fic: and miles yet to go (tvd; elena/elijah, r)
title: and miles yet to go
character: elena/elijah
rating: r
summary: mystic falls burns. they drive.
author's note: written for liv. set post 4.21 and au. warning for reference to torture in 4.21.
I.
Mystic Falls goes up in flames.
Fire guts and burns and snakes across grass and concrete and ground, and she'd thought before she knew what it meant to watch things burn, but Silas shows them all.
The newspaper stamps it as the worst disaster the town has faced since the fire back in the 1800s. Homes gone. People gone. Half the town gone. Black marks remain, so deeply imprinted into the ground that nothing will get it out. The firefighters puzzle over it and the towns people, the ones left, shake their heads and murmur into their hands.
There's no room in the cemetery, but there are no bodies left to put there either.
II.
"I'm not staying here," she says, voice thick with smoke and ash. Her lungs work hard to expel the foreign material that a regular human would have died from by now.
There's soot on his left cheekbone. A slash of imperfectness across his marble like face.
Tears refuse to well up in her eyes. She knows she should be crying. People are dead. Everyone is dead. Except for the two of them standing here in blackened dirt with the stench of death and fire clinging to them. Crying is not foreign to her, not anymore, and she can remember now how she'd cried when that place inside of her had turned back on.
Her eyes remain dry.
"I'm going," she finds that her tongue can work though.
He finds them a car and she doesn't even ask if he steals it from someone. Who would claim it.
III.
They drive.
The car is non descriptive, something she'd once would have given to the girl working at the gas station in one of her short stories; the girl who got it from her daddy, handed down, with bubblegum pink fingernails. Little thoughts like that collect in the subsurface of her mind. Pool there and never drain, things that she once would have dwelled on and turned over and sounded on her tongue.
Elijah drives during the day. Still face, smirch of ash gone from his face after three days when they'd finally stopped somewhere several states away. The highway stretches before him, two hands gripping the cracked leather of the wheel tight, eyes trained forward.
IV.
Elena doesn't like the sun.
She doesn't drive during the day. She curls herself away from the windows, ducks her head into her crossed arms, pretends that everything is fine; she bites through her bottom lip with every turn of the wheels as the sun's heat hits her skin, ring on her finger, the phantom presence there; she bites her lip bloody and tries not to scream.
V.
The radio goes static silent in their second week.
She keeps track of the days by scratching a fingernail into the rubbery plastic on the door handle. Little lines appear and she picks the scrapings out from under her nail to pass the town.
They let the radio bleat out at them, neither of them caring. Neither of them lifts a hand to change it.
It's just wheels moving and road blurring with green and blue signs on the side of the highway.
VI.
Elena drives at night.
They switch underneath the too bright lights of gas stations. Elijah stretches out his legs in the passenger seat, his hand brushing against her knuckles as he gives her a blood bag. They've used their phones to tell them where the local blood bank is when they need it. He lets her eat the bags, and she doesn't question when he disappears from her side but comes back with skin that's no longer sallow. She'd have to be paying closer attention for that.
She drives at night with the taste of blood in her mouth and her eyes wide open with black and dark all around her.
VII.
"I killed them."
She stirs from where she's folded over, the seatbelt holder digging into her stomach. From between her arms she can see out only a sliver of her eyesight. But she can hear his voice. She looks at his wrinkled pants instead of processing what his tone means.
"I gave it to him."
She feels fire on her skin when she closes her eyes.
VIII.
See here:
They don't go anywhere.
The miles eat up and the odometer clicks over and the gas tank goes empty, but they never reach anywhere.
IX.
"Your head hurting you, 'hon?"
In the diner, Elena keeps her sunglasses on. Her fingernails tap against the plastic menu . She'd wanted coffee when she'd told him to pull over.
Across from her, he slides his eyes to the waitress, flicking a gaze at the tightening of her mouth. "The light hurts her." His voice is deep, cracked from no use. They don't talk often in the car.
"Oh you poor dear," the waitress coos. Like something out of someone's shitty folded spine book from the 90s.
Elena bites into her neck eight minutes later. In the bathroom, just a quick hit, and the smell of bleach and bodies around them. She'd wanted coffee, not pity, and this is the most she's moved in the past five weeks; there are 32 scratched lines in the car.
X.
Elena stares at the ceiling of the motel room they're in for the night. A faded comforter is under her palms. Two beds and he's across from her, mirrored out in the long line of him on the musty comforter too.
"What if I'm glad they're gone," she whispers into the dark.
The answer:
Take off the 'what if' and say three little letters and one hard syllable.
XI.
She does not like the sun but she stands in front of the window. Her fingers curl around the curtain, the blue stone in her ring dull in the corner of her eye. There's a hole big enough she could put her thumb through it if she turned her wrist just so.
A heavy gaze settles against the back of her neck. Lidded eyes watch her from across the room.
She moves the curtain back.
XII.
"I want," she says and lets the rest of the sentence die on her tongue.
So much dies. Heavy and absorbed into the air. Given over into nothing, because nothing is what's there, and it's singularly familiar to her.
She feels open and unfolded though, the timbre of his voice resonating in her ear. "I want," she tries again and has no need.
Razor fine teeth cut through the skin over her collarbone.
Her back bows and her lungs expand, breath choking in her throat. She knows this feeling too. She feels raw.
XIII.
"You killed them," Elena says against his mouth slick with her blood. Red and bruised and hers. The bathroom is tiny and cramped, and the counter digs into her spine where she leans back against it.
Elijah's fingers clamp down hard on her wrist, bones grinding against one another from barely any pressure from him. He could snap it instantly. Easier than shredding a piece of paper for him. She nearly wants him to.
"I'm not sorry, she exhales and then shifts, sinking to her knees on the horrible tiles of the floor. She tugs her hand free, holding his gaze with pupils that no doubt mimic the wide shape of his, and he lets her. It is easy to slip his belt free, the clang of it falling to the floor sharp and loud. She likes the sound of it. She likes the feel of him against her hand too. He's hard and once she'd know intimately how to do this, once she'd even thought of this in the dark of her night when her fingers had strayed under her sheets and in the back of her mind's eye. Now though, here, she closes her mouth around him and swallows, working her throat and hand where her lips don't touch.
He lifts her easily from the floor when he's regained himself, the taste of him on her lips. Sets her on the counter and presses her back against the sink's mirror. His fingers curl inside where she's wet and aching, seeking out where to touch her just so.
Elena's mouth pants against the mirror when she turns her head sideways, noises working their way out of her throat and into the space between them. She can see him in the glass. Dark eyes on her.
She's raw and open and unfolded, and she doesn't try to quiet herself.
XIV.
Elena drives with her sunglasses pulled down tight on her face.
See here:
They do not go anywhere.
character: elena/elijah
rating: r
summary: mystic falls burns. they drive.
author's note: written for liv. set post 4.21 and au. warning for reference to torture in 4.21.
I.
Mystic Falls goes up in flames.
Fire guts and burns and snakes across grass and concrete and ground, and she'd thought before she knew what it meant to watch things burn, but Silas shows them all.
The newspaper stamps it as the worst disaster the town has faced since the fire back in the 1800s. Homes gone. People gone. Half the town gone. Black marks remain, so deeply imprinted into the ground that nothing will get it out. The firefighters puzzle over it and the towns people, the ones left, shake their heads and murmur into their hands.
There's no room in the cemetery, but there are no bodies left to put there either.
II.
"I'm not staying here," she says, voice thick with smoke and ash. Her lungs work hard to expel the foreign material that a regular human would have died from by now.
There's soot on his left cheekbone. A slash of imperfectness across his marble like face.
Tears refuse to well up in her eyes. She knows she should be crying. People are dead. Everyone is dead. Except for the two of them standing here in blackened dirt with the stench of death and fire clinging to them. Crying is not foreign to her, not anymore, and she can remember now how she'd cried when that place inside of her had turned back on.
Her eyes remain dry.
"I'm going," she finds that her tongue can work though.
He finds them a car and she doesn't even ask if he steals it from someone. Who would claim it.
III.
They drive.
The car is non descriptive, something she'd once would have given to the girl working at the gas station in one of her short stories; the girl who got it from her daddy, handed down, with bubblegum pink fingernails. Little thoughts like that collect in the subsurface of her mind. Pool there and never drain, things that she once would have dwelled on and turned over and sounded on her tongue.
Elijah drives during the day. Still face, smirch of ash gone from his face after three days when they'd finally stopped somewhere several states away. The highway stretches before him, two hands gripping the cracked leather of the wheel tight, eyes trained forward.
IV.
Elena doesn't like the sun.
She doesn't drive during the day. She curls herself away from the windows, ducks her head into her crossed arms, pretends that everything is fine; she bites through her bottom lip with every turn of the wheels as the sun's heat hits her skin, ring on her finger, the phantom presence there; she bites her lip bloody and tries not to scream.
V.
The radio goes static silent in their second week.
She keeps track of the days by scratching a fingernail into the rubbery plastic on the door handle. Little lines appear and she picks the scrapings out from under her nail to pass the town.
They let the radio bleat out at them, neither of them caring. Neither of them lifts a hand to change it.
It's just wheels moving and road blurring with green and blue signs on the side of the highway.
VI.
Elena drives at night.
They switch underneath the too bright lights of gas stations. Elijah stretches out his legs in the passenger seat, his hand brushing against her knuckles as he gives her a blood bag. They've used their phones to tell them where the local blood bank is when they need it. He lets her eat the bags, and she doesn't question when he disappears from her side but comes back with skin that's no longer sallow. She'd have to be paying closer attention for that.
She drives at night with the taste of blood in her mouth and her eyes wide open with black and dark all around her.
VII.
"I killed them."
She stirs from where she's folded over, the seatbelt holder digging into her stomach. From between her arms she can see out only a sliver of her eyesight. But she can hear his voice. She looks at his wrinkled pants instead of processing what his tone means.
"I gave it to him."
She feels fire on her skin when she closes her eyes.
VIII.
See here:
They don't go anywhere.
The miles eat up and the odometer clicks over and the gas tank goes empty, but they never reach anywhere.
IX.
"Your head hurting you, 'hon?"
In the diner, Elena keeps her sunglasses on. Her fingernails tap against the plastic menu . She'd wanted coffee when she'd told him to pull over.
Across from her, he slides his eyes to the waitress, flicking a gaze at the tightening of her mouth. "The light hurts her." His voice is deep, cracked from no use. They don't talk often in the car.
"Oh you poor dear," the waitress coos. Like something out of someone's shitty folded spine book from the 90s.
Elena bites into her neck eight minutes later. In the bathroom, just a quick hit, and the smell of bleach and bodies around them. She'd wanted coffee, not pity, and this is the most she's moved in the past five weeks; there are 32 scratched lines in the car.
X.
Elena stares at the ceiling of the motel room they're in for the night. A faded comforter is under her palms. Two beds and he's across from her, mirrored out in the long line of him on the musty comforter too.
"What if I'm glad they're gone," she whispers into the dark.
The answer:
Take off the 'what if' and say three little letters and one hard syllable.
XI.
She does not like the sun but she stands in front of the window. Her fingers curl around the curtain, the blue stone in her ring dull in the corner of her eye. There's a hole big enough she could put her thumb through it if she turned her wrist just so.
A heavy gaze settles against the back of her neck. Lidded eyes watch her from across the room.
She moves the curtain back.
XII.
"I want," she says and lets the rest of the sentence die on her tongue.
So much dies. Heavy and absorbed into the air. Given over into nothing, because nothing is what's there, and it's singularly familiar to her.
She feels open and unfolded though, the timbre of his voice resonating in her ear. "I want," she tries again and has no need.
Razor fine teeth cut through the skin over her collarbone.
Her back bows and her lungs expand, breath choking in her throat. She knows this feeling too. She feels raw.
XIII.
"You killed them," Elena says against his mouth slick with her blood. Red and bruised and hers. The bathroom is tiny and cramped, and the counter digs into her spine where she leans back against it.
Elijah's fingers clamp down hard on her wrist, bones grinding against one another from barely any pressure from him. He could snap it instantly. Easier than shredding a piece of paper for him. She nearly wants him to.
"I'm not sorry, she exhales and then shifts, sinking to her knees on the horrible tiles of the floor. She tugs her hand free, holding his gaze with pupils that no doubt mimic the wide shape of his, and he lets her. It is easy to slip his belt free, the clang of it falling to the floor sharp and loud. She likes the sound of it. She likes the feel of him against her hand too. He's hard and once she'd know intimately how to do this, once she'd even thought of this in the dark of her night when her fingers had strayed under her sheets and in the back of her mind's eye. Now though, here, she closes her mouth around him and swallows, working her throat and hand where her lips don't touch.
He lifts her easily from the floor when he's regained himself, the taste of him on her lips. Sets her on the counter and presses her back against the sink's mirror. His fingers curl inside where she's wet and aching, seeking out where to touch her just so.
Elena's mouth pants against the mirror when she turns her head sideways, noises working their way out of her throat and into the space between them. She can see him in the glass. Dark eyes on her.
She's raw and open and unfolded, and she doesn't try to quiet herself.
XIV.
Elena drives with her sunglasses pulled down tight on her face.
See here:
They do not go anywhere.