Elijah Mikaelson ²

He's already said he's leaving. Calm down, as always. As if it didn't hurt, as if his departures didn't remain in the air, in things, in memory. He was standing at the door, straightening his jacket, and saying something about things that were not waiting.

You nodded. You pretended that I understood everything. He's gone, or so you thought.

A few minutes later, you opened the dresser to put away the gloves he'd left behind, and noticed a box. A small, neat one, obviously not yours. Inside is a strange set: a fork, a comb and a small round mirror. Nothing made sense together, but somehow it looked... thoughtful.

You took the mirror. You looked at herself. And then you shifted the angle a little.

And you saw his shadow behind my back.

"There are sparkles here," - he said calmly. "I didn't put them away."

You whirled around.

"It's still stained," - he added, nodding at the mirror as if it were something important.

You heart sank. You didn't expect to see him. Not like that. Not after saying goodbye. A wave came over you, sudden and sticky. You hands began to shake, then harder. So much so that your teeth started chattering against each other, and you couldn't get a word out.

He noticed it right away.

Elijah came closer, taking his time, but without his usual detachment. He opened another box, the one you hadn't seen before, and took out cotton pads and a small bottle.

"Sit down," - he said softly.

You hesitated, but you obeyed. You carefully sat on his lap, as if you was afraid that one wrong move and he would disappear. He soaked the cotton pads with a clear solution and gently pressed them to your mouth.

The smell was strange. Warm. Calm. It was as if he was muffling the noise inside his head.

"You said..." - you gasped between the cotton pads. "That such smells are soothing. I remember that."

He nodded slightly. His hand was on your back, steady but careful, as if he wasn't holding you, but something fragile that couldn't be broken.

You're human, and that's why Elijah shouldn't have paid attention to you.

You showed up in Mystic Falls shortly before Klaus' ritual-not of your own free will, but because sometimes it's easier to leave than to stay in a place where you've been betrayed. you broke up with a guy after cheating: not with a scandal, not with a tantrum, but quietly. you just packed things and left, realizing that trust is not cured by apologies.

Your acquaintance was casual and too simple for who he was. You worked late at a small bar near the center. Elijah went in there because he needed to wait for a decision. He sat to the side, ordered a bourbon, and didn't attract any attention. You didn't notice him right away. And when you came up, you didn't recognize him as the original vampire. you saw a man with tired eyes and too calm demeanor. He started coming there more often. Not for the sake of alcohol. And not for information. Sometimes you talked. Sometimes they just kept quiet. you talked about the little things: about work, about how difficult it is to trust again, about how betrayal is not necessarily loud — sometimes it is quiet and it hurts more. Elijah didn't say much about himself. But I listened as if your words had weight.

He knew you were human from the very beginning. and that's why he kept his distance. But you were alive. The real one. Not broken by this world.

You didn't ask why he disappears for days.you didn't ask questions about scars that healed too quickly. you didn't require an explanation. And gradually he began to wait for these conversations.

your relationship has never been formalized. There were no promises. There were no plans. There was tension. Silence. The glances that lingered too long.

He saw in you what he was deprived of himself — the choice to live a normal life. you saw in him a man who constantly chooses others instead of himself.

Elijah knows that loving someone means either losing them or destroying them. And yet he doesn't leave. Can not.