He'd been lost for awhile. Not just since everything that had happened with Damon. Even before that things had been a mess. He'd reached a point in his life where he wasn't quite sure what he needed, but he knew what he wanted. He'd tried a lot of things, which hadn't involved falling off of any kind of wagon...at least not until recently. He'd been pretty desperate to try the Damon way of dealing with things--mostly his jumbled feelings--and in the end it'd only made things more complicated.
Not surprisingly enough, Damon had been the one to basically tell Stefan to get his shit together. When his big brother spoke, he listened.
Now he was feeling like he really should have taken up the offer on that bottle of liquor as Arik was arriving home and calling to him. Stefan had been in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee to try and occupy himself, but he set it down immediately and soon turned up at the entrance of the house, hands buried in his pockets. "Hey," he greeted, giving a small smile. It felt like ages since he'd actually really let himself be around the doctor, even if it had only been a week since his birthday dinner.