I do not own the vampire diaries, it belongs to L.J Smith and the CW.
Damon stared at Katherine.
What? No! No way!
She turned and began to walk away. He forced his weak heavy body from the bed.
"Katherine wait!" he grabbed her slim arm in his hand.
She turned to face him reluctantly. "Damon I have to go, he'll come after me soon. I gave you the cure, what more do you want?"
"I don't know! Maybe to know what the hell you're talking about. What do you mean he gave himself over to Klaus?"
"How more clear could I be? I see you haven't got any smarter over time Damon. As I said, he came to Klaus, he asked for a cure, Klaus gave him one. But, as we both know, he wasn't going to give it for free. He…gave Stefan human blood to drink. The deal was…Stefan has to drink human blood for ten years and he has to leave with Klaus."
"Leave? Leave where?" Elena demanded.
"What do you care? You have Damon now." Katherine teased.
"I care about Stefan! I want to know where he is."
"I don't know. Klaus didn't provide me with directions and a map." The sarcasm in her voice was thick.
With a small smile she turned on her heel and left at full vampire speed.
Damon was frozen. He could not move, he did not even want to. He did not know how long he stood that way. Silent and unmoving.
Elena broke him out of his petrifaction. "Damon?"
He looked to her, away from the door through which Katherine had exited.
"What are we going to do?" She asked desperately.
Instead of answering he ran to his bedside table and grabbed his phone.
It rang and rang, he waited impatiently for Stefan to pick up….Nothing.
At the tone he began to leave a message.
"Stefan…." He trailed off, what was he supposed to say? "Call me." He commanded in a steely voice.
A few more seconds of silence passed, before Damon blew up. "Damn it Stefan! What have you done? What the hell have you done? You stupid, stupid, stupid….Aagh!"
Elena ran to him and latched onto his arms. "Damon, Damon! Calm down! We are going to get him back!" her tone was resolute.
"I swear…next time I see that bastard Klaus I will kill him. Then I'm going to kill Stefan."
An hour later Elena was gone, only because he had insisted that he wanted to be alone. He knew under normal circumstances she would have been stubborn, but not tonight.
He swigged at his bourbon ravenously, all he wanted was to smother the ripping pain inside him. The agony that was eating him alive.
He let out a howl of anguish. "For fucks sake Stefan!"
Ugh! Why did his baby brother have to be so desperate to sacrifice himself for everybody? Why could Stefan not look out for himself first? Would it be too much to hope that Stefan might for once actually listen to him and not put himself in danger?
Evidently not.
As he had lay dying with Elena by his side, he had forgiven Stefan everything. Everything with Katherine, it was not worth it, she had never been worth losing his brother over. He had cursed that he only realised this when he was dying, when it was too late to fix things with Stefan. For a few blissful seconds, as Katherine had fed him the cure, he had been filled with hope, he could tell Stefan that he was sorry, make up for all the times he had hurt him. He could tell Elena again how sorry he was for hurting her, Hell he could even apologise to Caroline, Jeremy…he owed almost everyone an apology for something or other. He truly believed for those few seconds that now he had the chance, but that ignorance was taken from him as soon as Elena had demanded to know where Stefan was. He knew then that something was wrong.
Ugh! What the hell was wrong with him that he could only forgive his baby brother for everything, when he was leaving town with a sadistic lunatic?
Stefan was his little brother. He was supposed to protect him, he should have known that Stefan would do something like this, he should have guessed. If he had been smarter, he would have ensured that somebody stayed with Stefan, so that he could not martyr himself yet again.
Damon was filled with rage, rage mixed with pain, he was not sure which was more prominent, but either way he could feel it in his blood, taste it in his mouth, hear it rushing in his ears.
The next morning Damon woke up with the feeling that somebody was standing over him, smashing a mallet on his skull.
He prised open his groggy eyes.
He gazed around, he was in his bedroom, he did not remember leaving the living room, on the other hand he did not remember when he had pulled all of the black covers from his bed and decided to wrap himself up in them on the floor.
He heard a noise downstairs.
He leapt to his feet and charged down the stairs, not bothering to be quiet.
"Stefan!" He called out, barely hearing the hope in his tone.
He met the awkward gaze of Alaric. "I'm sorry. Elena thought it would be a good idea for me, her, Bonnie, Caroline and Jeremy to talk about…getting Stefan back."
Damon flushed slightly with embarrassment and chagrin as he caught the look of sympathy in Rick's eyes.
"Erm…Yeah…good idea. I was just…." He trailed off.
As he entered the living room he saw the tears in Caroline's eyes, the devastation in Elena's he felt the crushing misery in his own chest.
Klaus was going to die for this. Nobody hurt Damon's little brother and escaped with their life.
Author's note: I just wondered how Damon would react after hearing of what Stefan had done for him, I imagined rage and pain. I also imagine( and hope) that Damon will go all protective big brother and kick Klaus's arse! But not kill him, I've grown fond of Klaus and am now officially a Klefan fan.
