NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
"Once a year, Stefan. That's all we get. Once a year, we're fun and sexy and acceptable. And then we go back to being monsters and nightmares." Elena goes round and round in a dizzy, torturous cycle. Stefan is there to catch her.
"Look at that one," Damon rolls his eyes, pointing out the most ridiculous vampire she's seen all night. Plastic fangs, powdered face… and is that… body glitter?
From her spot in the corner booth, a fair distance from Sparkly Fangs - as Caroline dubs the vampire under her breath - Elena can clearly hear the boy holler out.
"Edward is here to par-taaay!"
A mixed round of cheers and groans make their way to Elena's booth. A smile tugs at her lips; it is quite amusing. Damon doesn't seem to find any humor in the situation, though.
"Edward." He spits the word, downing his drink. "Giving us a bad rep since 2008."
"2005, actually." Caroline automatically corrects as Damon gets up, presumably to compel another round from the bartender. The group shoots her incredulous looks.
"What?" She holds her hands up defensively. "I was normal once, you know."
They don't even give her any grief for her confession, merely lapsing into silence at the implications of her words. They had all been normal, once. Not anymore.
Sitting here with her vampire, witch and hybrid friends, Elena realizes she's never going to find normal. Not anymore.
Stefan joins them a while later, Jeremy and Matt in tow. She still can't look Matt in the eye, not after the... accident a few days ago, and Jeremy's gone through so much that he doesn't even quite count as one anymore, but it is nice to have some normalcy – some humans – thrown into the mix.
"Who's the jerk with the glitter?" Jeremy asks as soon as he's seated next to her, eyeing the sparkly vampire apprehensively. Damon rolls his eyes.
Conversation flows even with the unusual mix of species. Elena catches an odd thought in her mind – wondering if maybe they're the most diverse group of people (if that's what they are) here in the Grill. The good old Grill with the same old faces from her high school, old friends that feel like they belonged to a different girl in a different lifetime.
Technically, they did.
She sighs. She's never going to be able to just let go of this sudden need for normal in time to enjoy herself with her friends tonight. Everywhere she looks, it's the same.
Caroline and Tyler, a young vampire and a rare hybrid; just another young, popular high school couple as far as the outside world is concerned. Bonnie and Jeremy, a witch and her brother who sees the dead… the Salvatores, a living piece of Mystic Falls history.
Even Matt, reliable, dependable, good old Matt, has the blood of an Original vampire on his hands, a feat pretty much no one else in the world has accomplished.
And then there's her.
Elena Gilbert.
High school senior, one of the two remaining Gilberts, ex-cheerleader… new vampire.
Her thoughts keep going around in circles. They're suffocating her; she is suffocating herself.
With this sudden realization, she abruptly shoots up to her feet. Conversation falls silent as everyone looks up at her, concern in their eyes.
"I… I just need some air." She nearly gasps before weaving her way through the packed crowd.
He gives her fifteen minutes before coming after her. It might be a new record of sorts.
"Stefan, I'm fine," It sounds and feels like a lie. He comes to stand next to her where she's leaning against the solid outer-wall of the Grill, eyes fixed upon the dark sky. Even with vampire sight, the stars remain hidden. She longs for the lake house, with its clean air and starry nights. Memories of weekends spent in the lake house, with a family and scraped knees and a heartbeat.
"It doesn't go away." Stefan says out of nowhere, eyes fixed on the sky. She keeps hers focused on the moon. It's easier that way.
"That feeling of wanting to fit in, to go back… the natural instinct to blend in and fool everyone, including yourself, into believing that you could ever be a part of them. It doesn't go away."
She doesn't know why he's telling her this. He's spent most of her new life trying to convince her that it gets better, that in time, she'll be able to wake up in the mornings and not consider just shutting it all off.
And now he tells her that it will never get better, it will never stop, it will never change. She is doomed to an eternity of suffocating herself.
"It changes." His words sound suspiciously like an answer to her silent question. "Eventually you feel less like blending in. You realize different can be good. Better. You see most humans for what they really are and you feel lucky, superior." She almost chimes in with a nasty comment but he's not done yet.
"And then you meet someone who reminds you of just how beautiful humans can be, inside and out, and you feel like ripping your own heart out just for the chance of getting a do-over. A fresh start. A new life."
His wistful, far-away tone tells her that he's speaking from experience. She shudders, unable to imagine something consuming you – a want, a need – so entirely that it eclipses all else. A wish that drives you to take your own second life in the hopes that you get a miracle.
But isn't that how it is for her?
No, she finally decides. No, it's not. It's different for her. She's not… she wouldn't drive a stake through her heart with a desperate plea on her lips. She wouldn't. Surely not having a death wish is a step in the right direction.
"But it gets better." She says shakily, lacking the courage and faith to turn her faint words into a question. It gets better. She has to believe so. She chooses to believe that it does and it will.
It's the only way.
Stefan, seemingly snapped out of his reverie, shifts his attention from the dark sky to her. He smiles, one of those everything-will-be-fine smiles he's been giving her so often. Everything has not turned out fine more often than she can keep track of, but somehow that smile is still a warm comfort to her heavy heart.
"Now," Stefan smiles, wrapping an arm around her waist. She leans in closer and rests her head against his shoulder. "What do you say we go back in and show Sparkly Fangs how it's done?"
The mere sound of Stefan actually saying the words 'sparkly fangs' out loud is cause for laughter, and she is so damn close to laughing… until one of those curfew flyers flaps in the wind a short distance away, drawing her attention.
Just a few days ago, council members had been actively hunting them down. Them, as in vampires. As in Elena herself.
The whole town had at some point in history – or perhaps multiple times – been united in such hatred for this species. A hatred strong enough to forge a bond between all of the Founding Families, stretching generations into the future. That is how strongly vampires were abhorred in these parts. Still are.
And tonight, the children of Mystic Falls – future council members – party the night away pretending to be their worst nightmares. Tonight, vampires get a free pass. Tonight, Sparkly Fangs and the likes of him are cool and mysterious and attractive.
But with the next break of dawn, the ceasefire will end. Things will go back to how they stood before. They will be monsters, animals, murderers – the living dead, here to terrorize the good townspeople.
Once a year, it is their night.
And then they are predators hunted by prey they do not actively pursue.
She laughs bitterly. The thought of future vampire hunters and haters dressed as the undead, dancing and hollering obliviously just beyond the doors of the Grill, amuses her in a way it definitely shouldn't.
"Elena?" Stefan calls uncertainly, eyes drowning with concern as they meet hers. She shakes her head and fights the urge to bury her face against his familiar chest. No point in worrying him. Besides, vampire her seems to prefer the blunt truth over ruining Stefan's shirt with her tears.
"Once a year, Stefan." There's a bitter bite to her voice that she doesn't recognize. "That's all we get. Once a year, we're fun and sexy and acceptable." She thinks of the kids inside. Do they know? What their families stand for? What they will be expected to uphold? That they will be encouraged to kill vampires, some of them good and kind, just because that was the way of their ancestors?
"And then we go back to being monsters and nightmares," She tells Stefan. "Monsters and nightmares that those little vampires in there," She points out the dance floor, a noticeable majority of dancers dressed as vampires, "will hunt down and kill out of fear and hatred. Because we're the living dead. We're unnatural. We get the darkest night of the year because that's what we deserve."
She might not be making any more sense right now. She pushes herself upright, walks out of Stefan's reassuring hold.
"This is our night," She declares, an undertone of contained mania threatening to burst forth. "The night of the living dead." And then suddenly, she looks him square in the eye, her brown orbs more flat and lifeless than he's ever seen them.
"Because that's what I am now. I'm dead. I'm the living dead."
She wants to scream and she wants to cry and she wants to hit something, anything and she wants Stefan to just hold her and tell her she's still alive.
So she tells him.
"I want to scream. Just get it all off my chest. No words, no emotions, just mindless screaming because I am so angry."
"And I want to cry, I want to cry until I can't breathe and my head hurts and there are no more tears to cry, until I cry out all this hurt and pain inside of me."
"And I want to hit something, I want to hurt someone, the way I've been hurt. I want to take from someone what was taken from me."
"And then I want to cry again because that means killing someone. Taking their life. Because that's what was taken from me, Stefan: my life. My life and my heart and my future. Everything. I want to cry and I want to stay in your arms and hear you tell me that I'm wrong, just this once, that I'm still alive in all the ways that count. That I'm still human."
She freezes. There. She's said it. Her breaths come in short and rapid puffs, her chest is heaving, not with effort but emotions, so many emotions. Her eyes feel wild even as she closes them to keep the tears from leaking over.
And she's shaking. Shaking like a leaf. A lost leaf, uprooted from its home, left to drift aimlessly through a life it never asked for.
He takes her in for two seconds. And then he holds her as she sinks to the ground and lets her cry as he counts the ways she is still human and will always be to him.
It's a familiar list. A comforting routine. A scene that's played out in the boarding house, in her room, in her kitchen, in his car, in a parking garage.
Sometimes, she just needs him to make her feel like she's part of the living again.
And as he lists down all the ways she always will be, she forgets, just for that one moment, that she's living a dead existence.
The night of the living dead is still and silent that night, the way she thinks it should be. She sobs and hiccups and sniffles; makes as much sound as the living.
~ HAPPY HALLOWEEN! ~
Ugh, this did not turn out the way I wanted it to. And it's late by a day, too. We're not off to a brilliant start here…
So just some Elena being Elena in a Steffie-downer way. I feel like there's always going to be space for this kind of random emo rambling because this is just how it is. You can't ever fully turn your back on what you once were. And losing something hurts. Even more so when you know you can never get it back.
What do you guys think? Be sure to let me know – and throw in your two cents: Baby Sister sequel – yay or nay? I'm just getting a general feel for it before I start any actual planning/votes.
E Salvatore,
November 2012.