Childish Games.

Marbles.

Tiddly-winks.

Red-rover.

Ring 'round the rosie.

Tag.

Games. The kind Damon taught Stefan as a child weren't enough to prepare him for saving Elena- He didn't have Damon's stubborn will-power combined with his ferocious blind rage to aid him when Elena would refuse to listen to reason. (Or his utter devot selfishness in only wanting to keep her alive.)

Stefan couldn't watch carelessly as the people she loved burned. Her tears became his tears.

He loved them too. He cared about all of them.

Damon only cared about Elena. Loved her with a reckless, selfish, abandon.

He had Damon. Damon wouldn't fail Elena, Damon would protect her when he couldn't.

"I'm going to head back to the house." He said feeling deadfully guilty after Jenna and John's funeral.

"I Think I'll skip the coffee and tea-cakes." Damon said something hidden in his voice and he fiddled with his ring- Almost as if absently trying to decide wether to pull if and burn off... or not.

Stefan thought about slapping him for it. You can't leave me Damon. He would say with a child-like fury.

Instead Stefan stuffed his hands in his pockets with a disappointed look as his brothers black-clad backside. "Damon she needs us right now... All of us." He hated being self-rightous- Nagging was something he knew Damon hated but Stefan didn't know how to be his little brother anymore and Damon was an ass for abandoning Elena when her Aunt and Uncle/Father just died.

Damon turned his head slightly giving his brother a sarcastic veiw of his ear, "And then what's the plan Stefan, the curse is broken- how dose one go about killing an all powerful wolf-vamp and his two face little brother." Stefan heard the grim defeat and was disturbed by his brothers lack of his usual dark enthuiasm. Something wasn't right.

"I have no idea." he replied woefully.

"We need to get an idea and fast." Damon spun around slowly. "I'm not going to let Elena lose anyone else." Stefan promised.

"I wouldn't make any promises brother." he said rolling up his sleeve.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Stefan asked suspicion clear in his raised eyesbrows and narrowed eyes as he looked Damon up an' down.

"Tyler Lockwood bit me." He had his sleeve fully rolled up now- and a large sizeable pulsing bite lay just after the indent of his elbow, the veins were begining to become corrupted by the venom and jutted out with an infected sickly look to them. "It's actually more of a nip really- but...sss There it is."

No. Stefan drew in a slow and let it out with a huffing breathe.

Stefan looked at Damon's werewolf bite with blank unseeing jade eyes, approching slow- his hand reaching out and grasping his brothers forearm for which seemed like better inspection of his wound but really was just a poor (Though carefully) hidden excuse for the only comfort and affection Damon would ever allow him. But Damon wouldn't even allow him that, he pulled away with a huff and Stefan just looked at him before Damon's dead blue eyes looked back and he looked away with unshed tears threatening to spill.

The look in his eyes was the same dead, grim, defeated look his voice had protrayed before and Stefan couldn't look at what was so clearly not his brother- Damon was reckless and passionate and his ice blue eyes smoldered with his burning personality.

The dead, defeated, so empty blue eyes weren't his brothers.

He couldn't save her. -Damon couldn't leave him.

"We'll find something, uh-" he looked back at Damon with his eyes wide with fear and with senseless childish promising- "A cure." he said begging Damon to believe him, but Damon didn't trust his brother anymore, "There is no cure Stefan." The empty eyes locked with his in defeat again and away. Stefan wanted him to look back but he couldn't force Damon to look him in the eye.

Don't look away, don't you dare give up. Stefan was almost at a loss for words until... He glanced back at Elena and rest filing away. For a split second hating Caroline and her stupid wolf boyfriend. But then letting the feeling go- Caroline was his friend, and this wasn't anyones fault.

Hope brimmed and he told Damon, "We kept Elena human." No. he said to himself, he kept Elena human you closed your eyes as Klaus and Elijah took her away and killed Jenna. You trusted Elijah when Damon told you not to- Damon kept Elena alive. "We found a way, when there was no way- Hey- I will do this." He looked Damon in the eyes, with the most truth he could display through his eyes he promised to cure him.

But Damon didn't believe him. "You wanna do something for me? Keep this from Elena." Anything but that, "The last thing she needs is another grave to mourn." Stefan searched Damon's eyes for hope... For his brother but Damon only grasped his brothers shoulder in what only could be a goodbye gesture. Stefan felt himself crumble as he watched his brother walk down the path of the graveyard and leave him behind again. W

A utter look of devastation and heartbreak cracking his features into sorrow his lips trembling and parting- His voice gone, words stuck in his throat.

He couldn't save Elena from her fate with his childish games. and maybe no one could.

But he could save Damon from his, he wouldn't disappoint Damon again. Never again- not when his life was at stake.

Maybe it was selfish and Damon would be better off dead, but Stefan wouldn't be better off alive if his only though questionably evil companion in his endless eternity wasn't there- He couldn't lose his brother twice, his heart couldn't bear anymore torment and he couldn't bear loneliness.

"I will save you brother." he murmered clenching his fists. If it's the last thing I do.

Damon burned like a supernova explosion in the midst of the starry night. There was no air around him or material for the fire to spread to and burn for fuel, he was tightly controlled but still sent shockwaves to other galaxies and nebulae disrupting but not destroying.

He was dangerous. Only to be watched from afar, if he touched you... You'd become a million particles and atoms and be gone.

His thirst had never dominated him, his control only snapped when his fervent emotions got in the way and even then he had some degree of it left. He could have drained Jeremy that night with Elena, but no- he had only snapped his neck.

Rings healed and brought you back. They didn't supply you missing blood.

And no matter what he said about it Stefan would never believe he didn't see the ring, somewhere in his subconsious he'd known it was there.

Stefan knew this well, and also knew that in comparison he was but a candle flame unsteady and flickering.

He was candle flame whose light dwindled and when pushed, when he was eventually knocked down- he slowly and savagely burned his warm envrionment like the ripper he was- He fueled himself on his possessions (Friends) until nothing was left but emptiness and tragic self-loathing.

This time Lexi couldn't save him.

Klaus urged him to feed. The blood melting like the sweetest melting honey on his tongue-

he was in a frenzy now. He remembers the rhyme Damon sang with him as a child.

Ring around the rosy,

He drinks faster, reveling in the taste of the blood.

A pocketful of posies,

He smiles almost drunk. "A Real Ripper Enjoys The Hunt." and he dose enjoy it, enjoys every bloody second.

"Ashes, Ashes"

He's burning everything in sight. Ripping people apart. Draining them.

We all fall down!

He knows there is no turning back, this is for Damon afterall.

"Who wants to die next?"

He's done with Childish Games.