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

I'm sorry.

[ she means it genuinely. it doesn't fall from her lips like a pleasantry, like something she says because she's supposed to say it. she is sorry, especially as it seems like he already had a lot on his plate. it's the last thing so many of them need, but it can be jarring when it happens for the first time. she knows this, too. ]

There's no way of knowing when it sends us back, but once it does - it's like time stopped back home. We're taken back to the last thing we remember, and no one knew we were gone. [ she doesn't know if this will be a comfort to him or not, but it's the truth, and he should be armed with it. ]

You do realize this sounds like one of those really bad Choose Your Own Adventure novels from elementary school, right?

[ if you want to stay on the ship to nowhere, turn to page 23. if you've had enough and want to go home, turn to page 57. ]

Or X-Files fan fiction.

I've never read X-Files fanfiction, but I will have to take your word for it.

[ and well, x-files in general fits the bill. it's crazy and out there, except it's true, or they wouldn't be standing here. she could pinch him and this would all be a dream.

... don't pinch derek hale, elena. ] But yes, I do realize how it sounds. I just promise it's also the truth.

"I believe you."

It's said a little too readily, an easy acceptance of the truth she has to offer. Derek's inherently someone who doesn't trust, but belief and trust aren't exactly two sides of the same coin. He can believe in something without trusting it, and he isn't about to trust this situation — or this seemingly friendly girl. Not yet, anyway.

See, and Elena would agree there. Trust isn't something you just hand over; trust is something you earn, and it's a two-way street. She won't be trusting him magically for the sake of it. It's something that builds - or doesn't - overtime.

"We're not the only ones here. Every now and then someone else steps through that Red Door, and in the meantime, there's cabins to stay in and stores to get everything you can think of." Clothes, food. It's not that Elena trusts it, but after a while, out of necessity you start to take the risks.

"Of course we're not. What's a good mystical shift in worlds without some unfamiliar and possibly unwanted faces coming through that door, as well?"

He ought to sound bitter and discouraged, but he doesn't. These things are a fact of reality for Derek, with or without this ship. He was raised on tales of this stuff, spent his youth learning how to be a werewolf while simultaneously functioning in human society proper and doing normal kid things like joining the basketball team and sleeping over at a friend's house. He never expected to see all that he's seen this past year, but there's no going back from it. The world's a hell of a lot bigger place and even someone of his upbringing thought it was, and he'd be a fool to dismiss the possibilities of this place.

And he is done being the joker in the Beacon Hills deck.

Elena has thought of that, as well.

The same door that allowed her to see Caroline and Bonnie again is the same door that could bring Klaus in. Just because she's gotten used to his absence doesn't mean she takes for granted the fact it doesn't necessarily mean it's permanent. Rifts, ghost cruise ships, portals in general - they make anything possible. She swallows at his comment, her gaze dropping as she genuinely contemplates it; forces away the dread that threatens to sink into her stomach.

"It does seem to enjoy making things as difficult as possible."

Sometimes, people in Chicago would joke the rifts had to be sentient. Some things were too cruel and terribly timed to be mere coincidences.

It's the same door that could bring some of the Argents or Deucalion to the ship, or Jennifer or even his mother... And in this moment, he kind of hates himself for considering the last two possibilities, even if he refuses to entertain them. His relationship with Jennifer had been wonderful, yet complicated and tainted by everything she'd done and wasn't telling him, but what he had to do that gave fuel to her fire and if he's being honest with himself, he really hasn't sat down and allowed himself sort through that tangled mess. It would likely do him some good to, but right now, there are more pressing matters.

And while a chat with his mother about some things (a lot of things) would do him a lot of good, that option's far too painful to consider. As is seeing the rest of the family that was lost in the fire.

"Difficult's kind of become a theme in my life." It wasn't always.

Being a werewolf didn't mean his life was complicated. Being hunted didn't even mean that. But everything that happened after Peter killed Laura has been. The fire, his uncle, Scott getting bit — it all got incredibly difficult after that for a myriad of reasons.

Elena hasn't considered it herself. Or maybe she has and she has almost as quickly tucked it away.

Once people died, they were supposed to stay dead. That is how it works. Then magic came, and then the rifts, and then Red Doors like these - but there are some types of hope which are too terrible to carry, some faces which Elena would give anything to see again, and that's precisely why she can't. Her parents, Jenna. The list was considerably long, and all too short at once. The sadness and the heaviness of it doesn't weigh her down like it used to, but it isn't entirely gone, either.

Maybe it never will be.

"Believe it or not, difficult isn't a stranger in mine, either," Elena adds. Thus why she had been hellbent on finding a drink for the evening.

Well, one of many reasons.

"I believe it," Derek answers without missing a beat. "Not believing it is usually when difficult becomes dangerous — or more dangerous, and there's only so much danger that difficult can handle before they both become uncontrollable."

It does sound like he has experience with this. Elena turns to him, appraising him newly. "As long as you keep that in mind, I think you'll be fine here. The problem is, at some point we have to accept there are things we can't control."

She doesn't like it, and her tone says as much, but there is no controlling the fabrics of the universe. All they can do is mitigate the damage as much as possible, and Derek's way of thinking is the smart way to go about it.

"I can show you around, if you'd like. Help you find a cabin."

Derek shrugs, because he's already accepted that. It took a lot of proverbial teeth pulling and some failed, misguided attempts on his part, but he understands that now. There are always going to be things that are out of his control, and it ultimately does more damage to him when he tries to control them than when he just accepts it for what it is and just lets it go.

Sometimes, you just gotta let go before it swallows you whole.

"If you wouldn't mind. I'd hate to tear you away from your drink."

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

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quietly switches to prose now that i'm more comfortable in his shoes

you saw nothing!!!!

>.>

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