[closed] if you must die, sweetheart,

[eyething]

Who: Damon Salvatore, Peter Parker, and Clementine + others
Where: Real side and mirror side
When: Length of the event/aftermath of the event
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A bunch of closed starters for these characters throughout the Event. Let me know here if you want a specific shenanigan, and I'll set up something for you!
The Story: Starters below.

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[interpersonal]

His memories were carved out.

That's what he says.

Elena mistakenly believes he means Wonderland took them. Isn't that what this place is all about: stealing memories, feeding on them? If theories are true and the Queen creates her mirrors, why wouldn't she take away the pieces that would make them willful and disobedient? Why wouldn't she take away someone Damon loves and direct that loyalty inward on the Mirrorside?

It's too quiet for too long. She doesn't count the minutes. She doesn't know how many of them pass. When she speaks again, it's still a bit dully, but less reluctant to engage. He is reaching out to her, and this is Elena slowly beginning to reach back. If she can, she will.

Every single time.

"Held on to what?" she finally asks. Finally willing to try and understand. To believe him, because something in her heart tells her to. She of all people knows what it's like to give someone like Damon the benefit of the doubt. So, what does he mean by 'this'?

[mandrakes]

This, at least right now, is one thing he will not try to change Damon's mind on. The younger vampire is in a fragile enough state that he can see it, and it would not be the correct time to press such an issue. Instead, he pauses alongside his friend and glances into the room in turn, a small frown furrowing his brow.

Rather than moving along, he enters, ensuring that the door is pushed wide open before he crosses the threshold. He'll not be taken by surprise, here.

A quick examination of the room shows up a very deliberate attempt to make sure that what they are trying to do can't be done, and he delicately picks up one of the larger mirror shards.

"It may be worth our time to look for anyone, and move on from there," he muses aloud, glancing to Damon for confirmation. "Chasing shattered mirrors will get us nowhere quickly."

[longer]

Damon is not going to correct her about where the memory loss comes from. He did not want to tell her the story. She has been through enough without learning about the siren, without learning about the future she has not yet lived. Hopefully, she won't have to. He hates to think of her lost in the sleeping coma so deeply, never to see her- never to see her brother or best friend again.

It sticks inside the edges of his head horribly.

He breathes in at the question and then pulls the necklace out of his pocket, holding it out to her, to answer her question in ways better than words could.

It's the same necklace he gave to her a very long time ago (what feels like a very long time ago).

It's the same necklace he held on to in a prison world far from her.

It's the necklace that saved him, that helped him pull the heart right out of the siren herself.

[eyething]

"Means we're going to want to leave messages on mirrors. Let people know what's going on," Damon says even if he hates- he hates having to rely on anyone else. This feeling of powerlessness has become frustratingly familiar to him over the years in his own world, in Wonderland too.

It's mostly back in his own world.

The list goes on and on. He's learned how to deal with whatever comes, because options are limited. Usually it means just surviving. Usually it means holding on to hope despite all the odds, because it's all there is, and he has to believe he'll get back there in time-

Before his mirror can do anything terrible.

"Maybe there's someone else on this side who knows how to get back."

[interpersonal]

"My necklace," she breathes out, eyes growing soft and round.

Elena hasn't seen that necklace in a long time. She stopped wearing it once Stefan fed on her and she believed him to be lost to her, to them. She saw the light go out in his eyes. She saw the bloodthirsty ripper. And then it turned out that the necklace had belonged to Rebekah all along.

But it does feel a little bit like hers, in spite of it all.

It's a throwback if there ever was one. The day Stefan gave it to her. The day she recklessly took it off so that Damon could see that she wasn't lying. The night of her eighteenth birthday when he gave it back to her, after she thought she'd never find it again.

She finally takes a step forward, albeit hesitant.

[longer]

Damon nods and then finds himself releasing a shaky breath of relief as she takes the step forward. He lifts the necklace out to her though his grip on it still remains tight like he's afraid it'll fall from his fingers and crash on to the floor, break in two (and along with it the remains of his sanity).

"I don't know what I'd have been without it."

Not this, not pieces, not the remains of himself. A smile pulls across his face (tired and pained and real).

"She underestimated us."

Elena will think he's referring to the Queen, and he's not. He's talking about the siren who thought carving into his head and scraping her out would guarantee total loyalty, total servitude to her. And it didn't.

[interpersonal]

Elena doesn't reach out to take it, not when it seems to be a lifeline for him. She'd want him to have it, if it's helping in even the smallest of ways. And the more he speaks, the more she realizes those ways aren't small at all. Her fingers merely brush against the surface of the locket. Vervain had once been put inside of it ... to protect her from Damon.

It's so strange how some things work out.

Her gaze shifts into a sadder, softer, thing. Instead of letting her hand fall back to her side, she cups his cheek instead. The thumb lightly strokes close to his jaw as she takes in this tired, older version of Damon. She's aware of the risk he took in coming here.

She's aware of the why.

"They don't know what we have." How could they? They aren't privy to the most intimate, powerful moments Damon and Elena have shared, for it can only be shared by two people. They aren't aware of who the two of them become when they are together, and how much worse it can be when they're apart. It's not about right or wrong. It's about need. "You know you can't stay here," she whispers. "Don't you?"

[longer]

Damon breathes in slow, sudden, abrupt as her hand frames his face, and he leans into her touch like a man starved, like a man thirsting. His throat locks up as his hand slips up over the side of her own hand, and he breathes her in.

He breathes in this moment. Some part of him feels real, and he can't remember the last time that was true.

He does not dare move an inch as if it might ruin it.

Emotion lodges in his throat as he releases the breath trapped in the cage of his chest, opening his eyes again to meet her own. His voice is an ache.

"I know."