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

"But it could have, Ethan. If I hadn't gotten there in time, if Stefan hadn't gotten there in time, can you honestly say you know what would've happened?" Elena asks him. She isn't even demanding that he be sorry. This is Damon and she knows exactly what he is capable of; how good he is at poking a sore wound. If anything, Elena has had to constantly apologize for Damon's actions - not because they're on her, but because she knows the kind of damage he can spread around.

And right now? He seems determined to spread a lot of it around.

It's self-destruction at its finest. "And then what?"

"I would have thrown him off." Ethan's voice is low when he responds, and he can honestly say that he knows what would have happened. He would have thrown him off without thinking, regretted it the moment that he did, done all he could trying to get him back. His throat burns with the truth of it all. "And tried to save him." His hand tightens over her arm just briefly, and he can already feel the anger draining out of him, because he never wanted to be... this. Much as he is not the type to run from his anger anymore either.

He doesn't look down or away. Ethan looks at her face, and his hand is still on her arm as he turns her toward him to look at him. He shakes his head at the question.

Then. Then. Then. Then he would have more blood on his hands, but it would be worse because it is someone that she loves and she has lost enough. "Then you... wouldn't be able to forgive me for it, and I wouldn't be able to forgive myself for it," he says after a moment. He hasn't forgiven himself for the multiple people that he has killed, and she doesn't even know about that, because he has never been able to put it into words. "Maybe that's what he wanted or maybe--"

Maybe he just wanted Ethan to throw him overboard, which makes Ethan feel more than a little sick with it.

Edited 2014-05-06 04:40 (UTC)

Elena's tirade is brought to an abrupt stop at Ethan's low voice.

He says it with such brutal honesty she almost flinches with it. She can feel her own anger draining out, replaced by something much sharper and painful. She doesn't fight him when he turns her. Elena takes the necessary steps to make her way over to him, until she is standing directly in front of him, eyes burning with it.

"What Damon wants is to self-destruct," Elena says. She knows him perfectly well. Damon's actions are on Damon. He's a big boy, and so is Ethan. "I don't know why - "

She isn't of such a high opinion of herself to assume it was all about hearing her and Ethan are together now. Something happened to him, something he isn't talking about, and it's conflated to such a degree it led to this. Her voice finally wavers, and she lifts up her hands to cradle his face. This time, she is the one steering him toward her, careening his face gently in her direction. Her eyelashes are suspiciously wet. "Don't ever scare me like that again."

Ethan wishes that wasn't the brutal honesty of it. He wishes it was different. He wishes he could say that he would have had that control in the final moment instead of-- instead of flinging Damon over in the middle of all of that rage. He would have regretted it the second that it happened. His eyes are burning too at the sight of her eyes burning, at the sight of the pain on her face.

It hurts to know that he did something, anything that helped put it there.

"It... has to do with where he was before and where he'll go again. It's what he was angriest about that I ended up there with you when I didn't--" His voice cuts off, because it was his choice even if she didn't know that until so much later. "I was coming back."

She knows that already, and it wasn't his fault that the rifts tore him away from the sidewalk before he could get back to her. The words still sound a bit broken though, and he looks down at her as his eyes burn more. He leans into her touch as he pulls her in against his chest. His other hand slides up against the side of her face as he swallows thickly with the emotion of it. "I won't." His eyes burn with it. "I won't ever do that again, I promise."

He is not going to help Damon self destruct, and he is not going to nearly take (or take) away someone Elena loves. She has lost so, so, so much.

If Elena loses Damon from this moment onward, that's on Damon.

Whatever he has been through and wherever he has gone, it does not excuse his behavior toward them, certainly not to Elena after everything they've been through. If their friendship crashes and burns, it will be on Damon because he is the one setting fire to it. And she does; she knows that Ethan was coming back to her and a rift picked him up before he could ever make it to her house, allowing her to think he'd just been gone forever. She knows that now. She knows he would've never said goodbye to her if he could've helped it; like she wouldn't have said goodbye, either.

She nods against him, her forehead brushing lightly with his at the action. "I know," she whispers against him, cupping the back of his head as she brings him closer to her. Her eyes burn with that regret, the time that they have lost, the timing that made it all so impossibly hard. The truth sits in her bones, along with the promise he is making her, and Elena sees that he means it. He will do whatever he can to keep it, and her chest eases all the more for it.

Elena's hands linger on the sides of his face as she looks at him. "I love you," she says. She says it very seriously. She thinks she might need to say it again to emphasize the important part. "I love you, Ethan."

Ethan never would have said goodbye, but they were not given those choices. He was coming back, because he couldn't even-- He was coming back because he never would have been able to say goodbye to her. Damon kept throwing it back at him, and it hurt and it hit those buttons because it is something that Ethan hates so much. He hates he didn't just latch on to her from that very last moment he saw her. He hates that he didn't say the words, I am in love with you, and I have known that I am in love with you since the ball.

He didn't do those things, but he understands now Damon had his own anger at himself. Ethan's eyes burn with that regret too, the regret that tears at his chest even still. He hears that whisper, and he can tell that she knows. His fingertips dig into her back as he breathes her in. Ethan won't let it happen again, and it is a very deep promise that he will keep to her. He'll remember her expression, and it won't be hard to keep that promise.

Ethan leans into her touch as he closes his eyes, holding on to those words. His hand slides over her face as his eyes burn as he nods, needing those words without knowing how much he needed them even if he already knew. "I love you too," he says quietly but intensely, quietly but very, very real. "I love you so much." He doesn't know how it fits in his chest sometimes, the strength of how much he loves her, but it does and it always grows.

Impossibly more and more every day.

Okay.

With that out of the way, Elena feels like she can breathe easier. The regret, the anger, the chances they took and the ones they didn't, they slowly fade from sight until all she can see is him. Him and the burning of his eyes and the quiet intensity in his voice. Elena's eyes fall shut, leaning into his hand once it slips over her face. She leans effortlessly into its warmth because it's all she knows to do; would never think of doing anything else.

She steps closer, bridging the very last gap that had remained between them. She exhales softly, slowly, lifting her hand. Her fingers curl around his wrist lightly, a quiet but decisive movement.

"Are you sure you're okay?" she asks, after she has let that truth sit between them, growing stronger in the silence. He looks better than when she saw him last, and much better than when she found him on the lower deck.

But she still has to ask.

Ethan feels the way she leans into his hand, and he will always love the way that it feels, how she is drawn closer to him no matter what else is going on. It would break him if she ever did anything else, if there was ever not that instinct to lean into his hand. His thumb slides over her cheekbone as he looks at her when she bridges that very last gasp between them.

He closes his eyes, swallowing thickly as he leans in until his forehead rests against her own. Ethan slides his fingers up against the side of her neck, wrapping his hand around her neck, cupping her head there.

"I'm okay. I just--" He releases a long breath, staring down between them, knowing there are things that she doesn't know about where he was before and what he did then. "I face my anger more, but that's..." It's good in some ways, and it's terrible in others. It's terrible because it wound up with his pushing Damon up against the railing and nearly throwing him off of the side of the ship. "I wish I hadn't almost done that."

Elena is quiet following his admission.

She has seen and felt the changes in Ethan ever since he came back from that world of magic and darkness. He was never the same. Whereas before she could not imagine what Ethan looked like angry, now she has ample visuals for it, but this - this was something different altogether. It went beyond superficial annoyance at Damon's existence. It was far more personal than that, which she should've figured considering it's Ethan and Damon, but -

"What exactly did he say to you?" she asks, finding it important to press this time around.

What he went through before and what he did - it's true she doesn't know everything, but they agreed little by little. One day at a time. In this case, one night in the middle of nowhere. Her forehead remains against his, and for a brief moment, Elena's eyes close. In the silence, she waits.

Ethan lets out a breath as his forehead rests against her own, and his hand cups the side of her face. His hand grips to her waist, keeping her close to him, because he always wants and needs her as close as possible to him. It's always very true, and his hand slides behind her neck as their foreheads remain pressed together. He looks down at her when he hears her question, sees that her eyes are closed in the silence.

He swallows.

"Kept mentioning times when... I wasn't there for you, with you," he says achingly softly. "How he always chooses you over everything else, and there were times like then, like New Year's Eve where-- where I was absent. He made it sound like I was comfortable with it, but I wasn't. I never would have said goodbye to you at the end of the world. The Rifts stole that from us both. I'm--"

Ethan shakes his head. The burn is there in his chest between his rib cage so intense it feels like it's being torn open. "The other months that I was lost inside myself, I regret so much. I always will."

"Ethan," she says insistently.

Shaking her head against his own forehead, her hands cradling the sides of his face gently. "You were going through so much. I didn't even know half of it. Damon sure as hell didn't. No one can blame you for dealing with it however you had to. I don't," Elena adds. Of course she missed him. Of course she wanted her best friend back. But the magnitude of what Ethan was grappling with was immense, and she can see why Damon was able to get to him that way.

It just isn't true. They both know what is true, and Elena is going to remind him of it as many times as she needs to.

Ethan closes his eyes when she says his name like that, and he only looks at her again when she speaks. He leans into her touch, into her hands as they cradle the sides of his face.

His hand slips over her own, and he swallows thickly. "I blame... me for it even though I know it's-- I can't turn back time and change anything that happened," Ethan says softly, and his eyes burn as he leans into her. Their foreheads rest against each other as he closes his eyes there against her. He knows he needs to let it go. "I know I need to let it go, to forgive... myself. It's so hard to-- to not hate that time."

When they were so far apart, he regrets it helplessly so even if he is exactly where he wants to be now and he knows without a doubt where he is meant to be, who he wants.

"I love you."

"It's not about hating it."

Because she hates it, too. She hates how it happened; hates they allowed that distance to settle in between them until reaching each other became so difficult. The thought of his going through so many things with her being unaware of them gnaws at her, and she imagines it's the same for him. It didn't feel right, to feel so far away from him, but that's the point. "It's about realizing how wrong it was, and knowing we're not those people anymore. We're here now, and we're together. That's what matters."

It's what she is focusing on, as opposed to the mistakes and the regrets they've carried like boulders on their back. It can drown them if they allow it to - Elena knows this all too well. She doesn't know the rest of what Damon said - New Years, their indiscretion, the details that were given - but she knows that she isn't that person anymore, either.

The one standing before Ethan knows exactly what she wants, and she isn't losing it.

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

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