Fire and Ice

Author's Note: Okay, rewind your minds all the way back to that episode where Damon finds out Katherine isn't really in the tomb. Yeah, I know it was ages ago, but I need to get this story out before it starts eating away at my brain! So this takes place after Damon finds Katherine isn't in the tomb after he talked to Anna and everything!

Warnings: Fluffiness. Lots of fluffiness.

Chapter Seven: Rising from the Ashes

Stefan walked into the Boarding house, bracing himself for the emotional storm of anger and hatred he was sure to find his brother had twisted himself into in the time that had passed between finding Katherine missing from the tomb.

He expected to be pushed against the wall with all the force of an unyielding angry vampire, hissed at and blamed for this unfortunate series of events. Maybe punched, possibly stabbed.

The last thing he expected was to find Damon, his older, and by far stronger, brother crumpled on the floor, resting against the back of the couch, sobs shaking his body violently, as hot tears rolled from those ice blue eyes.

Damon didn't even look at him. He didn't wipe away his tears. He didn't do anything.

Which is what scared Stefan the most. The last thing Damon would ever want was to be caught crying.
"Damon?" Stefan tested cautiously, taking one small hesitant step forward. Torn between rushing to his brother's side and rushing out the front door.

Damon looked at him, tears and everything, turning his face to face Stefan so openly and Stefan was shocked to see the amount of vulnerability radiating from his brother. He was also terrified to see that look in Damon's eyes, one he had seen a lot in his 162 years of life. The look of a broken man. The look of a lost soul.

This time Stefan moved and hesitation did not fault him as he fell to his knees next to his brother and quickly wrapped his brother in strong arms, pulling the broken vampire close as if they were little kids again, consoling each other over the loss of their mother.

Stefan's gut churned when Damon didn't pull away. His deadened heart twisted when Damon instead, put all of his weight into Stefan and collapsed into him, tears soaking through Stefan's t-shirt. This was Damon Salvatore, strong, confident, and stubborn. Damon doesn't do tears and he certainly doesn't take well to comfort.

"It's okay Damon, it's okay. I'm here," Stefan whispered to him, his voice shaking as he witnessed the horrifying sight before him. Damon was the one who always did the comforting, never Stefan.

Stefan repeated this over and over not knowing what else to say, not knowing what to do. Flashbacks played before him of memories of Damon comforting him, saying the right things, always the right things. But when Stefan opened his mouth, the only thing he could do was reassure his brother that everything was fine.

But it wasn't. And Stefan didn't know how to fix that.

"It's always you, and you don't even have to try," Damon whimpering into my collar, his voice weak and strained, rough and scratchy. He sounded exhausted, worn out. But then again who wouldn't be after finding out the woman they had been trying to save for the past 140 years was gone and had never actually cared one bit about them.

Damon's first words struck him more then one of Damon's punches ever could. Because it was true, and god did it suck.

"I'm sorry, Damon, god, I'm sorry," Stefan mumbled resting his head against Damon's, stroking those ebony locks in an attempt to try to soothe his older brother's pain.

"Mom, and Dad, and Katherine, they all fell for you and all you had to do was breathe. No matter what I did, I could never impress them like you did," Damon admitted his tears subsiding slowly, but the bitterness filling his voice didn't fade, the broken look in his eyes didn't wash out with the tears.

Stefan thought back hard, trying to prove Damon wrong but he was right. Stefan was the youngest and naturally the grown-ups flocked around him and Katherine was tethered to Stefan by his sweetness.

"The kids at school always found you better company then me," Stefan tried with a weak smile. He heard Damon's watery chuckle come up and Stefan thought for a second that was it, he had fixed Damon. The elder vampire would push Stefan off in a second and threaten to kill him if Stefan told anyone about this.

But Damon didn't. It wouldn't be that easy.

"She never loved me, Stefan. I think I knew it, somehow, but I just denied it. I had this whole huge fantasy in my head that when I saved her she would love me, but I guess that can't happen can it?" He asked with a hollow laugh. It was force and strained and Stefan could sense Damon was struggling to keep back another wave of tears.

Hearing this admission Stefan felt something inside him break and like a flood gate had been opened Stefan was suddenly pounding with rage. Blind, white hot anger coursed through him directed toward everyone who had ever shut Damon down.

This is why he is like this today! Not because he's evil, it's because they made him this way. It wasn't his fault. It was theirs.

Forcefully Stefan lifted Damon's head out from where it had been buried in Stefan's shoulder and made him meet Stefan's eyes.

"Damon, they may have not loved you, but I do." Stefan ground out the words, his voice shaking with determination, his eyes bulging wide open as if this was the most important sentence he would ever speak. And in Stefan's world it was. He had to convince Damon of this, had to let him know he wasn't completely alone.

All throughout a childhood of being denied love, he had always had it from his little brother. Stefan needed him to know that.

Damon looked up at him, hope returning to the ice pools of his eyes.

"I love you, Damon," Stefan repeated firmly, nothing else mattering at the moment. Though some little subconscious thought in his mind admitted that this admission of love felt a little more then brotherly. It felt...romantic.

Damon was at a loss of what to say. He seemed to be trapped between a rock and hard place as he tried to figure out what this meant. Because he too felt this comment was just a little more then brotherly affection.

Fortunately though he didn't have to say anymore, Stefan said it all for him as the younger vampire's lips crashed recklessly into Damon's. Pressing against him firmly, molding to him as if he had to reassure him he meant it.

Suddenly Damon was in Stefan's lap and this time the way Stefan's arms wrapped around Damon pulling him in tight was not to comfort. Just to get him closer.

Damon answered back happily, his tongue darting between Stefan's lips. And the way he twisted his fingers in Stefan's hair, sliding his hands down to rest on Stefan's cheek, holding them in endearing way said all he needed too.

From then on out, there were no more words, their touch said it all.

XXX

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