thisismybar | Elijah

Ric listened to Elijah intently, then moved his gaze briefly to the wall and back to Elijah, piecing the fragmented story together. "Klaus killed your mother."

Elijah nodded, jerkily, trying to make himself breathe as so much of what he'd believed shattered around him. It wasn't the violence against Esther, honestly. She'd cursed Klaus right after his werewolf side was freed when he couldn't control all his new vampire urges, either. And then she'd turned her back on him.

Him killing her...Elijah could understand.

Him lying to Elijah, to Rebekah, to Kol for a thousand years...that was a betrayal Elijah didn't know how to stomach. No matter what...now matter how fucked up they all got, he'd thought...they told each other the truth.

The breathing thing wasn't happening, so it was probably good he didn't need the oxygen.

Ric didn't really understand the intensity of the reaction, and he didn't need to. He could see it, and felt it. "Okay...."

He didn't pull Elijah in, but he stepped into Elijah, and slid his arm all the way around his shoulders. "Okay. Walk with me, okay? One foot in front of the other, just outside to the hall, for now."

Ric was warm and solid and that helped pull Elijah out of his head, back to where he was and with whom, at least somewhat. He wasn't Rebekah. He wasn't going to disintegrate into sobs on the cave floor, but.

He wanted to. God, he wanted to.

He did as he was told, moving out of the cave with Ric. Somehow he still had the flashlight clutched in his hand, fingers locked around it so tightly they ached and the cold metal pressed into his skin. It was a contrast to Ric's warmth, and both of them a contrast to the pain that was fighting against the numbness he'd been wrapped in for so long now.

When they reached the hall, he had to lean against the wall as his knees didn't really want to support him anymore, and he squeezed his eyes shut to try and stop seeing all the images in his head.

Questioning everything in a thousand years was...not really an easy process.

Ric went with Elijah to the wall and put his hand on the back of Elijah's neck. "Now, sit down and give me the flashlight, okay?" The okay was a verbal tic, it came out once in a while, but his voice was staying calm. Honestly, if Elijah'd been human, he'd have just been doing the moving but that was obviously not possible now.

So he was doing the best he could with what he had. He didn't get all the reasons Elijah was feeling what he was feeling, but he did understand he'd been lied to and just found out Klaus had killed their mother. That was enough, really, to explain it.

There was a flash of something, pride perhaps, or embarrassment, at needing tending to, and his mouth set in a momentary stubborn line before he just...gave in and sank to sit on the ground. The flashlight was difficult to give up, but he managed it, finally handing it over to Ric, and then his hand had nothing to clutch, so his fingers curled into a fist as he tried to pull himself off of the ledge he felt balanced on. Ric didn't need to deal with his family's shit.

He swallowed, tried to say something, forgot what he wanted to say and just closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall. "I'll be okay."

Eventually.

Ric sank to the ground with Elijah, and took the flashlight when Elijah gave it to him, and... turned it off. He settled beside Elijah, back against the cold stone wall, and slid his fingers up Elijah's neck and tangled lightly into his hair. He was blind as a bat with the light off, but pretty okay with that for the moment.

"You will be," he agreed. "But for right now, just work on being, at all...."

The dark was...better, at least in that Ric couldn't see him. That helped. Made him feel less weak, if his breakdown couldn't be seen. It gave him space enough for the tears to fall, completely silently.

He had no idea why Ric was sitting here with him, why he was even trying to offer comfort, but he was grateful in his confusion. Unconsciously, he leaned into the touch, into Ric, seeking that human warmth he hadn't felt in...so fucking long.

Ric waited for the lean, not at all sure if it was going to come. When it did he set the flashlight away from them, turned toward Elijah, and wrapped both arms around him and sort of coaxed and guided him down enough to be held. He even pressed a kiss to the top of Elijah's head.

Treating him, effectively, the same as he would have Jeremy, Elena, or... Damon, really, when Damon actually let himself be held or touched affectionately, which (admittedly) usually involved copious amounts of alcohol. He didn't speak, didn't offer words, just held onto Elijah quietly, in the dark, and pretended not to suspect (or notice) that Elijah was crying.

Elijah was shocked to find himself in Ric's arms, more shocked by the affectionate kiss, but after a moment's stiffness, he relaxed into it. Turned his face into Ric's shirt, and made himself breathe.

As the initial shock cleared, his brain did what it always had done except for these brief few decades--looked for a way to understand Klaus. Why he'd lied. In the end, it wasn't so hard to understand.

He must have been so scared. His parents had just turned on him, cursed him, cast him out, for things that were not his fault, things that, honestly, were theirs. No matter what Elijah and Rebekah had vowed, how could he beleve them, especially knowing how close they both were to their mother? When Mikael came after them, how could he confess? He had to have been terrified they would blame him, leave him, turn him out. The longer he went without telling, the more difficult it would have become. Maybe, in the fac of Mikael's hatred, he even came to believe the lie. A man who could kill his own children could surely kill the wife who had betrayed him.

None of that was anything Elijah could say, but it helped him reassert some control, to right some of the pieces of his world. The trembling eased a bit and he lifted his head, brushing a soft kiss over the corner of Ric's mouth, butterfly light.

"Thank you...."

Ric didn't really need to know exactly what was going on. In fact, the less he knew about the justification of Klaus, mental or otherwise, the better off they were. Klaus was, he was sure, completely justifiable. Ric also hated his guts.

When Elijah lifted his head and started to be regaining his composure Ric loosened his arms and unwound a little. He paused and made a softly (pleasantly) surprised sound at the light kiss. "Not a problem...." he responded, though. "Ready to get out of here and into a bottle?" He paused, then asked a bit reluctantly. "Are you going to be okay to drive?"

Nothing in his head was anything he was going to share with Ric. He'd promsed not to try and defend his brother to the man, and he'd keep ihis word.

What he did in his own ead was for him, no one else.

The pleased little sound was enough to make him want to lean in, kiss him again, get lost in pleasing him more here in the dark, until they both let go of the grief, if only for an hour or so. Part of him wanted to so badly it was nigh on a craving.

Elijah took a breath and pushed the impulse down, then shook his head, just a movement in the dark, still close.

"I'm fine to drive, but I need to go back in there. I need to see the rest."

Ric... understood the impulse, on some level, and was completely bewildered by it on another. The physical closeness, the way Elijah had leaned into him... his own grief and feeling Elijah's? Knowing how much Elijah needed touched and hadn't been? Yeah, the impulse was there. Just not normally one he had, in particularly that way. Certainly not one he expected to feel at all toward Elijah.

And it was more impulse than craving, and pretty... vague.

Ric was dubious about Elijah's plan, but. "I'd do the same thing," he admitted, groped in the dark until he found the flashlight.

He hesitated for a brief second, then kissed Elijah lightly, but on the mouth. Immediately thereafter he turned the flashlight on and stood, hand out to help Elijah up.

The light kiss almost made him shiver, made him regret he hadn't followed that impulse, but he let Ric go, then took his hand even though he didn't need it, and stood fluidly. He kept his face slightly averted in the light, not wanting his tear tracks seen, and then moved back into the cave.

"Can you bring the light over to this section?"

There was something about Elijah turning even slightly away from the light that tugged at Ric, but he followed Elijah with his flashlight and shone is on the section of the wall Elijah had indicated. He didn't verbally reply, for a number of reasons. He certainly wasn't going to compromise Elijah's... pride, he supposed.

He didn't read the story anymore, just skipped past the piece about his mother, following the tale of their flight, following the rebuilding of the wolves, on through centuries until he stopped over the image of people kneeling around a tree.

Elijah went cold.

This was what he was not meant to see, he was certain. This was why the barrier had been erected.

He swallowed, scanned the rest of the wall, but there was nothing else really there. "Let's go."

Ric suspected something was up, but he couldn't separate Elijah's reaction now from his previous one, didn't know the cause or the source. For all he knew, he'd just seen the same part of the story again, or even to being back in this space. "Sure...," he agreed, but didn't move. "Is everything as... all right as it was?"

Elijah closed his eyes briefly, but then nodded. "No other tragedies. Just how we left and the wolves grew strong again and everyone celebrated."

Which was completely true, though his voice was back to that detached place as he let the numbness seep back in, walling himself off from turbulent emotions. It wasn't turning them off--what was left of his humanity was still there, but it eased the volatility, helped him think.

Usually, he preferred it. Right now he just felt cold.

Whatever it was, it unsettled the fuck out of Ric, and made him pretty cautious and wary of him. His associations with... vampires being remote was possibly better than ones going off the deep end into over-emotionality, but it still pinged some alarm in his gut. Not enough to make him reactive or scared, per se, but it did make him just a little more watchful and careful.

"All right...." He turned away and headed back out of the small cave, and pointed the light toward the entrance. Then he thought again and handed the flashlight back to Elijah, so he could light the way out.

And so Ric wasn't in front of him.

For all the cautious, though, he was still concerned about Elijah.

Elijah noted the unsettled and cautious and cursed silently. This...wasn't something he could trust them with. He'd said too much about Mikael and being on the run for so long. But he hated the loss of that warmth.

He took the flashlight, but paused by Ric and reached up to cradle his jaw, letting the warmth flicker for just a moment, and a flash of the pain. He wasn't angry--he was hurt and he was scared, and none of that was Ric's fault.

Detaching, compartmentalizing....it was what he did to survive.

Hs thumb ghosted over Ric's cheekbone and his voice was soft. "Thank you. For coming here with me."

It really wasn't Elijah's fault. Ric didn't know Elijah very well, yet, though he'd certainly learned quite a bit in the few hours they'd spent together. He did know that Elijah was reserved and remote more often than not, but he'd... spent more time being a bit cautious with Elijah than not. He could still put the pieces together and figure it out, at least a little, but.

If his gut hadn't reacted to an emotional shift toward cold or overt anger, after his experiences with Isobel and Damon, it would have said something even worse about his mental health than his inability to turn down a challenge, and alcoholism.

He was pretty ready and willing to be gentled out of it, though. The reach for his face momentarily made him think he was about to be grabbed by the throat and thrown somewhere or have his neck broken (because realistically? That happened more often than soft touches), but it didn't last long. The flicker of warmth and hurt, as well as the light touch was enough for him to slot what Elijah was doing, the reason for that shut down, into place.

At least a little.

He turned slightly toward Elijah's palm without fully recognizing that he was doing it. He smiled a bit, and nodded in recognition. "Save the thanks for me sharing my bourbon...." But it was warm, more at ease and steadier again. That let concern for Elijah come back to the forefront.

Ric relaxing again let Elijah relax somewhat more and he kept his hand where it was as Ric leaned into it, steady and brushing over his skin, then just cradling. His gaze was searching and intent, for a moment before he smiled a little.

"Bourbon sounds really good right now." Preferably on Ric's lips, but that was just a quiet thought, the briefest shift of his gaze to those lips. "Let's go crack open that bottle now."

Ric really, really wanted to lean in. Sexual tension wasn't even really the right word. The hand on his face, the closeness and the darkness, the emotional upheaval and the fact that Elijah had made the effort to break out of the reserve and even that Elijah had reached out and initiated contact, this time.

Ric licked his lips, opened his mouth to say something and then made a frustrated sound instead. He was getting a lot more familiar with touching Elijah, and had even brushed those couple of kisses across his lips, but he didn't want to kiss Elijah. He wanted to kiss Elijah.

"We really need to go home." One way or the other. Maybe common sense would come back as they drove. "Feel free to break speed limits." That was a bit of a tease, combined with a smile.

Elijah's eyes flickered darker just for a moment, under the heat of Ric's gaze, but he pulled it back under control admirably fast. That compulsion to press into him was back, but...not here. Here wasn't the right place. Here belonged to someone else.

"I think that's a good idea..." If there was a touch of huskiness in with the softness, so be it. Elijah slid his hand away slowly, not an abrupt pull back but a lingering touch that eventually separated as he slowly stepped back, then turned, shining the flashlight down to the path for Ric as he started back toward the entrance.

Ric really had no idea what this was. He probably could have figured it out, and he might bother to try at some point, but he wasn't going to now. Now he was going to quietly follow Elijah out of the caves and, once outside and blinking at daylight, move up to walk beside him to the car. Walked around to his side of the car, and waited for Elijah to unlock the door so he could slide in and fasten his seat-belt.

He didn't think about it, didn't question it, didn't justify or rationalize. He just waited for Elijah to get into the car, leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes.

And offered Elijah his hand.

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