12. The Ties That Bind

"Why the hell am I here?" Brayden complained, annoyed that Damon dragged him to the hospital so they could interrogate Meredith Fell, the new lady in Alaric's life.

"Oh come on, doesn't this remind you of old times?" Damon asked, "Damon and Brayden Salvatore, the notorious Salvatore twins, always up to no good, don't tell me that after teaming up with our baby brother you forgot about your original partner?".

"First of all, none of you are my partners, you two are just people I can't get rid of no matter what I do" Brayden replied, "Second of all, if we were here to create havoc I would be extremely happy, but we are not, you are forcing me to find out if your best friend's new girlfriend is a good person, something I don't care about".

"Speaking of the girlfriend" Damon said, his eyes finally landing on Meredith, he quickly walked over to her, while an annoyed and grumpy Brayden followed, "You know, we never got a chance to officially meet, Dr. Fell".

"You are Alaric's friends, right?" Meredith asked, "Damon Salvatore, I saw you at the council meeting", she then turned to Brayden, "But I have no idea who you are".

"I'm Brayden, Damon's brother" Brayden greeted.

"Nice to meet you, Brayden" Meredith said, "What are you two doing here?".

"Strolling the halls, Brayden's likes to wave at the newborns through the window" Damon replied.

Brayden glared at his brother, then turned to you Meredith, "Heard your boyfriend got attacked by an animal" he said, getting to the point.

"Brutal" Damon commented.

"Ex-boyfriend" Meredith corrected.

"It wasn't an animal attack" Brayden informed.

"Oh, she already knows that Bray" Damon said, pulling out a paper from his jacket, "After all she is the one who signed the death certificate".

"That's going to be a yikes from me" Brayden said.

Meredith looked between the two brothers, then after a sighed, gestured form them to follow her into an empty hospital room.

"Would you two rather I say he was staked like a vampire?" Meredith asked, after closing the door.

"Wasn't he the guy that coined the phrase 'animal attack'?" Damon asked.

"Why do you even care?" Meredith asked.

"Because Ric likes you" Damon replied, "If you're a psychopath, that would really suck for him".

"You two think I killed my ex-boyfriend?" Meredith asked.

"He thinks that" Brayden said, "I just think you're kind of shady".

Meredith scoffed, "If you two care about your friend, go figure out how Alaric came into the ICU on his death bed and walked out an hour later without a scratch" she said.

"Don't worry, we've already figured that out" Brayden said simply, he then turned to Damon, "Are we done here? Can we go now?".

"Yeap" Damon replied.

Both Damon and Brayden turned to leave, but before they could, Meredith took out two vervain injections from her pockets and stuck in both the brothers necks, once they were unconscious she quickly stole their blood and left the room before they could gain conscious.

***

"What are you two doing here?" Alaric asked, confused seeing Damon and Brayden enter his apartment.

"Ah, looking for a bunny" Damon replied.

"Resisting the urge to murder your new girlfriend" Brayden replied, confusing Alaric.

"What?" Alaric asked, stopping his bench presses, "Now you're obsessed with Meredith as well? I mean, don't you two have an Original vampire to worry about?".

"Uh-uh-uh, do ten more of those" Damon said, pouring himself some bourbon, "You're gonna wanna buff up if you start dating this one, self-defense and all".

"What is your problem?" Alaric asked annoyed.

"Watch the tone" Brayden snapped, "Your girlfriend vervained us, for no absolute reason, I mean I didn't even try to attack her, oh and if that wasn't enough she also stole our blood".

"What?" Alaric asked shocked, "I mean, when did you two even see her?".

"When we went to the hospital to accuse her of killing her ex-boyfriend" Damon replied, "Which, by the way, very sensitive subject".

"What the hell are you two doing, huh?" Alaric asked.

"Why the hell are you mad at us for?" Brayden asked confused.

"Because I told your brother that I'd handle this" Alaric replied.

"I proved your theory, diagnosed psycho case" Damon defended, "You're welcome".

"Tell me when you're no longer interested in her" Brayden said, taking a swig out of the bourbon bottle, "I have a score to settle with her, spoiler alert, she's already on my bad side".

***

After receiving a text from Fae, who was currently with Bonnie's mom, after realising they needed three generations of Bennett witches to open the coffin, both Brayden and Damon rushed to the witches house, entering the house they immediately started looking around, something felt off to them, their suspicion was proven correct when they heard footsteps approaching them and Klaus emerging from the shadows.

"What took you both so long?" Klaus asked the twins, "Hiding behind your witchy friends, and in squalor, no less", Klaus suddenly started screaming in pain and fell to the floor while the fire on the candles around them got higher.

"Are you stupid?" Brayden asked, "What did you think insulting a bunch of dead witches was going to do?".

"I made the exact same mistake first time I came in here" Damon informed.

"Well, you know, the funny thing about witches is that living or dead, they care about their own" Klaus said, groaning in pain, "A hundred dead witches have a thousand living descendants", Klaus screamed in pain, "And I have no problem killing every last one of them if I don't get my coffins back, as we speak, my hybrid friend is prepared to end the Bennett line!".

Hearing Klaus, both Damon and Brayden exchanged an worried look, they were worried about Fae and what she had gotten herself into this time. Finally the witches stopped their magic on Klaus, not wanting him to harm the Bennett line.

"Now" Klaus said, standing up, "Please, show me the coffins".

After a moment, the witches released the coffins from their magic and allowed Klaus to finally see them.

"Here we are" Klaus whispered, when realisation suddenly drew on him, he turned to Brayden and Damon, "Where's the fourth?" he asked, causing both the brothers to smirk, "Show me!".

"Yeah, they can't do that" Brayden said, "Because your fourth coffin isn't here".

"What did you two do?" Klaus asked.

"Well, Fae gave us the heads up" Damon replied, "I mean, we didn't have enough time to get all four, but we did have time to get one".

Klaus glared at the twins, "I will tear you two limb from limb" he threatened, "And only then, when you two are a writhing mass of blood and flesh will I rip your hearts from your chests".

Brayden chuckled, "Oh, you're going to have to do better then that to scare me, Klaus" he said, "See, me and my brothers know that you want your family back, but we have a sneaky suspicion that you want what's in that coffin even more".

***

Stefan, Fae and Kaitlynn entered the boarding house only to see both Damon and Brayden standing infront of the fireplace.

"Oh, you two are still alive?" Stefan asked.

"Where's Caroline?" Brayden asked, ignoring Stefan's question.

"At the hospital" Kaitlynn replied.

"What?!" Brayden asked, suddenly very concerned, "Is she okay?".

"She's fine, her dad, not so much" Kaitlynn replied, confusing the brothers.

"What?" Damon asked confused.

"Tyler went to her dad for his help in breaking the sirebond" Fae informed, "Caroline's dad told him in order to break the bond with Klaus he was going to have to turn because the only reason he and the other werewolves are sired to Klaus is because they feel grateful that they don't have to turn every full moon, but when Tyler turned he ended up losing control and attacking Caroline's dad, which is why she's with him now, making sure he doesn't die".

Brayden nodded in understanding, while Stefan turned to his brothers, "Since you two are alive does that mean that Klaus didn't get his coffins?".

"Oh don't look so happy" Damon replied.

"You really think we would be alive if Klaus didn't get his coffins?" Brayden asked, shaking his head at his older brother.

"We were only able to get one of them out in time" Damon informed, "The locked one".

Stefan shrugged, "Probably a good choice".

"Would you look at that, the notorious Salvatore brothers actually have a brain" Kaitlynn teased, causing the twins to roll their eyes.

"You know, if you're banking on Bonnie's momma to open it, you're screwed" Damon told Fae, "She doesn't have any powers".

"Yeah, I know" Fae said, "But we need her to somehow get her powers back, because the damn coffins requires three generations of Bennett power to open".

"Now that the depressing part is over, let's talk about what yours truly, obviously against Damon's judgement did" Brayden said, pulling out a silver dagger out of his pocket, shocking the other three vampires.

"What did you do Brayden?" Kaitlynn asked.

"Well Kait, I was getting tired of you not choosing between Damon and Elijah, so to make your life harder and mine much more entertaining, I pulled the dagger out of your once upon a soulmate" Brayden revealed, he smirked seeing the shocked faces on everyone except Damon's faces, the twins already had a huge fight regarding Brayden's action, "The expressions on all of your faces let me know I've done my job, now excuse me, I have to go check on someone".

After Brayden walked away, Damon and Kaitlynn looked at each other, realising just how much more complicated Brayden had made things.

***

After dropping the bomb of undaggering Elijah on everyone, Brayden walked out of the boarding house and towards the hospital.

Entering the hospital, he immediately asked the receptionist as to where Bill Forbes was, and after receiving the information he quickly rushed towards Caroline and her father. Reaching the corridor in which Caroline's father was admitted, Brayden saw a worried Caroline pacing back and forth, having no clue if her father was going to survive or not, just as Brayden was about to walk towards her, he saw Matt walk up to her and pull the panicking girl into a hug.

The only reason Brayden had come to the hospital was to make sure Caroline wasn't alone and was okay, so after making sure Caroline wasn't alone and was okay, Brayden quickly walked away, without letting his presence known to the Forbes girl.

As Caroline was hugging Matt, her heart suddenly started beating really fast, causing her to quickly separate from Matt and look around for the reason her heard was beating like this.

"Care, you okay?" A confused Matt asked.

"Brayden" Caroline whispered, looking around frantically but finding no one, "He's here".

Matt looked around but found no sign of the middle Salvatore anywhere, "Caroline, I don't think he's here".

"No, he's here" Caroline said.

Ignoring Matt's words, Caroline rushed out the hospital, wanting to find Brayden before he disappeared on her again.

Brayden reached his car and just as he opened his front door, a body suddenly crashed on his back and someone hugged him tightly, Brayden didn't have to turn around to know who was clutching on to him like her life depended on it.

"I hate you" Caroline cried, "I hate you so much".

Brayden sighed, he turned around and faced the hysterical girl, "What did I do this time?" he asked.

"You keep hurting me" Caroline said, shoving Brayden away from her, "You pretend you don't love me, you pretend you don't remember my birthday, and you pretend you don't care about me when in reality we know that's not the truth", Caroline clutched the collars of Brayden's jacket and pulled him closer to her, "There is no one in this world who loves me like you do, you didn't forget my birthday, and you still care because if you didn't then you wouldn't have come here to make sure I'm okay".

Once Caroline was finished ranting, Brayden's eyes fell on her neck where the necklace he left for her was placed, "You wore it" he whispered.

"Of course I wore it" Caroline cried, "I had to wear, it's the only thing I have of you".

"I'm sorry for making you cry" A guilty Brayden said, wiping Caroline's tears.

Caroline shook her head, "It's not okay" she snapped, but before Brayden could step away from her, she wrapped her arms around Brayden's neck, "But for tonight, I need this, I need you, please don't walk away, just for tonight".

Brayden didn't say anything, instead wrapped his arms around Caroline's waist and pulled her closer to him. The two soulmates had no idea how long they stood in the parking lot, time didn't exist for them when they were with each other, and though things were far from normal, tonight all they wanted was to be in each other's embrace, so that's exactly what they did.

***

Presenting 3x12 of The Vampire Diaries . . .

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