"Gravitational"

Mystic25

Summary: Takes place after 4x23 "Graduation." When Damon discovers what became of his brother, from his non brother. Spoilers from Season 4 Finale.

Rating: T for language, and violent imagery.

A/N: I am not a Delena fan, but to fit in with the storyline from the season finale, I will honor it. Because this focus will not be on a romance; it will be on the brothers.

xxxxXxxx

"You're lying Delores, and one mustn't tell lies."

~"Harry Potter" "Deathly Hallows: Part One"

xxxxXxxx

It was the littlest of things that gave it away.

Stefan had returned from the basement; a blood bag clutched casually in his palm. When he emerged onto the first floor landing he spotted Damon who was standing beside the fireplace and asked: "You want one of these?"

Something clicked in Damon's head, like the cog of a clockwork piece turning into a groove. Up until then Stefan's sudden shift from his proclamation that he was going to 'get a life of his own', his almost indifference to Damon and Elena being together – Damon had managed to explain away all of it.

Stefan was always a drama queen; but an introverted drama queen. He brooded silently with the best of them. So a sudden redirection of his new life plan wasn't abnormal; because he was quiet about it.

And quiet equaled broody, which equaled Damon's brother to a fault.

So Damon had been inclined to let Stefan have his petulance. His moments of malcontent when Elena would "go to bed" at the same time Damon did. And even after Damon had emerged from his bedroom with Elena behind him, and Stefan had spotted her, and merely asked if she wanted coffee – Damon just told himself that Stefan was trying to be a pain in the ass marty, and left it alone.

But today, three weeks later, on a basic low level evening – Stefan standing on the stairs, holding the bag out to Damon like it was nothing. It all hit the air like an accelerant to an open flame.

Because today, Damon could not explain it away. The relationship they had went back 165 years. And as much as Damon would deny it to anyone, including himself, he knew his brother. Stefan was a prudish, martyr of routine.

And one of those routines included a constant deep rooted guilty look every time had to consume human blood.

There was none of the casual indifference he saw his brother wearing on his face now.

"I already ate," Damon threw out. He watched Stefan shrug and break the seal on the blood bag, and poured its contents with a 'glug' into a glass.

Stefan picked up the tumbler and downed half the blood inside.

"How come you're not hunting for Bambi's mom and sisters again?" Damon asked. He drank from his own glass which contained an amber colored bourbon. Breakfast of athletes and bad ass vampires.

"I think a pack of rabid wolves got a hold of the deer," Stefan took another hit of blood. "I found three of them dead, no fresh wounds. Didn't want to take the risk."

"One pack of wolves can't infect all the deer of Mystic Falls Stefan," Damon pointed out. "And we're already dead; it's not like rabies is going to double kill you."

"No, but it wouldn't be my idea of a fun time, Damon, so how about you drop it?" Stefan returned.

Damon raised the hand up that he held the glass in, as if in surrender. "No need to get extra broody Brother. You might mess up your hero coif." He watched Stefan shrug into an almost Stefan smile.

Almost.

"Hunting's overrated anyway." Damon took another swallow of his liquor.

Stefan's smile was still there, still almost there. "When was the last time you actually went hunting Damon?"

"Unless you count people, It was that Stag Hunting expedition we took with Uncle Josiah out in the woods at Lancaster." Damon smirked in almost disbelief at the whole memory. "The highlight of that trip was when he almost shot a council member, remember? He was so drunk on his homemade distilled crap he couldn't shoot the broadside of a redwood."

Stefan's smile blew into a laugh. "How could I forget? The whole thing was an Act in Screwed Up Family Values-"

"Hey, what was the name of that blood hound of his?" Damon interrupted. "The dog had a lazy eye and no sense of smell, he was practically useless as anything but bait."

"It was a long time ago Damon," Stefan argued. "Another time."

Damon stared at him. "Yeah you're right." The air bore a moment of pause. "Or it just never happened." Damon's voice shifted from amusement to something else. He took a step towards the other man. "Because there was no hunting dog, or an Uncle Josiah-" Damon was now right by him. "These are things that you would remember Stefan- except you're not really Stefan are you, Silas?"

'Stefan' licked his lips and lowered his head down in an amused dry laugh before he met Damon's gaze again. "I would say that I'm impressed Damon, but it took you three weeks to figure out my Trojan Horse routine-"

"Where's my brother?" Damon's voice had bottomed into something feral.

"A little late to be caring about that side of things isn't it?" Silas said. Though you have been busy fucking Stefan's former conquest-"

The room erupted into a fit of noise. The tumbler of blood Silas held shattered and stained the walls. Damon rushed onto Silas in a blur of velocity and slammed him up against the wood of the walls, splintering them.

"Damon, what the hell are you doing?" Elena had been out with Caroline helping her friend buy things for her college dorm room. She now stood inside the foyer, the door opened to the night. Her keys dropped inside one of the shopping bags at her feet.

She rushed inside. "Damon!" she tried to pry him off, but was thrown aside by Damon's free hand.

"Damon!-"

"It's not Stefan!" Damon's returning shout erupted over his shoulder; his grip hard on his non brother.

Elena's face portrayed total confusion, for only about three seconds. Then realization hit into her like a disintegrating glacier. "Oh my God."

Silas laughed in Stefan's voice. "It's nice that I'm held in such high regards by one as ravishing as you Elena."

"What did you do to Stefan?" Elena demanded coming into the living room, her hair blew around her by her created wind.

Damon grabbed Silas by the throat. "Answer her question."

"He's dead," Silas answered like it was an amusing fact. "Or should I say dying. Desiccation can take decades to waste away a vampire-" Silas grabbed Damon's from his neck and broke it backwards forcing Damon to let go with a strangled cry.

"Tell us where Stefan is!" Elena shouted, her voice fierce.

" You're not as smart as Stefan makes you out to be girl," Silas taunted. "My telling you would be too easy. And what's happening now," there was a hint of a smile as Silas watched Elena's reaction to his words, then Damon's. Like they were an amusing circus pantomime act. "It's not an easy way to go. One might call it torturous-"

Damon was back on Silas in a rush. His broken wrist pinned a jagged wooden chair leg to Silas chest. "Where. Is. My brother?" Damon's voice was base level primal.

Silas' amused look entrenched itself deeper onto his face. "You honestly think something like that can kill something like me?"

"This?" Damon glanced briefly at the stake in his hand. "No. But me? – I'd say that was your real problem."

Silas head tilted back into a laugh. "Your bravado in front of your maiden is admirable Damon," he drew closer so that he was nearly nose to nose with Damon. "My question remains the same."

"You're obviously an only child," Damon plowed the wood into Silas chest. The wooden leg squelched through his gut with a spray of blood.

Silas was an immortal being. So the stake did not affect him like a vampire. But, the pain of having a 12 inch piece of jagged wood rammed into his gut doubled him over.

"First you're going to tell us where Stefan is," Damon torqued the wood inside Silas chest and Silas gave a grunted, strangled cry. "Then you're going to stop the Halloween costume act and show us your real face so I know what I'm killing."

Silas growled angrily. "This is my real face." he ripped the wood from his body and aimed it at Damon's heart.

The maneuver was intercepted by Elena, but Silas sent both her and the stake sprawling to the floor, and crashing into a table. The impact shattered the table like wooden hail onto her.

Silas marched over to Elena, but he didn't touch her, and instead picked up the stake, "Before either of you enact any revenge fantasies, I will enlighten you on a few facts," He stared at the pointed tip of the wood, his eyes fixed on Damon. "Baby brother has one of these stuck inside him. Each time he struggles for breath from where confined him; it drives it that much closer to his heart. It's my personal Schrodinger's Cat experiment. See what he succumbs to first. So I suggest you both prioritize." Silas' gaze moved from Damon to Elena who had climbed back onto her feet. "What's more important, me? Or the other me?"

Neither one of them saw Silas leave, not even with the speed of their senses. But when they looked again to where he had stood, Silas was gone.

xxxxXxxx

"What did you find?"

"Nothing," Caroline was down on her knees by the side of the ledge beside the quarry, her fingers brushing through the damp sand. "It was three weeks ago and it rained so much that if there was anything here it's gone now-" the sand was smooth in the beam of her flashlight.

"You know unless you have something tangible and merit worthy to say regarding the situation Caroline I suggest you not talk-"

"I want to find Stefan too Damon!" Caroline snapped into phone. "So you and Elena work faster to get your asses here and stop being condescending!-"

A hand on her shoulder made her jump. Caroline expected it to be Damon about to deliver a one liner about how he was fast. But instead it was Matt. His face was illuminated by the light of his tow truck.

"I searched a mile down in both directions," Matt said "I didn't see anything."

A sense of dread suddenly came over Caroline. "Then it has to be here- Stefan was going to throw Silas' body into the quarry," Caroline stared over the edge of the ravine, at the churning and raging of the water below.

The same look that came over Caroline came over Matt. In the lights of his headlights White capped waves sprayed up the base of the cement wall. "Care-"

The engine of a black SUV cut off from behind Matt's tow truck. Elena sprang from the passenger seat.

"He's here!" Caroline's shout made Elena run to lip of rock she was standing on. "No tracks, but it's the only place wide enough to park the SUV off the road and right up to the water."

"That doesn't mean anything," Damon came up beside Elena, his dark eyes downcast to the water. The churning and raging roaring in his ears. "The current down there's strong enough to have moved the safe anywhere along the bottom."

"So what are we doing?" Matt asked.

"I'll search the bottom, see if I can find it," Damon said, turning to Matt. "Get your winch ready to haul when I come back up."

"I'm coming with you!" Elena insisted.

"No you're not."

"Damon, you can't haul a safe to the surface by yourself!" Elena yelled back. " I'm helping-"

"We're not arguing about this!" Damon snapped back glancing again at Matt. "Donovan get your truck ready and if she tries to follow me hoist her up by her belt loop and fling her ass home." Damon took one glance at the water before he took half a leap and shot downward like an arrow.

"Damon!"

Elena's voice trailed all the way down as Damon broke the surface of the water.

The water was pitch black and warm and butted Damon from all sides like a mosh pit at a rock concert. He propelled himself downward, and found that the water grew somewhat lighter and a minute later he found out the source. Flood lights at the base of the quarry, beaming their light upwards. The lights were huge, about 2 feet wide and rectangular.

Damon could see a row of three of them, clumps of algae had grown around one of the floodlights, but its light still managed to permeate through it. But it was not true of the last light, which glowed around the edges in an inverted 90 degree angle, blocked by something that wasn't algae.

Damon swam to that blackness, his hands grasping the rusted edges of the dark safe. Three loops of steel chains were wrung around it both horizontally and vertically, like a birthday present. He pulled, but the pressure of the waves and the corroded metal kept the chains firm.

So Damon shifted focus. He backed up and, using one of the chains for leverage, pulled at the safe. It didn't move at his first attempt, or his second. He pulled with a fierce hard last jerk and the safe broke free from the stone ground.

Steel wasn't buoyant, so it did not stay risen for long Damon used all of his strength and pulled it upwards with him. The muscles in his body felt like liquefied fire, and a point of jagged rusted metal scrapped hard into his chest, slicing through the leather of his black jacket.

But he kept tugging, yanking, pulling. His breath finally broke into air. "Throw it down!" he called up to Matt.

Damon tried to keep hold of the safe and stay treading water, but even with all his Vampire strength the metal was beginning to slide down his hands. He gripped tighter, using both hands, grunting audibly from the effort.

"Damon!" Elena didn't wait for his okay this time and she jumped off the ledge, feet first and plunged into the water, landing only a few feet away from him. She swam the distance to the safe and reached under the water, finding purchase on one of the chains, and hauling up with Damon.

The combined force of both their strengths managed to raise the safe higher up.

"Matt, hurry!" Elena grunted, throwing her shoulder into the side of the safe to keep it aloft.

The heavy metal hook of Matt's towing winch swung down along with his search light. The metal hook descended lower until it was a finger tip length away from Elena's hand. She strained out and managed to grab the end of it locking it to the top most section of chains, calling: "Go!" to Matt once it was secure.

"Get up," Damon grabbed Elena's foot and hauled her up on top of the box.

Elena grabbed the chains and pulled herself up on the safe. She turned to see Damon grabbing to the side section of chain and she grasped his wrist to keep him there.

The winch began to raise, but there was a horrible groaning sound from the motor, the weight capacity of carrying a safe and three Vampires was too much for it.

Caroline heard the motor sparking out. She jumped up on the back of the truck and started pulling at the chains with her hands. Matt started helping her. His strength was only human, and blood began spilling down his hands from the metal cutting into it, and his shoulders started popping and screaming, but he kept pulling with Caroline.

The safe cleared the halfway point, then a peaking of it sprang up over the ledge. Caroline jumped down and grabbed at one of the loops of metal and pulled with a scream as Elena jumped off and helped her.

Damon found a crack in the quarry face to anchor his feet and pushed from the back end of the safe.

The black metal box cleared the ledge in a tumble and landed with the door face up.

There was a heavy padlock interlocking all the metal chains together. Elena tore it off, and a harsh ripping sound came from her right as Damon severed the links of the chains like twine.

The handle of the safe had been torn off leaving nothing to grasp to open the door.

"Here!" Matt came around from his truck with a crowbar. He placed it under the seam of the door across from the hinges, bracing back and pried upwards. Elena helped him and the crow bar snapped in half, as the safe door burst open.

Elena dropped the broken piece of crow bar as a rush of stagnant smelling water poured out onto the concrete in a wave.

"Oh god-"

As the water had began to recede from inside the safe it revealed a humanoid shape, gray as the granite below, almost fused to the back of the safe.

"Stefan!-" Elena reached inside, grabbing onto what she could only imagine was Stefan's arm. But, it was so gray, so stone like that it didn't resemble an arm at all. She tugged, hard, but she could not manage to move him.

Damon reached up and ripped the top of the safe off throwing the metal sheet to the ground. Elena and Caroline followed his example and tore off the sides and the door.

Stefan's body fell to the ground, as unyielding as concrete. His skin even more gray in the headlights of Matt's truck, a water damaged wooden stake sunk deep into his chest.

"Oh my god-"

"Get the blood from the car!" Damon cut off Caroline's shocked outburst. He reached down and pulled the stake from Stefan's chest. His brother's body jerked up from the force of his tugging, but didn't move after that.

There was a rush of wind and Caroline was kneeling by Stefan's head clutching a donor blood bag. She bit through the plastic through her fangs and smeared it across his lips.

"Come on Stefan!" Elena pleaded, rubbing a finger over his mouth to try and stimulate it into opening "Come on!- you have to drink this!"

Every other part of Stefan's body was like stone. Webbed over like cracked granite, contracted like a statue welded upon itself. But his lips were so translucent they almost glowed.

"Why isn't it working?" Matt asked, to no one, and to all of them. He stared at Stefan. Stefan hadn't been alive in a long time. But , lying there like that, he didn't look-"It's not supposed to take this long-"

"Say another word Donovan and I'll rip the carotid out of your throat!" Damon snapped, his voice sharper than his fangs.

"Drink the blood Stefan!" Caroline shouted, prying open Stefan's mouth. It came apart with a hideous jerking motion like rigor mortis had set in on a body. Caroline took the blood bag and squeezed a puddle of blood into Stefan's mouth then forced his jaw back closed. "Please Stefan, please drink it! Please!" Caroline fell back on her knees, her body convulsing on sobs she was trying to force down.

Damon watched the image of Caroline shouting, forcing more blood down Stefan's mouth Elena shaking his shoulders, Matt staring in shock at Damon's brother, who wasn't moving, despite almost an entire bag full of blood going into his mouth. He watched all this with the quiet kind of detachment, before the accelerant that was inside him found open flame.

Damon lunged forward and shoved a hand into the bleeding hole inside Stefan's chest. He squeezed the torn part, hard. "Swallow the damn blood, brother!"

Damon's scream echoed off the granite and he thrust his hand in deeper.

Stefan's body jerked like he'd been electrocuted and a spray of blood flew out of his mouth and hit Caroline and Elena's faces.

Damon removed his hand pulling back like he'd been a conduit for such an electrocution. His skin was coated like a glove in his brother's blood.

Stefan's body convulsed on a gasp, then a choke as he threw up a mass amount of foul smelling water. Caroline grabbed his shoulders to keep him from falling backwards and choking.

Stefan pried his eyes open, then blinked them wide with another huge gasp. The shapes around him were all disorienting and blurred, and too bright, but one started to become sharper.

"—Damon-" Stefan's voice confused and grated from the vomiting and the lack of use. He dry gagged again.

Damon breathed out once. He grabbed Stefan's arm by the crux of his elbow, his brother's blood touching his brother, and hauled him to his feet.

"Get him in the car," A look, three seconds and gone, but unmistakably there, passing between them before Damon released Stefan's arm.

Caroline grabbed Stefan's now free arm and Matt took up the other side draping his arm across his neck. They lead him away from the ravine and towards the car.

Damon didn't touch his brother again, but he was no more than two steps behind Caroline and Matt, eyes scanning the night for Silas.