driftfleet | Є004

Entry tags:

Є004

Who: Elena + You
Broadcast: video
Action: marsiva
When: rite nao!!

[Elena is curled up on one of the couches.]

So is anyone else starting to get a little worried we're not going back to our ships? I thought maybe this would last a couple of days or a week at the most, but...

[She shakes her head a little with a sigh.]

At least they gave us some entertainment, I guess.

[If her tone of voice is any indication, she doesn't find that all that comforting.]

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I don't think I always want to. I don't like it when people lie to me intentionally, [and take the choice away from her] but sometimes it feels better seeing something else. Even if it's only for a little while.

Mm.

Can you give me an example?

[Elena thinks a moment before switching the feed over to a private setting.]

I pretended that becoming what I am didn't really change me for a long time. I had to give up the idea of so many things that were keeping me going before, I couldn't lose myself on top of it.

I had to give up on having a career. Getting married. Having kids. Growing old. You know, that stuff was hard to believe in before I died. [Elena swallows thickly, shaking her head a little. It all seemed a little too selfish and out of reach even as a human doppelganger. The people who were close to her and that she loved would always be in danger by virtue of what she is.] Then it became impossible. I wasn't ready to die at eighteen. I know that's a weak excuse, but...

This...it's not what I wanted. I had the choice before. It was almost taken away from me because Damon was selfish and thought he was in love with me, but I was ready to take my chances on another way. And if I died then, at least the people who mattered to me were going to be okay and stay safe. Becoming a vampire was never on the table.

But the second time around was different. And I wasn't ready.

So, I held on for a really long time to that girl who almost died with her parents until I had to let her go because I didn't really have anything else left.

[I had to give up on having a career. Getting married. Having kids. Growing old.]

[His expression goes a little pinched. He wonders when, exactly, he decided that he wasn't going to have a future. There had to have been a point, a moment in time, when all of his plans changed. Was it right then at the beginning, with his father and the wall? Or was it later, when he was deep enough in training to really understand what he was up against? Or was it right at the end, when he had an ounce of strength left and he knew what he had to use it for?]

[Maybe he'll never know. But there was a moment when he just - gave up.]

[He gives her a crooked smile.]

I might not be able to understand. I was ready to die, when I did.

[For a brief second, Elena thinks she's heard him wrong. It's for that brief second that her expression is still as it was. But then it morphs into something else, her jaw going a little slack, her eyes widening. It's like a slap to the face. An abrupt awakening.]

I... I didn't know, Caesar. I'm... [Her expression changes again, brow furrowing and her voice softening in its tone. She doesn't mean to pity him because he's never really struck her as the type who needs it, but she never knew. She never thought to ask. And now that it's out there, she feels grief that she doesn't necessarily have a right to because why should someone like Caesar already be at the end of his life and be dead?] I'm so sorry.

[His response is predictable: a shake of his head, quick and sharp; he raises his hand in an attempt to cut her off.]

It happened. It's done. I don't regret it.

[At least not for the most part. There are times - but for the most part, he doesn't regret it.]

[Elena wants to ask what happened. Not out of a morbid curiosity, but just... To know. Deaths are just as important as any other event in someone's life. It can be a defining moment. But she holds back asking. It's hard to say if it's because she doesn't feel like being nosy about something that personal is the right thing to do right now, or because she's not sure he'll talk about it in any way that isn't cold and detached from it.]

I didn't mean to... [Elena shakes her head a little. No, he has to know she didn't mean to sound like she was pitying him.] Do other people know?

I . . .

[Hmm. Well. A few people, now, after calibrations. He isn't sure how many. And Ino, but he doesn't know she knows. So the obvious answer--]

My - friend. From home.

And that's it? You haven't told anyone else?

[...Okay, she's definitely starting to suspect this being at peace with it thing is a little bullshit. If he was at peace with it, wouldn't it come up more without hesitation? Why hide it from people?]

Some people might have found out. With the dreams.

[He doesn't understand the issue here. At all.]

"Might have."

Meaning you know they have and you're avoiding talking to them about it, or you really can't remember?

[Don't bullshit her, son. She can hear your heartbeat over the communicator.]

I know some people found out, but I don't know if everyone remembers every dream.

[. . . So he's avoiding talking to them about the possibility. Yes he is.]

Caesar, I don't know how you died, but...

[She knows that when you die this young, when there are vampires involved, it's never pretty. It's never easy. It's always abrupt, too soon, and tears at the people left behind. She's watched too many people die again and again and died herself enough times to know that's just the way it is. He's not going to be some magical exception to that rule.]

You can't just have people see something like that and... [She almost says "say nothing." But that's not the worst thing Caesar is doing. Not really. Her brow furrows as she shakes her head a little.] ...act like it's nothing. You can't do that. That's...That's not okay.

[His expression is . . . not conflicted, exactly. It's more like he's honestly too confused to emote. He isn't sure whether she means it's not okay for him to do it to himself or to other people, or if it's not okay to act like it's nothing, or what; he's not sure why it matters, one way or the other, to her. It's not as though he's proven himself to her. She doesn't understand the value that he made for himself, surely, or the goal he set and failed at. She doesn't understand that he'd do it again.]

[It's confusing. He feels lost, adrift, because people keep telling him things like this that he simply isn't equipped to comprehend. Not yet, anyway. Maybe not ever.]

Then what--

[He ducks his head down, looks away.]

What instead?

You...

[Elena shakes her head a little. She's not really an expert on this when you get down to it. She's died twice. Both times were traumatic in their own right. She still mourns her humanity even now, something that she doesn't talk about with anyone because not many people here know the truth. (As for back home, how could she complain when other people were in the same boat as her without saying a word about it?) But she at least recognizes there's something inherently not okay with not talking about it or pretending like it doesn't matter.]

I lost a lot of things when I died, but I'm still around. Caesar, if you leave here... [She purses her lips.] You're just gone. You can't act like that's nothing. This is your life we're talking about and that matters.

You matter.

[It's true. If he leaves here, if things don't work out in this bizarrely magical way, the way he still has trouble believing in some days . . . then he's gone. That's true. And it's not nothing, he knows that, but it just.]

[It feels like nothing sometimes. He failed, didn't he? Why should he have another chance, just because someone wants him to? Why should he be upset about losing his opportunity to live when he lost it fair and square? No one stole it from him. He just lost it.]

[You matter.]

[He sighs.]

If you say so.

[It feels like a slap to the face and the look crosses her face briefly. Not that he means it that way or that she even has a right to it, but it still stings. It still hurts to hear him not even come close to accepting what she says, but simply allowing it to be.]

[She shakes her head slowly, but at a complete and total loss of what to say. If he argued with her about it, she'd know what to say. If he agreed, she'd know what to say. But just letting it hang there and let that be that...]

[What do you even begin to say to that?]

[He doesn't mean to hurt her. That's not what he's trying to do. It's just that - it doesn't feel real. It doesn't feel like something that's true. So no matter how many times people say it to him, he won't believe it.]

[She's trying, though. And if he says anything else, he's pretty sure he'll hurt her more. So - he just needs to not say anything else.]

[The smile he gives her is faint, apologetic.]

I'm sorry. I think . . . I'm going to go for now. Excuse me.

[He nods, and hangs up.]

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Є004

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