Promt fill for streusel: Stefan/Damon - It's a cold cold world we swam into


They didn't know it'd be like this.

To be fair, it wasn't like either of them spent a lot of time discussing the pros and cons of becoming a vampire with Katherine. They absolutely did not mention it to each other. Then their sire was ripped away from them before they took their first bite.

The few tricks Damon gleaned from her inevitably turned into foreplay, so he wasn't sure what would really be helpful in the long run without Katherine. He never planned to be living this life with his brother.

Stefan only had a vague awareness of the whole thing from the beginning. Most knowledge of Katherine's dark side came after he turned, memories that flooded in when the compulsion wore off. What was left was terrifying and in no way something he wanted to become. At least not intentionally.

They only figured out the rest of her clan could have been of some use after every single one of them were locked in a church set aflame.

The decades dragged in bitterness and resentment. Alone.

Stefan was overtaken by the bloodlust first. Some would argue it was inevitable-he had no idea what being alone with this curse would feel like. His compassion for people only fueled his guilt. Which fueled his hunger, which caused some bad habits.

Damon pining for his lost love, taking her betrayal towards him out on his brother assuaged his bloodlust for a time.

Daylight was sucked away in plotting the freedom of Katherine. Loneliness clouded Damon's nights.

Stefan's best hope was to simply exist, not allowing any attachment to tempt him to ruin.

It took them a century and half and the almost absolute destruction -again- of Mystic Falls before the found common ground. A common goal at least, in protecting the girl who reminded them both of what it was like to feel something.

The warmth of her body, of which Stefan experienced to some satisfaction, and of which Damon later got secondhand in equal measure, chipped away at the frost that surrounded them.

But it wasn't Elena's job to bring them back together. She just was a glimmer of their past that leveled their eyes on each other.

When given the option, Damon reached towards Stefan first.

The dawn will break eventually.

It has to.

Right?