to do.

[convents]

The bottle, a clear one with a white label adorned with green letters in another language, is easily drawn out of and away from her grasp to the other side of the bar.

"Spirytus Rektyfikowany," he says. "Ninety-six percent alcohol. With your body weight..."

As he tsks the implications, the glass becomes his next target — and victim. It's taken from her hands just as easily and poured down the drain. However, instead of cutting her off completely, Angel provides her with a clean tumbler and a bottle of Kahlúa.

[butistayed]

[logan has no idea that elena or ethan are on this ship at the moment so this is one helluva time to find out that not only are they both on the ship, but they are also (finally) together. it only took them years, okay?

the world ended, and he hasn't seen either in a really, really long time.

he heads up to the bar from behind, tilting his head in confusion. it looks like--]

Elena?

[believable]

Logan? Oh my God - !

[ and there goes whatever plan elena had for the evening. she lowers the liquor bottle she hasn't even opened, setting it down on the counter and making her way over to him. she hasn't seen him in - she doesn't even know how long it's been, but she knows that it has been even longer for ethan, and.

she is just going to run over to you and give you the biggest hug now, logan. ]

[butistayed]

It is you. [logan laughs softly in amazement (that even with all his logic and facts about the universes and rifts, he can still be wrong about what's possible and what isn't) as he wraps his arms tightly around her too, hugging her to his chest in the biggest, warmest hug. it has been a long, long time.

much, much too long. but he is smiling as he hugs her tightly to him.] Of all the nonsensical places for the impossible to happen. Hey.

[easily]

"Someone's had a bad evening."

Haven't you missed this voice, Elena? She's aware the other girl's on the ship, Stefan had told her as much but for whatever reason they haven't been reunited until this moment.

Rebekah's making her way into the bar for a drink -- not because she's having a particularly bad day but because she just wants a drink. Life on the ship can be trying -- especially after discovering her rift change is still in effect here -- but it could be worse. She has Stefan now, she's taking care of him just as she promised Elena she would.

Okay, so maybe part of her is a little jealous Stefan got his sibling back here when it's been so long since she's seen any of hers, but these things can't be helped.

[believable]

Rebekah.

Elena thinks it before she actually says it, the surprise taking over her features for a moment. It's one thing to know the blonde Original finds herself on the ship, and it's another to see her. Elena is grateful it's the same version of Rebekah she had encountered in Chicago. This is the Rebekah she is familiar with.

(She misses her brother, too.)

"It's good to see you too," Elena says dryly. Which is possibly codeword for yes, it was a bad evening.

Come join her for a drink, Beks. You know you want to.

[easily]

This is the Elena she's familiar with as well. She wouldn't know exactly what to do with any other version.

(It's something they have in common, how much they love their brothers).

"I heard about the spectacle." She is staying with Stefan, after all.

And she'll make her way over, sitting next to Elena. She'll wave for a drink before she continues to speak.

"Men can be such idiots."

[vampireboulevard]

[Sup, bestie.

Caroline's not even going to ask and just sit down next to her, ready to take the bottle when it's passed to her. She figures that eventually whatever it is will come out and they can deal with it then. For right now, there's just drinking.

Bonnie will probably flagged down at some point too - Elena seems like she's in desperate need of some girl talk.]

[powertostand]

[Bonnie is already here. She has been looking for Elena since she overheard and witnessed almost the entirety of the fight. Bonnie would have stepped in herself if it had been necessary but sadly (she really likes to give Damon well deserved aneurysms for being a jackass) that was not necessary.

She catches sight of Elena and Caroline at the bar, and she grimaces as she walks up to join them, sitting on the other side of Elena.] So... Damon and Ethan, huh? [She reaches a hand out to rest it against Elena's arm and then fills up her glass, fills up a fresh glass for herself.]

[believable]

Damon and Ethan.

[ it's said in confirmation as she passes the bottle over to caroline in offer. she lifts up the glass that's been filled to the brim, courtesy of bonnie bennett, downing it all in one go. she makes a face, not entirely used to the taste still, before she sets it back down. ] They're going to drive me crazy.

[consumes]

[this is the absolute last person that elena wants to see, but damon is here anyway, looking for her specifically after his night of recklessness and partying. he doesn't say a word though, and as reckless as he has been (as reckless and as angry and bitter and violent as he has been), it's completely stripped from him right now in a hollow, heavy kind of way.

he has his journal in his pocket as he moves to sit beside her at the bar still without saying a single word or looking at her just yet.]

[believable]

[ she lets the silence sit between them, not quite looking at him yet, either. one of them should say something, say anything, but their most defining moments have always gone unspoken, haven't they? maybe it is fitting. a hand is cradling her own neck, while the other remains wrapped around the glass in her hand. she suddenly doesn't feel like drinking the rest of it. the silence lingers, falters, and finally breaks. ]

Where were you, Damon? [ she finally turns to him, emptied of the anger but not of her conviction. she is not kidding around. she may not ask again. ]

[badcentury]

[damon sits in the silence, staring at the inside of the bar without moving an inch, a breath at all. it would be like he is stone if there wasn't the intensity of the emotions in his gaze even as he continues to stare, swallowing thickly.]

And where do I get to go again? [because that's the thing in the end, no one stays here forever. people go back through the door, back to their other worlds. they get dragged through sometimes he has heard the stories. seeing elena again doesn't mean this lasts (it won't, and choice does not matter, whatever he'd chosen, he still ended up where he did and she did where she did and ethan with her) and he releases a breath, because he is going to try to explain but he doesn't know how to put it to words.] Wanderers... are universally known there. We're not called wanderers. We're called assets. Each rift has a facility attached to it, and every asset is tested, cuffed, and put into the system if there are uses for them.

[chaney]

Where's the bartender? You're obviously not him — or her.

[ men suck and you, young lady, smell like a wolf. and something else. something other than wolves and alcohol. something he can't quite put his finger on. color derek at least mildly intrigued, if only be virtue of having been on this ship for a few days with no solid answers or leads, then coming across a girl who smells like some semblance of something familiar to him when nothing else is. ]

[believable]

[ she smells a lot like a wolf, it's true. while she is not a wolf herself, she spends a lot of time with them, one in particular. who would've thought elena gilbert would switch her vampire schtick for its polar counterpart. it's what happens when you meet a pack of six brothers. ]

Are you sure you want to know?

[ elena would much rather mix her own drinks than have the ghost slash hologram slash whatever it chooses to be that day. sometimes they'll talk back to you and sometimes they won't. sometimes they'll be friendly and sometimes they'll be snippy. you never know what you're going to get.

in any case, the ghost server has already heard derek's call, and saunters - or floats - its way over to them. "How may I be of assistance?" ]

[chaney]

[ having a pack, especially a family pack, on your side is always a good thing. never feel bad about getting mixed up in that, elena. if you're in the know and they're cool with you, why not hang around with them? packs are family, even when they aren't blood related. sometimes, those pack bonds are stronger than blood. (derek sure as hell feels closer to scott's ragtag bunch than his psychotic uncle, for starters. even that stiles kid and the banshee who helped resurrect said uncle.)

in an instant, derek's demeanor shifts from curiosity to outright done with whatever this is before it even starts. ] You can't. [ there's an edge to his voice and something else waiting in the wings to be said, but the ghost... thing sashays away before it has the chance to be spoken.

the tension melts — mostly. ] You're right; I didn't want to know. What was that?