Whiskey had often been a very good friend to Damon Salvatore. He had long since developed a taste for the bitter liquid in his years as an early teenager, and since then, the two of them had a very loving relationship. Drinking normally got people into trouble, but for Damon, it sent him on a blissful journey high above the clouds where no one could touch him. Alas, the escape that the sweet nectar brought him never lasted and by the dawn of the following day, he was forced to face the reality that he had so desperately tried to abandon. And when Damon Salvatore woke up that following Friday, it was the first time in his relationship with the alcohol that he despised its ability to clear his mind of coherent thought.

When he kicked his legs out of the sheets that had twisted around them, he felt that familiar rush to his head that told him that he had once more indulged in his favorite past time, quickly followed by the painful pounding that told him he needed to sober up for the day before he could return to his safe haven. Rubbing at his eyes, Damon stifled a yawn and started to stand when a small dizzy spell hit him and he was forced back onto the soft mattress.

"Long night?"

Damon's head snapped up in an attempt to keep his body from jumping at the sudden intrusion in the silence surrounding him. His blue eyes found the source of the sound immediately as it was standing directly across from him, arms folded over a scrawny chest, leaning casually against the wall. "Shit Stefan," he muttered, "didn't your father ever teach you not to disturb the living dead?"

A small smile cracked across the features of his younger brother at the attempted joke as he moved away from the wall that he had been leaning against. "No; my father only taught me not to disturb him when he was doing…well anything."

Damon snorted slightly at that comment as he felt the bed shift beside him, signaling that his brother had taken the liberty of joining him on the bed. "Sounds about right," he murmured just before he felt cool fingers against his bare shoulder blades – because who really believed that Damon Salvatore slept with a shirt on – kneading the skin gently.

His head fell back slightly as his body noticeably relaxed under his brother's touch. This wasn't an oddity for the two of them. Stefan had often been the one to coax away any hangover that crept up on Damon after one of his nights of drinking; hell, most of the time all it took was a simple massage. They had discovered this three years ago after a particularly bad incident that had Damon pitching the nonexistent contents of his stomach into a pot and the simple soothing dig of his brother's fingers in the back of his neck had calmed him.

"What time is it," he said, finally breaking the comfortable silence they had fallen into.

"A quarter after six," his brother said simply, his nimble fingers beginning to apply pressure to his spine.

Damon groaned, partly because of the answer Stefan had given him, and partly because his brother's work this time around was particularly pleasurable. However, he stayed under the familiar hands only a few more minutes before he rose off the bed and sauntered over to the armoire and opened the oak doors grabbing at the first few pieces of material that he could reach.

"How was school then today, since I seemed to have slept through you going and coming," he asked conversationally as he pulled on a clean white shirt and shook back the short curls that had fallen into his eyes.

"Increasingly dull," Stefan replied, absentmindedly picking at the sheets his brother had just been wrapped in, "although, Mr. Smythe gave me a demerit."

With furrowed eyebrows, Damon looked over at him, "for what? Were you caught necking with that frivolous Forbes girl," he teased, watching with amusement as a light flush appeared along the shell of his brother's ears.

"N-no. I corrected him again about the French Revolution."

A small, short laugh barked from Damon's throat as he debated between actually placing the suspenders over his shoulders or not, settling on letting them hang from his waist. "When I got demerits in school, it was usually for talking back; you get them for being smarter than the professor."

"Well, he had the audacity to claim that the guillotine was actually introduced to the French people before the beginning of the Revolution, when in fact, it wasn't created until three years after the war started, and it wasn't actually used to behead anyone until the 25th of April in 1792," Stefan protested passionately, and for a moment Damon stopped to look at his brother without making a single mocking remark. His brother had always been quiet, and tended to hold his tongue in the presence of authority, but when it came to history, there was a spark that was ignited in those emerald eyes that made certain that his mouth opened to spout out, in what was Damon's opinion, some of the most useless facts in the entire world. Yet, as unfathomable as it was that Damon Salvatore actually not interrupt someone when they were speaking of things that bored him, when it came to his brother, anything that got him to talk was welcomed.

Anyone in the small town of Mystic Falls, when the conversation was stiff, which it normally was, would find interest in speaking about the abnormally close relationship of the Salvatore brother's. Nearly a decade apart, and two completely different people, it seemed implausible that two such siblings got along so well, but the people of their hometown were incredibly dense and failed to look past the surface of the relationship.

Damon had grown up to be a constant nuisance to the inhabitants of the quaint town, and with current behaviors and allegations swimming out in the open he had long ago been alienated from anyone. Granted, he had a way with manipulating his words and a boyish smile that could charm anyone, it was often said that no one walked away from him feeling clean. In fact, Damon was referred to as not only the black sheep of the Salvatore family, but as the black spot on the town's good name. He would sooner steal away your daughter's and corrupt the minds of your son's before he could be seen doing a good deed for anyone. And when his drinking habit had seeped from his home to the town bar, the popular dislike for him only increased.

Stefan on the other hand was so timidly silent around the general public that he was often thought of as an invalid. Eventually though, it was revealed that he was just a very reserved person and spent more time locked in the Salvatore library than chasing the girl's around town as did the other boy's his age. He was smart, and even in his prepubescent years, it was apparent that he was going to be a rather handsome man, and with his well-mannered reputation and being the son of one of the town's wealthiest men, he was already declared to be one of the town's most eligible bachelor's – well, once he got to an acceptable age to begin to look for a wife, of course.

The only time they saw a different side to either boy was when they were spotted together, which happened to be on very rare occasions unless you were to pass by the Salvatore manor. More often than not, there would be bright, genuine smiles upon both faces, and they could be seen goofing around as the best of friend's would. However, the strangest thing about seeing Damon and Stefan together was the sudden surge of protectiveness that dripped off Damon and the unusual close proximity of the younger brother to the older as if the safest place in the world was right there beside the most dangerous person in town. Odd was about the only word that truly resembled their relationship to the townspeople, and whatever was odd was interesting.

But the oldest Salvatore brother, while amused that he and his brother often fed the curiosity of their gossiping neighbors, saw things a bit differently. Yes, he was protective of Stefan whenever he was with the boy, and yes, Stefan was always a little too close to him for normalcy's sake, but it was a routine that had developed early for the two of them.

After the death of their mother, their father, Giuseppe, had fallen into a stupor and had continued the long tradition of Salvatore father's neglecting their children. Damon, eight at the time, hadn't been too keen on being a brother to begin with because it seemed he had a foreshadowed warning that the infant would enter the world, take away his mother's love, and gain the pride, long sought after by Damon, of their father, and that was exactly what had happened.

With Stefan's birth came his mother's death, and in the future years, Giuseppe would often proclaim his joy in the birth of his second son, constantly making a remark about how the first attempt at an heir had produced nothing more than a mistake, almost like a practice creation, and Stefan had been the final product, perfection in a tiny nutshell. By all means, Damon wouldn't be blamed for hating his sibling, but there was something that had happened about a week after the child's birth that made the dark feeling impossible for the eldest brother. Stefan had been lying in the bassinet in the nurse maid's room and Damon had been attempting to find some amusement in one of the many books his mother had been so keen on collecting when the infant had begun crying. Its incessant wails had gotten on his nerves so deeply that he had stalked off to the room to silence it, but when his face peered over the edge to gaze down at the baby, the scrunched up, damp face abruptly returned to its former quiet stance. Damon had been taken aback by the intensity of the green orbs that stared back at him and the two tiny arms that reached up grasping at the air desperately. But what struck Damon even more, and the eight year old may have imagined this, was that it seemed that the baby, in that simple gesture, was pleading with him to protect him from the horrors of the world.

From that moment on, Damon wouldn't allow the child to sleep anywhere but his room, would allow no one but himself to feed and bathe him, his actions only watched over by their nurse maid who found it astonishing that an eight year old child had taken up the responsibility of caring for his little brother. Their connection was set in stone and even now, fifteen years into the life of the youngest, it still held strong.

"Sorry," Stefan mumbled, causing Damon to snap out of his short walk down memory lane and return back to the current moment.

"What are you apologizing for?"

"I know how much history bores you," he responded with a shrug as he popped off the bed, and Damon swore under his breath. He had probably just completely spaced out on the boy going on and on about the French Revolution as often happened when even the smallest sliver of history was brought into a conversation. Damon already knew how much the boy's confidence dwindled at times, and he was the only person that Stefan was able to completely open up around, and it didn't help matters that Damon had the attention span of a fruit fly.

Grinning it off, Damon took the few steps to his brother and ruffled his hair. "How many times do I have to tell you? It's not the history that bores me, it's the voice that's saying it kid," he teased.

Stefan jerked away from his reached and brought a hand up to quickly flatten his hair, grumbling something about not being a kid anymore and Damon chuckled. "Oh really, let me check," he said, making a quick move for the hem of his brother's shirt, tugging it up to inspect his chest for a moment before Stefan pushed his hands away and smoothed his shirt down. "You're still a hairless rodent," Damon teased even more, "I'm fairly certain that still registers you as a kid."

Narrowed eyes were shot towards him as Stefan spoke, "just because I don't have a trail leading down to my – uh…" The youngest sibling broke off his statement, his ears once again turning a bright shade of pink at the direction that his speech was going and his eyes averted the look of amusement that he knew was plastered across his brother's face.

With a smirk, Damon leaned down and whispered in his ear, "told you so Steffy; men can say the word dick," pronouncing the last word very sharply. He pulled back and watched as the blood spread from his brother's ears to his cheeks and he swallowed hard, his Adam's apple quivering slightly. The smirk transformed into a grin as he clasped a hand down on his shoulder and shook him lightly. "Don't worry, you'll be able to say it one day, then I'll stop calling you a kid."

Damon had a laugh on his lips and Stefan's blush was still prominent when they walked out of the eldest's room. However, any joy that the two of them had been experiencing faded quickly when they saw their father standing there, apparently waiting for them. Giuseppe looked them over for a moment, frowning slightly at Damon's hand on Stefan's shoulder which was immediately taken away under the scrutinizing gaze.

"We need to talk," he finally said, his voice clear and cold as it usually was.

Damon swallowed; he hated those four words together; they didn't tend to produce likeable outcomes on his end. "Father?"

"All three of us," Giuseppe informed them, promptly turning on his heel and briskly making his way to his study. The brother's shared a look before following after him.

This was different. Rarely when Damon did something wrong did Stefan get dragged into it, unless Stefan had done something right that could outshine any previous accomplishments of the boy's. And most of the time, Damon knew that it was for Stefan's own good that he stay out of the conversations that took place between father and son, for they never ended lovingly, not that they really started out that way either.

When the two stepped into one of the few rooms restricted to them without invitation, their father's back was to them as he hovered over his liquor cart pouring three glasses of amber liquid. The only thing that could be heard was the sloshing of the scotch as Damon and Stefan continued to share curious looks across the room. When Giuseppe turned to them, he ushered them closer and handed them each their own drinks, which only further confused them because it was an extremely rare occasion, well actually, the sharing of their father's alcohol never happened.

"To Damon," he said with a bright smile as he raised his glass and both boys cautiously mimicked his movements. And Damon watched out of the corner of his eye as Stefan sneaked a sniff at the drink and his nose crinkled in disgust. With a smirk, the oldest brother watched his father and the moment that Giuseppe wasn't looking he held his glass over towards Stefan who instantly got the hint and poured the contents of his glass into Damon's.

Thinking that his father's toast was finished, Damon started to raise the glass to his lips and the alcohol had just entered his mouth when his father continued; "may the Confederacy make a man out of you." At these words, Damon sputtered slightly, some of the scotch in his mouth dribbling down his chin as another part traveling down the wrong pipe, forcing him to cough violently for a moment. "And may it teach you to swallow a drink like a man as well," his father muttered with raised eyebrows before taking a sip of his own drink. A grin appearing on his face as he looked over at his youngest son, nodding at his glass, "look, you're brother is eight years your junior and he can swallow down scotch easier than you can." Any chance to undermine his eldest son, Giuseppe Salvatore took.

However, Damon was far more concerned with how his father had managed to bring up the one thing he had been avoiding thinking about since he had woken up this afternoon. But before he could voice the question, his father perched himself on the edge of his desk, set his drink down, and folded his arms over his chest to answer it as if he had been reading his son's mind. "Lockwood informed me when I went into town today that you had graciously signed up when the Confederate officer came into the bar yesterday evening looking for volunteer's…that was before you vomited all over his boots."

The eldest Salvatore paled at that final statement; so, at least he hadn't dreamt that part up. But he quickly deflected the memory as he anticipated his father's explosion. But it never came.

"He told me you leave in two weeks," Giuseppe continued, "I would have waited for you to tell us, but knowing you Damon, you probably would have waited until the morning of to tell us you were taking off."

Normally, he would have protested, since he pretty much fought every word that came out of the man's mouth, but then again, his father had a point. That was exactly what he would have done; in fact, that was exactly what he had been planning on doing.

"But I'm happy I found out," his father said, speaking once more, and grinning at the surprised look his oldest son sent him, "I think that you joining the army is the smartest, reckless, mistake that you have ever made son." The man paused in his words for a moment to scoop up his glass and take a sip of the bitter drink before getting to the point, "maybe they can instill the discipline that you sorely need."

For a moment, just a second, Damon had actually believed that the word proud was going to accompany his name in a sentence falling from his father's mouth, but in his twenty-three years he should have known better than to believe in a silly little hope like that. "That's why you brought us in here? To celebrate my leaving," he started, his voice rising significantly, anger lacing with bitterness, "but why should I be surprised? You've been dying for the day that I would be out from underneath your hair since the day I was born?"

"How could I not Damon? From day one you've been nothing but a burden on me. You're unmarried at twenty –three because no father in town wants to give their daughter to you; you've made me the laughing stock of the town with your drinking antics and your…heathen trysts! You have made a mockery of this family and it is about time that you fell into line!"

Stefan had become invisible in the room, as he often did when the two of them spouted off into one of their daily fights. This had been the destination of their father's appearance from the very beginning and he was a fool to think that his family could have one conversation without adding insult to injury. So as Giuseppe and Damon went back and forth, each trying to out-bicker the other, Stefan slowly began to slink backwards out of the room. As per their usual, they didn't notice his absence; their hatred for each other often overwhelmed all of their senses, blinding them from anything else going on around them.

Once he was free of the confines of the study, Stefan let out a shaky sigh, glad to be away from the angry voices, but disappointed that he was left with the thoughts and the sinking notion that in two weeks, this house was going to be increasingly empty because his brother was leaving him. Damon had clearly been drinking last night which meant that he hadn't been thinking and in that instant, he had done the one thing that Stefan feared the most: he had decided to leave him behind.

As much as he wanted to fight against the nagging feeling inside of him telling him that maybe if he said something then he could stop Damon from leaving, he had known this day had been coming for a long time. For years he had realized that Mystic Falls was too small of a place for someone like his brother; he knew he wasn't happy here and that one day he would choose to leave. Stefan, however, had hoped that it wasn't going to come this quickly or that by the time that Damon had finally decided to take off that Stefan would be old enough to go with him. He hadn't gone a day in his life without seeing his brother, without talking to him; Damon knew his secrets, his desires, his fears, he shared everything with him, and when he was gone, there would be no one. Stefan had no friends, and while Giuseppe might have favored him over his eldest son, he was still not the kind of a father a boy needed. He needed to face it now; in two weeks, he would become silent, friendless, and more alone than ever before in his life. But he couldn't ask Damon to stay. That would be too selfish of him, and his older brother had been taking care of him for fifteen years; this was his chance to break away from their father, from the Salvatore legacy, from everything, and Stefan couldn't hold him back.

Stefan dragged his feet back down the hallway and to his bedroom. He left the door open a crack, not bothering to light a candle, allowing the fading lights of dusk to be the only illumination in the room. He crawled onto his bed and crossed one leg over the other, letting his elbows rest on his knees as his chin rested sulkily in his palms as he stared out the window. Maybe this was a good thing. Maybe his brother would find that happiness that he deserved, and so desperately craved, and frantically searched for; although, he would never admit it and always claim that he was happy right where he was. And maybe Stefan would finally realize that he was better off alone. But no matter how many times he tried to repeat those statements to himself, he knew that they were a lie. He knew what the truth was, or at least, the truth he wanted: Damon was happy with Stefan and Stefan was happy with Damon; there was no reason for him to leave.

His eyes flickered over to the familiar silver frame on the bedside table and a soft sigh fell out of his lips. This was the only way he knew his mother, an old, faded picture of her that highlighted everything beautiful about her. But the one thing that stood out to him the most were how even in this colorless photo, he could see the intensity that burned behind those green eyes – Damon had always told him that he had their mother's eyes – and the way that they seemed to stare right at him, as if she were actually here. And when he was younger, he used to have entire conversations with the photo, expressing everything that he could never form words for until he spoke to her. It was weak, and pathetic, but it was a comfort to Stefan.

"He's leaving me Mom," Stefan said, surprised to find that his mouth had moved. It had been years since he had actually spoken to the picture, but it seemed that his heart had decided that he needed this, he was going to need someone to talk to with Damon leaving. For the second time that night, another sigh fell from his lips and he dropped his hands and started to pick at the fabric of his trousers, the wrinkled parts that had bunched at his knee. "He's leaving and he's not taking me with him. I knew, I knew that he was going to do this one day; I thought I'd be ready for it –," he paused, and at his next words, his voice choked up and broke, "but I'm not."

He took a deep breath and let his eyes wander back up to the face in the photograph, feeling his eyes glass over as he continued. "I've never been without him. He's always been there, over my shoulder, watching out for me, making sure I'm okay. I don't know what to do without him." Looking back down at his hands, Stefan realized they were shaking slightly and he swallowed hard. "How could he do this to me?"

Suddenly a pair of warm hands closed over his, stopping their shake, and Stefan raised his eyes to see a pair of pained, ice blue eyes looking at him. Damon and Giuseppe must have stopped fighting and Damon had probably been heading back to his room for his jacket so that he could go drown his anger in whiskey. He had probably walked by and heard Stefan's voice and thought he was completely crazy for talking to air, and so he dropped his head, once more feeling pathetic and weak for his actions.

"Hey," Damon said softly, crouching down in front of him and bringing up one of his hands to his brother's chin and pushing it up a little so that Stefan was looking at him once more, "I'm not leaving forever Stefan."

He had actually passed by and heard his voice and knew exactly what he was doing because he had discovered his brother's habit of speaking to their mother's picture years ago and he had never made mention of it because he knew that there were times of his own when he wished that he was brave enough to look like a fool and talk to someone that wasn't there, just to get something off his chest and maybe have the illusion that she was guiding him.

Stefan suddenly seemed stirred by his words and he pushed Damon's hands away and scrambled off the bed, "don't say that," he said angrily. Turning to look at him, the oldest Salvatore stayed back for a minute, knowing that his brother needed to get this out in the open. This wasn't the first time that Stefan had an emotional outburst, and each time it was around Damon, and Damon had learned how to deal with them, had learned that he was the one who calmed Stefan down the most. And this was one of the very reasons he had been reluctant to share the news with his family because he knew how hard it would hit his little brother.

"You don't know that Damon," Stefan continued, his hands forming into tight fists at his sides. "You're leaving…to go to war; a war that's been going on for nearly three years now. You don't know how much longer it's going to last or when they're going to let you come or…if you even come home."

Damon stood from his crouching position at this point and took a few steps towards Stefan who diligently remained facing the window. "You may end up somewhere better than here or you could fall in love and not want to come back," he said, his voice slowly losing the edge to it. From behind him, Damon watched his younger brother bend his head, unclench his hands, and stare at the once more shuddering appendages. "You could get hurt," Stefan whispered, almost inaudibly, "you could –." He couldn't even finish the sentence but it didn't take a genius to know that the missing word at the end of the sentence was die.

Damon could see his brother's shoulders began to shake and the desperate choke back of sobs and he instantly stepped closer and wrapped his arms around his brother's chest, holding him still and pulling him back against his body. "Shh," he whispered in Stefan's ear again and again. One of his hands had abandoned the grip on the boy and had come up to run from his forehead to the crown of his head over and over as he rested his chin on Stefan's shoulder. "We go together, remember," he whispered, bringing up a promise made a long time ago the first time that Stefan had voiced his fears about Damon dying.

Stefan, having shut his eyes tight the moment his brother's arms had encircled him, opened them slowly and he tilted his head back and to the side a little so that he could see Damon's face. Any trace of humor or lightheartedness that resided there naturally had been replaced by concern and seriousness, two things rarely seen on Damon's features. Licking his dry lips he nodded slowly and turned in his big brother's arms and wrapped his own thin limbs around the man, burying his head into his chest. The two of them remained like that for some time, the silence enveloping them, but no greater comfort came than from the warmth of each other and each holding onto the other. It was the biggest fear for each of them that someday the other would let go and they would be utterly alone.

After some time, Damon pulled back and looked down at Stefan who was looking towards the ground, his ears bright red once again that day, embarrassed from crying so easily. He took the cuff of his sleeve and wiped at his brother's damp cheeks before stepping back towards the bed and opening the top drawer of the table that their mother's picture resided on and grabbed the Châtellerault folding knife that he had gotten Stefan for his last birthday.

Gripping it by its ivory handle, he popped it open with a grace that Stefan wished he could master – when he was bored he would spend hours practicing that very action – before gesturing Stefan over to him. "What are you doing," the youngest Salvatore asked shakily as he stepped closer.

Damon looked at him and grinned, "I'm going to make a blood promise," he said as if it had been the most obvious answer in the world.

"A blood promise," Stefan questioned, raising his eyebrows at his older brother's absurdity.

"Strongest kind of promise there is," Damon said as-a-matter-of-fact while he brought the tip of the knife to his hand and dragged it across his palm, spilling dark blood onto his tanned skin in the wake of its path; a mere wince flashing across his face was the only sign of pain. He motioned for Stefan to give his hand and slowly, the fifteen year old stretched his hand out, palm up, and Damon took it and mimicked what he had done to his own hand, grimacing slightly at the hiss that seeped through his brother's teeth.

Once the blood was pouring out onto Stefan's pale skin, Damon set the knife aside and grabbed Stefan's bleeding hand into his own sliced palm tightly, making certain that their blood mixed. "Stefan Salvatore," he said seriously, "I promise you, that no matter what happens, no matter where I go, I will always come back to you."

Stefan stared at him for a moment, letting the words sink in, knowing that Damon meant every word he had just spoken. He didn't know what to say to it. He didn't know if there was anything he could say to that. Not that it mattered, because within seconds Damon pulled Stefan back to his chest, hugging him tightly, and maybe he was reading too much into the gesture, but it seemed to him that this was Damon's way of telling him that he didn't want to leave, but he needed to.

Swallowing, it was Stefan that pulled away first this time and let out a breath and blinked a few times before he went and grabbed a shirt from his dresser and attempted to tear fabric from it, only to have Damon beside him in an instant, taking it from him and easily tearing two strips away, before taking one and wrapping it around Stefan's hand. And when he was finished he held out his own hand and the other strip so that Stefan could do his, and as the younger boy wrapped the cloth around the cut he shook his head. "That was stupid Damon; what if they get infected?"

This emanated a bark of laughter from his brother and Damon ruffled Stefan's hair, a gesture that was beginning far too frequent. "There's my little brother," he said with grin dropping his hand and pulling him into a one armed hug and pressing a kiss to his forehead.

Normally, Stefan would have pulled away and wiped furiously at the skin where his brother's lips had touched, but instead, Damon felt him sigh comfortably in his grasp, but he chalked it up to the current situation rather than look any farther into the fact that he didn't pull away. However, when Damon tried to pull away and start for the door, Stefan caught onto his wrist and when he looked over his shoulder he saw the same plea in his brother's eyes that he had seen when he was a baby. Stefan didn't need to speak for Damon to know that he was asking him to stay with him, help him sleep, as he had several times when they were younger.

With a silent nod, Damon shut the door firmly and walked back onto the bed, climbing onto it, immediately followed by his little brother who rolled onto his side so that his back was to Damon and the oldest Salvatore closed the gap between their bodies, draping his left arm over Stefan, pressing his nose to his neck for a moment before he felt Stefan's cut hand reach up and grab onto Damon's fingers tightly. A sigh of content fell out of both of their mouths simultaneously as they relaxed into each other and the mattress beneath them, the moon falling over the two of them, displaying the only evidence that these two brothers were closer than they should have been.