Author's Notes: This story begins around the middle of season two and contains mild spoilers of the same. Then again I think you should probably catch up on episodes before reading fanfiction, but that's just my opinion.

Disclaimer: I own no part of the Vampire Diaries or affiliated characters, this story is written for purely entertainment purposes and I am receiving no reimbursement for it, monetary or otherwise.

Chapter One - The Beast Within

Elena opened her eyes slowly and sighed when she felt an arm wrap around her waist, pulling her closer to the strong body next to her. Stefan whispered gently in her ear,

"Good morning love."

She rolled over and looked up at him, getting lost in his deep hazel eyes as he leaned down to kiss her. She closed her eyes and arched into the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling herself up closer to him, feeling his body press against hers. He kissed down her chin and lightly brushed her neck with his lips, gently massaging the delicate flesh. Elena sighed softly at the sensation and reached up to wind her fingers into his hair.

He suddenly sat back, breathing heavily and Elena could see the swollen veins around his eyes. She leaned back against the headboard, frustrated that he had to break the moment like this. She sat up and grasped his face in her hands, pressing her mouth to his again.

"Elena, please…" he put his hands up to try and stop her, but she leaned into him

"Please what?" She whispered into his ear

"Stop." His voice was pleading. He was fighting against his instincts and Elena was nearly irresistible. She caught the lobe of his ear with her teeth and he saw red. He flashed back to the most primal of instincts he had.

He grabbed her wrists that were near his face and threw her back on the bed. He felt the pricking in his gums as his fangs descended and he barely heard her say his name before his teeth were buried in the soft flesh of her neck.

He had been drinking her blood for weeks to try and make himself stronger, but never a flood like this. The sweet, metallic elixir flowed across his tongue and he sank his fangs deeper, wanting to devour her whole. A strangled yelp punctuated the shrill sound that had filled his ears and it was then he realized she must have been screaming. His lips twitched into a slight smirk, fear made blood taste better.

In the middle of his reverie he heard the door fly open and turned around to look at the intruder. Damon paused for only a fraction of a second to take in what was going on before he was by the bed and throwing Stefan to the ground. There was a feral gleam in the younger brother's eye and he tried to leap upward to attack Damon, but he was no match for the stronger vampire who drank human blood daily.

Damon landed on top of Stefan, holding him by the bare shoulders and slamming his head into the floor, which splintered under the impact. When the first hit did nothing, Damon forced his head back again, then the third time that Stefan's skull collided with the floor, his eyes rolled in his head and he blinked a few times. The veins around his eyes melted away and his fangs pulled back behind his lips.

"What's going on?" He asked, dazed from Damon's beating

"I could ask you the same thing, brother." Damon said and glared down at him, keeping a vice-like grip on his shoulders.

"I don't… oh God, Elena!" Stefan struggled to get up, but Damon was immovable.

"I really don't think it's a good idea for you to see her right now. Not when you have her blood all over you." The look in the ice blue eyes bearing down on Stefan was one of pain and… disappointment? Stefan could taste the blood in his mouth and it suddenly occurred to him what he had done. He had hurt Elena. Of his own free will he slammed his head back into the floor, nestling it into the forming crater and feeling the wood shards piercing his scalp.

Damon hoisted Stefan to his feet and threw him out the bedroom door and down the stairs. He rolled over and over and didn't seem to care when his entire body weight crashed into the wall were the stairs made an angle. He just lay in a crumpled heap, clenching a fist into his hair.

Damon closed the door to Stefan's bedroom and locked it, then turned around. Elena was cowering in Stefan's bed under the covers, hiding out of modesty or fear, he couldn't tell. She had one hand pressed to her neck were Stefan had bitten her and the normally immaculate white sheets were stained with bright red blood.

He approached the bed slowly and she said

"Stay away from me, Damon." He stopped dead in his tracks, then got the expression of anger he did when he was trying to cover up the fact that he cared

"I just want to make sure you're alright. So shoot me."

"Alright? Stefan has never done something like that before…" Elena trailed off, then added at a raised eyebrow from Damon, "at least not to me."

"It was like he was back in the old days again, purely instinct driven, not caring who he hurt." Damon said the words to the air more than to Elena, he was facing mostly away from her because he knew she would be uncomfortable if he were looking at her despite the fact that she was under the blankets. Vampires didn't have X-ray vision, but they still had a tendency to make humans nervous.

"So when did you two switch?"

"What do you mean?" He turned his head over his shoulder to look at her and she pulled the comforter up to her chin.

"I mean, from the stories that you two have told me, he was the 'bad brother' back then. He forced you to turn and you promised him an eternity of misery. When did he decide that he needed to be good?"

Damon took a deep breath as he arranged his thoughts and pulled the antique chair over from Stefan's desk. He set it down and straddled it backward, folding his arms across the back of it.

"Stefan…" Damon paused for a moment, "Stefan was a bit of a… well we used to call them "nancy-boys" he was very quiet, reserved, proper, the model of propriety. He was also weak. When he became a vampire, he saw his power as an opportunity to not be pushed around anymore and he took it to an extreme. Killing was his expression of independence, freedom, and strength. He was no longer the brother I had known and I disowned him as such. After a while of that life, he ran into Lexi, who taught him how to be human again, to be guilty, and he changed. I on the other hand felt all my guilt and humanity at the beginning and thought Stefan was being reckless and foolish, so I left. I wandered the world on my own, slowly growing more jaded to the filth of humanity until I stopped caring and decided that the human race could do with a few less cockroaches, and so I started killing for enjoyment. It is a sick a twisted world we live in."

Elena didn't do anything but nod. Her long dark hair was in disarray and she still hadn't taken her hand away from her neck.

"I can fix that for you." He said and she turned to him with an expression of confusion on her face

"Huh?"

"Physically, anyway, a little bit of my blood and you'll be healed in no time. Probably won't even be dizzy when you stand up."

Elena's eyes grew wide and she shook her head.

"Are you sure?" Elena shifted slightly and looked away for a moment, then back at him. He rolled up his sleeve and tore his wrist with his teeth. Blood welled out of the wound and ran down the outside of his wrist, dripping onto the comforter.

Elena reluctantly sat up, keeping the blankets pressed close to her body with one hand as she leaned forward to drink from Damon's wrist. Her forehead wrinkled in displeasure and she sat back with a sneer on her face. Damon could see the bite mark on her neck healing over and he stared at her for another moment longer. With blood on her lips she looked like Katherine, and that twisted something inside him that he couldn't identify.

"I'll leave so that you can get yourself cleaned up. Come downstairs when you're done and I'll try and get you something to eat. I'm not the best cook, but being Italian has to count for something, right?" He joked lightly and saw a ghost of a smile cross Elena's lips. He was making her feel better, and that made him feel better. It broke his heart that she didn't remember the night he confessed his love to her, but she couldn't know. Not then. With a heavy heart he turned to leave, but stopped when he heard Elena's voice from behind him.

"One more thing…"

"Yes?"

"Why did you save me?" She asked, her forehead creased in genuine confusion.

"Do you remember when Stefan and Katherine got stuck in the tomb together and he told me to protect you?" Elena nodded, "I didn't think there was a part he didn't say like 'and stop when I get out of here'. You were screaming, and you were terrified. I was protecting you, Elena. I always will." There was a gentleness in his voice that he didn't expect, and apparently she didn't either because her eyes widened and she sat back slightly, as though she were trying to process what had just happened.

"Anyway," he said, never being good at handling awkward pauses, "I'll be downstairs." He left the room and closed the door behind him, hearing her get up and begin to move around, collecting her clothes and turning on the water in the bathroom. Damon didn't see Stefan where he'd left him in a lump halfway down the stairs, so he ventured cautiously to the first floor.

He walked into the kitchen with the intent of finding something to make for Elena, and saw a note on the refrigerator, held in place by a single silvery magnet.

"Brother," it read, "I had to leave Mystic Falls, I am sure you know why. I hurt Elena and I can't bear to face her knowing what I've done and wondering if she can see me as anything but the monster who attacked her. I know this is not the most advantageous of times to be absent, with Klaus on the hunt for the doppelganger, but I trust you will protect her, as you did this morning from me. Keep her safe, I will return if I feel I can trust myself again. Until then, I wish you the best."

Damon crushed the note in his fist and leaned on the kitchen counter.

"Not the most advantageous time? Understatement of the century…" Damon looked around absently, wondering how he was supposed to single handedly take care of Elena, when Caroline was having trouble with Matt, there was a present werewolf threat, and Bonnie was trying to figure out the limits of her powers. He didn't realize how long he had been lost in his thoughts until he heard Elena open the bedroom door and start to come down the stairs. Then the only thing on his mind was

"Dear God, what do I tell her…?"