Elijah

[thisismybar]

It was probably the silliest, weirdest, and possibly most inappropriate thing Ric had ever done, and he'd done some pretty silly, weird, and outright stupid things in his life. A lot of them, granted, with the help of alcohol. This one might just take the cake.

But after sleeping with Elijah (metaphorically and literally), he found himself getting steadily less certain about just what the hell he was supposed to do, now. He'd had sex with people, but never a vampire, never a man, and certainly never an Original Vampire. Did he want it to continue? Yes, he did. Was it appropriate so soon after Jenna died? Probably not. Was it more necessary because of that? Probably.

Even if the sex didn't continue -and really, Ric would be fine with that- he wanted the friendship to. Which meant figuring out a way to communicate that to Elijah. Everything he could think of just didn't seem to fit, or he second guessed until he'd talked himself out of it. Second guessing wasn't really in his nature, though, so he eventually bit the metaphorical bullet.

He sent Elijah a colorful bouquet of flowers that the internet told him meant nobility, and signed the card with a request for his presence. It was silly. He could have called. Old fashioned seemed to fit Elijah, though, and well. If he'd gotten flowers in the last century, Ric might eat them.

Comments

[manof_myword]

A shadow crossed Elijah's face and he shook his head. "Telling them won't accomplish anything, right now. I've thought about trying to find our father, tell him I know the truth, but..." He shrugged. "That's a millennium of messed up interactions I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle, yet, either."

[thisismybar]

"If it's been messed up for that long, taking some time to recover yourself isn't going to hurt anything...." He moved off the arm of the sofa to sit beside Elijah, knee just brushing the vampire's. "Just don't be afraid to off load some of the weight if you need to."

[manof_myword]

Elijah shifted, just a little, into him so their knees were more solidly in contact. "I may have to take you up on that, depending on how the next few weeks go."

He couldn't keep what he knew from his siblings forever. But he needed to talk to Klaus first, to find out what had really happened.

[thisismybar]

"You're planning to tell them eventually, then?" He thought that was good, but he also knew it wasn't going to be easy. "The offer will be here, when you need it." He reached down and squeezed Elijah's knee. Not a come on, at least not an overt one, just a silent show of support to go with the spoken one.

[manof_myword]

He nodded a little. "I have to talk to Klaus first." As always around Ric, he felt uncomfortable bringing up his brother. The fact that he lived with him, was working to try and stabilize his family, that he could still love him...weren't things he really felt most people could understand, especially those here.

"I need to hear it from him." His explanation, really--for why he'd lied for so long, perhaps.

[thisismybar]

Ric's issues with Klaus were his own, and he was pretty good -or trying to be- not to project them all over Elijah. That meant not jumping to villify Klaus, even when the person being wronged was Elijah. He took a drink, and stayed quiet for a few moments so he could be sure that what was coming out of his mouth was what he wanted to.

"And you need some time to be ready to hear the answers.... Let me know when you do talk to him?"

[manof_myword]

Elijah appreciated him not taking his Klaus hate out on him in a lot of ways. His smile was a little wry. "Thing is? I'm pretty sure I know the answers, could probably tell you near word for word what he'll say."

Honestly, Elijah couldn't even blame him. All they'd been to each other, though, made it sting.

[thisismybar]

"Knowing what the answers are going to be, doesn't mean you're ready to hear them," he said, quietly and thinking of Isobel. "Sometimes, you have to work through some of the shit before you can even begin to... have that conversation."

[manof_myword]

Elijah nodded, just once. "I suppose you're right." His lips twisted in a bit of a grimace, self-mocking. In a burst of rare openness, he added, "I don't think it's the answers or conversation I'm dreading so much as the aftermath." He paused, not knowing how to clarify. "The divide between how I think I should feel and how I feel and what I'm upset about and what I'm not, and the guilt inherent in all of that."

[thisismybar]

Ric was surprised by the openness, but it was a really, really pleasant surprise. In as much as the subject matter would allow it to be, anyway. "How do you think you should feel and be upset about?" he asked, reaching out for Elijah's hand.

[manof_myword]

Elijah took his hand, fingers curling around Ric's and...really grateful for the contact. "I'm fairly certain I should be horrified and furious that he killed our mother," he said dryly. "Outraged he blamed it on Father. Upset he lied about it for a thousand years. Something violently emotional at the realization that it's possible I lived a thousand years in fear I didn't have to."

[thisismybar]

He squeezed Elijah's hand lightly, settled back and took another drink. That all sounded completely reasonable, but he remembered damn well that Elijah had said what he should be feeling wasn't necessarily what he was. "What are you feeling...?"

[manof_myword]

Elijah gave him a wry smile. "Anger at my parents. Sadness for my father, I suppose. But...mostly sad that Klaus never thought he could tell us the truth. That he never trusted us enough to stay if he did. Which...pretty much brings us back to anger at my parents."

[thisismybar]

Ric came really close to making a remark that he would have regretted, but he was making a concerted effort to move past his personal feelings about Klaus, raw and painful as they were, to listen to Elijah and try to understand from his point of view. Which meant trying to understand Klaus. Which was uncomfortable as hell for him, but. If he could extend it to Damon, he could make an effort to do the same with Klaus, for Elijah's sake.

That meant a long period of silence, while he mulled it over. He rubbed his thumb over the back of Elijah's hand while he did, and he drank. "I don't know if I really understand, but... it sounds close enough to some of the interactions I've had with Damon, where I'm pissed the fuck off about whatever he did, but the underlying feeling is just wanting to go back a couple of hundred years, find Damon's father and knock his teeth down his throat. Or- everyone else who feeds into his shit."

[manof_myword]

Elijah nodded slightly, gave him a sad half-smile, though gratitude flickered underneath it. "It's hard to get past some things that were truly...formative in your life, I suppose. And Klaus was not always like he is now--not by a long shot. I don't absolve him for responsibility for some of his choices, and he is a reasoning being, in theory, so beaten dog analogies don't fully apply, but. Yes. They have a lot of similarity in their reasons for acting out, the insecurities and neuroses that drive them. And Klaus has had a thousand years and some stints of serious mental instability that weren't his fault to feed into his."

He shrugged, gave Ric a tired smile. "I spent the entire formative years of my life knowing my job was to protect him, protect them. I failed, on so very many counts. I can't seem to forget that, when I think back to then. And what our parents did to him was...monstrous."

[thisismybar]

"You don't need to forget it," Ric said quietly, and patiently. "You probably shouldn't. You might want to give yourself the same slack you're willing to cut him, though." Not that he really expected it to happen, even after having only known Elijah -truly known, rather than known of- a bit, and for a little while. "There's only so much even you can do."

[manof_myword]

He nodded a little, frowning a bit, then tilting his head back against the sofa. "You're right. I do know that. I think that's why I need the time to figure out how to approach it."

[thisismybar]

"How to... approach your feelings, or how to approach Klaus in light of them?" Both, he suspected, but he wanted to keep Elijah talking to him. That it was maybe odd that he was comfortably holding Elijah's hand... hadn't even begun to occur to him. The man just begged to be touched, now that Ric recognized what he was looking at, when he saw Elijah. More than Damon, even. Which was odd, because Damon needed it pretty badly, too.

[manof_myword]

Elijah certainly didn't mind the hand holding. Ric was right...he needed it. His fingers clung to Ric's as he considered the question. "Maybe both. It's been so long where all I felt was grief and rage. This is...quieter, and I...don't know what to do with it."

[thisismybar]

"Regret?" he suggested, very quietly. "Maybe moving toward acceptance is what you're doing." If so, he thought it might take Elijah another thousand years to get there. It was okay. It had to be better than rage and grief. Progress was progress, no matter the time it took. He still felt shitty for Elijah.

[manof_myword]

"Acceptance?" Elijah sighed and settled a little closer to Ric, unconsciously seeking his warmth. "That would be nice."

[thisismybar]

Ric tilted his body in toward Elijah, and set his glass aside so that there was more of his body to lean against, and let the hand not in Elijah's rest on his chest. "You don't strike me as someone who lets things go easily... even when you want to. Maybe adjust your expectations out a few centuries beyond us mere mortals, but I think you'll get there."

[manof_myword]

Somehow, a few more centuries of this just sounded...exhausting, but Elijah nodded, shifting to set his glass aside, as well, solely to curl into Ric a bit more, brushing fingers lightly over his.

"I'm glad you have faith in that."

[thisismybar]

"Because you don't?" he asked, with some very gentle, wry humor. He slid his fingers through Elijah's hair, still a little confused and uncertain but rapidly, rapidly gaining confidence.

[manof_myword]

"Not really," Elijah admitted, tilting his head into Ric's fingertips.