Vampire Diaries: Brothers

by *WolfenM

Rating: PG-13 (nothing worse than you've seen on the TV show)
Genre/Themes: Angst (Damon), Redemption (Damon), Suicidal Thoughts (Damon), Character Study (Damon — are we seeing a pattern here?), Hurt/Comfort (Damon comforted by Stefan, non-slash), Brotherhood (Damon/Stefan, Damon/Jeremy), Unrequited Love (Damon for Elena, Damon for Katherine), episode tag/missing scenes. And a teensy bit of Elena/Stefan and Jeremy/Anna shippage.
Length: A little under 7500 words.
Spoilers: mostly for 1.22 ("Founder's Day") & 2.1 ("The Return"), the latter of which this contains missing scenes and a tag for
Notes This fic was thoroughly punctured by the TV show's canon before I found the time to actually write it. Blame my friend Dash for encouraging Maer, my writing muse, to write it anyway. XD This fic begins shortly after the last Damon/Katherine scene of "The Return", before the Damon/Elena scene.
DISCLAIMER: The Vampire Diaries, Damon Salvatore, Stefan Salvatore, Giuseppe Salvatore, Katherine Pierce, Elena Gilbert, Jeremy Gilbert, and daylight rings © LJ Smith/Warner Bros./The CW

*************
After long decades of being in near-total control of his existence, cool, calm, and collected, Damon Salvatore had spent the last few months feeling like a spinning top that had begun to wobble to greater and greater extremes. He hated his brother, he loved his brother, he loved Katherine, he hated her, he loved and hated Elena, he reveled in the misery of others, he wanted to stop their pain .... It was only a matter of time before he fell, he supposed. Was he fallen now? Katherine had certainly pulled out the rug from under him. And now here he was, wallowing in bourbon and mixing metaphors. He kind of wished he had ingredients with which to make a mixed drink, now. Mojitos were nice ....

He watched the fire in the fireplace through his rock glass, trying to get entranced by the flames but failing. Why was he drinking booze instead of blood right now, despite how enjoyable hunting was? Was he trying to keep himself from acting on Katherine's revelation, trying to curb any urge to feed on her doppelganger in retaliation? As if that would make him feel better anyway? Katherine wouldn't give a rat's furry tail-section what happened to Elena — would probably thank him, if he removed this obstacle from between her and her precious Stefan. Granted, killing Elena would hurt Stefan, at least ....

But it would hurt Damon, too. And, shockingly, Damon didn't find the idea of hurting Stefan appealing. He wasn't stupid, knew Stefan hadn't actually stolen Katherine. You couldn't steal what belonged to you in the first place. Damon had loved his brother once, and of late had come to realise he had never really stopped. He had just loved Katherine more, enough to forget familial bonds. He wondered how it worked for Stefan — had his younger brother saved him because he loved Damon back, or had he only done it for love of Elena? Everyone did what Elena wanted, as surely as if she were a vampire, with the power of compulsion, herself — Stefan, Bonnie, Matt, Jeremy, Caroline ....

Damon ....

Even if he could still hate Stefan enough to hurt someone the man loved, Damon could never hurt Elena anyway. When Katherine had informed him that she had always loved Stefan and only him, she had seemed apologetic, like she felt bad that she couldn't love Damon — meaning she really couldn't, even if she wanted to. But Elena ... despite having every reason to hate him, Elena had intervened on his behalf, worried for him, believed he was worth saving. Damon had no chance with Katherine, but maybe there was hope with Elena, who really was everything Katherine had pretended to be, so long ago — and more. Stefan could have Katherine; why couldn't he let Damon have Elena? Katherine needed a good guy like Stefan to turn her around some, just as Elena had been doing for Damon. Stefan didn't need help being good, any more than Elena did.

Elena was smart too, logical and reasonable — surely she could see that it made more sense for her to be with Damon?

Finishing off the bourbon — his second bottle of the night — he set off for the Gilbert homestead, wobbling a little as he went.

*************

Damon rapped on the front door, but no one answered. Elena's car was there, though, plus the lights were on. And there was music playing, loud and hard and heavy, just barely muffled by the walls — which was probably why she hadn't heard him knocking. The door wasn't locked — for what was there to keep out now, with most of the vamps in town dead and the ones that were left already having been invited in? — so Damon let himself inside. A cursory exploration of the lower level didn't find her, so he headed for her room.

On his way there, he passed by Jeremy's room; the door was open. Telling himself he was just checking to see if Elena was in there, he peeked inside: she wasn't. He didn't move on, though, instead watching her brother, who was lying in bed, staring morosely at the ceiling.

Damon had a flashback of his conversation with the kid the day before, which in turn led to a memory of Anna in her last, terrified moments. Maybe Jeremy usually played music like this, but Damon suspected the loss of the boy's vampire girlfriend had played a large part in influencing Jeremy's musical choice for the evening. He felt for the boy, he really did — just as he had truly felt bad for Anna.

Damon remembered seeing Jeremy with the vial of blood the night prior, before the boy had realised Damon was there. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the blood had been Anna's, especially not after the questions the boy had asked him. He wondered if the boy had drunk it yet — and, if he had, whether he'd chickened out on the whole death part? A few days ago, if Jeremy had asked to be turned, Damon would have helped him out without a second though, but tonight? Damon figured he would probably be an anti-vampirism poster child. Katherine had made him a vamp, after all, and for what? If Elena didn't want Damon now, if fate hadn't kept him alive to meet her, then the last almost-a-century-and-a-half had been a total waste. In seconds, with just a few words, Katherine had declared his entire vampiric existence a joke.

Of course, Jeremy's situation was different — if he went through with this, the boy would be playing the joke on himself. Why block the pain? Why not just die? What would he do afterwards? What did the kid have to live for that didn't actually call for still being able to feel anything?

Besides, Damon had discovered that it wasn't a foolproof skill, this vampiric ability to block out emotions. He couldn't do it now — and he wanted to. Oh, how he wanted to! Wanted to not care that the woman he'd spent over fourteen decades loving and missing didn't feel a thing about him herself. He wanted to feel as little for her as she did for him! But Elena had encouraged him to care, about her and her friends and his brother and the whole damn town, and now he couldn't stop. Oddly, he wasn't even entirely certain that he wanted to.

And as Jeremy moved his hand, revealing a familiar black ring, Damon realised that this boy wasn't sure of what he wanted either.

The music stopped then, and Jeremy sat up. He noticed Damon then, flinching a little.

"Sorry. Forgot my cat-bell," Damon quipped. "Came to see Elena," he added.

"She's in her room," Jeremy told him, sounding like he had sandpaper in his throat, as well as seeming annoyed at Damon's intrusion.

"I know, I was ... I heard the music. Thought I'd make sure you were okay."

"What, Elena ask you to make sure I didn't try to commit suicide again?" Jeremy attempted an amused tone but simply sounded bitter. "I don't need a baby-sitter."

"Suicide? With or without Anna's blood?" Damon asked as he leaned against the door frame, wondering to himself why he was even asking, why he felt any concern at all — why he let himself feel concern.

"With. Elena didn't tell you?"

Damon shrugged, ignoring the stinging reminder of his conversation with her earlier that day, when she basically said she'd never kiss him. Suddenly, coming over seemed a poor idea. "I'm not her favourite Salvatore brother. Hell, I'm not even Stefan's, and I'm his only choice." Damon let that thought cheer him; it was a reminder that Elena probably felt something for him, or Stefan likely wouldn't have bothered to save him.

"Look, kid, I don't really care whether you want to live or die or live as a vampire, and I know you don't care if I care, but ... if you want to change your state of existence ... don't do it anytime soon, okay? Elena's had enough heartache lately, people dying and nearly dying. I know you have, too," he added hurriedly. "Like I said, I'm sorry for that. I just ...." Damon suddenly felt awkward. "I'll just wait for Elena in her room, okay?" And he turned away.

"I won't," Jeremy's voice followed after him.

Damon was surprised at the relief he felt after hearing those words.

*************

Stefan took a compact mirror out of his pocket and used it to make sure his face was clean of any trace of his latest furry meal. He seemed to run into an inordinate amount of people in the woods.

"Preening, Stefan? Did you pick that habit up from Damon?"

Case in point ....

"What do you want, Katherine?" Stefan growled as he turned to face her.

"Nothing," she told him innocently, in that way that set off all the alarm klaxons in his head. It was then that he realised she'd been coming from the Salvatore Manor. And that she was a bit disheveled.

"You talked to Damon." Funny how, just a few months ago, Stefan would have been worried now for everyone else in Mystic Falls, fearing what mischief Damon and Katherine might have gotten into together, but now the ball of fear growing in his stomach was for Damon. Katherine had already taken his brother from him once. If she's done something to break their new, still-tenuous bond, Stefan thought he might not be able to resist hunting her down and ending her once and for all.

Katherine shrugged at his question. "Among other things. He had to go and spoil what could have been a fun evening, though," she added, pouting.

His worry for Damon amped up a few notches; he almost hurried off to check on him right then and there, but a strange, haunted look in Katherine's eyes told him he'd best get the whole story out of her while he had the chance. "And how did he do that?" he asked tightly.

She told him, and only that odd air of regret about her kept him from striking her. It seemed she couldn't help her feelings any more than Damon could. But why did she have to pick now to be truthful, when Damon was still raw from discovering how she'd abandoned him, and was making an effort to be a better man?

*************

When Damon reached Elena's room, he found her bedroom door open, could hear her in her bathroom. He sat down on her bed, memories turning unbidden in his head, just as his stomach roiled with unwanted feelings. The longer she took (and he'd never met a woman who didn't take an eternity in the bathroom, regardless of whether they were immortal or not), the more he was losing control of his emotions. Hurt and anger, at her and Katherine and Stefan, warred with love equal amounts of love for all three. He held onto the hope that she could care for him – he had to, to keep from being sucked completely into the whirlwind that his magnified and wildly conflicting vampire emotions were creating.

Stefan had said something earlier that day about defining moments, and Damon realised that this was his. Either the spinning top of his unlife would be stabilised and spin onward harmoniously with the world, or he had to stop it, so it wouldn't destroy anything more in its erratic path.

Tonight, Elena needed to either demonstrate that she could learn to love him, or else come to truly hate him.

His heart began to race as Elena came out of her bathroom, and for one absurd moment Damon wished he could show Brahm Stoker that vampires did have a pulse. (If they didn't have circulation, what would they need blood for? Did the man think they were sponges?)

Damon wished that Stoker had been right, though. He was tempted to rip out his own heart as the evil, traitorous organ pumped adrenaline through him, making him excitable. Elena looked so much like Katherine, it pissed him off. The two women became one in his mind, and both of them liars — Katherine about having loved him long ago and Elena lying today about not loving him. She had to be, he had to believe that — because if she wasn't lying, then there was no reason left for his existence. And if she was lying, the fact that she would so treat his existence so callously like that (even if she didn't realise she was) angered him even more. Oddly, so did the fact that she was lying to Stefan. But maybe she was lying to herself as well? So he decideed to tell her as much, through words, through his lips — he'd kiss her and prove it.

Even as he craved contact with her like a man starved beyond all reason, he knew what he was doing was wrong. That didn't stop him from grabbing her, kissing her, tasting her in a way that had nothing to do with feeding, but still threatening to devour her in some way. If she didn't enjoy this, she'd hate him — and that was fine. If she couldn't love him, then hate was for the best. Hate suited his Plan B perfectly.

As she struggled, Damon began to despair that his Plan A was a failure. She insisted that he was better than that, but he knew that wasn't true — that was part of why he needed her in the first place! But then she said that she did care for him, and the top that was Damon's heart lurched wildly from the side to the center, spinning perfectly. For a precious moment, he let himself believe everything could be all right, given time.

And then mere seconds later it lurched out of control again as she echoed Katherine's sentiment of less than an hour gone, saying that she loved Stefan, that it had always been him and always would be.

Jeremy picked the worst time to walk in. Or the best, depending on how one looked at it.

Just as vampires could move thousands of times faster than humanly possible,  they could also think faster. In the span of what would have been only a second or so of hesitation to the Gilbert siblings (cousins? whatever), Damon did several minutes worth of planning — or so it felt to him. Oddly, the thoughts were instigated by a sudden surge of vampire rage. In that moment, it was as if his mind, his soul, whatever his sense of self consisted of was torn in half. One half was the impulsive, passionate, animalistic side, the other the calculating, contemplative, rational one. The rational just barely kept a leash on the animal.

The animal wanted to tear Jeremy apart to make Elena feel pain — maybe not the same as what she made him feel, but probably almost as strong, despite her only being human. The animal also hated Jeremy himself, for interrupting, for reminding Damon of that vampiric ability to turn off emotions that for some reason was not functioning for Damon just now. For wanting to be what Damon was when Damon wanted nothing more than to not be.

Damon remembered what he had said just minutes ago to the boy, about not ending his own life because Elena had already lost or come close to losing so much of late, which was where the need to make her hate him came in. He honestly didn't think he could handle the intensity of a vampire's heartache, but would she grieve Damon's loss? There was still a part of him that didn't want her to suffer.

The rational part of him knew that killing the boy wouldn't stick, that the ring would save him; if not for it, if Damon killed him now, Jeremy would get his wish. If that happened, Elena would truly hate him. Surely she wouldn't grieve for someone she hated? Best of all, since the ring would save Jeremy ultimately, the boy could still stay human if he wished. If Jeremy still sought vampirism, Katherine would probably oblige him. In the meantime, even with Jeremy safe, Damon's apparent intent would still count for something — something bad.

So he took the leash off.

The words he spoke to Jeremy about vampires turning off emotions were really a mockery to Damon's own self, about the power he had apparently lost. With any luck, though, it would also serve as a warning to Jeremy. Become a vampire, shut your feelings down, and you could kill anyone without a second thought. Damon had effectively done it for centuries.

But the snap of the bones in Jeremy's neck held none of the satisfaction the sound had once offered — instead, it made Damon's self-loathing all the more unbearable. So did Elena's shock and grief, which followed after Damon like a rancid perfume he couldn't escape, even as he raced into the night.

He almost raced right into his brother, slowing just before they would have collided, Stefan doing the same. Judging by the wary way Stefan eyed him, Damon suspected he'd met Katherine on the way over.

Hoping to forestall any conversation, he told Stefan, "Elena needs you," bitterness bleeding into his voice in the form of sarcasm. Thankfully, Stefan hurried past, apparently fearing the worst (and Damon supposed rightfully so). Damon tried not to think of how this would be the last time the brothers would see each other in this life — maybe ever.

He'd seen the hatred in Elena's eyes, under the shock. His plan had worked. Jeremy would doubtless hate him too, and Stefan. Now he was free to flip the ultimate off switch for his pain. But of course he hurt even more now, knowing that even those three wouldn't mourn him.

Well, in a little while none of his own sorrow would matter anymore.

*************

It was much too long before dawn. Fearing his resolve would break before then, Damon sought out a bottle he'd hidden in his room, one he'd found while digging through the attic not long after his return. He'd found a chest with some of his things placed inside it with a care he never would have believed possible of his father, but who else would have known the bottle had meant something to him? From it had come Damon's first taste of vodka; his father had gifted him with the bottle when he'd turned sixteen. Damon hadn't actually liked it, but he'd treasured it as a right of passage, an acknowledgement of his crossing into manhood from a man who wasn't known for his sentimentality, much less any show of affection towards his eldest son. Giuseppe must have found the bottle in Damon's room after Damon had died, and for some inexplicable reason had packed it away rather than getting rid of it. Did he believe Damon would return?

Whatever the reason, it seemed appropriate, after having started the bottle on a birthday, to finish it off on his deathday. Never mind that it would probably taste like crap, thanks to heat and evaporation — it had already tasted like crap all those years ago. He didn't exactly deserve a last pleasure, anyway.

Damon poured a few fingers of it into a new rock glass (having already destroyed one that night upon his return home, inexplicably furious that it had dared to be empty). He thought of his father as he stared at the contents, thinking how relieved he would be that his vampire of a son was finally meeting his end. Would Giuseppe welcome with open arms on the other side? What would he say when Damon told him that Stefan had become the supposed impossible: a vampire with compassion? Would Giuseppe be proud or horrified? Would he blame Damon for Stefan's vampirism, or just curse Damon for not being capable of having the same compassion?

The animal within Damon suddenly exploded in rage, taking out the rock glass with the explosion, dashing it against the floor in fury, then laughed at the absurdity of his new "hobby".

Even in death, he would never be good enough for anyone, not even Elena, the one person since his first death who had ever seemed to think otherwise of him. Well, besides Stefan, but the brother Stefan had once defended fourteen decades ago was long dead, and Stefan himself had said he'd like nothing better than to kill Damon just that morning. Damon had been surprised to find the remark stung him — as surprised as he was at how Stefan's remark, that there was some good in Damon that he wanted to protect, made Damon feel pleased in turn. Too bad that little bit of good just wasn't enough.

Absently, he licked at the liquor that had splashed his fingers with his little tantrum — and promptly collapsed as his body was overtaken by the effects of vervain. So much for the bottle having been saved by his father out of some sort of sentimentality. Still, this would only help his plan, so he supposed he owed his father a debt of gratitude all the same.

Well, once this tiny taste of it wore off.

*************

As Stefan sat with Elena in her room, waiting for her breathing to even out into that of sound sleep, he was going through the events of the last few months in his head, trying to wrap his mind around the complexity that was Damon. Murderous yet kind, thoughtless yet cunning. It was pretty impossible to tell what the man would do at any given moment — or how Stefan felt about his wayward brother.  He loved him, missed how things used to be between them, but he also wished the man would go away and take his headaches with him. Stefan felt bad for him, knowing how Katherine was messing with his head, but he hated how Damon had made Elena feel tonight, half-wanted to finish in earnest the fight Damon had tried to start in jest that afternoon.

Thing was, regardless of how much it just sounded like making excuses, Stefan knew all to well that a vampire's emotions made mental stability so much harder to maintain than a human could ever imagine enduring — especially considering the fact that their instincts, their hunger, screamed for human blood. If humans could excuse the criminally insane, saying that those individuals couldn't help themselves because of a chemical imbalance, then vampires deserved the same leniency, didn't they? So as angry as Damon made him, he also couldn't help but sympathise with Damon a little bit — particularly considering how civil Damon had gotten of late (at least by Damon's standards).

Stefan's forgiveness also came more readily once he'd gotten as much of the story as he could out of Elena and, more importantly, Jeremy. Once hearing her brother's details, even Elena had to admit that, at the very least, Damon must have expected Jeremy to come through the experience as a vampire — cold comfort, but of course Damon would see no issue with it, especially seeing as Jeremy had actually expressed such a wish. And in all likelihood, Damon really had seen the ring, in which case his actions would have been done for shock value and with a clear understanding that there would be no lethal or vampiric consequences.

As aggravated as he was at Damon right now, he was also worried. Elena was Stefan's priority, but at the same time, she couldn't seem to fall asleep fast enough for his liking tonight.

*************

Big, heavy, dead tree with low, broken, stake-like branches? Check. Shackles chained to said tree? Check. Open field (except for the dead tree) with optimal sun exposure? Check. Daylight ring left inside the house? Check — or chucked, rather, into the fireplace. Bottle of vervain-laced booze? Checkity-check.

Some might have called it overkill.

Damon knew himself, though. He'd left the army because he'd been afraid to die, after all, regardless of what other excuses he gave, like not agreeing with the Confederate cause. Part of this not being able to turn off his emotions thing, though, involved getting more and more horrified by the moment by the things he'd done as a vampire. Not even just the killings, but the way he'd used and abused people. Even what he'd done tonight, for Elena and Jeremy's own good. This was the final and best thing he could do for them, and Stefan, too. Hell, even for himself!

But he didn't trust himself to maintain his resolve once the burning started, because hello, sunlight hurt. And he didn't trust himself to drink the vervain that would render him immobile — he hadn't worked up the nerve yet, the memories of Stefan using it on him, how powerless he had felt, too fresh. Somehow, chaining himself to the tree had been easier, perhaps because its part in his plan was such an abstract. Nothing would happen unless he tried to get away: the tree was more fragile than the chains, so if he struggled enough, it would fall on him, skewering him, pinning him in place until the sun could finish him off.

The only thing missing was the sunlight, which both would come too soon and not soon enough. Frankly, he was terrified, and the wait was just making it worse. He decided to distract himself by reminding himself of why he was doing the right thing, remembering all the wrong that had led him to this.

It worked too well.

Oddly, his train of thought picked up its self-destructive momentum when he started thinking beyond the wrongs he'd committed, to what had been done to him — or what hadn't. How his father had never seemed to care for him, how Katherine had made a fool of him, how Elena had found him lacking, how he had lost his brother's respect. How he had spent the decades alone. Had he ever been loved? Had he ever deserved it, even when he was alive?

There had long been an empty ache inside him, even before he was turned, but it was filling now — with guilt and grief, like glass in his eyes, his throat, his chest. The next thing he knew, he was sobbing into the moss beneath him, trying to make himself empty again, but the pain poured through him from a seemingly endless font. Cries of frustration just made his throat hurt all the more, like he was breathing fire.

He didn't need to drink the vervain to keep him from running, he decided. The Earth seemed to pull at him, holding him fast, ready to swallow him — he wished it would. Gravity seemed determined to crush him if the ground wouldn't finally give way.

*************

Stefan raced back home as quickly as his enhanced speed would let him, but still had plenty of time to imagine all sorts of horrible things Damon might have done in his absence. So he was all the more shocked to find the manor still standing, not on fire, and its insides not trashed. The worst he found was a bit of glass on the floor in two places, in the middle of the room and around the fireplace.

And then he saw Damon's daylight ring.

In the fire.

It being a magic ring, it showed no sign of damage, but Stefan couldn't find the iron fireplace tools so he could fish it out. His eyes fell on a radio on the mantle; he unscrewed the antennae and used it to fish the bit of jewelry out. He poured some water into one of the two remaining rock glasses and dropped the ring in, to cool it, then stuck the item in his pocket.

He then raced around the house, but did not call his brother's name — what would be the point? Damon likely didn't want to be found, and yelling for him would just warn him off. After searching every inch of the house, he widened his search to further and further out on the grounds, even the cell where he'd kept Damon prisoner once. With his preternatural speed, the search didn't actually take long, but to Stefan it was an eternity; he grew more and more anxious by the second.

And then he noticed it: a faint keening that he had initially dismissed as the wind, but in which he now recognised a note of his brother's voice. He followed it to a sight that, like the sound, was initially unfamiliar: his brother kneeling, brow against the earth, shackled fists clenched, eyes screwed shut and face contorted in an expression Stefan had only seen the vaguest hint of on Damon before: grief.

A memory sprang into Stefan's mind, of Damon and their father standing beside their mother's deathbed. Damon's lip and chin trembled now and then, and his eyes were coated in a sheen of unshed tears. He sniffed faintly — and Giuseppe grabbed Damon's arm, jerking it.

"Quit your mewling, boy, and set an example for your brother!" Giuseppe had snapped. "Men don't cry!"

Stefan thought maybe Damon was now releasing a hundred and fifty years or so of unshed tears.

The sound that tore their way free of Damon's throat now made Stefan both want to leave, give his brother some privacy, and made him want to reach out like their father never had. At that moment, there was no longer any room in Stefan's heart for the anger or hate he'd harbored towards Damon since Katherine had come into their lives.

The same didn't seem true of Damon, though.

Damon's eyes snapped open suddenly, his sobs stilling. His sat up, head jerking towards Stefan, eyes wild, angry and afraid all at once. He bared his fangs in a furious hiss. He tensed, and Stefam realised his brother was about to pounce.

He also realised what would happen if Damon did.

"Damon, no!" Stefan ordered, meeting his brother halfway — close enough to deflect the suddenly falling tree to the side. The dead timber pulled Damon with it, but Stefan held tight, keeping his brother from falling backwards and getting impaled. The danger past, Stefan still held tight to his brother, until Damon's struggling finally stopped, shoulder sagging in defeat.

"Did you come here to gloat?" Damon asked, barely intelligible between his elongated teeth and a rasp in his voice.

Stefan was surprised how much the accusation hurt. He drew back enough to look Damon in the eye, save for that Damon wouldn't look at him. "I'm not like that," Stefan replied quietly, suddenly not sure if that was even true.

Damon made another half-heartedly amused little sound. "No, that's me."

Stefan couldn't deny that — even when Damon was human, there was a certain pettiness to him — so he changed the subject. "Did Katherine do this to you?"

Damon shook his head but said nothing more, eyes still averted.

Realising the truth of the situation. Stefan felt sick. He grabbed one chain, broke it, then did the same to the other side, so at least the tree would no longer pose a threat.

"I'm surprised you didn't just drink some vervain!" he snapped.

Damon pointed to a bottle on the ground, a bemused smile on his lips that didn't reach his eyes.

Stefan picked the bottle up. He remembered seeing it in his brother's room once, remembered asking about it. "Father gave you this ...."

"Seems he left a second present inside it," Damon informed him, finally looking him in the face. Damon was wearing his mask of nonchalance, but there were cracks in it; through them, Stefan could see how much their father's action had hurt his brother.

Stefan's stomach lurched in revulsion, and he could feel the heat of another wave of rage building rapidly under his skin. He knew Giuseppe and Damon's relationship had been strained towards the end, and that Giuseppe was a very dedicated vampire hunter, but even so ... planning something so devious, using something of sentimental value .... Stefan couldn't do anything to the man, but the bottle would do in a pinch: he threw it hard enough to hit a tree thirty feet away.

"Hey!" Damon protested.

"Hey yourself! What were you thinking, Damon? Katherine's not worth killing yourself over!"

Damon looked him squarely in the eye. "Maybe not, but are you going to tell me that Elena isn't?"

Stefan felt like he'd been dealt a physical blow. He chose his next words very carefully. "I would give my life for Elena, but I wouldn't take my life just because she didn't love me. Especially if I knew she at least cared for me, like she cares for you."

Damon let out a sharp laugh. "I'm pretty sure I made sure she doesn't anymore." He smirked and eyed Stefan, a non-verbal dare to deny it.

"She ... okay, she's angry. People say things like 'I hate you' when they're angry. She calmed down a little when she realised you might know about the ring."

"Ring?"

"Don't play dumb, Damon."

"Nice alliteration, little brother!"

"Don't change the subject, either. Elena said you were trying to make her hate you because it was easier, and I think she's right. But she was wrong about one thing: you weren't making it easier for yourself, you were making it easier for her — so she wouldn't add you to her list of losses!"

Damon gave a thoughtful nod. "You're halfway there. But while I'll admit that the fact that she doesn't love me was something of a motive for ... this," he began, waving a hand at the tree and the broken bottle and the sky, "I'm doing it as much to protect her and the rest of you."

"I'm doing," not "I was going to," Stefan noted. So Damon still planned on going through with it. "You gonna explain that, or do I have to drag it out of you?"

"Thought you weren't going to fight me?" Damon pointed out with a smirk.

"I won't need to. That vervain is still weakening you — I never would have been able to stop you from skewering yourself otherwise — we both know you're stronger than me."

"We do?" Damon's lip twitched; then he sighed. "I can't control my emotions anymore," he confessed. "It's like ... when Katherine told me the truth, that she .... well, anyway, it's like that part of me broke. The hurt is like this flood that just won't end. You know how vampires are. Someone pisses me off, I'll kill them without thinking — and next time there may not be a do-over. Believe it or not, there are people I don't want to kill, or even just hurt." Damon looked away, but not before Stefan could see the sheen of tears filming over his eyes.

"Don't go blaming Katherine," Stefan told him. "You wanna know what I think is the reason you can't shut the emotions off anymore?"

"Not particularly, but since when does that stop you?"

"Since never," Stefan nodded. "I think you're afraid of going back to the way you were, when you didn't give a rat's ass about the lives you ended. You're horrified by that possibility."

"Oh yes, and killing people in an uncontrolled rage is so much better. Just ask Jeremy Gilbert." Damon's bitterness lacked its usual the sarcastic edge, carrying a certain tone of self-loathing Stefan hadn't heard him use in well over a century. He was torn between feeling pride and pity. He was also surprised to realise that Damon seemed to genuinely like, Jeremy, that the boy was one of those that Damon counted among those that he didn't want to hurt.

"Don't give me that," Stefan said. "You know he's alive, you planned it that way — Jeremy said you knew about the blood, and I'm betting you saw the ring when you talked to him. No killer rages involved."

"Oh no, a killer rage was there all right — trust me," Damon assured him. "Even if I did plan it, and knew the kid would live, the rage was still real. Being uncontrolled suited the plan then, but that doesn't mean I'd be so lucky next time."

"I manage to keep myself in between — seems to work pretty well for me."

"As our father liked to point out so much, I'm not you."

"I wasn't aware I had the patent on reigning in my emotions without shutting them off. I also eat and drink and sleep, too — you telling me you can't do any of those things?"

"Yeah, well, eating, drinking, and sleeping are instinctual, like our penchant for blood-sucking!" Damon sounded exasperated. "You're talking about going against instinct — two instincts, really: letting the animal lose or keeping it locked up. And you've also been practising for a few decades, I might add."

"You know, I'm betting you've already had some experience with it. What went through your head when you killed Jeremy?"

"I don't know! I .... It was like one part of me, the logic-based side, had the emotion-based side on a leash. But the first part eventually let go of the other, and I don't think it could have held on indefinitely even if it wanted to!"

Stefan felt a surge of triumph. "See, you already have an idea of how it works! If you can't lock the emotions up but you can't let it loose, a leash is the answer! You just have to work on it."

Damon stared at Stefan like he'd grown a second head. "So ... your answer is to develop Dissociative Identity Disorder?" He quirked a brow.

"Now who's good with alliteration?"

"Stefan ...." Damon warned.

"Look, it's not as extreme as that. Think of it as ... visualisation for creative problem solving."

"Oh, great, you gonna write a self-help book next?" Damon sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Let's assume I can master that trick eventually — what about in the meantime? I can leave, but I could still slip up somewhere else! And frankly, if I stay alive, I ... I-I don't want to leave here."

He's lonely, Stefan realised, feeling another pang of pity. How many of Damon's sins stemmed from that simple fact? How many crimes could have been prevented if Katherine had stuck around?

Stefan slung an arm around Damon's shoulder and began guiding his brother back to the house. "You don't have to leave, okay? I'll be here to make sure nothing happens, and to help you through this. For as long as it takes."

Damon stopped in his tracks, and this time there was no moving him. Stefan found his brother looking at him uncertainly, obviously wanting to trust him but also clearly unable to.

"Why?" Damon asked him, and there were more than a few questions in that one word.

Thankfully Stefan knew a single reply that addressed them all. He grabbed hold of Damon and held him as tightly as he should have done all those years ago, back when Katherine had first begun driving a wedge between them.

"Because you're my brother and I love you," he told Damon matter-of-factly.

After a long moment, he felt Damon's arms wrap hesitantly around him, then suddenly grip him in and embrace that nearly cracked a rib. And for a moment, Stefan feared Damon was intending to harm him, that this was all a ruse — until he heard a sob, muffled by his jacket.

He waited until Damon relaxed some in his arms, then drew back, taking Damon's face in his hands. Seeing the fear and despair, a vulnerability he never would have guessed Damon capable of, Stefan was overcome with a sudden, fierce need to protect his brother. Had Damon always been this broken? Stefan suspected the cracks had been there since they were children, with a father that refused to bestow any love or praise on his eldest son. That would explain why Damon clung so desperately to those who showed him approval and affection — first Katherine, and now Elena.

The coming days weren't going to be easy — obviously Stefan wasn't about to just hand over his girlfriend -- even if he was willing to step aside, she loved whom she loved. But maybe with her help they could show Damon that there were different kinds of love and family in the world, and that there was room for him in their lives.

"I'm so sorry for what I did to Jeremy," Damon whispered, a tear falling and sliding down against Stefan's hand.

Stefan nodded. "It'll be okay — give it time."

Just then, Stefan noticed a change in the light — predawn. Alarmed, he quickly reached into his pocket. "Take this," he ordered, still cupping Damon's cheek with his other hand as he pulled out Damon's daylight ring.

Damon didn't take it, though, instead glancing at the brightening sky with a look of longing.

Fear slid icy tendrils through Stefan. He could not lose Damon again. "Bro, you take this or I will kick. Your. Ash," he finished pointedly.

Damon looked him in the eye, looking surprised at first, then blurted a laugh. Still laughing, he took the ring and slid it on; Stefan felt something ease inside him, relief burning away fear. They laughed hysterically all the way home, the sun warming their backs — at least where their arms weren't slung over each other's shoulders.

~FINIS~