A/N: Hey guys ! A huge load of thanks to every one of you who take the time to read and review the stories I post. You are an aspiring writer's dream come true. I really appreciate every opinion I read in the reviews section. Thank you so much ! If you haven't read any of my other stories, I'd love it if you at least gave them a chance once. And let me know hoe you found it, of course !

As for this story, it's supposed to be a series of connected/unconnected one-shots or two-shots that I hope do justice to one of the best relationships I've ever encountered in my history of reading experience. Defan bonding ! Their brotherhood is one of the best and probably very underrated relationship in all of the series. So this is my contribution to them.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters. They belong to LJ Smith and the CW. No copyright infringement is intended on my part.

(This takes up at the end of 3x06, replacing the scene when Mason attacks Damon and goes further from there.)

Damon was upset. He didn't know how someone...anyone could be so deep into their beliefs that they didn't see reality, even when it was staring them in the face.

She thought she could handle Stefan. Hah ! He called bullshit. She was going to get herself killed. He knew his dear little brother wouldn't hurt her, per se, but it could still get ugly.

He needed a drink. Now. So he abandoned the rug he was folding and moved towards the drink cart to pour himself a glass of his strongest bourbon.

A crash sounded in the hallway and he turned to the sound. Flashing forward, he narrowed his eyes at the bloody display. "Oh, not again." He muttered under his breath.

"You owe this house a damn persian rug, Stefan !" He yelled up at his brother who'd just dropped a lifeless beauty down one storey.

"Touchy, aren't you, Brother." Stefan smirked from the hallway. "If memory serves, you were hell-bent on making me 'loosen up a little'. What changed ?"

He asked as he flashed forward to crowd his space.

"No actually. Don't answer that. I'm pretty sure the answer can be summed up in one word-Elena." He patted Damon's shoulder. "She's made you go soft." He chuckled.

"Well we can't have that happening now, can we ?" Damon smirked lightly before sticking a vervain needle into his brother's neck. "Sorry brother, but can't have any rolling heads in the vicinity right now." He said as Stefan passed out from the injection.

He dragged his unconscious carcass down to the cellar and chained him to the wall. Welcome to their very own torture chamber, Victim No. Whatever. He sighed. He missed the days when this sort of thing was cathartic.

As he moved back up the stairs, he thought about why he had his brother chained in the cellar. Stefan wouldn't need to be treated this way if it wasn't for him. He'd saved him from the werewolf bite at the cost of himself. Because he knew that each time Stefan flipped the switch, it got harder to revive him. He may not care a whole lot, but he knew just how much guilt awaited him at the other end of the rope. And he'd sacrificed it all again. Just for him.

"Insufferable martyr." Damon muttered under his breath as he gulped down another shot of bourbon.

He needed to think. He groaned internally at his own thoughts. The irony of the situation wasn't lost on him. He was supposed to be the reckless brother, the heartless monster who didn't care if anyone lived or died. Caring was Stefan's job, it always had been.

But since the roles seemed to have been reversed, he needed to think of something to bring back. He needed to find his emotional trigger. Now what could that be ? What could trigger an emotion from Stefan ? His only response was Elena, but that wouldn't do because Stefan knew he wouldn't hurt her. His compelled protectiveness wouldn't do anything either.

Damon pinched the bridge of his nose. All this thinking was giving him a headache and he could hear Stefan groaning in his binds downstairs. He got up and headed towards the cell, taking a blood bag with him.

He looked in through the small barred window and saw Stefan struggling to get free. "That isn't gonna be of any use." He said. "Those are vamp-proofed, courtesy of our little witch." Damon settled against the door frame. "She was pissed at you, by the way."

Stefan glared at his older brother. "What are you gonna do, huh ?" He asked. "Torture me ? Threaten me ? Starve me ?" He chuckled lowly. "Don't you think my resistance to all that would be to epic proportions by now ?"

Damon hated how logical Stefan sounded even in his circumstances. And he hated how he couldn't deny that Stefan had an exceptional tolerance...the one and only person he knew to have survived this long on animal blood. He wasn't Elena and he sure as hell wasn't Lexi. He wouldn't be able to deal with Stefan's off switch. But he had to, because there was nobody else. Lexi was dead, because of him, in fact.

Damon shook his head. Now wasn't the time to regret past decisions. He had work to do. "I see that's exactly the reason you can't control yourself around human blood." He raised his glass. "Exceptional tolerance." He mocked. Stefan bared his fangs at him.

"At least I don't pine over something that will never be mine." He sneered as Damon stiffened. "Right, Damon ? Elena might be giving you the time of day now, but she'll come back running to me the second she thinks she has me back." He chuckled. "Pathetic. You and that human blood bag."

Damon didn't know if he was angry at Stefan's confidence or that it was more fact than his confidence. Elena would never be his, no matter how much he tried. And he was getting sick of her indecision. Nearly two centuries had gone with the brothers hating each other and now he was tired of it.

Damon may not like admitting it to even himself but he loved Stefan. And he needed him more than anything right now. So Stefan could dig into him all he wanted, but he was flipping his humanity back on if it was the last thing Damon ever did.

In the next instant, Damon was inside the cellar and at Stefan's throat. Stefan smirked when he thought he had riled him up enough to want to hurt him before leaving him alone, but his eyes widened slightly when he felt darkness at the edge of his vision. Damon released his brother and settled for a quick snapping of his neck with a swift motion of his hands. He huffed and locked him up again.

Stefan groaned as the stirrings of consciousness came back to him. His head felt like he was swimming underwater; everything was hazy and unclear and he couldn't recall where he had been last. A blanket of darkness clouded him before it all cleared to form a mass of trees surrounding him. He could hear the distinct sound of water so he knew he was near the Falls. He got up from his sprawl and looked around.

Why was he here ? He concentrated on separating information from his muddled brain when a distant scream sounded in his ears. Without thinking, he ran towards the sound and came upon a girl backing away from a man towering over her. He stopped to look closely when he came to a startling realization. The girl was Elena.

The man advanced on her and she let out another piercing scream as he held her up and sank his fangs into her fragile neck. Stefan lost control of his actions as he threw the man, the vampire off of her. Panic gripped him as he bit into his wrist and went to heal the wound on her neck. Only something about her seemed a bit off. If he was someone else, he would've probably missed it, but she wasn't as animated as she should have been and when he looked back, the vampire was nowhere to be found.

He knew enough about his kind to know that any feeding that's interrupted calls for a fight. And then, just like that, he understood. He was dreaming. Someone was putting things into his head and he needed to wake up. It was a Lexi trick to get him to flip his humanity switch. As if that was happening anytime soon.

He willed himself awake but another force pushed him back under. He struggled but his brain was addled and he lost the fight as darkness engulfed him again.

So...how was it ? There is one more part to this chapter. I thought of making it a combined one-shot, but then writer's satisfaction got in the way and I had to split it into two. Let me know through your reviews if it's worth a shot. I promise it only gets better in the next chapter ! See you guys soon !

X

Ahluwalia Kaur :)