A/N: I just wanna say how appreciative I am of the feedback that has been both so positive and responsive towards this story, it's so encouraging. I apologize for the lack of updates, school has been taking up the majority of my time (was also given a nasty serve of the writers block, blah) but I hoping the gaps between chapters won't ever be this long again.

When they were little and their mother had died, Damon had grown to fear the dark. He ached and longed for his mother, confused over why she would leave him, confused that she even could. He began to obsess over her because he couldn't sleep and he was afraid if he didn't, she'd disappear completely. He replayed the sound of her voice, laughing in his ear. Remembering what it felt like to feel her palm against his cheek, her arms holding both he and his brother, just perfectly, as though they were moulded to fit there.

Damon was 11 and Stefan was only 5 and though his brother's own hurt and confusion over losing their mother was a sickness to Damon, knowing it was something he couldn't fix, it became something Damon leaned and depended on. Knowing he wasn't alone in his grief; that there was somebody else just as lonely, just as hurt as he was.

"Damon?" His brother whispers one night; they shared a room closest to the front of the house, furthest away from their father's and it was ironic but not, that distance created. That distance kept.

Damon had been crying softly into his pillow and he felt the sting of shame and embarrassment at his brother's voice, wanting nothing but to ignore him.

"Damon?" Stefan repeats, his voice a little louder as he sat up in his bed, only a few feet away.

Damon continues to ignore his calls, working hard to repress them but he hears the familiar sound of a bedspring squeaking and feet pattering on the floor; his brother's hands curl suddenly around his arm.

"Damon, will you let me sleep with you?" His brother quietly asks, tugging onto him gently.

It won't be till he's much older and time has stretched beyond his imagination, the years passing and he's no longer obsessing over his mother but over a woman he'd give the world for, that he'll realize why Stefan had asked and why Damon had let him.

"Papa will be angry so you must go back to your bed in the morning." He tells his brother but he moves over, making space for Stefan to fit and he slides in, curling himself there at Damon's back. It'll be how they'll sleep for that entire year.

Damon will stop fearing the dark, fearing rather, the idea of losing his brother too. Obsessing over not losing him but of all the ways in which he could keep him, right at his back.

"Is he breathing?"

Elena nods, keeping a tight hold to Stefan's arm. He was still lying across the floor right by her feet. Damon walks forward, brushes her aside and picks up his brother, scooping him up into his arms like he was carrying nothing but air.

"Good." Damon says quietly as he walks away from her and Elena can finally feel the tears, some dry, some wet, on her cheeks.

"Good."

They keep Stefan locked in one of the cellars because it seems like the right and only thing to do given the circumstances (and blood) and like before, they both stay down there overnight to be with him. They don't speak but when Elena slumps over, exhausted and drained, both emotionally and physically, it goes unspoken; the way he'll lift her up. Carry her out. Put her to bed.

He sits back down on the dirt floor, leaning against the solid wall of the basement, counting the seconds that seemed to just bleed effortlessly into minutes and then hours until the entire night's disappeared from him while he's sat there, silent and still. Beside his brother.

He's thinking,

Don't take her away from me.

But he's also thinking, his eyes filling, you're alive. You're alive, you're alive, you're alive.

"We should go in there."

It's been two days; Stefan still hasn't moved or shown any signs of consciousness and Damon honestly can't tell if he's faking or if it's genuine.

His brother's breathing is shallow and unsteady but it tells Damon nothing, it gives him nothing and he's just as impatient as Elena is because they had him back. They had him breathing and alive and with them, yet they were still so separated. So detached. He could pick out his brother's heartbeat miles away, out of anybody else's, yet only feet away, it isn't recognizable and it terrifies Damon.

"A couple more days and the blood will be completely gone, then we go in if he still hasn't moved."

Elena's face hardens, her eyes like slits and she looks exhausted, her body weak and needing to lean against things, even though she's just slept 12 hours straight

But she nods, "Okay." Hesitating, focusing her eyes on the cellar window and Damon's grateful that he put a better lock on the door this time, "Okay." She repeats and turns away, walking slowly down the corridor.

Damon can still hear it, as she climbs the stairs to Stefan's bedroom, as she crawls her way back into his bed and he's not really sure if it's herself she's trying to convince or him, knowing he could hear her.

By some miracle (threats) Elena leaves the house to spend the day with Jeremy. It's the first time she's left the house in over a week and they get into another fight over it and she only ends up agreeing to leave if Damon called her every half an hour with an update and would come back if he hadn't.

Damon thinks she's a ginormous pain in his ass but complies because she needed to get out of the house and he honestly just needed a break from her anyway.

It's not why he tries with his brother, without her there. It's not.

It's just how he got the idea to.

Damon leans his forehead against the mental railing of the cellar; his brother was still wearing the shirt Elena had found him in. It's matted with blood; he can see the stains marked darker against the black fabric. He tells himself that it's worse than it looks. He tells himself not to get too complacent, no matter what happens next. He tells himself to breathe.

He opens the door.

Stefan flinches as he does it, visibly and Damon sways too, just barely, right on the stop, suddenly overwhelmed by the movement. He keeps, tries hard to, his arms tense and locked by his sides; prepared for anything, for his brothers weight but finds that the longer he stares at his brother's back, the weaker and weaker the lock of his arms get.

"Come on, " He starts and if either of their hearing wasn't as good as it was, neither of them would've heard it, "I know you're in there, it's been months, you didn't miss me at all?" He's baiting him, he knows but it's coming out of his mouth heavier, quicker than he expected and he feels suddenly angry, a hot burn in the pit of his stomach, not really knowing why.

But as he goes to take his next breath, it gets caught, like a choke in his throat as he watches his brother roll suddenly onto his side, looking up over at him. Damon can't take in his face quick enough or well enough or just enough, his heart is racing now so brutally.

"Well actually," Stefan starts, his voice rough and low, deeper than Damon remembers it and Stefan's eyes are so dark, they look black, "I did."

Damon fixes his brother a drink.

"Thanks." Stefan mumbles when he clutches the glass in his hand; he's freshly showered and changed but for some reason, Damon can't keep from seeing the marks where the blood used to be.

He watches Stefan slide one finger over the bookshelves, going slowly around the library room like he was counting each object, taking inventory of the things that might've moved, might've disappeared while he was gone. But nothing has and it's exactly the same.

Damon wonders, as Stefan now stands with his back to him, staring out through the windows, if it somehow placed his brother in the present. If it somehow removed the time when he hadn't been in this house yet this house had kept on without him.

"Stefan?" Damon says and Stefan flinches again, though it's subtle and Damon almost misses it as Stefan finally turns, his eyes focusing on Damon's, his face set in a faint smirk that's so disarming, Damon needs to look away for a moment.

"Klaus?" He asks him, almost tentatively and Stefan hides it well but not fast enough and Damon catches the flash across his brother's face, the way his jaw locks, the way the hand that isn't cradling a scotch glass, curls into itself.

"Dead." Stefan practically spits and looks away from Damon, slumping into a chair without even looking at it. He starts to trace a ring around his glass, watching carefully, intent on not looking back up but Damon sinks down into a chair opposite so he doesn't have to.

"Where is Elena?" He asks after a moment and his finger freezes on the rim.

Damon stills.

He thinks he takes too long to answer.

"Out."

Stefan turns his head sharply up at his brother and Damon hates that this conversation is going to a place he doesn't want it to, not now, not yet; Stefan keeps his face tight but Damon can tell by the way he's holding his glass, he's bordering on impatience and a simmering anger.

"With Jeremy, she's out with Jeremy."

They stare at one another for a long moment and Damon doesn't know what his brother is looking for or what he sees but he needs to look away, at the carpet even though he knows that's worse than staring him right in the eye; he thinks he could vomit up his guilt and it'd still manage to burn a way into his skin.

"Did you fuck her?"

Fuck, he thinks. His eyes hit Stefan's immediately and he swallows, his mind racing, his heart racing; it's in Stefan's eyes, all of it, the hurt, the accusation, the restraint. It's all there and Damon knows he's not okay, his brother is not okay. He's been through an ordeal, he's been to hell and back and it's in every movement, his breathing, his face. He is not okay.

Damon stands slowly and puts his glass down and Stefan follows his brother's movements like a shadow, walking towards him and around the low table set in the middle of the room.

"No." Damon tells him and it's clear and loud; he's become a lot better at controlling himself, especially around his brother, his ability to snap and lose it higher around him than it was around anybody else but his hands are shaking. He's shaking.

"I took care of her, Stefan." He says, almost regretting it the second it comes out of his mouth because Stefan looks like he's just taken a hit but his eyes harden, his jaw locked.

"Come on, Damon, you gonna lie to your brother?"

They're so close, they could reach out and touch the other but both of their fists are locked by their sides and Stefan's mind is switching so quickly through his emotions that the need to swing out and hit something, penetrates through his need to fall against Damon, he's still so weak. It mixes, to hit and swing, to fall, to keep standing; to have something, to need something. He doesn't know what he needs, his heart is pushing against his chest, and his veins are like ice. He just needs something.

"What… what is going on? Stefan?"

Damon sees it like it's a freeze frame film; the way Stefan's eyes seem to fade out almost instantly. The way they seem to soften like they've been drained and he realizes before Stefan's even seen Elena, that it's her voice. Her voice has calmed his brother in a way, Damon thinks; his brother didn't even comprehend himself.

"Damon?" She whispers, coming further into the room with her hand up to her chest, pressing on her racing heartbeat. It had nearly flown right out when she had seen them both, standing as they were. She's seen it before; the seconds before a fight, the seconds before they would lash out with fists and not words.

Damon steps back. He has to leave, needs to get before he gets asked to and he can't stand it, being in this room anymore. He doesn't look back at his brother but goes up the stairs quickly, brushing past Elena so that there arms barely touch but he feels her skin, soft and warm and uses it in order to propel himself forwards and not back.

"Stefan?"

He's looking at the floor and she walks slowly, carefully around the banister and down the steps, onto the landing of the library. Her throat is aching and she feels like she could fist herself together, push herself out so that there wasn't a beginning or an end, she's so entwined with him. Has been. Will be, always.

"Stefan?" She repeats softly and she stops moving, just stands still. It takes him a moment, a weighted, desperate moment to realize that she was there. Right there, feet away and he could touch her, hold her, keep holding her.

"Elena?" He breaks out through his mouth, barely turning his head up and she's a mess, tears on her cheeks she hadn't realize she'd been holding in when she starts to move, pushing herself against his body.

The way he pushes back, the way he enfolds her so tightly, gripping to her like he's afraid she'll disappear, won't ever erase the days and months but it somehow makes them harder and harder to imagine. Easier to understand.

"Elena." He breathes into her hair and he's crying and breathing and holding her, so tightly, so steady that she forgets for a moment, the loss of him, the loss of himself.

"I know." She finds herself whispering even though she's not sure what's going to come next, even though he's so wavering on his feet, in his mind; he's just so thin but she whispers and clings to him because she knows that, this, him, she does.

She does.

"Do you need anything?"

It's the third time she's asked but the first for him to say yes.

"What?" She whispers; she's sitting cross-legged on his bed, watching as he stood unsure and hesitant by his bedroom door. They came up here a couple minutes ago and she'd let his hand go, knowing it'd be a step by step process, his presence here again.

It takes him a moment but he flicks his eyes up and then around the room before he finally looks right at her and his face is almost suffocating; how impossibly scared he was, how confused and she's desperate to get up and go to him but knows he just needs this space, needs to readjust, to figure out, to understand. To ground himself.

"You." He says quietly and it breaks her heart.

She gets up, carefully unfolding herself leg by leg and makes her way over, touching his elbow, gently tugging at his arm as he looks at the floor, anywhere but her and she doesn't know why, she doesn't but it's okay because as much as she wants to feel what he is feeling, suffer what he has suffered, she knows she can't.

"Stefan." She moans when he's smothered himself against her shoulder and their pressed together in a way that makes her breathe again, more clearly than she has in months, her entire life and it's suddenly them, it's only them.

They dip a little until her hips are arching against his pelvis, he's hard through his jeans and he's lifting her and enfolding himself against her before she can really get her eyes to focus.

"Make love to me." She grounds out breathlessly, wondering if it was possible to seep against him, the way she did before, the way she had before; the way he had her always, not giving her back until he was back there with her, "Make love to me."

It's raining when they finish. He climbs off her and puts his jeans back on and she's lying there feeling like he's just taken something away from her even though she's not quite sure what.

It wasn't right, she knew. It was different. Rougher. It hurt but he had kissed against her neck, whispering that he was sorry, over and over again until he's not just whispering apologies for fucking her too hard but for everything else. The unknown things she didn't, the things he had done. The things he hadn't; this emptiness between them they had to fill almost blindly.

"Stefan." She says quietly; she wishes they could talk to each other, they're only really on words and bare sentences and she hates it.

He's shirtless, leaning against the door that led out onto his balcony and it doesn't surprise her when he pushes on the handle and steps out, ignoring her. She waits, only a few minutes before she rolls out of bed, slips on his shirt and steps out there too.

"I can't remember." He says, over the noise of the rain and she frowns, her hair already wet and steps closer towards where he stood, right against the railing.

"What?" She asks and touches his back even though she knows she probably shouldn't.

"What it feels like…I can't remember what it feels like."

And though there's a part of her, the part that's aching, that wants to break down, thinking she knew what he meant, she moves herself against him, leaning her forehead to his back, completely drenched they both were.

"I'll help you." She tells him.

He doesn't say anything but shifts a little, so they're closer together even though they were still back to chest and he hangs his head, letting the water run down his neck.

To feel, she thinks.

They're back where they started, almost two hours ago but she's fine with it because she'll do this as many times as she has to; rearrange herself, himself, themselves back together. The rain has stopped and they've changed, the two of them.

He couldn't stand or sit in one spot for more than a few minutes but she sat, on his bed, not moving around him but letting him move around her.

"Stop it." He suddenly says sharply and Elena flicks her eyes up from where they were looking at the bed, wondering why he was so angry and how he had gotten there so quickly. She's ready for this though, she is.

"Stop what?" She asks calmly and Stefan stuffs his hands into his hair, now pacing back and forth along the floor by the bed.

"Stop." He says more loudly and Elena tenses, sits further up, readying her body for a fight she thinks she's already in the middle of and tries to ease the worry now pounding against her chest.

"Stop what?" She asks again and Stefan stops pacing, glaring at her with a hatred she knew wasn't for her but for the things in his head, the memories, the blood; all of them, screaming within him, needing to get out.

"STOP IT." He yells and throws his hands down by his sides, moving back away from her.

She's shut her eyes and hung her head because she knew the best thing would be to just wait, to just wait for him to breathe more evenly, wait for this to pass even though she was barely struggling to keep herself together as it was.

Even though she didn't really know if it was going to pass at all.

"Elena." She hears suddenly and it's quiet and ashamed, soft coming from his mouth and she feels as he sits on the bed and comes against her back.

"I'm sorry." He tells her again into her hair and she's still limp, biting her lip to not cry and listens to him weeping softly and begging against her back.

"It's okay," She whispers and finally moves her arms, reaching for him to touch and grab onto, "It's going to be okay."

You're here, she thinks. It has to be.

It has to be.

A/N: So the shit didn't exactly hit the fan? But it's not exactly smooth sailing from here on out.