CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"You love me. Real or not real?"

~"Peeta Mellark" Mockingjay

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Sam coughed massively, trying to clear everything from his lungs but the air it needed. The sound that he made echoed nine times over in the town square only over powered by the noise of screaming people as they ran from the flaming livery. A clanging copper rang a deep cord into the night, then came the high pitched scream of fire truck's sirens.

Sam's lungs burned from smoke inhalation, the fog of it clinging deep inside his lungs. Before him is a maze of winding road still packed almost to capacity in frightened people trying to flee from danger. He leaned against the wall of a clock tower building, not unlike the one at Mystic Falls. Tourists and residents alike were running in a chaotic scramble, the footsteps of the volunteer fire department thudded heavily on the asphalt and ran away from them, the force of such a disaster rendering them invisible.

Sam turned to the sound of a coughing breath that mirrored his own.

"Dean!" Sam Dean dropped in a crouch against the wall, face a mess of blood. "Dean, hey, hey, you alright?"

"Yeah," Dean didn't look or sound alright, but he pushed himself up against the clapboard wall of the clock building, hand gripping something painful underneath his jacket. "What about you?-"

"I'm good," Sam quickly reassured, his breath still not wanting to believe him because it would not slow down in the darkness.

A ringing came from deep within the folds of Sam's smoked and singed jacket He pulled out his phone, cracked and coated in dust but still functioning -to an unlisted number.

"You're alive." Darius' voice came surprised the other line. "You've surpassed my expectations of you again, Sam"."

Sam's face screwed tight like it was being tightened with actual screws. He drew his eyes into the night, over the crowds moving, the sirens.

Dean looking over in the same direction Sam was, seeing nothing, he pulled the phone down from Sam's ear and switched it to speaker.

"You won't find me; I've already moved away from that embarrassment."

"You fucking, coward!" Sam shout tumbled into a growl into the phone.

"I'm a realist Sam, I know when to stop questioning my losses and cash in my wins- and I suggest you do the same-"

Sam turned back around and saw Elena plunge the needle filled with Darius' blood into Damon's neck, drawing the plunger all the way down.

The reaction came hard and fast -Damon reared into a spasm like the blood was burning its way through his body, mouth set open in a silent scream

"Damon!" Elena dropped the needle in horror and grabbed his neck in her hands. "Damon!"

Damon shook against her Elena like he was seizing, hands contracting into coiled fists that broke apart the ground. "No, come on, please!-" Elena begged, turning up with half a sob to Bonnie. "Bonnie, please- you have to do something!"

Sam had no idea what kind of supernatural being Bonnie was, or if she was any at all, Elena's plea more like the desperate cry of a friend begging for help even if was an impossible task.

"I can't, Elena," Bonnie's eyes went wide at the sight of Damon jerking in violent shudders. "I don't have magic anymore-"

"Damon-" Stefan's words proceeded a guttural moan from where he was against the wall in a heap legs splayed out in front of him like broken match sticks. He flipped sideways hand reaching out to grab Damon's spasming body. He turned to the other brunette as well. "Bonnie, please!"

It seemed like it was Stefan's cry to Bonnie that was her undoing, "I'm sorry-" She sounded like she failed, the tears she had spilled past her lashes.

"Listen to me you blood fanged masochistic dick!-" Dean growled into the phone over the noises of torture at his feet. "Playtime's over-!"

"I'm at the West Lodge and Travel Inn ten miles outside of town Dean, drinking in the local color-"

Darius cut Dean off just as Damon's seizure like spasm ended just a soon as it started and he fell back in sweat soaked agony; Elena saying his name. Stefan grasping his shoulder, calling to him, yanking him back up into a sitting position, Damon's head bowed practically in Elena's lap.

"I depart in 15 minutes, if you really want to find me that badly-"

Stefan's grunt ripped Sam and Dean's head back around where they watched Stefan's grip fall away from Damon as he dropped hard to the ground on his face in a groaned scream.

"But it doesn't sound like Stefan is doing as well as I had hoped-"

"Stefan!" Elena's scream was torn anew to the younger Salvatore.

"Blood spells can be fickle things-so hard to do correctly under duress. Sometimes you miss some things-"

"Stefan," Damon pulled himself up off of Elena and fell beside his brother.

"You son-of-a-bitch!" Dean yelled into the phone.

"You have two options gentlemen. Which loss and which win is more important?"

"Stefan!" The wound at Stefan's chest was wide and still open, and his heart beat visibly through the gap. Damon pulled his hands over the torn flesh and physically held it closed.

The smile Darius gave was felt over the phone "Make your decision." The call disconnected.

"Stefan," Elena screamed his name again, reaching out to grab his neck. He was awake but barely, head lolling in Elena's hands. "No, Stefan, c'mon, stay with us, please!-"

Dean threw Sam's phone to the concrete, the display cracked completely in a shattered diagonal line.

"Dean- hey-" Sam grabbed Dean's shoulder as he spied the silhouetted frame of the Impala parked only a block away on a side street, glowing in the light of the fire.

Dean turned and saw what Sam saw. Over the sounds of Stefan's agonizing yells Dean stared down everyone that wasn't Sam. "Whoever the hell stole my damn car, give me my fucking keys. now!" He held out his hands like it was a loaded gun, waiting only three seconds before Jeremy Gilbert reached out and held out the set of Master Keys.

There was a lethal look that Dean didn't have the chance to fully unload on Jeremy before he grabbed his keys and ran towards his car.

Sam didn't follow.

Instead he watched Dean's back the entire time he ran down into the night towards the Impala. Crowds of the town citizens moved away in groups either to or away from the flames, but not came towards Dean as he reached the car and flipped open the trunk, snatching the weapons duffel out, and ran back towards them.

Dean dropped the green bag onto the ground next to Stefan's right side and snatched out the Field Suture Kit.

"Get a grip on his heart," Dean demanded of Damon. He unrolled the field kit roll, pulling out a hooked suture needle at the end of a long waxed monosuture filament. He knotted one end of it, reaching into the duffle for a sheathed hunter's knife, throwing it high and over to Sam, who caught the blade and ripped it out of the moleskin sheath.

"When I say, push it back in," Dean hovered his hands over Stefan's torn chest. "And keep it there until I tell you to let go!-"

Damon had proved that he could kill Dean without hesitation when provoked. But this time he did what Dean said, moving the visible part of Stefan's heart up into his chest cavity with his bare hand. Dean pulledthe needle through the visible jagged end of torn skin. Stefan struggled at the pain the movement produced, rearing up into a scream that shredded the air to pieces, jerking hard, pulling the suture needle out of Dean's hand.

"What are you doing?!" Caroline Forbes screamed.

Dean had no time to placate her. "Hold him down-!" He grabbed the needle moving the needle again into the torn pieces of Stefan's skin. Stefan bucked higher, screaming.

Damon pinned his down his legs on his. Elena grabbed Stefan's arms, holding them down.

Dean continued to pull the needle and thread into Stefan's skin, in quick in and out motions.

Stefan's scream rose higher in pitch, then dropped off in pants. "Stop it, please-" He growled in agony. "Stop!"

Elena's long hair draped over his face like a curtain, not reaching out to comfort him because it would release her hold. "It's alright- Stefan, it's alright!"

Damon was clenching his teeth, pinning his brother down, not saying anything as Dean wound two more suture lines in and through the torn flesh. But as the next scream came from Stefan, so did Damon's:

"Hurry up!"

Dean created one last until it met where Damon had his hand in Stefan's chest.

Sam was crouched on ground across on Stefan's right side, grasping the 4 inch hunter's blade that now was red hot from the flame of his lighter. "Let go, let go!"

The squelching sound came as Damon removed his hand from Stefan's chest, as soon as Damon's hand was clear, Sam grabbed at the hand length gap that was left open on Stefan's skin, holding the flesh tightly. Dean sutured twice more and moved back at the same time Sam placed the flat of the blade against the wound.

A steaming hiss rose and Stefan screamed one last time, high and animalistic, then he dropped, in a barely conscious state.

"Stefan?" Caroline's voice rang like a struck bell, Elena repeating the same name, her fingers deep in the sweat soaked skin of Stefan's neck. The others moved forward, waiting, none of them daring to breathe.

The only sound of breathing came from on the ground, echoed hard around the circle of vampire brothers and hunter brothers.

Damon stared up at Sam and Dean, his hand a glove of Stefan's blood, more of the same drying on his body.

"Damon-" Stefan's voice was half a whisper, carried into the acrid smell of smoke and blackness.

Damon turned that gaze down from Sam and Dean towards Stefan himself.

"I'm sorry," his voice shook weak, but full of something heavy, the sound of guilt. "I should've looked for you-"

Damon stared at down at the sound of Stefan's voice like it was the first time he had ever heard it. He shoved Elena's hands out of the way and ripped Stefan up in one hard movement, throwing his arms up and around him. Stefan returned the action, arms going high into a clawing fashion up against his brother.

The pull of breath that came from Dean was echoed by his own brother, the knife still in his grip in the air that smelled of ash.