"Break time's over," Damon said. Stefan would not call standing in a corner in the kitchen while he nursed a well spanked ass like a small child a break. "Get back to work." When he sat, gingerly, back on the stupidly hard dining room chair, he was confronted with a brand new horrible thing on this already horrible day. The chemistry extra credit, which he'd just finished a few hours ago, was covered in red marks.

Stefan tilted his head up. His brother was looking down at him with a lazy shit eating grin. "What did you do?"

"Your math was bad," Damon said, "as usual. I pointed out the mistakes and now you get to fix them."

Vampires were not supposed to get headaches, right? "I didn't need to get them all right," Stefan said. "Mrs. Palmer assigned me advanced level stuff as a challenge. She knew I knew the basics because I easily passed the exams I was in class for. She thought this might be more - " Stefan paused. Mrs. Palmer was happy to help Stefan get an A, but she'd given him a knowing smirk as he'd walked over to her desk, very slowly. After an entire class period where Stefan had shifted around in his seat, trying to find the least painful position to sit in.

Stefan settled with, "Engaging."

"I kind of picked that up on that. Public high schools don't usually teach juniors reaction kinetics, mechanisms, and catalysis," Damon said.

in lieu of glaring at his brother and risking swats for sass, Stefan settled on turning his annoyed gaze to his brother's shitty handwriting. He kept his tone very, very polite. "Then why did you mess up all of my work?"

"Turns out keeping an eye on you during time out in a corner for an hour was pretty boring, which was completely on you btws," Damon said. He tapped Stefan's nose. "And, you're welcome, by the way."

Stefan grabbed his notebook and turned to a fresh page. He grabbed his pencil. He was grouchy and decided to risk a swat for his mouth. "For what? For making me do my chemistry extra credit all over again?"

Damon grabbed this time. It was the back of Stefan chair. He lifted it up, turned it around, and plopped it back down. He leaned forward. "Did you forget that all this extra credit was part of your punishment, Stef?"

Sort of. Damon never mentioned all the extra credit he was doing was a continuation of the ruler's work. But he knew anyway. He'd known his brother for a very long time and had spent more time than he liked to admit submitting to his various punishments. "No." Stefan squirmed from the look his big brother gave him. That had been stupid because that only made his freshly tenderized buttocks flair up in pain. "She's going to be suspicious if I get all of these answers right. I thought we were trying to reduce suspicion?"

"You're in a mood," Damon sounded amused. Stefan probably wasn't going to get swatted for his mouth. He wished Damon had been given specifics on how polite he expected Stefan to be. 'Depends on my mood, Stef, he'd say, or maybe, 'respecting me could be your default position, baby brother.' It had been, when they were human.

Damon twisted Stefan's chair back around. He leaned over Stefan's shoulder and tapped the hand written note resting modestly on his Spanish textbook. "I let your teacher know you had some outside help."

"You're just a show off," Stefan muttered. Damon was a notoriously lazy student on top of being an opinionated one. The university he went to was glad to see him drop out. Except his chemistry professor, who wrote several long letters begging Damon to return so his genius could be proper nurtured. It was one of the few times Giuseppe was openly proud of his oldest.

"Guilty as charged," Damon said, "and our tight knit and nosy community will know I'm quite serious about disciplining you for the two months of home wrecking and debauchery. No fun for you on unexpected snow days. Taking the extra time we've been given to educate you even more will also raise our standing in the community."

It would raise Damon's standing, his brother meant.

"You could just make me do extra chores like a normal person," Stefan told his stupid chemistry textbook.

"Are you giving me ideas?" Damon asked. He was still leaning over Stefan's shoulder. It was kind of nice. Or it would have been if Damon wasn't being such a jackass.

"No," Stefan said. Damon wasn't generally a fan of replacing one punishment with another, but he'd been known to add extra punishments if he didn't think Stefan was learning his lesson. "I'm good, sir."

"Turn that frown upside down," Damon said, "and be grateful for all the extra opportunities I'm giving on your education." Stefan tried to stab Damon with his number two pencil, but Damon easily dodged. "You're grouchy today."

He was sore. He'd had a blissful couple of without getting his butt getting busted before fucking it up. The heat from the hand spankings he'd gotten over the course of three days had finally faded. Snow days meant he didn't have to endure whispers, giggles and rumors about how he's been clearly thrashed by his brother - and it's likely Tyler will spill the beans on Mrs. Gardner paddling him. A friendly gesture didn't mean that Tyler was starting to like him or was done bullying him.

The welts and bruises from the strap and ruler were also starting to heal. Things were going good for Stefan's rear end. But he's screwed that up by listening in on Anna getting spanked. He'd wanted to enjoy the solace of not being the only one in his position - a teenage vampire who was likely to be spanked for the rest of their endless life and forced to follow archaic rules set by an adult vampire who don't care that spanking was going out of fashion with humans. For good reasons, Stefan could point out. He'd done a research paper on corporal punishment of children once, after what he still thought was an unfair spanking from Lexi.

"That's not up for you to decide," was Lexi's response to his protest over being spanked for doing weed with his college buddies. His hand spanking became a hairbrush spanking. "You have an addictive personality and I'm not taking any chances."

With Annabelle.

He could have found a better way, like, you know, talking to her. Like an adult instead of a stupid impulsive kid. He understood why most teenage vampires where at the bottom of the pecking order in their vampire households. And the only teenager vampires who tended to survive longer than a decade tended to be in a household. In strict ones. Katherine was the only exception that Stefan personally knew about. There was just a certain level of maturity teenage vampires were never going to achieve because their prefrontal cortex's hadn't finished developing before they'd died.

Stefan thoughts were interrupted by Damon snapping his fingers in front of Stefan's face. "Earth to Stefan."

"I'm just tired," Stefan said. He looked up at his big brother. The wobble in his voice was unplanned, even though he was trying his best to look young and pitiful to appease Damon's protective instincts. Sure, Damon hadn't really shown them in a century, but a long shot wasn't a guaranteed to fail shot. "Can I at least do my homework in my bed?"

"On your tummy?" Damon's sense of humor was even less welcome than usual, "instead of that sore bottom of yours?"

But Stefan was desperate. "Please," he said, "sir?"

"Let's go over a few things." Damon turned Stefan's chair back around. He grabbed the edges of the seat and leaned close. "Why don't you want to sit down?"

Sullen, Stefan lowered his head and didn't bother to hide his pout. He folded his arms. It looked like Damon was not only not going be merciful, he was going to torment Stefan some more.

Damon jerked Stefan up and turned him to the side. He landed ten blows before shoving him back down on the chair. It took less than a minute and Stefan already had tears sliding down his face. "I don't want to have to make this a rule," Damon snapped, "when I ask you a question, I expect you to answer." Damon was still frustrated. He pulled Stefan back up and spent several minutes smacking one sit spot and then another, one right after the other. He shoved Stefan back on his seat. Stefan cried out. "I'm tired of you not putting things together. We just had a talk about how you're supposed to behave when I'm explaining to you how I plan to run things, didn't we?"

"I'm sorry, sir," Stefan eyes were watering and his voice was wavering.

Damon was standing tall, now the one folding his his arms, and looking down at Stefan with a deep frown. He was disappointed in Stefan and it was etched all over him. "Why don't you want to sit down?"

Because you're an asshole who spanks way too hard and way too often Stefan thought. He said, "Because it's really sore from all the spankings."

"Whose fault is that?" Damon said.

Stefan fixed his eyes on the floor. He was feeling less grouchy and more guilty by the second. "Mine, sir."

"I've had to spank you more over the past couple of weeks than I used to have to do over the course of months," Damon said with a huff, "do you think I'm enjoying this?"

"Yes," Stefan said. His eyes were burning. It wasn't because of his punished skin.

Damon's icy blue eyes were unexpectedly warm and gentle when he set his index finger under Stefan's chin and lifted his head. "You got me when I tagged you for PDA. Otherwise, no, Stefan. I haven't enjoyed making you cry so much lately."

"Yes, sir," Stefan wasn't stupid enough to jerk away from Damon's hold, as much as he wanted to. But he focused his gaze on the wall. Damon could make Stefan do a lot of things, but he couldn't control his eyes.

Well, not unless he chained Stefan down and shoved hot poker sticks on various parts of his body for a few years on end, anyway.

"Don't do that," Damon said. He sounded so human it hurt. "This isn't going to work unless you're open and honest with me."

Stefan answered by clenching his jaw. "I brought that up in when you took control over me, but you made it clear that didn't matter. "

Damon grabbed his elbow and pulled him back up. He gently cupped one of Stefan's bottom cheeks. "Let me know when you're ready to drop that bratty attitude of yours. "

Before Damon could pull his hand back, Stefan said, "I'm ready, sir, I promise."

Instead of landing at least a few smacks on him anyway, he gently pushed Stefan to sit back down. He ran his fingers through Stefan's hair. Neither one of them said anything for a very long time. Then. "You use too much hair gel."

"Going to make that rule number eight?" Stefan had meant for it to come out as a light hearted joke. But once his resentment escaped, he couldn't stop. "Rule number nine going to be what shampoo I use? I have an idea for number ten: confiscate my credit cards and put me on an allowance. Eleven - "

Damon pulled him up. Instead of giving him a smacking, he wrapped his arm around Stefan's middle and threw him over his shoulder. Before Stefan could protest, it was too late. They were already in Damon's room.

Damon pushed Stefan onto his bed. He pointed in Stefan's face. "Don't move."

"Or what?" Stefan asked. Now that he'd let go and started lashing out, he didn't see any good reason to stop, "you'll spank me? You're about to do that anyway."

"That's not all I'll do," Damon said. The threat in his voice made Stefan shiver. "We'll get to that after I let you off my knee."

Damon opened a drawer on his nightstand and pulled out a very familiar looking hairbrush. Lexi's hairbrush. The two of them used to be very close. The big round backend had been her most formidable tool in guiding Stefan and convincing him to be good. She'd had it painted the exact shade of green as his eyes. The last time he'd felt its' kiss, it had been on his birthday. Later that night, Damon had killed her.

"You can't use that," Stefan told him.

"You need to stop trying to tell me what I can and can't do," Damon said as he gently tapped his hand with the brush.

"I mean it, Damon," Stefan said.

Damon rose his eyebrow. "You're going to be a very sore young man," he said mildly.

Stefan moved. He grabbed the hairbrush out of Damon's hand. From the surprised look on his face, Damon clearly hadn't been expecting that. Stefan held the brush to his chest as he waited to see how Damon would respond when the shock wore off. Stefan's next move was going to depend on Damon's. He was completely serious. Damon was not going to use Lexi's hairbrush.

"Did you just take the hairbrush right out of my hand?" Damon was still in shock.

"Yes," Stefan said, "I did."

"I've never needed to tell you that wasn't allowed," Damon said. His voice was cool and even. It was hard to gauge how angry he was.

"Where did you even get this?" Stefan said.

"Your room after I killed her," Damon said. He'd folded his arms and tapping his hand against his forearm. "I figured it would prove to be very useful."

It felt like Stefan's stomach was sinking. "In what way?"

"Tanning you," Damon said, without apology.

"As part of your plan to make me miserable for eternity," Stefan asked, "or?"

"A little," Damon admitted, "but mostly it was to get my little brother back."

Stefan scooted back and leaned against the headboard. He stared at the green monster that Stefan hated and respected in equal measures. He missed Lexi so much. Damon sat down next to him and wrapped an arm around him.

"My grand plan was to get Katherine back, make a household with her, and make you the first new member."

Stefan tightened his grip around the handle and stared at the comforter. "What made you think she'd agree to that?"

"We'd talked about it," Damon said, "when I was human. She was already spanking you." Stefan flushed. Sometimes it was part of the sex. Just as often, she was punishing him in Damon's place. "She was able to keep you safe and well-behaved while I was at war. She was the only other person I ever trusted besides me to take you in hand." Damon rested his hand on Stefan's shoulder. "We'd keep you human, of course."

"I was seventeen," Stefan said and half-heartedly added, "too old to keep spanking me."

"Only just," Damon said, "and I've always planned to keep spanking you until you were twenty-one."

Stefan knew. He'd been told that. More than once. Often while he was sobbing over his big brother's knee. "You were a controlling dictator even before you became a vampire."

"A little," Damon said, "and I would have done even more to keep Father away from you." Stefan set his head on Damon's shoulder. "You're getting a good, sound spanking with that hairbrush on your already sore bottom. Are you ready to submit?"

"You can't," Stefan said. His voice sounded small and weak in his own ears.

"How do you plan to stop me?" Damon was amused. They both knew who was stronger.

"I'll start fighting you," Stefan said, "on every single spanking. And I'll start skipping school and not doing my homework and be rude to every single adult I come across."

"Will you, now?" Damon asked. The twitch of his lips was half amused, half very much not amused.

He was probably remembering the last time Stefan made that threat. He'd been fourteen and angry that his brother wouldn't let him be with Mary Anne Forbes. She was older and experienced. Damon had taken a switch to him and when he was finally done reminding his baby brother who was in charge (Damon, not Stefan), Stefan was promising to be a good boy forever. He didn't get spanked again for six months. The threat of a switching became Damon's go-to when Stefan was being defiant or about to do something dangerous. It was extremely effective.

"I will," Stefan said. As Damon tugged the brush out of his hand, Stefan tucked his face into his chest and started to cry. "Was killing Lexi part of your grand plan?"

"Yes," Damon said. He didn't let Stefan pull away. "I've wanted to murder her since she first put you over her knee." There was no use in struggling so Stefan slumped into Damon's lap. "I didn't because she was there for you when I couldn't be. Now I can and am. And this unbreakable vampire spanking hairbrush," he tapped Stefan's behind with it gently, "is one way I will be taking care of you."

"You didn't have to kill her," Stefan said, "I would have joined you if asked."

"After over a hundred and fifty years of having you in her household," Damon said, "do you really think she'd let you go that easily?"

"Not easily," Stefan had stopped crying but was still sniffling, "but she would if I could convince her you'd take good care of me."

"Maybe," Damon shrugged, "but I was never going to bend to her expectations. I'm a vampire, Stefan. I'll take what I want by any means necessary. And I'm never going to let anyone else decide how I'm going to care for you and your needs ever again. You and Elena are the only ones I ever let my humanity in for. Everything else can burn."

It was a sick thing, how safe that made Stefan feel. But he was a vampire, too, after all.

Stefan flinched when Damon smacked the back of the brush hard across the seat of his jeans. "Are you ready to submit to me?"

He nodded into Damon's strong forearm. They didn't do their usual thing. With one arm gently wrapped around Stefan, he bared his little brother from waist down. After dropping Stefan's jeans and boxers on the ground, he laid Stefan down for the brushing. Damon scooted to the center of the bed and sat against the headboard. He stretched out his legs and placed Stefan between them so that his hips were resting against Damon's thigh and his legs were trapped tightly between his legs. Damon's bed was large enough to fully support Stefan's body.

Damon set Lexi's brush against Stefan's upturned buttocks. "First we're going over my rules for you. I'm tired of having to remind you. Mess a less verbal way will get through to you. Then, I'll reacquaint you with the consequences of behaving like a spoiled brat."

"Yes, sir," Stefan said as he folded his arms in front of him.

Damon yanked off his shirt and dropped it on the floor. Stefan was completely naked and presented before his big brother for some much deserved discipline. The vulnerability was terrifying. Damon lifted the brush and Stefan squeezed his eyes tight. The familiar thud of Lexi's brush did not just burn the round cheek it kissed. Stefan's heart also burned.

He couldn't do much beyond submit to Damon's decision. So he did. Damon brought the heat up to a fierce boil after only a handful blows. He could hit as hard as he wanted and he wanted to hit hard. Each stroke smacked his hips down flat against Damon's thigh. When they rebounded back to where Damon had put them, Lexi's brush was back and forcing his hips back down. It was not a swift spanking, but it was, as Damon promised, a good, sound one.

Instead of his usual pattern of methodically paddling down his cheeks and thighs and then returning back up in circuit after awful circuit, Damon punished Stefan randomly. That was Lexi's method. He hated when Damon paddled his thighs with Lexi's brush. Not just because it hurt so damn much, but because her brush had never worked them over before. This was not how Lexi's hairbrush was supposed to be used.

But that's how Damon was using it.

Stefan howled loudly at his hairbrush paddling. Damon continued to spank his baby brother until Stefan slumped completely.

"Tell me rule one," Damon said as he pressed the back of the brush against Stefan's left under curve.

After getting his sniffling under control, Stefan said, "You decide when, where, how much, and what kind of blood I drink."

Damon wrapped his arm around Stefan's waist and paddled his sit spots. Left, then right, and left again. Stefan cried helplessly as Damon tore into him.

"Rule two," Damon said.

As Damon moved the brush down lower so it was mostly covering his upper thighs with only the very tip of the brush covering the curve of his cheeks, Stefan said, "I'm not allowed to lie or go behind your back." Stefan buried his face in his arms, briefly, for comfort. "Even though you only mentioned stupid or dangerous things, I know you mean it broadly."

"Good boy," Damon said. Stefan expected another round of blows. Instead, Damon asked, "rule three."

Stefan picked up what Damon wanted. He was tired of Stefan following the letter instead of the spirit of the rules. "I'm choosing to live like a teenager so you're going to treat me like one. Your my legal parent and I need to respect that, particularly in public."

Damon rubbed Stefan's sore bottom with the back of Lexi's brush. It both eased the sting and pushed it in deep. "Particularly?"

Stefan could not stop himself from blushing as he explained, "I think you want me to treat you like I did when I was actually a child. You raised me to be polite and respectful. Particularly to adults."

Lexi's hairbrush deepened the blush on Stefan's bottom. Damon couldn't see it, but he was leaving ugly red splotches behind as he spanked. Stefan could see them and, worse, he could feel them forming over the bruises he already bore.

"I get the feeling this is one rule you'll be bending the most," Damon said between punishing Stefan's throbbing backside, "I'll let you get away with it some in private, but you will," Damon gave him the hardest smack with the blow yet. Stefan howled again. "You will be polite and respectful in public, especially to adults." He spanked Stefan with steady blows. "I'm not raising a spoiled brat." Stefan began to cry anew when Damon started to make his point more forcefully. He'd fallen back to his standard method if spanking down one side before spanking up the other. He gave Stefan five full rounds of hot, blazing smacks from the hard back of Lexi's cruel wooden hairbrush. "Am I clear?"

It took time for Stefan to calm down. While Stefan tried to pull himself together, Damon rubbed his back. It helped Stefan find his words. "Yes, sir." He tried to hold back from what he said next, but he couldn't. "I'm really sorry. I know you expect better from me." Sure, Damon had been terrorizing him for fun and egged him to feed on humans, but Damon had been nipping bratty behavior in the bud since Stefan was a toddler.

Damon rubbed his sore, tenderized cheeks with his strong and steady hand. There was nothing Stefan could do but relax and soak in the comfort. "I know this isn't easy, Stef. But I won't let you become something you're not."

Stefan nodded.

Damon ended the comfort. "Rule four."

Stefan didn't know where the laughter came from. But it came. "Don't destroy your china. Or you Persian rugs, favorite furniture, or books. Part of respecting you is respecting your property."

"This is why I'm never going to stop spanking you," Damon said.

Stefan blushed. "Spanking minors is illegal in some countries."

Damon swatted him with the brush. "So is murdering people. That's never stopped me." He continued to swat Stefan with Lexi's brush. It wasn't hard but it produced a potent blaze on Stefan's throbbing mounds all the same. "You go to a school where students are paddled and I happily signed the form to consent to it. If I smacked you at the grocery store, the police would shake my hand before arresting me."

Stefan had never hated small town living more. "Would you actually do that?"

"That's up to you," Damon said.

Stefan scowled. But it was true. Damon had been rolling out rules in a completely unfair manner, but none of them were things Stefan shouldn't reasonably be doing, anyway. And he always had reasons for spanking Stefan. It wasn't fun activity for Damon, like eating Stefan's friends.

"Tell me rule five, baby brother."

This one was the worst. "Obey you," because, "I already knew you'd expect me to when you started this all up again. I didn't fight you on taking charge. Obeying you was a given after that." I owed it to you.

The blast of pain from the hairbrush made Stefan weep. Damon used Lexi's brush on the top of his thighs. He hit one right after another. It was good that Damon never made him count because they were coming down too fast for him to process the individual blows. He moved the brush up a little so the wooden back caught his sit spots. Damon was not holding back, he was putting a lot of his supernatural strength into making sure Stefan really paid for that mistake.

"I'm sorry," Stefan gasped out as Damon punished him, "please stop! I won't do it again."

Damon did not stop. "What won't you do again?"

Stefan couldn't answer right away because Damon started to smack his bottom harder and faster. It took a few minutes for him to be able to think about anything but the blazing fire. His big brother was mad at him and giving him a very good spanking! "Pretend you aren't in charge! Please, please, please!"

"I will hold you to that," Damon vowed. "Next rule, little boy."

"Straight As in school," Damon had eased the power behind his punishing arm, but he and Lexi's brush were not finished paddling Stefan's naughty bottom. "Model student. If I get paddled there, you'll paddle me at home." Stefan knew that only reason Damon let teachers paddle him was because they couldn't make it hurt and the embarrassment Stefan suffered was a good warm up for making him more agreeable when he got home.

"With what?" Damon demanded as he spanked Stefan flat against his thigh over and over and over.

"Whatever you decide," Stefan said. He remembered Damon's lesson: he picks what Stefan gets spanked with, not Stefan.

Damon paused. "I don't think we numbered that one. Let's make that eight. Tell me rule seven."

"I hafta mind you when you're punishing me or telling me how things are going to be," Stefan said. Damon tapped his impressive brush against Stefan. "You're not raising a spoiled brat."

"No I'm not," Damon said.

He - he really laid into Stefan's poor bottom. He was, again, hitting too fast and hard for Stefan to processes each individual spank. His special spanking spots were probably crimson, but his big brother wasn't done yet. Stefan wanted to squirm around to avoid the blows, but he wanted to obey his brother more.

"Let's make these rules an even ten," Damon said, slowing down the pace and strength of Stefan's spanking.

"'Kay," Stefan said.

"Number nine," Damon said, "what happens when I tell you that you're getting a spanking?"

Did Stefan have to say it? Damon's brush said yes. Stefan was developing a healthy respect and fear for the partnership between Damon and his brand new hairbrush. They were such a good team. Everywhere that Stefan was built to get a spanking, they spanked. He hated how much it hurt, but Stefan couldn't deny that he deserved it. Stefan hadn't just been bad, he'd been a brat. His strict older brother never let him be a brat. He knew that. Damon was justifiably angry that Stefan would ever need to be punished for being a brat. Stefan knew better.

"I get a spanking!" Stefan wailed as Damon finished up with a one last circuit around Stefan's cheeks and thighs. It hurt and it was hot. "I get a hard spanking!" His big brother was very strict. A spanking didn't do anything unless it burned the skin of the naughty child draped over a parental lap.

"Rule ten," Damon said. He was rubbing Stefan's back. "Rule ten is that you're my little brother and I will protect and care for you. For all of eternity."

Things will be getting easier for poor Stefan soon, promise.