She doesn’t understand it; The calm in his voice as he talks to her. How he - anyone - can be so calm when Elena is out there somewhere. It makes her want to fight harder, scream louder, burn the world down just to make him see. If she could just make him feel even a shadow of what she did, he’d have to let her go.
Another wounded, animalistic roar peels past her lips as she fights uselessly against his grip, the sweet lies that spill from his own barely registering before they land in a heap. Again she tries to get free - again she’s just too slow and before she can even lurch into the depths of the lake beyond, he has his whole body wrapped around her, clinging to her as if his life depends on it, when really it’s her own.
Still, she tests - she pushes - she tries to wriggle free but he’d be able to feel the fight slowly weakening, her chest heaving with every desperate breath of air as he keeps a steady stream of words, whispered against her ear. It’s those words that keep her here, teetering on the edge of an abyss without slipping into it. The hot press of his breath against her ear as she stares at the center of the lake.
This time when she cries out, it’s a pain so raw and visceral that it rips at her soul and it comes again, and again, getting louder each time as if she can make it all stop if she can just force it out… but it can’t. There is no chasing away the pain or the anger. There’s only this - existing with it, trying desperately to hold on but she wants so much for it to go away.
Her leg kicks out in defiance, in frustration, her body sagging beneath his grip as her hands move to claw at her head. The bite of her fingernails against her skull, helping to focus her if only for a moment or two. Physical pain to make the mental pain go away. Wasn’t that what Lissa had always said?
“But I did.” - let her go. She hadn’t been there. She’d known something was happening and she hadn’t been there and now Elena was sitting at the bottom of a lake. Dead. Gone. “I did - I did - I did - I did - ” Those two words repeating on a loop, the heel of her hand keeping time with her head as her body begins to rock back and forward.
CW: Mild self-harm
Another wounded, animalistic roar peels past her lips as she fights uselessly against his grip, the sweet lies that spill from his own barely registering before they land in a heap. Again she tries to get free - again she’s just too slow and before she can even lurch into the depths of the lake beyond, he has his whole body wrapped around her, clinging to her as if his life depends on it, when really it’s her own.
Still, she tests - she pushes - she tries to wriggle free but he’d be able to feel the fight slowly weakening, her chest heaving with every desperate breath of air as he keeps a steady stream of words, whispered against her ear. It’s those words that keep her here, teetering on the edge of an abyss without slipping into it. The hot press of his breath against her ear as she stares at the center of the lake.
This time when she cries out, it’s a pain so raw and visceral that it rips at her soul and it comes again, and again, getting louder each time as if she can make it all stop if she can just force it out… but it can’t. There is no chasing away the pain or the anger. There’s only this - existing with it, trying desperately to hold on but she wants so much for it to go away.
Her leg kicks out in defiance, in frustration, her body sagging beneath his grip as her hands move to claw at her head. The bite of her fingernails against her skull, helping to focus her if only for a moment or two. Physical pain to make the mental pain go away. Wasn’t that what Lissa had always said?
“But I did.” - let her go. She hadn’t been there. She’d known something was happening and she hadn’t been there and now Elena was sitting at the bottom of a lake. Dead. Gone. “I did - I did - I did - I did - ” Those two words repeating on a loop, the heel of her hand keeping time with her head as her body begins to rock back and forward.