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

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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