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Damon comes through the haze back into the world, screaming, which is quite fitting, he's been screaming for a while now, no one ever had the time and ears to listen. They all left, it's his own fault, except the real fault was asking him to live. After.. after...
Damon realises with quite literally a flashbang in his face, that he doesn't have the time to wallow. Right he didn't come here to wallow, he came here because he was tired.
With that he's rallied with the relief, it worked, it worked, it worked. But he can't relish at it anymore because fire is licking at his skin, soles and follicles.
Oh so he's here then, in that Lockwood basement, roofied with vervain, left to die in a fire... poetic!
Before... fire was a remainder of many things, how they came at him with pitchforks (that was one time and he's half sure it's because of his sexcapades and not his undead classification,) The metaphorical one eating away at his feelings and thoughts because of Katherine, Augustine, Elena... so many notions that didn't matter in the end, of how he left his friend... he truly became a monster... Enzo died in that fire... it was the first thing that spread inside his veins when things got hot.
But now it was all gone, all changed, all filled with..
Stefan, Stefan, Stefan..
His little brother died in that fire.
Little brother, little brother, little brother...
I'm sorry, please don't leave me here, please don't... burn... away..
Stefan, Stefan, Stefan..
He's half confused if he's actually repeating his baby brother's name out loud like a mantra because it's pounding in all his being now.
As he struggles to get up and move. Get out, you have things to do.
Damon manages to stand on all fours, seriously this is getting old, he coughs once, trying to see through the fog and smoke and the actual fucking fire.
The fire is raging, literally floor to ceiling, how did Stefan even get him out the first time?
Falling into his foregone instinct, Damon looks for the fastest escape route, no matter how batshit it might be, except his immediate vision is dirt caked ground and his peripheral is all just raging fire.
For a moment, he thinks this is it, him coming back to past has completely altered the future and time is protecting itself by erasing him, he almost smiles bitter for his own sake and as a fuck you because he knows that's not going to end well.
Before he can perceive that notion, world isn't so bright anymore.
He hears steps, rushed yet careful, steps. His eyes land on his brother and Damon wants to wail like the child he never was... his brother in all his glory and hero hair, singed at the top, he's brooding and fussing like the child he is and Damon wants to cry.
"Stefan" Damon breathes and the ecstatic peace? joy? relief? that spreads through his body is enough to snatch the ground beneath his feet, when Stefan perks up at his name.
He's screamed that name into abysses and whispered it to people who never could hold it dear the way he did. Now as Stefan answers, "Damon" as he reaches him. He wants to cry. Damon, for the lack of a better word, falls into his arms. All nuance, all pretense burnt in the same fire, he needs to touch him, needs to hold him, needs to get him out of here, even if he can't feel his own spine. Stefan died and he didn't even have a body.
"Stef" he whispers as Stefan hauls him up to his feet, he holds on to his arm like a drowning man would latch to a stray branch.
Stefan speeds them out of the raging fire on to the drive way. Air fills his lungs as vervain wears off, Stefan's leading him away and saying something to Elena and Bonnie, his chest aches.
The way things had gotten, where their lives had lead. He sneaks a glance at them face pressed into his brother's stomach and hand holding shoulder in a grip that would make grown men cry. There is none of the warmth, none of the love, none of the trust... it tears him apart... but there is also no pain... his heart lurches. He will keep it like this, he thinks, stray arm holding on to Stefan's shirt (he'd burnt what he hadn't trashed, looking at them hurt way too much) clinging around to his back instead.
They're alone when Damon's insides aren't burning with Vervain and he's exhaled the last of smoke. He doesn't waste a second, turning the hold around, grabbing Stefan's face as he looks at him with something akin to starvation.
"Damon" Stefan's pursing his lips, there's fat beyond his teeth that he never got to grow out of, after all he died before he turned 18, both times.
"Damon are you okay?" Stefan asks hands coming up to hold shaking shoulders, Damon realises his eyes are now blurry and he doesn't care as he pulls Stefan into hug, grip so tight, it makes Stefan wheeze, hands around him, cradling his neck, holding his back, tight, so tight.
'I missed you little brother...'
'If you're happy, I'm happy...'
'Don't give me the pouty face..'
'Come kick my ass yourself...'
'Don't you worry brother our bond is unshakeable...'
'I'm sorry I wasn't better at it until now..'
The 'film reel' that runs in his head is not Stefan's last words to him, or his first( damon was the only one around for both,) not the baby Stefan he protected like a cub, not the man he married off to Caroline, not the kid who told him he loved him.
It's none of them, it's all of them and more. When they were bickering like literal children, ripping out each other's throats... all the times, everything. Damon missed his little brother all and whole, missed being mad at him, missed being his punching bag, missed being able to rile him up, missed looking at him from the other side of the room as he rolled his eyes, missed handing him a stake, missed threatening him, missed scheming him, missed hearing his drabble about something he was more than tired of, missed telling him everything that he deserved to hear.
"Damon" Stefan wheezed arms now against his shoulder, "wha-"
Damon let go and it hurt like someone peeled his skin, inch by inch, "Sorry" he whispered, hands still grabbing, "thank you."
Stefan's eyebrows drop in confusion, yeah because sorrys and thank yous were out of Salvatores' vocabulary, no just Damon's, when it came to Stefan. However much he said would never be enough.
"I.." he trailed, Stefan finally freeing himself, Damon's hand still buried in the cloth above his shoulder blade, "I'm just really afraid of fire."
Stefan's brood dissolves into worry, "Oh... I'm sorry"
Damon averts his gaze, he's done enough, can't blow his cover if he's going to get something out of this.
His head is still down as Stefan looks into the crowd, he doesn't even look up when Elena walks over and Stefan clicks his tongue.
Right about now, Caroline's on a hospital blood, bleeding internally and Katherine is probably waiting outside the Gilbert house, lurking.
So much to do, to prevent, to protect, to save.
He supposes in the grand scheme of things these were the easier times, when he didn't even know what was going to ascend on them.
How much worse everything was going to get...
His brick of a phone rings in his hand a beat before Elena's phone goes off.
"Hello Liz" he greets the distressed woman on the other side, his dead best friend, (he's got too many of them, it's almost tragic.)
Stefan's head whips between the two of them as Elena goes distraught and Damon's tone is still a droll.
"Stefan" Elena calls, something twists in his heart, but Damon didn't come here to be weak, "Jenna called, Jeremy overdosed" She's in tears as Stefan takes her in his arms.
"Yeah.. Liz called" Damon keeps his tone the same, keeping everything out of his voice, "Caroline's in ICU."
As they go their separate ways, he can feel Stefan's gaze on him.
Damon smiles, missing even this, 'nothing is ever easy with you is it little brother?' he thinks far too fondly for his own good.