The book of snippets

I was feeling epic (actually no)

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 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 take snatch the ground beneath his feet, when Stefan perks up at his  name.