Elijah

[thisismybar]

He'd hesitated, but he'd actually, eventually, bucked up and called Elijah to see if there was any news about the cave. He wasn't sure why, except that it seemed like such a nice, relatively non-threatening distraction.

Better than alcohol and vampire slaying, anyway.

Then he'd invited Elijah over to his place for a drink and to update him, before maybe (hopefully) going out and getting Elijah in there to look around. He understood that even less. Except... Elijah's company had been really, really easy. Kind of weird! But easy.

He missed easy.

Not that kind of easy. Just... close to comfortable, and pleasant.

He met Elijah with the door, handed him a glass of bourbon and stepped back to let him in.

"Any luck?" he asked, as he gestured Elijah toward the living room.

Comments

[manof_myword]

Elijah was grateful Ric was there--if only because it kept him from breaking down. And he...couldn't break down right now. If he did, he didn't know when he'd stop. He'd been numb for a century--letting other things in might break him for longer than he could handle.

He shone the light around the cave, finding the familiar marks, the names they had carved into the stone first. Not trying to shake Ric off, but unable to resist, he moved to them to slowly trace his fingertips over his name....then Klaus's, before lightly touching each of the others.

[thisismybar]

Ric didn't feel shaken off and he didn't retreat, but he didn't follow Elijah, either. He simply parked himself near the entrance, and watched Elijah, as much as the light allowed. He was reminded of what he'd heard about Isobel's death, for some reason. From Elena. The return back to her grave, and it wasn't the same, but.

Ric shook his head to shake it off, or try to. He slid quietly down the wall and kept watching Elijah. He didn't want to break in, or interfere. He didn't even want to interrupt. He wanted to be present for Elijah, but let him have his time.

[manof_myword]

Elijah was glad he was there, even if he was quiet. After a few moments, he moved to the cave paintings, able to see them far more clearly here than from the phone pictures. He found the beginning, and worked to decipher what he had.

"These over here, at least, are telling our story. How we came to be vampires..."

[thisismybar]

"Tell me," Ric suggested, softly and from his position in the ground. "Read the story." They'd talked about it some, to begin with, but somehow he thought getting Elijah to keep talking and saying it aloud was a good idea. Or a horrible one, but he was pretty inclined to go with his first instinct.

Which was, admittedly, why Elijah had ended up daggered to begin with, but.

[manof_myword]

Elijah glanced back at him, a little uncertain. Then he turned around, and read slowly through it, leaving out the more personal details that weren't on the wall, but going with what was there: the land of the wolves, the people who came from across the sea; the death of the child; the grief of the mother; the violation of nature; the creation of the cold, fanged ones; the boy who was also a wolf--a new symbol there, the hybrid; the curse laid on him by his mother... Elijah's voice faltered once or twice near the end. He stopped, coughed, kept going.

The rejection of the village and the witch and her mate. The...He stopped completely, stepping back from the wall in shock, looking like he'd been punched in the gut.

[thisismybar]

Ric stood up when Elijah stopped and stepped back with that look on his face, and crossed slowly to him. He put both hands on Elijah's shoulders and tried to turn him around to face him. "Elijah," he prompted, quiet but firm. "What just happened?"

[manof_myword]

Elijah was too stunned to fight him on the turn, shifting around to face him, still looking like his world had taken a detour into a not very good place.

"Our mother," he said, feeling like he was in a dream. "We thought...he told us...Father killed her for betraying him."

[thisismybar]

Ric was trying to follow him to wherever the detour had taken him, kept his hands on Elijah and head tilted down to watch Elijah's face. "Who told you? What actually happened?" He felt like an ass, on some level, for pushing at Elijah, but he didn't think he had much chance of getting an answer if he waited for Elijah to recover.

[manof_myword]

Elijah was almost trembling--not quite, because he was him, but there were occasional trembles there, the calm facade clearly shattered. "Klaus. Klaus told us. Father slaughtered her lover's family, then came for her. Ripped out her heart. He's been trying to kill all of us for the past thousand years, always hunting us, driving us...But..." He turned and looked blindly at the wall for a moment, then reached out and touched the symbols.

"This is the hybrid." His fingers moved. "This is the witch. My father's not there."

[thisismybar]

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."

[manof_myword]

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.

[thisismybar]

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."

[manof_myword]

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.

[thisismybar]

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.

[manof_myword]

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.

[thisismybar]

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...."

[manof_myword]

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.

[thisismybar]

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.

[manof_myword]

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...."

[thisismybar]

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?"

[manof_myword]

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."

[thisismybar]

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.

[manof_myword]

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?"

[thisismybar]

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.

[manof_myword]

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."