A/N: Hi! Tvd is ending, I can't believe it! So here's my one-shot about Defan. I was inspired by the song Turn to Stone, just in case you want to check it out.

English is not my mother tongue so I apologize for any mistakes. And if you like it, please review or hit the favorite button :-)

Brother, how we must atone,

Before we turn to stone.

Damon kicked the door over and over again, until his legs stopped responding and he fell to his knees. It was a simple wooden door, but for Damon it might as well be a gigantic mountain. Protected with spells and soaked with verbane to make the prison even safer. Damon got up and, suspecting that his legs were no longer going to be of any use, he started banging on the door with his fists. Each impact was like a whip and in a short time his knuckles were bleeding and burning. Despite all his efforts, the door didn't move. He wanted to scream and cry at the same time because the time was running out.

Damon Salvatore was not a person used to praying. The last time he did it, he was human and his soul wasn't stained by the atrocities he had committed. But he was desperate enough to try. Please he begged to whoever was listening, I will pay any price, I don't mind spending the rest of eternity in hell, but let me get out of here, let me save him. He banged on the door again until he stopped feeling his hands and probably would have continued until running out of strength, but a cough interrupted him. Damon turned around.

The left side of the room was an orange glow. The flames had consumed everything and were on their way to do the same with the rest of the room, and the air was starting to turn gray. At the other side of the room, Stefan was lying on the floor, next to the wall. He was white as a sheet and his shirt was covered in blood. In less than a second, Damon sat down beside him and rested his brother's head on his lap so he could breathe better. When the coughing fit was over, his brother said with a trembling voice and lips stained with blood:

"Thanks, any progress with the door?"

"I am Damon Salvatore, no door will stop me," he replied with much less conviction than he felt.

Stefan smiled when he heard his brother's quip.

"Even one protected with verbane and spells?"

"I'm not a quitter."

"You know I'm still not going to get out of this, right?"

There it was. The truth he did not want or could face.

"Don't say that".

"The hole in my stomach will not go away."

"Shut up!" Damon shouted.

After a few seconds of endless silence, Damon said in a low voice.

"I'm sorry".

"It's okay," Stefan said. "I know you've never liked people telling you things you don't want to hear."

"I just can't stand being lied to. And you're not going to die, so that means what you just said is a lie."

"Damon ..."

Then the elder Salvatore decided to change tactics and started threatening him.

"I can't lose you, ok? I'm a disaster with you, what am I going to do without you? So you better live, not only for yourself but for those humans you love so much.

He thought Stefan was going to give him a lecture, or at least look at him disapprovingly, but he only sighed. The resignation in his brother's eyes was like a knife in his heart.

That's when he really realized the truth. There was no way out. There wasn't going to be a miracle. There was no last-minute spell or potion that could save his brother. These were his last moments with him and there was nothing he could do to change it. He felt how the air was wrung out of his lungs. Stefan watched him with compassion and, for a moment, Damon hated him with all his soul. Because he did not deserve compassion, he deserved his brother to despise him and spit at him. This was his fault.

"Don't blame yourself," Stefan said, as if he could read his mind. "You did everything you could."

"Not enough, I'm a lousy big brother."

Stefan laughed, followed by another coughing fit. When he calmed down, he answered in a low voice:

"Of course you are, just as I am a lousy younger brother, but I would not want it to be any other way."

Damon tangled his fingers in his brother's hair, "his hero hair" which he had so often mocked. All the heroes end up dying.

"You know, Damon. I always wanted to be human, and I haven't lasted six months as one, it's ironic."

There are many ironic things in this situation, Damon thought sadly. Just when he thought life could be kind, the only family he has left is snatched from him. The only person who doesn't remember him for the monster he has become, but for the man he once was.

"Do you remember when I asked you if there was hope for us?" Said Stefan.

Damon smiled bitterly.

"Yeah, I remember".

"I saw it in your eyes."

He didn't need to say anything else. Stefan had looked so broken and so lost that he had not been able to tell him what he really thought. That they had both become what they hated the most a long time ago without even noticing. That they had shed too much blood to get redemption. That monsters never get happy endings.

"Why did not you say anything then?" Damon asked, still stroking his hair.

The answer came in such a low voice that, had it not been for his enhanced senses, Damon wouldn't have heard it.

"Because I needed to believe you so badly..."

At that moment Stefan closed his eyes slowly and Damon panicked.

"No, no, no, no, please don't do this to me, not yet."

Damon shook him by the shoulders, not caring if his wounds got worse. He needed to see those dark eyes again, there were so many things he had to tell him ... he needed him to know how important he was to him, and that no matter how bad things were between them and how serious their fights were, he had always loved him. He just couldn't live without him.

But Stefan didn't open his eyes again. Damon tried to find that constant pumping that was his heartbeat, but he didn't hear it. He felt paralyzed, his felt like his heart was about to explode. And then, he screamed. He screamed for the life his brother and he could've had and never happened. He screamed until he was breathless and voiceless. When he finished his cheeks were wet but he didn't even notice. It hurt so much that he was tempted to turn his humanity off. Just let that cloak of coldness wrap him and stop feeling.

What's the point? He thought. He was tired of that vicious circle. He wouldn't mind turning his humanity off if it were a permanent state, but there was always something that made him wake up again months, years or decades later. And aftwewards, the regret and the guilt devoured him until, when he finally took control of his life again, another tragedy occurred and the cycle began again. Basically that was the summary of his last two centuries of life, if that could even be called life. He was so tired ... he couldn't go on anymore. The only thing that had given him strength in recent times was lying lifeless in his arms.

He would have liked to think about that cliché he had always heard when people die: he looks like he's sleeping. But even at that moment, Stefan's face showed that concerned expression that had always been a part of him and that many times had been caused by his older brother.

A big noise pulled Damon out of his thoughts and made him look around. Part of the roof had collapsed. The smoke had spread its tentacles all over the room making the air unbreathable and the flames were reaching towards him. Damon could almost feel them on his skin and felt a strange sense of relief. Soon the pain would end forever. He looked at his brother for the last time while the fire began to burn his clothes.

Together we started our path to hell and together we will finish it.