I was going to wait till tomorrow to post because I won't have any time today to devote to it....

[badboy_fangirl]

...but I'm obviously posting it now!

fluffyfrolicker said, IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME! [and we shall just ignore the part where she stole that from a Kevin Costner movie] and shipperjunkie made banners. So here we are.

A Damon Salvatore ficathon!

Comments

"I've Learned," Damon, PG-13/R (lang), post-S3 (3/4)

[pyrrhical]

“My eyes are always open,” Damon said, shrugging. This particular brand of crazy was all Damon’s. He was perfectly content to let Stefan wallow in his own grief, and find his own ways to the surface. The parts of him -- gaping wounds in him -- that blamed Stefan for Katherine’s death couldn’t allow him to do anything else. Truth be told, he really wasn’t in Nice for that sort of research. He had a meeting with someone who was doing some digging for him, but that wasn’t for another week, and it was in Paris. Nice was just for Damon. He’d simply never been.

Stefan was still standing with the coffees, though his friend had sit down, and was watching the conversation with a fixed, neutral expression. Damon knew what Stefan wanted him to do, and he knew what Stefan expected him to do. The question was which would be better in the long run.

Some days, now was the long run. Damon snapped his book shut and stood, slowly making his way out of the pastry shop and past Stefan and his companion. “Well, I do believe the library will be opening for the day now. You and your lady friend enjoy your coffee, Stefan.” Damon turned to smile at the blonde. “And for the record, he did once enjoy scones. Cinnamon, particularly. But only when they were made with rather more butter than is healthy; he just thinks regular scones are too hard.”

“Why, thank you,” the blonde said. “I’ll remember that. I’m Lexi, by the way,” she said, waving her fingers lightly. Damon could practically hear Stefan scowl.

“Damon,” he replied. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy Nice. It’s a great city. Good for relaxing.” He turned and raised an eyebrow at Stefan. “And testing impulses.” Before Stefan could reply, he left.

The library was, in fact, worth it.

2001

There comes a time in every man’s life where all the lights go out, the stars go dim, the plants seem to shrivel at his feet, and -- well, the like.

Damon had had many instances that he thought were, successively, that instance. Each time he was proven wrong, by himself, finding a deeper, darker cavern to crawl into.

He could go entire decades without finding that deep, dark place, and then a switch would flip, and in he would fall.

The day he reread his journals was one of those days. He thought, I’ll compile everything I have on the fire at the church.

He thought, I’ll really see what I know, and what I can do.

And then he saw: I know nothing, and I can do less than nothing. Not only did he not know anything, what little he had collected what unfathomable gibberish. He hadn’t met anyone who could translate some parts, interpret other parts, or insane combinations of the two in other cases. Damon was a brilliant man -- perhaps one of the most brilliant men in the world, considering the sheer quantity of knowledge floating around his skull -- but even he couldn’t make thousand-year-old scribblings come to life.

He had been searching for one hundred years, and he had found exactly nothing. One hundred years of his not-life had been spent on absolutely fuck-all.

He thought, now what?

All he had at hand was a bottle of single-malt. It was a start.