There was truth to what she had said; you could only hear 'I'm sorry for your loss' a very finite number of times before it lost any and all meaning. Tyler had gone through it when his father passed away...and it had only been even more so with his mother. He hadn't been able to sit there and pretend that things were okay. He hadn't wanted to hear the cliché of time healing all wounds. In that moment, he realized just how much Elena had been through, what a bonding experience pain and loss could be. He wouldn't have wished on her; not ever, but he also couldn't change what had happened. Swallowing, a nod of his head followed...death made everything awkward, people didn't know how to act around you, what to say, outside of following all the guidelines that had been seemingly passed down. He understand completely why she had turned her emotions off to begin with. If anyone had the right, it had been Elena. It was almost ironic that by trying to help her, he had managed to save himself. Because without her there right now If he was dealing with what was happening between Klaus and Caroline alone? The results would have been totally different.
Her hand grasping his was firm, so were the words that accompanied the action. “You want to dance?” If he thought it was something that was just being done out of pity, because she felt bad for the guy with anger issues, he would have bluntly refused and pulled away from her entirely. But that wasn't it. There was more to it. Being attracted to Elena was nothing new; at least on a physical level...something else had been developing lately on his end, even if she had the switch flipped. He cared about her; had tried to ignore the thoughts of what her lips would taste like, or how she would fit against him. It was harder to pretend as if those things had never existed when she was pulling him across the floor. People tended to give them a decent birth; maybe because they just respected privacy, or maybe because they could sense there was something different about the two of them. Vampires had a certain presence to them; and Tyler's could be even more intense just from being a hybrid.
She was still having the desired effect; his heart was thumping just as wildly before, maybe more so, but the anger had dissipated just a touch. Focusing on her was good and bad; it took his mind off what Caroline could have been doing right then...but it also forced him to confront the fact that his intentions with Elena weren't platonic. He had been trying to help her; trying to show her what she was missing out on when her emotions were off...but he wasn't some knight riding in on a perfect white steed. It wasn't all just some selfless act. He wanted things; and he was starting to realize, he wanted her Stepping in closer once they had a little distance between where they had been seated at the bar, Tyler looked down at her, dark eyes searching her expression for a long moment. The words that had gone unsaid had created an almost palpable feeling between them. “We'll dance...” A pause, he leaned in closer, taking in a small death. “But you're coming back with me later.” It wasn't a request; he was stating a fact...it didn't even mean anything was going to happen. He just knew that he wasn't going to be apart from Elena.