Sorry for the absence. I have been very busy with school...and, well, laziness. Luckily, I have been feeling more inspired recently, so look forward to more updates! This is a Defan oneshot, so for all you readers who fear INCEST, SLASH, ETC. I don't recommend this fic. That said, I hope you guys enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing. R&R please :)

Damon stood across from me, eyes wide and intense. His stance was defensive and strong, yet he seemed to be quivering somehow, like a broken child. His words hung in the air like a thick blanket, drowning out every other sound, every other thought.

"I did it for you. For us."

And finally, everything made sense. I understood. And all the pain, suffering, and torture I'd suffered at my older brother's hands meant nothing. My feelings, after over a century, were realized and returned, eclipsing all good and bad events between us up to this point. We were both frozen in the moment of his epic admission. All I could think about was how soft yet hard his face looked, and how badly I yearned to reach out and caress it.

_2 HOURS EARLIER_

"SHUT UP! You bitch, why don't you just stop talking. No one loves you, no one thinks you're cute or sexy or likeable. You are nothing. And soon enough, you'll be dead." Damon was hissing and shouting into Katherine's face, grasping a stake tightly in his right arm, his left dedicated to crushing her windpipe against the wall.

I was using all my strength to stop him from plunging the wood through Katherine's heart right this very second. If he did, Elena could be in danger. She and Katherine were magically connected, so everything that was happening to Katherine was also happening to Elena. I had to get him off of her windpipe.

"Damon! Damon, you're hurting Elena too, stop it!" I was yelling right into his face, but those blue eyes-those beautiful blue eyes-saw only Katherine and reflected hatred. It was as if he couldn't even hear me.

I grew more frantic. Elena was…well, she was important to me. She was like a best friend, and a support system. I did love her, that was certain. But the thing she would never know, that no one would ever know, was that my heart had belonged to someone else for the past 149 years. The pain of living each day with such unrequited and impossible love had been alleviated, if only slightly, by Elena's presence in my life. If that's even what it could be called. Life seemed to imply lightness and vivacity. Vampirism had turned mine into a dark chasm of guilt and depression. I couldn't stand the thought of losing one of the few candles that cut through my miserable existence, even for a cause as noble as murdering Katherine, the eternal bitch who'd torn my brother and I apart as well as damning us to eternal bloodthirstiness.

"DAMON!" I was nearly screaming in my last-minute efforts to get Damon off of her. Finally, something seemed to click. His murderous glare clouded and he looked at me, almost pouting. Simultaneously, he dropped Katherine's body to the floor, where she crumpled unceremoniously, likely amazed to have escaped his wrath with her life.

"Right, Elena…" He murmured, his countenance resembling a slightly injured child. My stomach twisted seeing him so vulnerable. I didn't know what the sudden change was, but he was already walking to an armchair before I could think to ask.

Katherine had been goading us both since we'd become trapped together in an upstairs bedroom in the Lockwood Mansion. Below us, an unsuspecting party was still reveling, I could hear the buzz of hundreds of voices and the subtle instrumentation of the quartet that the mayor must've hired for the event. Somehow, they hadn't heard our commotion.

The current rooming situation had come about when Bonnie, needing time and isolation to save Elena from Katherine's witch, had cast a containment spell with all three of us in a room. Katherine had returned to mystic falls, and, suspecting her safety might've been in danger, connected herself and Elena so that we couldn't kill or seriously injure her without risking Elena's life as well. Of course, she knew that neither of us-me especially-would be willing to part with her doppelganger. Therefore, she was protected. Unfortunately, my brother was much more impulsive than I, and he'd leapt into his fit of anger after Katherine proclaimed her love for ME. And only ME. Her words resembled too closely a phrase that Damon had heard echoed throughout his existence.

"It will always be Stefan."

I couldn't say that those words hurt me as much as they did him, but it had to be close. For each time someone chose me, the noble one, the calm one, the good one, they broke his heart, shriveling away more of his humanity. My father. Katherine. Elena. People in general. They always chose me. Except for myself. No one knew it, but I would always choose Damon. HAD always chosen him.

My older brother had been the focus of my mortal life. Everything he did seemed to me brilliant and attractive. Even his trysts with the local girls were amusing and displayed his charm. I looked up to him in adoration.

Then, Katherine had happened. And then we turned. He'd been stunning as a human. As a vampire, Damon was a smoldering angel of death. His lashes were dark and heavy, fringing beautifully blue irises that could stop nearly anyone in their tracks. His hair was a raven mess that begged you to grab a handful and pull him into a kiss. His pale, perfect skin glowed like moonlight, broken by soft lips like dusky flower petals. Words could not describe his appeal. Because despite all of the romanticism to his fine features, he maintained a constant air of superior masculinity and strength. His body was powerful beyond belief, his chest and abs sculpted but not grotesquely so.

These thoughts I kept a secret. Forever. The person…the Vampire who'd captured my heart and held it in a crushing grip, who'd been the object of my twisted desires for more than a century, was my very own brother, Damon Salvatore. No one could know, for obvious reasons, yet I couldn't let it go. I'd drowned myself in blood, flipped the switch, and slept with countless women in my attempts to extinguish my unnatural love, but to no avail.

So now, here I was, having barely kept Damon from finishing the cause of much of our desolation, thinking on how beautiful he looked illuminated by the flickering light of the fireplace next to the armchair he'd slumped himself into. At least Elena was safe. For now.

Katherine, being much older than Damon and me, had resurrected herself with ease. She was again slinking towards me like a cat stalking its prey. I was worried that Damon's next outburst might not be controllable with any methods I possessed. Bonnie needed to hurry up.

"Stef, baby, you always knew I loved you. Remember the ball?" Even as she spoke to me, she was stealing sideways glances at Damon, waiting for his pained reaction. He didn't flinch. For a moment I worried that he'd either gone catatonic or switched his emotions off.

His eyes seemed to be glued to the door of the bedroom, awaiting the moment we could escape so he could bolt away from both me and Katherine and drown his sorrows in whiskey with Alaric. I was unhappy at the eagerness with which Damon avoided me. When he'd returned to Mystic Falls I couldn't help but hope that something had changed between us. That maybe decades of longing had drawn him towards me like a moth to flame. Instead, he'd proceeded to kill the innocent town residents and manipulate my relationship with Elena. He was the same old impulsive, evil vampire. I was the same old puppy-dog little brother with a secret affinity for the dark side. That is, if there were two enticingly sexy eyes in its visage.

I looked toward where Damon was staring to. Bonnie was standing there, nodding at Damon. A whoosh of cool air passed behind me. Damon had disappeared. I whirled around when a high-pitched cry hit my ears. The cry that sounded suspiciously like Elena.

The initial panic faded when I realized it was Elena's much older twin who'd made the sound of pain. Katherine's mouth was open in a perfect o, her eyes wide and teary. Her hands clutched at something emerging from the center of her chest. Damon was behind her, wearing a sever scowl. The image didn't make any sense. His hands were embracing her neck, apparently holding her upright.

I didn't know what to feel. Her resemblance to Elena inspired a protective instinct in me. Her teary, glazed stare filled me with horror and disgust. My face must've betrayed my emotional tumult, because when Damon looked at me, he immediately dropped her graying body so that it was no longer facing me. I watched as veins slowly began to protrude on Katherine's body. She was dead. Damon had staked her. This information did little to clear up my head.

A strong hand gripped my shoulder, pulling me up to stare into Damon's now close face.

"Brother?" He questioned gently, searching me. Katherine's face was seared into my mind. I didn't have the stomach for killing or watching death. Good thing I was a vampire.

My mouth wouldn't open to respond to Damon, to set him at ease. I was frozen in shock, not angry, but to him, I must've seemed disappointed.

He saw my lack of words to be yet another denial of acceptance or love for himself. I was rejecting him just like all the others. Damon disappeared in a flash, the curtains of the window in the bedroom barely rustling to signal his departure. Now, instead of Katherine's face in my head I saw Damon's hurt. I had to find him and comfort him, let him know that I was not angry that he'd killed Katherine. In fact, I was glad he did it, because I probably never would've had the strength to.

I didn't even stop to make sure Elena was okay before jumping out the window in search of my brother.

_END FLASHBACK_

I'd found Damon at the boarding house, predictably drinking a glass of bourbon…or ten. Luckily, being a vampire made handling the alcohol natural.

"Come to lecture me on my humanity, brother? Do tell me, why shouldn't I have killed that bitch? She is-or was-the reason we are what we are. So whatever moral approach you are going to throw in my face, I'm not going to apologize." His terse tone betrayed his pain. Whenever Damon was injured, he put off the tough guy act. It was his defense mechanism. I wanted so badly to stride to him and kiss away his frown. The heat burning inside me was shoved down. Like always.

"No, actually, that's what I came to do."

My response made him turn his head. The look of disbelief in his eyes was a nice change from the negative emotions that had been tinting them lately. He stood up, his shirt clinging to his strong shoulders, unbuttoned just enough to expose a tantalizing view of the hollow of his throat and the slant of his collarbones. I stared for one second too long. He noticed.

"You, Saint Stefan, apologizing to evil older brother?" He mocked in a smooth purr.

"I'm glad you killed Katherine." I muttered, trying not to betray how much he was affecting me tonight. I had never been so close to revealing my desires, but ignoring him in this state was impossible! He was only about a foot away from me, and my nose caught the scent of alcohol and a sweet honey that was Damon. It brought back memories of us as children, when we'd been close as brothers could be. Before hatred an distrust had tainted our every interaction.

His eyes widened further, nearly blinding me in their beauty. He took a step backwards. His mask dropped, revealing again the unsure boy in all his vulnerable appeal. I knew this was a critical moment.

I held his gaze, showing him my true gratefulness and lack of bitterness.

"I did it for you. For us." He said slowly. As soon as the words were out he became even more innocent looking, even more breakable. Breathtaking.

And inwardly, I sighed at his admission. Everything came together in a cataclysmic moment where both of us stood staring at the other, communicating over a century of repressed emotion and feeling. For us. He'd said for us. I couldn't do this anymore.

I stepped forward and placed my hands on either side of his perfectly sculpted face and pressed my lips against his. Hard.

He was still under my touch, not returning or pulling away. I opened my eyes, and he was staring right back at me, but now there was something else there. Something more Damon than the hurt being that had been there before. He was grinning.

In the few seconds I pulled away he grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me in again, controlling the kiss, seeking entrance to my mouth with his insistent tongue. I obliged and reveled in the wet heat of his mouth. Our tongues dueled and swirled around one another, fighting for dominance. He placed his free hand on my chest and pressed his palm against me. I moaned at the contact.

When we came up for air, I was gasping in arousal. I had waited for this, assuming it would never happen, for as long as I'd lived, and now that it was reality, I was overwhelmed with pleasure and questions.

"How long have you…?" I ground out between breaths before Damon recaptured my mouth with his soft yet forceful lips. He pulled away and chuckled.

"You always want to talk, broody Stefan. Let's see if, for once, I can make you speechless." His devilish threat was sexual in itself. I shuddered.

In a half second I was slammed against the nearest wall and assaulted by Damon's skilled mouth on my neck, teasing me with his teeth. Electricity was jolting through my body from the pressure of his fangs against my sensitive skin. His hands reached under my shirt and ran over my stomach, tracing the edge of my pants. I was already getting hard.

I wound my hands in Damon's onyx hair like I'd dreamed of doing earlier in the night. I wanted to close my eyes and moan, but I couldn't bear to take my sight off of the perfection ravaging me. Everything about him was even better than I'd imagined.

"Damon…" I uttered in want. I wanted to feel his skin on mine. We both still had clothes on, but he could take care of that with a few swipes of his hands. He ripped my shirt off with hunger, then removed his own just as quickly, pressing us together. His cool skin burned me.

I reached around his back and grasped at his tightly muscled shoulders. I skimmed my hands down to his tapered waist and began to yank feebly at the belt holding his low-slung black jeans on his carved hips. My urgency increased when he reached his hands down my thighs and gripped my hips crushingly. I managed to rip it away and bare his sex to me. Of course, no underwear.

His impressive length was semi-erect. I dropped to my knees and moved to take it in my mouth, wanting to give Damon everything I'd held inside for all these years. I wanted to give him intense pleasure.

"Stef…" His voice was raw with passion.

"I want to." I responded and then shoved my lips over the head of his cock. I moved slowly at first, tormenting him. I pulled completely off of him and ran my tongue up from the base to the tip, smirking as I did so.

He looked down at me, darkened with lust. A warning glinted in his nearly navy eyes, telling me he couldn't control himself much longer through my teasing. I blew lightly on his dick, which was wet with my saliva.

"God! Stefan!" He yelled in ecstasy. His hands flew to my head and I willingly let him push my mouth back over his member. My head bobbed with supernatural speed, sucking hard, trying to make him cum as quickly as possible.

He stiffened a bit later, signaling his approaching climax. He reached down to pull me away, but I slapped his hands away, wanting to relish in every part of him. His hot seed flooded my throat, and I groaned in pleasure and disbelief that I was finally tasting Damon. It was just as good as I'd fantasized.

The act of sucking Damon's cock had aroused me to the edge too, and when I stood up, Damon grabbed me in his hand, pumping up and down. At the same time, he dominated my mouth again. I relented to his domineering ministrations, melting against him.

He moved to my shoulder, licking my skin roughly. Then, he sunk his fangs into me and drew out a taste of my blood. This sent me teetering over the edge. I yelled his name before flying apart and spilling all over his hand. My muscles strained and I twisted around, experiencing the most intense pleasure I'd ever felt.

When I was able to see straight again I caught Damon licking his reddened lips and smiling at me in delight. Relief washed through me when I realized he was happy. As happy as I was.

"That was…" I sighed in post-coital bliss.

"Great." Damon finished, slinging my body into his arms like I was a feather.

He carried me to his bedroom and set me down on the bed, climbing in next to me. The last time I'd slept in the same room with him had been when I was a young boy and afraid of the dark This was different, but similarly comforting. When the lights went off, Damon pulled the sheets around us and draped his arm over me. I snuggled into the solid plane of his chest, feeling at peace for the first time in a long time.

And for the first time in a long time I thought that maybe this eternal life wasn't such a curse, if it meant I could spend it with Damon. For the first time since I was turned, there was more than a candle cutting through my personal darkness. Now, there was a flame.

And it was only burning brighter.