A/N: Hey guys! So this is a Defan story I came up with a while ago, but only managed to sit down and write recently. To let you in more on the plot-Stefan is a five-year-old kid and Damon is thirteen. This is happening five months after their mother's death. The story is evolving in the 21 century not the 19 just to make that clear since I've seen fanfictions here who describe their life back when the characters from the show were born. I'll make the chapters short since it's not such a heavy story and I just enjoy writing it. Hope you like it and please let me know what you think of it. ((:

Damon's POV

I can feel someone pulling up my blanket lightly and in my sleep I tug it back to myself hoping that I'm just dreaming and this is not what I think it is. Or more like-not who I think it could be. Then I feel his small hand gently shaking me on the shoulder and him whispering my name.

"Damon…" he sounds as if he has cried which makes me turn around abruptly. I'm not that sleepy anymore. Even though it's dark I can still see his face and the tears that have fallen down his small rounded cheeks that were now too pale. They've left trays, as if he has cried a whole river, he's scared and his biting his lip as usually. Once before when he was younger he had made it bleed and I remember mother scolding him for it. "Damon?" he asks this time, hoping that I'm completely awake and I'll finally realize that it was him who's interrupting me, probably somewhere after midnight.

He's small and very skinny, his PJs are too big for him. Actually, that's my old PJs, but mom made him wear it. I guess he didn't want to stop doing it now when she was gone, because he thought he would disappoint her even though she can't even see him anymore.

"Stefan, what on earth is going on?" I ask, trying to sound a little annoyed that he has woken me up, but I'm actually worried-he's been waking up in the last four nights and has come here every single one of them. He looks confused now, doesn't know what to say so I decide to help him, this time sounding more benevolent "Did you have another bad dream?"

He nods his head eagerly, satisfied that I've said the words out loud.

"Come on, hop up here next to me." I say and he can't even wait for me to finish the sentence, but climbs up besides me. I help him find his place and move away so he can put his little blond head on the pillow as well. He's still shaking, though and I put the blanket back on both of us.

"Damon?" he says my name with his childish five year-old voice. He wants to talk and I already curse myself for letting him sleep here since he wouldn't let me fall asleep soon. "Father was drunk tonight." he says silently as if he's afraid the words will crash everything under us and leave us homeless and alone, which in a way we were, especially ever since mother died five months ago. His statement completely wakes me up though. I don't expect him to let those stuff he sees sink in, but then again I realize that I'm underestimating him. He might be only five, but he can sense that everything in this house is just wrong. It's just turned upside down.

I'm glad that I'm not able to see his face, because I'm pretty sure it could bring tears to my eyes. He is like this, my little brother, he's sad all the time. Before, when mother was still alive, he was a little lonesome and keeping to himself, but he knew how to have fun, especially when I took him out to play with me-he was careless and he ran along, we played together with our friends and his laugh filled the rooms of the house, but ever since she has passed away he's like a whole different kid. He is, because I know I am as well. He completely stopped smiling, he had nightmares and he almost didn't talk. Our aunt Sarah-my mother's sister, who came to our house every day and took care of us, was worried that there's something wrong going on with him. Personally I only thought he's sad just as I was, even though I was trying not to show it-I always made attempts to make him smile a little more and sometimes I succeeded.

"Come on, Stefan, go to sleep." I say instead, denying to confirm his statement about our drunk of a father. "We have school tomorrow."

I close my eyes, but he's just so restless that it doesn't give me any opportunity to even try and fall back asleep.

"Damon?" he asks again trying to figure if I'm still up. He knows that sometimes I get mad and answer him abruptly which is why he's so cautious.

"Yeah" I say after a big sight.

"I couldn't find Lincoln tonight." Lincoln was his little teddy bear. Actually one of his little teddy bears, he had three and he named them all after our greatest presidents-there was Jefferson, and Kennedy as well and I could see them on our window post from my bed even though it was dark. Poor Kennedy had only one eye and Jefferson lacked a leg, but Lincoln was his favorite because mother bought it for him for his last birthday and he always slept with it. He had the tendency to lose them sometimes when he played around our small house and to forget where he has put them, then he came to me with a crying voice, asking to come help him figure out where they were. In the beginning I couldn't understand why he wanted to give them such extravagant names, but later I remembered that we had this small children history encyclopedia with the presidents in it and mother used to give it to him as a distraction while she cooked in our kitchen. Speaking of books, our aunt Sarah almost succeeded in her goal of teaching him how to read, even though he was only five and she was very proud of her achievements. I could tell he was going to be smart, but he didn't really like going to school, because the boys made fun of him or called our father names, which made it all harder for him. I knew he got angry and he wanted to fight with them-he did a couple of times. I knew it because I did it too. It didn't matter that I was older-I had feelings too and insulting me or my family was something I couldn't bear.

"We'll find him tomorrow, Stefan, I promise. "

For a moment he went silent and I was finally glad that I could go back to dreaming about the time when I would wake up and aunt Sarah would've made us something for breakfast, but unfortunately that didn't last long.

"Damon?"

"Oh, God, yes!" I was getting impatient.

"Thanks for letting me sleep with you." that made me regret being so rude and so I fixed the blanket once again and noticed him finally closing his eyes.

"It's fine, brother."

I can't believe how fast time passes when all you want to do is sleep, but around six I heard aunt Sarah open the front door and I realized that she'll soon make us get up. She went to the kitchen where my father's been snoring all night, thankfully without disturbing both Stefan and me before that. I really wanted to say that the reason he drank so much was because of my mother's death, but he used to do this ever since I couldn't remember. Well..he has never been in such a desperate situation, but every now and then he got drunk and mom used to scold him so much about it. They often got into fights and we could hear them from our room. Stefan usually got scared and I would hear him cry in his bed next to me so I would start telling him a story or a fairy tell so he could calm down. Now it was worse though. Father had no boundaries anymore and he was on the verge of getting fired, which I hoped wouldn't happen. He didn't like neither me nor Stefan-he said that I was lazy and Stefan is an idiot since he was scared to talk in front of him. Sometimes I got into fights with him as well, when I was fed up with his behavior, which made Stefan pull me away and trying to get me out of the room since he was afraid something would happen. I wasn't afraid of our father though, I had no reason to be-he was just a drunken old broken man who didn't care about anyone and I resented him with all my heart. I resented him because he didn't treat our mother right and I resented him for making Stefan feel the way he did now.

I heard aunt Sarah open the door. She was a nice woman, though she tend to yell at us sometimes too much and she often scolded us for not doing something right. She made terrible soup and yet it was the only thing that she could cook relatively good, besides her pancakes of course, but mom used to say that everyone can make pancakes so I'm not sure I should count them. She had two kids of her own-girls, awful girls! They were really annoying. I admit that Stefan was getting on my nerves most of the times, but those two little monsters were terrible. Even my little brother, who always silently agreed to whatever he was told, resented going to their house, but she took us there sometimes when father was just too drunk and she was worried about us. I preferred staying here, no matter what the situation was. Even though she was a little tough, I knew that she loved both me and my brother. The problem was that she didn't often show it. Or better said-never.

"Damon, get up you'll be late" she doesn't bother yelling in seven in the morning and Stefan suddenly opens his eyes scared and still sleepy, trying to figure what was going on. Once he saw her, he relaxed back on the pillow. "You too little devil!" she adds to my brother, but he ignores her. I guess he's just too tired since we didn't sleep much last night. She gets out of the room and I hop out of the bed, trying to find where my jeans were in all this mess. Stefan keeps prolonging the inevitable while I get ready and wash my teeth.

"Come on! Get up already, we'll be late!" I shake his shoulder, but he lets a very funny childish sigh out and pushes me away, I push back and we turn it all into one of our playful fights, which always make me laugh out loud because he's very funny when he's trying to put all his strength into bringing me down. Eventually I start tickling him and for the first time in such a long period I hear his laugh. Aunt Sarah comes back, though only to scold us and I leave him to get dress while I go to the kitchen. He comes back two minutes later dressed with a very old ruffled black sweater, which actually used to be mine. He hopes up on the place next to me and aunt Sarah hands him over a pancake.

"What on earth did you put on yourself, Stefan?" she starts scolding again and comes closer to him to inspect the situation.

"It was the only one I could find, aunt Sarah." he says apologetically. She tosses her hands in the air and goes to the sink. She hasn't done the laundry and she's cursing herself, but she won't say out loud that it's her fault. Instead she starts blabbing about how she's doing everything in this house and that our father doesn't even think about us and what our needs were, how nobody thinks of her and she's running two houses and taking care of four children and so on and so on until I finally give Stefan a sign that it's time to go and he shoves the rest of his pancake in his mouth. We say goodbye and she gives us our lunch which is actually two sandwiches with nothing in-between to actually make them worthy of this word. Stefan takes a while to put his shoes on, because they have laces and he can't tie them up. For a moment though I forget about that fact and open the door almost on the verge of leaving him behind when I hear his silent voice, begging me to pay him attention. I turn back and lean down to fix his shoes while he puts his small hands on my shoulders so he wouldn't fall. Then we practically run outside because we'll miss the bus and I urge him to keep going until we're finally up. He finds his way next to Simon Fell-the youngest boy of the Fell family, who have five sons. I think Simon is actually the only friend Stefan has-they both play a lot in school and they are a little bit of outsiders or as much as five-year-olds could be outsiders. I can hear them already eagerly explaining something to one another and that makes me smile.

I find my way back to the seats where the older students sit and greet my friend Alaric, who is once again talking about girls-I think he has a hormones problem lately, or that just the beginning of our teenage years is not doing him any good, not for now at least. I don't fail to listen to him though, but I lose my attention fast and stare at the window only to notice that it has started snowing again. We had three weeks until Christmas vacation and honestly this year was the first one I wasn't eager for this time to come, simply because it would be our first one without mother and secondly because I doubt we'll actually get to celebrate it properly. I guess aunt Sarah would take us to her house, which wasn't something to look forward to. I stare back at my brother and notice his blond messy hear a few places before me. Then something hits me-he doesn't have his hat on and it's fucking cold outside. I stand up and tell Alaric to remember his thoughts until I come back and he gives me a wide smile. He's a good person and a good friend, but God, he talks too much sometimes. I like going to his house though-his mother makes delicious dinners and I always regret not having Stefan there as well, he would've loved the meals this woman makes! It reminds me of our mother's cooking-just so delicious!

"Stefan!" I shake his shoulder and he turns around worriedly "Where's your hat, buddy?"

It takes him some time to remember where he has put it and he even searches through his jacket pockets and opens up his little bag full of pencils and shabby notebooks with doodles in them. He liked to draw.

After he fails to find it he shrugs his little shoulders and gives me a confused look.

"I don't know, Damon. I might have left it at school or at home." I lean down so I could be in his level and take my own hat down and roll it up a little so it could be more suitable for his small head and then put it on.

"Here, you'll take mine. Try to find yours later though, it's too cold outside." I say and hurry to stand up but he stops me and catches the hood of my sweater, trying to put it on my head which almost makes my heart stop-he's always thinking about me, even when I am not.

"You put this on, Damon" he says after he fails to cover my big head with his small palms.

"I will. Go, now!" I say as I notice that we are approaching his school. He gives me an unhappy look, with which he wants to tell me that he doesn't want to go in there, but I don't surrender to his puppy green always-teary eyes and give him a stern look, trying to make him understand that there is no other way. "Don't play outside during lunch break, because you'll get sick." I wanted to make sure that he remembers that, since last winter he got pneumonia and scared the hell out of us. Mother always made sure that he listens to what she says, she cared enough to think of those stuff, now she was gone and I had to care.

He and Simon Fell hopped out and as we were leave the street I noticed him looking back up to the place where Alaric and me sat. Then Simon pulled him up and they headed to the entrance. I shook my head and let a deep sigh out, hoping that things would somehow slowly start to get better for us all.