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

Damon...

[ elena's voice trails off as she takes it all in with a stunned breath. logically, she knows the rifts are hardly ever kind. there are thousands of worlds out there. the odds of any of them ending up in one as terrible as the one he is describing were high. it's another thing altogether to have confirmation of it. her gaze fixes on him, lips parting once she finds herself at a loss for words. she'd known it was going to be bad no matter what. this is something else.

a second bout of silence stretches between them, elena now more somber than she had been before. elena takes his wrist in her hand, studying the blue screen that flickers before her. ]

How long were you there for? [ and more importantly, how did he not lose his mind? ]

[damon swallows thickly. it is no less than he deserves (in fact, someone might call it poetic justice). how many choices has he taken away from her? from other people? how much death and destruction has been left in his wake? he has always been good at setting aside his guilt as if he doesn't have it at all. he told stefan once you're not allowed to feel my guilt. if he wanted to feel it, it's there. he is very aware that he did not deserve to end up in that world with her, and on the end of taking another choice from her, he ended up in a world that strips any wanderer that falls through it of all their choices.

they have their ways of keeping them sane. they have their ways of reminding you of who you are. in the end, it hurt more. in the end, it meant he knew who he was and who he wasn't even when he would have preferred to forget.

he closes his eyes as she takes his wrist in her hand, and he swallows thickly, downing the entire glass in one go. before he fills it again. his eyes burn.] Sixty odd years. Maybe more, maybe less. Feels like forever.

You lose track.

[ whether it hurt more or not, elena is going to be selfishly grateful it ended up being true.

damon isn't a perfect person - this is probably the understatement of the century. it doesn't mean elena would ever, ever want him to go through what he did, and for sixty years to top it all off. she doesn't know how to put to words the magnitude of her reaction. she doesn't think there are any. she keeps a hold of the bracelet on his wrist, understanding the likelihood it might not come off no matter what they try. it doesn't matter, either.

she is already resolute about one thing. ]

You are not going back there.

[ however she has to make that happen, she is going to make it happen. ]

[damon isn't looking at her face.

mostly because he doesn't think that he can handle her reaction. he swallows thickly as he stares into the glass in his hand but doesn't lift his head quite yet. he feels her hand against the bracelet that's latched on to it. assets there have tried for a long time to figure out how to take it off. some even cut off their own hands. he never got that desperate.

he only turns to look at her again at what she says, because he hears the tone of her voice and knows what that means and knows that places like this don't like to try to be controlled.]

Elena. [his voice is low as he shakes his head.] I don't think the magic, kidnapping ship is going to like someone trying to tell it what to do.

[and he doesn't want the potential consequences to go back against her especially when he is not worth it.]

[ elena's only response at first is silence. ]

...Elena. [guuuuurrrrrrrrrrllllllll.]

Damon. [ boooooooooi. ]

[hahahaha] Magic, kidnapping ship. [no.]

Are we just supposed to let it take us and drop us off whenever it wants? We don't even know where it'll send any of us once the Red Door opens. [ it could be home yes, but not necessarily. does anyone know for certain it would work the same each time? someone or something has to be controlling it. this isn't strictly for damon. there are many people who don't wish to be separated. ]

Edited 2014-05-17 06:31 (UTC)

[bad ideaaaaa] Consequences, Elena. They'll be a thing. Not that I'm disagreeing with you, but maybe let someone who has lose to lose poke at it. [cause that suggestion will go over well.]

[ well, obviously. this is elena!! ] Consequences are always a thing, Damon. [ not that it ever stops him. ]

[:|a Damon releases a breath, takes a drink.

He has had decades of punishment, loneliness, being treated like shit, whateverthehell as details aren't necessary. knowing how terrible it is to live a life without her and without his brother and without anything, without the ability to act out recklessly even. Without the ability to be obsessive with his feelings for her, it's been time and it wasn't... her being with Ethan that made him act out that way ultimately. The time in that other universe was enough to grow even the likes of him despite this display born out of bitterness and anger at the universe and his life or well. lack thereof.] Anyway, before we started discussing poking a overly powerful, magical ship so it can bend to our will damn the consequences, I was trying to say before... [he trails off, takes a long drink from the glass in his hand, looking down into it before he looks over at her.]

I'm sorry, Elena. [It's probably the most genuinely and openly he's ever said the two words.] And you shouldn't be too angry at him, I'm the one that did all the pushing. [He opens up the journal, tapping the final comment and sliding it over to her as he takes another drink from his glass.]

[ the only thing that could possibly detract from the earnestness of his apology is the journal he places in front of her. elena's gaze lowers toward it in confusion, and immediately after there is recognition. she knows that handwriting like the back of her own. it's the handwriting that's become all too familiar to her. her eyes burn as she reads it, assaulted with conflicting emotions. at the base of it all, there's love swelling in her chest.

elena looks up at him with it all, perhaps making her expression unreadable.

she swallows thickly. she tugs in a breath. and she looks at him. ]

Why are you showing me this?

[damon is not so grown that he is able to answer that question completely accurately. he once came to her in her room though she doesn't remember, and said, It's because I love you that I can't be selfish with you.

he has been plenty selfish when it comes to her (was selfish that night too, he sees that now) and terrible, beyond terrible again and again and over and over, and hurt her and lashed out and been unfair. he thought about those moments and actions more times than he can count over the decades in the ache of missing her. he thought about how even though he is in love with her, a part of him always would be, how she should be with someone else, someone better, someone who is not so wholly damaged that he can't hold anything in his hands without crushing it to bits. he is not the relationship type of guy whatever he may want.

damon knows deep down that it goes beyond deserving or not deserving. he knows that he cannot be in a relationship. even if feelings were shared, even if she chose him, he would destroy things. he is terrible, and he wants more than anything at the end of the day for her to be happy, for her to have the house with the white picket fence and the kids and the husband, all of the things that she has wanted and all of the things that she should get to have. the happiness that she should get to have. the things that he could never give not to her, not to anyone, and he knows that.

and he would be content to be her friend which is what they were and have been beyond any complicated feelings. he'd be content to be there (but he is not there in that world with her, not allowed that much of a luxury) and watch the world get it right one of these times. just one of these times, get it right.

get it right for her.]

I wanted to. [is the only answer that comes out of his mouth though as he takes another drink from the glass in his hand and finally looks at her. look at how human he can look for brief moments, how vulnerable, how human. he wanted to.

he wanted to give her something good for a change. and not so destructive.]

Edited 2014-05-22 01:19 (UTC)

[ oh, she's looking.

it's the most of damon she's gotten ever since they ended up on this ship, and even before that. it's been a year since she's seen him, and the last moment they ever shared following that was unpleasant - and even that seems like something of an understatement. she can't remember the last time she felt connected to damon, when before, she'd never had that problem. in fact, being connected to damon had always been the problem.

she looks down at the journal entry once more, even if she has stopped since reading it. her eyes burn too much for that, except maybe it gives her something else to do while she sorts through her feelings of which there are many.

this is elena gilbert we're talking about.

for however long they've been on this ship, she hasn't felt close to damon. he could be sitting right next to her and never could she have felt him further away. it's a feeling she had grown accustomed to with stefan, but never damon. it doesn't mean he's magically absolved of all the crap he put them through. it doesn't mean she doesn't get mad and call him on it; she always will.

but in this moment, she doesn't feel that distance. if anything, she is reminded of the damon who was her friend. (one of her best friends.) and she realizes just how much she has missed that person. her voice is thick when she finally speaks. ]

Thank you.

[damon does not expect it to absolve him of all the things that he has done here. it's not why he shows it to her in the end, but he shows it to her because he has missed her too, because he wants to give her something good instead of constantly destroying everything around him, destroying things for her too.

he loves her so much, and he knows that doesn't ever stop him from being what he is, doing what he does when he is hurt or upset.

it's not much, and it isn't even something he did, but he is showing it to her. he can feel the shift between them and the difference so there is not the distance that has been there all along. he's missed elena (his very best friend) more than he can say, and he doesn't know how long he has on this kidnappy ship and certainly does not expect them to be able to stop the inevitable. he'll go back one day. he'll be dragged through that door back to that hell and he is so bitterly and intensely aware that he deserves it anyway, but it is not on her to figure out. it is not on her to stop.

his voice is soft when he speaks again over the rim of his glass.]

You're welcome.

[and that is a genuine, human sound too. she's always brought that out of him. decades later, it doesn't change. decades later, it doesn't. she's still his best friend beyond everything else.]

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject