Maybe she wasn’t going to show up; it was a thought that had crossed his mind more than once as he sat at the bar, simmering in his own emotions. Elena had agreed to meet her brother; and that…was a big deal, in and of itself. The first step in rejoining the world that she had removed herself from. It was difficult to explain; like living in two dimensions, lacking the emotions, the depth of life. And if Jeremy was truly back? The flood gates were going to open, all at once. Come crashing down on her with the kind of force that was difficult to imagine; a storm raging at sea, filled with guilt and regret. After that, why would she want to see him at all? Other people from Mystic Falls were here; ones that had been better friends to her in the past, people that she was closer with. Right now, even more so than when he was sired, Tyler was ostracized. An outcast; the scapegoat for the emotional whims and flair of dramatics that had begun to run rampant in the last twenty four hours…and it was easier that way, certainly for others. When the truth was staring back at you, sometimes you had to look away, find somewhere else to place the blame, anything to relieve just a little of the pressure that weighted so heavily.
Klaus infantile ways certainly hadn’t proven any help to the situation. The original may have existed for a thousand years; yet he still had the emotional maturity of a toddler. Crying and screaming bloody murder when things didn’t go his way; throwing a temper tantrum that would have put even the most unruly two year old to shame. As much as the older hybrid liked to think of himself as always being able to stay one step ahead, a master at the chess game of life, Tyler hadn’t seen it that way. Just a little boy with too much power that didn’t care who suffered as long as he got what he wanted. And if he could recognize that, the guy in Mystic Falls that had been a selfish asshole, that it spoke volumes about the other’s character…or lack thereof. Glancing down at his mostly untouched drink, Tyler swallowed thickly at the lump that had been forming in his throat, hands constantly tightening into fists. Everyone had a boiling point; in the past, his had been reached far more easily than others, and he wondered what was going to be the thing that finally triggered it now? A girlfriend that went completely flying off the rails when she had publicly said she intended to get drunk with Klaus; dealing with that kind of instability was almost impossible. Every word, every syllable, just pushed even more over the deep end. There was no logic or reason to it; just chaos, unrefined and uncontrolled.
Letting out a breath, he turned his head, and that was when he met her gaze. Elena Gilbert had shown up after all. Tyler didn’t look away; there was a well of sentiment in his eyes, locked completely with her own, it would have been easy to mistake the look for predatory…maybe it was, to a certain extent, compounded by the anger that still seethed inside of him. But even from this distance, he could tell the difference. A weariness that she wouldn’t have been able to hide, no matter how much she wanted to try…maybe others wouldn’t have noticed, but ever since New York, picking up on subtle changes in Elena…it had become a skill, maybe even an obsession, even if it went unspoken between them. She cut across the hazy room, making a direct line straight towards him, where she ultimately ended up on the stool closest. He didn’t even protest as he plucked the glass from his hand and downed the contents with one gulp. Maybe she needed it even more than him.
Just a slight nod of his head was all the bartender needed to know that Tyler wanted another; he turned on the stool, better facing her, and for a long moment, he just looked at Elena. Dark eyes baring into her; his lips were pressed together, palms resting on his jeans. Did he miss her? “What do you think? I waited, didn’t I?” It probably sounded even more bitter than he wanted it to; Elena was the only person that he could stand to be around right then; and he wasn’t sorry for that fact. Picking fights with vampire slayers; all the drama and desperate cries for attention. “I didn’t think you were going to show.”