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Elena had learned that getting drunk as a vampire took something of an art. Like Caroline had early on taught her, alcohol alone was useless; all it did was help with the bloodlust.
Blood by itself was a bit closer, drinking from the vein sharpened the world into vibrancy, giving taste to the sounds of the human heartbeats thumping away beneath her touch; narrowing the world to the scent of lingering lust from the oftentimes useful tool that was seduction. Well, lust and the instinctive fear that couldn't be fully banished even with compulsion. All of it painting the air with the faint patina of burning embers.
But that eased as soon as a vampire pulled away from their meal. Besides which, there was a kind of difference between getting high on blood and the buzz of being drunk — Elena didn't always want to sharpen the world against a whetstone until reality cut her with every breath.
Certainly not while her heart was already breaking.
Because it might be intoxicating, the way life seemed to flow down the throat, charging her with power and making every dust particle take on a sheen invisible to human eyes. But it also made the pain deeper, made that switch more tempting.
Blood and a drink together was a still better option, especially if the human was a little drunk too. It brought a vampire to the right kind of buzz, even if it seemed to evaporate into sobriety just as quickly as a closing cut.
So, intoxication could get a bit complicated. That didn't mean it couldn't be done.
Just took a bit of setup.
"You're a coward, Elij'h," she spoke into her cellphone, tongue tying into a knot over his name.
She wished she'd said it two hours ago, instead of freezing with horror, trying to digest the terrible reality of what the Mikaelsons were about to be forced to do. And what Elijah had decided on top of it.
But maybe it was better that she was drunk for this.
A state of being that required something more than a human neck and a glass from the bartender. No, it asked for the winning combination shown to her years ago now by Rebekah during their brief stint of road-tripping while Elena's humanity had been off.
Took dumping a touch too much vervain into the liquor before downing it, and finding a human that was properly sloshed to finish it off.
Too much vervain and she'd make herself vulnerable to passing out as her insides sizzled. Too much blood, or too sober a human, and she'd heal the tipsiness away — if not the stomachache that in vampires replaced the hangovers of the humans.
In essence, getting drunk took quite a lot of effort that Elena couldn't be bothered with on most occasions.
"-and you're so used to being..." she blinked, trying to clear her head "...being the big brother who has to prota- prat- guard everyone, you don't even see..."
But if ever there was an occasion to bother with it, today would be it.
"...I don't need you to also-" she stopped the words, swallowing.
Anger beat like war drums inside her chest. Which was good because if Elena couldn't lower herself in the lake of her fury, she would have had to feel the agony, and she refused to show him the tears.
"I don't need you," she hissed and dropped the voicemail.
She knew what Elijah felt for her.
She hadn't always recognized that, but on reflection, the first small flickers of it had been glaringly stark in his eyes since before even her turning.
Maybe Elena should have done something about it, at least in the last months — pulled him down into a kiss sometime since her permanent arrival in New Orleans — but the truth was she'd been enjoying the slow simmer. The conversations that extended into the night, watching him from the corner of her eye in his favorite armchair, as he read something on the evenings when she'd visit his sister, and she and Rebekah talked about whatever caught their fancy.
Telling Elijah about the latest chapters of the book she was working on and picking his brain for facts she could use in the upcoming ones.
Listening to Elijah's stories of the history that built the man that had once landed into Elena's life at the top of a staircase... and then again when she'd escaped being suffocated by two brothers that never quite stopped tugging on her from both sides — a trophy that would prove them deserving of some abstract sense of being better; being worthy; getting the win — when a few years back she'd followed Caroline to the city that had become the newest Mikaelson stronghold.
To visit in the beginning, and then a year ago to stay when Bonnie built herself a coven on the edges of the French Quarter, and Elena realized that both her heart's sisters were about to build their lives there.
She'd started renting a fairly nice apartment with the money from her first book deal. And in the months since, her and Elijah's brief meetings had turned into dinners at fancy restaurants. Into late-hour walks through the streets of the city while blues music and jazz echoed around them in the humid night air.
Flirting on the cliff's edge of deepening friendship and something more, something that made every innocent touch ignite.
And Elena knew what it meant that no one with any sense would lay a finger on her despite her fledgling status or her resemblance to Katherine, which everywhere else had never stopped bringing Elena trouble. Just as well as why whenever older and more powerful enemies showed up to challenge the Mikaelsons, why it was that Elena was encircled in the same protection that encased Caroline, Hope, Hayley, and Davina.
And recently Bonnie, but Elena wasn't sure she was supposed to know that. Which was quite dumb, considering how often Rebekah had been finding excuses lately to cross the invisible battle lines separating the supernatural beings of this city to visit the witches.
And not to see Freya.
All that to say, Elena knew what it meant that any threat to her ended with ripped hearts hitting asphalt.
Which was why Elijah's sudden attempt at doing the noble, self-sacrificial, and completely idiotic thing — of which maybe the least was dropping the words 'I must let you go' — made her want to claw out his eyes; and his heart; and his spleen while she was at it.
She downed a carefully pre-measured shot of vervain mixed in vodka and narrowed her gaze on the next attractive set of shoulders on the dance floor.
She was starting to feel a bit too sober.
And Elena knew Elijah just as well as Elijah knew her — for just a day or two longer anyway, — he'd know she was wont to do something reckless as soon as he heard her message, and she knew he'd be unable to keep himself away in making sure she was safe.
So she very much meant to paint him a rather vivid picture of exactly what that nobility would cost him.
The picture turned out to be everything Elena could have hoped for. There were hot lips against her neck, and a hand pressed against her abdomen when she felt Elijah's eyes. A faceless, nameless woman grinding against her back to the sultry beat of the music. It wasn't the same human she'd narrowed on after her drunken voice message, him she'd abandoned after a short snack for a pretty set of eyes and a tempting pair of lips, because biting required compulsion, and Elena never mixed compulsion with sex.
As a human, she hadn't quite understood the way it muddied all trace of consent — even when not employed for the purpose — but from the other side of it, with her being the one who was smothering the fear away until the human's terror was blanketed by calm? When she didn't even need to compel them to stay still, because they were too zoned out to flinch? Elena understood.
She rolled her hips against her dance partner and stared back at Elijah. Arctic ferocity in her gaze.
Elijah's eyes strained under the weight of well-hidden pain. At least hidden from anyone who didn't know Elijah well, but Elena had been able to see past the pretense of hard marble long since before she'd truly even known him — he'd been like the stained glass of an old church, hiding shapes but letting the light through. Now she saw his real feelings as if what hid them was as sheer as gossamer.
The pain echoed back and forth between them like a pendulum. Hitting against her heart cavity on every other swing.
"Elena," he said tightly. Still far enough from her that no humans could guess that he was there for her.
She ignored him, swaying to the beat and sliding her fingers through the head of hair that was pressing kisses into Elena's neck — her dance partner fighting to place hickeys that would never leave their claim.
The attempt was enough, though. Elena saw the way his fingers twitched with the urge to rip the pretty brunette with the subtle, blonde highlights away from her.
Hypocrisy at its finest.
Elena was free to do whatever or whomever she wanted. After all, Elijah had already decided to abandon the potential that had been building between them for what might have been the past year, or might be much longer.
The room spun around her, strobing colors of the club and a smidge too much alcohol making her blink. Touch from hands that were more delicate and impersonal than the ones Elena truly ached for, itching to be pushed away even as she covered them with her own to urge them on. Hiding the true source of the sudden heat warming her blood — Elijah's eyes, at once making her skin burn and slicing jagged lines across her heart.
And Elena. Trapped on the precipice of losing everything she'd almost tasted.
Because Elijah loved her.
And tomorrow he would forget that.
But today he still knew her. Today, watching her sway in someone else's arms would still cut. And Elena intended to cut Elijah to his core. To scoop out his heart with a blunt spoon, like he'd scooped out hers.
She broke their gaze. Twisting on her heel to catch the woman's mouth against her own. Barely felt it, lips a little too numb from the vervain in the drink she'd still occasionally been sipping from. But the lips didn't matter; what mattered was feeling his heart pulsing in the air behind her with the same pain that was leaving engravings inside Elena's chest.
And that was there aplenty.
For a moment. Until he broke.
She was whisked away from the middle of the dance floor and found herself stumbling, dizzy, under the cool shine of the moon. The sounds of the club, now muted with distance. And different hands against her elbows — hands Elena wanted to at once shake off violently and to clutch desperately at.
A soft touch that didn't stray, wasn't even tight enough to have hurt a human, and still made Elena's skin pucker with goosebumps.
She wished she could hate him.
"What, Elijah?" she asked, full of syrupy sweetness that hid the salty teardrops at the corners of her eyes, which she quickly blinked away, staring into the darkness until the slight breeze painting the scenery of this night dried the evidence, her back still facing him. "Don't like me moving on? Wasn't that what you told me to do?"
"Not while you're drunk, Elena."
She pulled away sharply and could only hate herself for immediately missing his touch. But like her tears, Elena refused to permit him the sight, so she took a beat to bury the emotion before turning around.
"Am I drunk? Or are you hoping I'm drunk so that you don't have to think about me going back into that club and finding someone to take home during the next twenty-four hours?" She was a little drunk, but not so much so that she didn't know what was happening. More, two glasses of wine drunk than a line of lemon shots and a bottle of scotch drunk. Her second meal had turned out to be a little less inebriated than Elena might have hoped for, and his human blood was starting to put up a fight against the vervain.
Elijah's eyes seemed set to avoid Elena's suddenly.
"We may talk about it tomor-"
Elena felt herself snap.
She grabbed his fancy silk tie in her clenched fist and yanked down so that she could glare directly into Elijah's eyes. Their faces so close she could feel his breath on her lips.
"You are not putting this off and cruising out of this conversation by sudden onset amnesia via Marcel, Elijah." She bared her teeth, fangs sliding into place, and skin under her eyes pulsing with protruding veins.
Her heart sat frozen and numb within, even as anger powerful enough to burn down a forest raged through her bloodstream. Ice and boiling fury. A dichotomy of contrast.
"We need to save, Hope," Elijah ground out, shoulders taut with leashed emotion.
Elena tightened her fingers even more, ice ruptured by lightning, and temper flaring into steam. Felt it as Elijah's fingers encircled her elbow to hold her arm, but otherwise made no move to pry free.
"When did I ever say you shouldn't?" she snapped. Of course, they needed to save Hope. Elena would never try suggesting otherwise. Hope was a child; she didn't deserve her life getting stolen by the Hollow. It was bad enough that the girl was about to lose her father and nearly all her aunts and uncles. "But Klaus is running with Caroline, and Kol is going back to Davina, and I'm almost certain even Rebekah is going to ask Bonnie to come with her. And not a single one of your siblings is planning the thing that you are. Why exactly do you have to run alone, without so much as a single memory?"
"Elena-"
"I heard what you said. You're afraid that you won't be able to stop yourself from coming to your siblings' aid if they call? Fine. But have you thought about how maybe if they ever get desperate enough to call for you and risk the Hollow merging again, maybe... just maybe you having no memory of them would make it worse?"
"It's safer if I don't remember them." Elijah's hand squeezed in what felt like an involuntary twitch against the crook of her arm.
She was going to scream.
"No, it's not." Elena smacked her free palm against his chest hard enough to sting. "You're just afraid to go back to missing them. But they're not getting daggered, Elijah. Klaus isn't lying and telling you he's dropping their coffins in the ocean. And this isn't the sixteenth century, you can text them, email them, video call them. And just because we can't find a way to defeat the Hollow today doesn't mean that this will remain true forever. Hell, maybe one day Hope will grow up to be more powerful than Inadu and come save all of you. You're immortal, you can wait."
Elijah stared down at her, breathing heavily, his already dark brown eyes seeming to grow even more so. Visibly torn. She felt a little spark of hope; it seemed he was finally listening. There was a featherlight touch of fingers against her hair at the side of her face, and Elena felt her lips tingle with the ghost of an old memory that she'd never quite forgotten.
Their faces were so close to each other, if she just-
Contradictory urges fought to take top spot. She was still angry, still just about willing to strangle him. But she also wanted to try kissing the sense back into Elijah.
Wasn't quite done yelling yet, though. Still, her voice dropped in volume.
"But you want to go through worst-case scenarios, Elijah? Let's walk through them then. Let's say you go through with forgetting us all. You don't remember your family, so you don't know which cities to avoid, and the Hollow gains strength. You don't remember that you love them, and someone manipulates you into killing them. You forget your control and massacre an airport full of innocents. Or Kol calls for your help, which means he calls Klaus and Rebekah too. And. You. Don't. Care. Three out of four ain't bad, and the Hollow still regains most of its strength, and everyone dies."
She glared up at him as he stared down. Elena felt his chest harshly rising and falling against her hands, one still in a choke-hold around his tie, the other now wrinkling the fabric of his suit.
"I cannot ask you to sacrifice-"
"Yes, you can!" she interrupted, furious. "Or you should! I want you to ask, you were the one man who ever asked and then respected my choices, Elijah. Why would you think I'd prefer you just making the choice instead? And what exactly do you think I'd be sacrificing here? My job? I'm a writer. I can write anywhere. My friends? They're both probably leaving, too. Or at least Caroline is, and I really wouldn't rule out Bonnie. And none of us is taking on pieces of the Hollow; we'll be able to visit each other as often as we want. My brother? He lives on the other side of the country anyway."
The air between them burned with tension.
Elena swallowed and threw out one last verbal grenade, except this one might throw the shrapnel straight back at her.
"If you don't love me, Elijah, just say so. Don't hide behind an excuse that-"
Elijah's left hand slid around the back of Elena's neck and pulled her face flush against his. Kissing her a little off center and then merging their lips as if he'd been starving for the feel of hers for years. She felt a tickle of nails against her scalp and moaned as his tongue slid past her eagerly parting lips and met hers, pleasure and relief rippling into a dance against every nerve ending in reach. Elena let go of her iron hold of the tie so that she could throw her arms around Elijah's shoulders and meld her body against his.
She breathed in sharply between the meeting of lips and felt like it was the first time her chest wasn't weighed down by lead since he'd told her what he was planning and left before Elena could shake herself free of her numbness. Her heart sang.
She wanted to crawl into Elijah so that she could encase this feeling in amber and carry it with her always and forever.
Barring that, she just wanted this to last one minute, one second, one heartbeat more.
A sweet half-an-eternity later, Elijah pulled back, though barely just, leaving only enough space so that they could stare into each other's eyes; his, brimming with emotion that made Elena's pulse race.
"You know that I love you, Elena. I have not been hiding it as of late."
She'd known. She'd told herself, she'd known. And yet no amount of knowing could ever beat actually hearing the words. Elena's eyes slid closed, savoring the precious moment, imprinting it into her heart so that she'd never lose it.
But Elena's heart wasn't safe from breaking quite yet.
"And I love you, Elijah, so ask me!" Her voice shook, but only slightly.
He pressed his forehead against hers and the tips of his fingers against the pulse of her neck, like he wanted to feel her heart and not simply hear it.
"I will not ask Marcel to erase my memory," he said softly. "Will you join me after the conclusion of the ritual, Elena? Will you come with me?"
"Yes," Elena answered, and finally let the tears run. Letting them wash away the fear and heartbreak with pure joy and painfully potent relief.
Smiled as Elijah slowly trailed his lips down every line of escaping teardrops...
...and kissed them.