gorysortofstory | Open Picture Prompt Post

Like moths to flames.

[it's also where the supernatural goes to die, when you think about it. Then her face lights up.]

The Grill's still here.

[He can't help but smile a little at that.]

Really?

[She grins before taking his hand and pulling him.]

It's older now. You can hear it if you listen, but it's still the Grill.

[Sometimes she can see Matt and Bonnie playing pool, or Damon and Alaric at the bar, and it starts to feel like home again.]

[He doesn't pull his hand away, instead he lets it grasp around hers, cementing him in a way he hasn't felt in a long time.]

I didn't expect it to be here still. But I also didn't really know what to expect at all.

The world doesn't really get here much.

[She leads the way back through the trees to the main road once they hit the center of town they stop. They aren't really a lot of new structures -- just things that have been updated to fit with the changing times. Still, Mystic Falls has always valued their history, and they never changed any more than they had to.

It's almost like walking into a picture book.]

Sometimes it feels like time stands still.

I imagine that has some advantages and disadvantages.

[Still, he's glad for it in this moment. The familiarity. It feels like home, something he hasn't felt in a long, long time -- not since he left almost a century ago.]

It's nice though, seeing something familiar again.

[She nods, not letting go of his hand. Having something familiar and friendly is tethering her to the ground in a way nothing has in a very long time. If she lets go, she might float away, and she doesn't want that. Not yet.]

There aren't a lot of the families left.

[He doesn't mind that she isn't letting go. It's nice to have something familiar to hold onto -- to not feel so alone.]

Which ones survived? [Not the Lockwoods. He had been the last one left -- and he can't have kids.]

The Fells.

[because somehow the Fells manage to outlive them all.]

There's a Forbes sheriff. There might be Gilberts out there somewhere, but they're not here.

[and of course, the only Salvatores left aren't here either.]

It's good to hear a few the founding families still exist, at least.

[It's something. Not much, but something.]

[She nods. She feels so isolated, away from the rest of the world. People kept dying and leaving, until there was nothing familiar left but the town, and still she stayed.

She doesn't know why she stays.]

Have you seen anyone? Since you left? Stefan or Caroline?

I saw Caroline a few decades ago, while I was traveling through Spain. She seems to be doing fine, making new lives for herself.

[She had seemed so removed from the girl he had once loved, he supposes they both were now. Time changes people, no one's the people they used to be.]

I don't generally go looking for the Salvatores. [He was never friends with them, barely even allies most of the time.]

[She nods again, before taking his hand and tugging him towards the Grill.]

Matt lived here his whole life. Had a family and everything. His granddaughter works at the hospital.

[she thinks he would have wanted to know.]

I would have called you for the funeral, but I didn't know ... I lost track of everyone.

[she hates that she did. she shouldn't have, but they all managed to slip through her fingers.]

I'm glad to hear that.

[And he was. Matt had been his best friend -- he deserved all those things.]

It's okay. I think most of us lost track of one another.

I just wish there had been something more to keep us together.

[They were a family, in an odd way. They kept losing people, but they still had each other. She doesn't blame them for wanting to leave, she just isn't sure whether or not she wanted them to take her with them.]

I couldn't stay. Not after everything that happened. [Not after losing his pack, losing his mother. Not after continuously failing to get anything right. Klaus always won, so he just left, metaphorical tale between his legs.]

I know. I don't blame you. I've wanted to just run away from here so many times.

[Over and over again things would just happen, and Elena was so tired of things simply happening. She misses the being able to think that she had some say in the way things would go.]

So why didn't you leave?

[He's curious, just a little, why she's stayed for so long.]

Jeremy. And then Matt. Then after that ... I didn't really have anywhere to go.

You could go anywhere.

And I would just be alone.

[which is worse, in a way. Isolation in crowds of people when you've only ever been one place. She had no one to go with.]

It's easier to be alone in a familiar place than alone somewhere completely new. At least here I have the ghosts.

[and sometimes that was more literal than it should be.]

[Tyler's quiet for a moment, as if unsure of what to say until finally:]

That is the most depressing thing I have heard in a long time.

[Whoops. Tact is not a strong suit of his.]

[She can't help it. She laughs. It's not happy, or amused, but still -- it's laughter. She hasn't done it in any form in a long time.]

I guess some things never change.

[she's still the girl who's much too sad for her own good.]

I guess not.

[He pauses.]

We should do something fun. Are there still fun things to do here?

I think fun I can manage. I vaguely remember how it works.

[She pauses, before looking around the town for a moment]

The hangouts are pretty much the same. The Grill, the Falls. But we might be able to find something new?

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