they’ll dig me up one day, stare at my insides and find nothing but ghosts | elena gilbert
Title: they’ll dig me up one day, stare at my insides and find nothing but ghosts
Rating: pg for light, light swearing
Category: Elena-centric, there is a hint of Damon/Elena if you squint, I guess.
Summary: She doesn't like to look at herself in the mirror much, she's afraid of what she might see (and might not).
Spoilers: potential spoiler for 3.10 or 3.11
Words: 938
Notes: I have never written Elena before, so I am struggling still. But Elena/mirrors is one of my otps (ha!) and I was thinking about it and this (monstrosity, but when am I not monstrous tbh?) just sort of spewed from my fingers. All mistakes are mine and forgive me if I've failed entirely to get her - I will hopefully learn to do better. Concrit/any feedback is always welcome.
She doesn’t hold her own gaze in the mirror for long. There's something too-penetrating in her stare. And something else-almost repulsive-fluttering under the surface of her eyes. Like the illusion of a stone at the bottom of a pond, sometimes too near and sometimes not, never quite sure it’s even there.
It's a little ridiculous, she knows that; hiding from herself-from her face and the stories it tells. Stories grafted into her skin, inscribed on a silent, stone wall. Someone might one day excavate her, comb their fingers through the remains of her body and wisps of hair, and turn away their head away in disgust.
Breathes out a sigh, and catalogs. There is a bruise on her cheek, livid and red-nothing she can’t cover (she’s good at masks even with the cracks showing through). And on her neck, there are two circular puncture scars. She pinches at them until they twinge. The blood on them dried up a while ago, they scabbed over hard, she picked and peeled at them until the dead skin sloughed off as a snake sheds its skin, and left marks that have faded only just a little. They’ll probably never disappear completely, she thinks. She knows the drill.
The air shifts and she glances to her bed and he’s there. Sprawled on the mattress all inky-black against her pleasant pastels, as dark as a stain. For some reason, the thought doesn’t unnerve her the way it used to. The sight of his fingers, innocuously pale, on her teddy bear, her bed-spread, switching on her bedside lamp, slouched against her pillows-they all seem to fit into the topography of her room now. “Damon,” just a word, she doesn’t bother to smile. He doesn’t expect it or want it and she wouldn’t pretend it for him.
“So, what is it with little brothers skipping town and not leaving even one legible goodbye note?” He’s glib about it, tosses the question out like he’s flipping coins, but he’s watching her closely and she has the impression that he thinks she might shatter at any moment, like polished glass against a wall.
She smiles a little at that and the way his brow is furrowed over, obviously disgruntled at just the thought of 'little brothers' in general. Then she says neatly, a speech she’s run through in her mind: “We talked, then he left. It’s good for him, I think. He needs a break from Mystic Falls (from me, from getting hurt, from all of this shit).” She ties her hair up on top her head, rubs the side of her neck where the scars are absently, “And maybe some place new with no vampires or ghosts or-all of this crazy stuff will help. Sometimes, you just need to get away from things. I get it.”
He gives her a look that she ignores. A look that says he’s had more experience with running away from problems than most people. And it never works. No matter how hard you try to escape your own shadows, and stand in the light, they’re always there, one step behind, flitting in a periphery you try not to see. She’s learned that lesson well enough, and she hasn’t even lived half his years.
Either way, Jeremy’s gone. He left a note-the letter E, a scribbled promise, the letter J-pasted to her dresser, and his room a rumpled mess.
She’s alone in this house now. Just her and her ghosts. She wanders down the stairs sometimes and swears she can hear Jenna shuffling in her room, the sound of a hair dryer running through wet hair, an echo of laughter in the walls (accompanied by the crunch of her chest beneath the weight of a stake and the gurgle in her throat as she bled out onto the sand). Or she hears her dad, the deep barrel of laughter, the smell of oregano and something else wafting up from the kitchen. Her mother, she still has conversations with her mother, long ones and short ones, in the shower, at the breakfast nook, the whisper of her conscience (then the clinical steel of a hospital morgue and the two of them lying side-by-side beneath paper-white sheets, their faces stiff and blue as stones, and unmoving). John, his face folded over in reproach (and then the crumpled heap of his body). Isobel with the sophisticated smell of her perfume, and the way her fingers bit hard into her arm; the ruthless smile (followed by the ripe scent of burning flesh).
Everyone’s dead or gone, and she’s still here. Those excavators will find her in the living room one day, grief-struck, and surrounded by the skeletons of cats and ghosts.
She yanks at her bedspread, lies down on the bed, and flicks her lamplight off, and buries herself up to the neck. Shuts her eyes in the dark and the sounds become louder, the muffled thwack of tree branches against her windows, the creaks and groans of an empty house, the quiet.
She’s not up for talking and Damon doesn’t mind. Where most people might struggle to fill the space up with words or false assurances, he doesn’t, and she’s thankful for it. She can hear him breathing beside her, the scrape of his hair against the pillow as he shifts to look at her. She can’t see a thing but she knows he can. He can see her as clearly as if it was daylight and he doesn’t turn away, not once. He says with a slight smile she can hear in his voice, “Goodnight, Elena.”
“’Night, Damon.” She moves closer so she can feel the side of his arm with her shoulder, the solid presence of it, and falls asleep.
Rating: pg for light, light swearing
Category: Elena-centric, there is a hint of Damon/Elena if you squint, I guess.
Summary: She doesn't like to look at herself in the mirror much, she's afraid of what she might see (and might not).
Spoilers: potential spoiler for 3.10 or 3.11
Words: 938
Notes: I have never written Elena before, so I am struggling still. But Elena/mirrors is one of my otps (ha!) and I was thinking about it and this (monstrosity, but when am I not monstrous tbh?) just sort of spewed from my fingers. All mistakes are mine and forgive me if I've failed entirely to get her - I will hopefully learn to do better. Concrit/any feedback is always welcome.
She doesn’t hold her own gaze in the mirror for long. There's something too-penetrating in her stare. And something else-almost repulsive-fluttering under the surface of her eyes. Like the illusion of a stone at the bottom of a pond, sometimes too near and sometimes not, never quite sure it’s even there.
It's a little ridiculous, she knows that; hiding from herself-from her face and the stories it tells. Stories grafted into her skin, inscribed on a silent, stone wall. Someone might one day excavate her, comb their fingers through the remains of her body and wisps of hair, and turn away their head away in disgust.
Breathes out a sigh, and catalogs. There is a bruise on her cheek, livid and red-nothing she can’t cover (she’s good at masks even with the cracks showing through). And on her neck, there are two circular puncture scars. She pinches at them until they twinge. The blood on them dried up a while ago, they scabbed over hard, she picked and peeled at them until the dead skin sloughed off as a snake sheds its skin, and left marks that have faded only just a little. They’ll probably never disappear completely, she thinks. She knows the drill.
The air shifts and she glances to her bed and he’s there. Sprawled on the mattress all inky-black against her pleasant pastels, as dark as a stain. For some reason, the thought doesn’t unnerve her the way it used to. The sight of his fingers, innocuously pale, on her teddy bear, her bed-spread, switching on her bedside lamp, slouched against her pillows-they all seem to fit into the topography of her room now. “Damon,” just a word, she doesn’t bother to smile. He doesn’t expect it or want it and she wouldn’t pretend it for him.
“So, what is it with little brothers skipping town and not leaving even one legible goodbye note?” He’s glib about it, tosses the question out like he’s flipping coins, but he’s watching her closely and she has the impression that he thinks she might shatter at any moment, like polished glass against a wall.
She smiles a little at that and the way his brow is furrowed over, obviously disgruntled at just the thought of 'little brothers' in general. Then she says neatly, a speech she’s run through in her mind: “We talked, then he left. It’s good for him, I think. He needs a break from Mystic Falls (from me, from getting hurt, from all of this shit).” She ties her hair up on top her head, rubs the side of her neck where the scars are absently, “And maybe some place new with no vampires or ghosts or-all of this crazy stuff will help. Sometimes, you just need to get away from things. I get it.”
He gives her a look that she ignores. A look that says he’s had more experience with running away from problems than most people. And it never works. No matter how hard you try to escape your own shadows, and stand in the light, they’re always there, one step behind, flitting in a periphery you try not to see. She’s learned that lesson well enough, and she hasn’t even lived half his years.
Either way, Jeremy’s gone. He left a note-the letter E, a scribbled promise, the letter J-pasted to her dresser, and his room a rumpled mess.
She’s alone in this house now. Just her and her ghosts. She wanders down the stairs sometimes and swears she can hear Jenna shuffling in her room, the sound of a hair dryer running through wet hair, an echo of laughter in the walls (accompanied by the crunch of her chest beneath the weight of a stake and the gurgle in her throat as she bled out onto the sand). Or she hears her dad, the deep barrel of laughter, the smell of oregano and something else wafting up from the kitchen. Her mother, she still has conversations with her mother, long ones and short ones, in the shower, at the breakfast nook, the whisper of her conscience (then the clinical steel of a hospital morgue and the two of them lying side-by-side beneath paper-white sheets, their faces stiff and blue as stones, and unmoving). John, his face folded over in reproach (and then the crumpled heap of his body). Isobel with the sophisticated smell of her perfume, and the way her fingers bit hard into her arm; the ruthless smile (followed by the ripe scent of burning flesh).
Everyone’s dead or gone, and she’s still here. Those excavators will find her in the living room one day, grief-struck, and surrounded by the skeletons of cats and ghosts.
She yanks at her bedspread, lies down on the bed, and flicks her lamplight off, and buries herself up to the neck. Shuts her eyes in the dark and the sounds become louder, the muffled thwack of tree branches against her windows, the creaks and groans of an empty house, the quiet.
She’s not up for talking and Damon doesn’t mind. Where most people might struggle to fill the space up with words or false assurances, he doesn’t, and she’s thankful for it. She can hear him breathing beside her, the scrape of his hair against the pillow as he shifts to look at her. She can’t see a thing but she knows he can. He can see her as clearly as if it was daylight and he doesn’t turn away, not once. He says with a slight smile she can hear in his voice, “Goodnight, Elena.”
“’Night, Damon.” She moves closer so she can feel the side of his arm with her shoulder, the solid presence of it, and falls asleep.