A/N: Just a story I'm putting together, mostly for my own amusement. Note the title of this story is taken from the song "Afraid" by The Neighborhood. I believe it fits Klefan quite well (IE, "All my friends always lie to me" and "It hurts but I won't fight you"), as well as Stefan's struggle with Silas which is going to take part in this story slightly. Also, the lyrics work phenomenally perfect for what I imagine Stefan is going to be like in the upcoming episodes as well as how I imagine I'll write him in this story.

Title: Feeling Scared to Breathe
Summary: Stefan decided on going to New Orleans to visit Klaus upon getting rid of Silas. But Silas had halted his decision when he trapped Stefan in the box meant for him. Now, after Stefan has finally rid himself of Silas, he is on his way to New Orleans. Unfortunately for him, killing Silas hasn't helped the misery Silas caused one bit. The memories won't stop replaying behind his eyes.
Rating: M
Central: Niklaus/Stefan. (Undecided if it will just be comrades, or slash. Either way, it will center on them in due time.)
Plot: Will take place on The Originals set after the first few chapters are gone through, so will most likely follow The Originals plot a bit.
Warning: Excessive violence and blood, minor/major torture scenes from and to major characters, and strong language. Future chapters also may include some questionable tastes, and dark themes.
Word Count: 1,755

CHAPTER 1 || Prologue

Stefan's POV

After Lexi was gone I was left alone with my own thoughts in the silence of my car. The drive to the quarry was a little ways away from the Boarding House and along the way I was left with plenty of time to consider my future. But for some reason it wasn't my future that my mind kept thinking about, but rather my past. It had sorted through everything that I had experienced since coming back to Mystic Falls two years ago, and the thoughts had left me more wound up then anything. The good and the bad and the … Undecided memories rushed through my thoughts in loop.

As Lexi put it, I had found an epic love and that would be carried in my heart always. But it wasn't the only thing that I had gained through the last two years. My brother and I after so many decades, nearly two centuries, have finally found a good place; we're finally closer to what we were when we were human all those years ago. It's something that I only dreamed about for the longest time, something that for a while now I thought was just a desperate wish of my own long held onto humanity. Truly for nearly forty years now I had lost all hope that we'd ever reconnect again. An eternity of misery and all that was the only thing I was expecting to share between myself and Damon ever again.

Of course there were the bad as well, with losing Lexi being the worst. After that I felt more alone then I had when Damon walked out on me. Lexi was pretty much my only friend; she was always there for me through it all. But then along came Caroline, with her bubbly personality and semi-neurotic tendencies. Caroline managed to fill a void in my life that Damon had created upon staking Lexi on my birthday months prior. Making new friends wasn't the only surprise either, but reemerging memories of old love and friendship had come along as well. A true sense of camaraderie that had for a time being made me forgot all about Damon and my loneliness. It was a gift, Klaus had bestowed upon him in the twenties. A gift that left me resentful for a time being when he returned my memories decades later, for I would have honestly preferred to have stayed with Klaus and Rebekah all those years ago; or at least preferred having those memories of such companionship that he had been seeking his entire eternal life. Compulsion may take away the memories, but the feeling that something had been taken from me had always remained, a loss of a true kinship that I desperately craved as much as love and family.

The last two years, despite all the bad had been a gift. Everything was more then I imagined I would ever have again in my eternity; love, friendship, and family. True devotion and understanding, packed with happiness I hadn't felt in a long time. Despite my banter towards Damon about his friendship with Alaric or my biting comments about his friendship with Elena, I had enjoyed seeing him with them. It hadn't been since we were human that I had seen Damon so comfortable and well … Human. When he was with Alaric, there was just this sense of understanding and companionship that brought out an inner glee within me. Damon never really made friends since he had become a vampire, only enemies or pawns. It was true friendship that they shared, and I could tell Damon despite a tough front, had treasured it. The thought had always had me thinking of my former friendship with Klaus much more then I'd like to admit. Despite my own denial at the time, it had been true that he did understand me the same way Alaric did Damon.

With Elena, it hurt, it really did. Seeing the way his head snapped in her direction when she entered a room, the way his eyes glowed upon landing on her. How he gained a small smile whenever she was mentioned in passing. Unfortunately it had ended badly for me. Despite trying to push my jealousy aside all the time, it had come to fruition anyway. But even so, my jealousy doesn't change the fact that I was happy, and still am happy for Damon. That Damon has come so far in the last two years, from his humanity and emotions, to his friends and new found sense of good. Sure he may not be all good, but that's a given being that he's a Vampire and has always reveled in that. Knowing and seeing that Damon is happy is enough to lessen my anger about the breakup. But it wasn't enough to lessen the anger of the fact that I don't want to leave! I've enjoyed the last two years in my home, my home. But I can't bear to stay and watch them together; it would simply eat away at me. The familiarity of this place, and these people, it's what I was craving. The devotion, friendship and family are what I wanted. But given it up for now was for the best, at least for my sanity. With all these thoughts raging through my head, it really curved my decision. It managed to surprise myself even. But it seemed right; because what I needed right now was a sense of familiarity to keep me going. Whether it becomes hostile or friendly familiarity doesn't matter. My destination was decided, and upon getting rid of Silas's body I was headed to New Orleans.

Dropping the bag had startled me, not so much the dropping of course but the sound made upon the bag hitting the dirt. The sound of shattering, what I could only guess was clay, had rung through the air. My gaze looked over the bag thoroughly, brow furrowed in confusion. My eyes narrowed slightly before I kicked the bag, upon hearing the noise once more I immediately dropped to a crouch next to the bag and reached down to open it. Slowly I pulled out a piece of what looked like shattered stone. After pulling out another in a somewhat trance like state I snapped back to reality and freaked as my mind went into over drive. Pulling open the bag while looking rapidly over it top to bottom I was startled upon hearing a very familiar voice behind me.

"Don't bother." The voice of Katherine/Elena came from behind me. "I'm not there."

My body stilled for a moment in response, but not too long after I whirled my head around and found myself facing what appeared to be Elena. Slowly I brought myself to my feet and stared down the man before me before addressing him with a whisper, "Silas … You were stone. They saw you, the spell worked."

Silas just continued smiling the carbon copy of Elena's smile at me in return. "That's the funny thing about spells; they're bound by nature. Nature demands balance so every spell has a loop hole. The spell that turned me to stone was bound by a witch. A living witch; so when that witch died, the spell broke."

My mind was failing to understand. That or was trying to deny what Silas was trying to imply. "Bonnie? Bonnie's not dead."

"Well it doesn't matter does it? And here's where the mystery of me comes full circle. I created the immortality spell two thousand years ago. I could never die. So nature needed to find a balance; a version of me that could die. A shadow self, a doppelgänger."

As much as I wanted to not believe a word Silas was saying, it started to make sense. Despite that though I really didn't want to be dealing with this, Silas was supposed to be taken care of and I was supposed to be on the road by now. "So this is finally your real face? You're another one of them?"

"Not exactly." Silas drawled out with clear boredom in reply. Suddenly I wasn't facing Elena, but a copy of me and I found myself dumbfounded. Silas stood before me, looking like me with a slight smirk glaring off my face. It was the eeriest sight I'd ever taken in, the moment had felt so surreal to begin with but now it was just beyond so. "Hello my shadow self." Silas revealed in a rather unconcerned tone. My mind was still trying to keep up in comprehension as Silas started slowly closing the gap between us when suddenly he shoved a stake in my stomach. Before I could fall over Silas took hold of me, leaving the stake embedded in my stomach. As he kept me upright I couldn't help but be drawn to a similar scenario involving Klaus some odd months ago. "Do you have any idea, what it's like to starve for two thousand years?" He whispered the insinuation, traced with hints of pain and anger lacing his tone.

The next bit happened in a haze of pain. Silas had shoved me into the box that I was going to put him into and locked the door before shoving it over the cliff into the watery depths below. Slowly the box sank to the floor beneath all the while water rushed in. Pulling the stake out as quickly as I could, I felt my mind go into panicked frenzy before I started banging against the box all around. My mind flashed images forward of people I cared about, of people I was already desperately wishing would find and save me fast as I felt the water enter my lungs and I started to choke. Contrary to popular belief, Vampires do need to breathe. As I once explained to Elena, as Katherine once explained to me, a Vampires body functions just as normally as a humans as long as they have a steady intake of blood in their system. The water was quickly suffocating and I knew instead of fighting it I should just let it in and get it over with, but irrational thought kept me from doing so. The images wouldn't stop flicking through my head as I slowly started to drown to death, being a Vampire allowing me a little more time of suffocating before I actually drowned. The images started with Damon, then Lexi, Elena, Caroline, when finally Klaus before I passed out from the bursting of my lungs.

A/N: Thank you for reading this, I very much hope you enjoyed it so far. This idea has come to me based on the ending of S05E07 "Death and the Maiden" of TVD with Stefan freaking out, and from the promo for S01E08 "The River in Reverse" of TO with Klaus pretty much being on his own with everyone against him. After that Stefan burying Silas bit, I've listened to the song "Afraid" from that scene on loop a lot, and it was somewhat also inspiration for this story.

Basically, Stefan will be going through trying to get revenge on Silas, and once he does he'll believe it will "free him" from his pain of the memories. But it won't and he'll end up showing up in New Orleans (Cause that was his plan in this AU, like you just read XD) a mess, perhaps even with his humanity off depending on how the next episode of TVD goes. Don't worry though, because it won't draw too much on TVD S05, it will go by fast and then once Silas is buried, Stefan will make his way too New Orleans in time to give Klaus the comrade he desperately needs as it appears he's going to be against the whole city alone. I'm undecided if I should make this a crossover since it will mostly be taking place in TO verse or if I should just leave it as a TVD fic as I have it now?

Anyway, on a last note, I've loved Klefan since that last episode of S02, and have always wanted to do a fanfic for them and this seemed like the perfect time. But again, as it said above, I have no idea if this will be slash, or just them as comrades. It'll probably be up to popular opinion in the reviews though; I just don't know which direction to take at the moment. If it does become slash, it won't be too detailed. Also, if it is slash, it won't be really romantic or gooey, given that Stefan is a Ripper (And may just have his humanity off too boot with his new found emotional issues) and Klaus is somewhat a possessive psychopath.