Vampire Diaries: Damon is musically inclined it is just a carefully guarded secret
Jan 01, 2014 02:09
Title: Music Room (The Hidden Secret) Fandom: Vampire Diaries Warnings: discussion of a death (Momma Salvatore) Genre: angst, family, comfort, Summary: Damon once had a family that was full of music until his mother died then the music stopped and he hid it away, this is my musically inclined Damon. One shot for now… Disclaimer own any of Vampire Diaries otherwise there would be more skin and Damon would be more in touch with his music side.
Damon was sitting on the couch listening to Michael Bublẻ and thinking to himself Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole would win against Michael Bublẻ. He also remembered going to the Cotton Club for the fist time and thinking that the performers where up there with gods. He sipped his whiskey and decided since Stefan was out of the house and the closest house was at least 3 miles away that he could chance going to the music room.
He stood, downed the rest of his whiskey with one gulp, and walked to the 2nd floor where a large cabinet covered a door. He pushed the secret latch and with ease, the old white wash door was revealed. He felt foolish for hiding this room but he couldn’t stand it when people listened to him play. Too many memories, too personal a tale, it was private he had shared music with his mother and he doubted anyone knew he could play instruments especially his favorite, the piano. The one gift from his mother that had kept part of his humanity tethered. Stefan had not known their mother well but Damon had known there mother for many years before Stefan had come.
He did not blame his mother for leaving him alone with an overbearing father at such a young age. Stefan was born and his mother had taken ill for a few years after the birth so sometimes he would play her to sleep or even calm her down with music. She had died of consumption he wasn’t allowed in her presence but the music could reach through walls.
He listened to the boarding house for a minute more, hearing it, listening to it, quiet, unmoving except for the creeks of the old house. He smiled this might be the boarding house but the homestead used to make the same sounds.
He chuckled remembering his mother reading to him and stopping in the middle of it, because she heard the house move and what she had said echoed in his head to this day.
“Damon when the house moves it means that it wants us to lull it back to sleep.”
He of course now knew that houses were not waking, nor sleeping, but he missed that time when magic was innocent and his mother smiling could cure everything. The time before he lost her and his father taught him to be a tough man and, that men don’t play music. His father had said that men go to war and take care of business. He had played music with his mother and his father at the time thought it was wonderful when the house was full of music. But alas Damon thought as he turned the knob of the music room, having made it down the long hallway, my mother died and with her went the music.
He smiled at the flute on the shelf in the corner; it had 1860 music written by his own mother next to it. It looked ready to crumble but he didn’t care his mother had written the duet when she was pregnant with Stefan and she was going to play it for him when he was born. He was supposed to accompany his mother on the piano or the Cello she hadn’t decided yet because Damon at the age of 6 could play both instruments at the level of barely reaching intermediate, and he could barely reach all the keys with one hand for G-position or any other.
He looked back to his Mother’s flute it was older than he was a gift from her father a wedding present for the happy couple his mother had said. He was reaching the age of the flute though; it was 200 years old though only the body was original the rest of it had been repaired. The flute was metal and had survived his travels only to turn up in this room when the boarding house was built; he had compelled three men to build this room and the cabinet that hid it, standing guard in front of his secret and treasure all these years.
He stood over the shelf and picked up the music book that he had purchased in the 1920’s when he went to New Orleans later that same year he had seen Stefan in Chicago. He doubted Stefan knew that he had been seen by his brother as The Ripper of Monterey.
He thumbed through the pages and went to the piano lifted the fall revealing the keyboard. This particular piano was from New Orleans when he studied jazz at its birthplace only to venture to Harlem for the place where Jazz was honed.
He tapped the C key he was happy it remained tuned from the last time he had played though the keys looked old he knew it was just what he needed for the night free of Stefan.
He looked at the music though he really didn’t need to anymore he had long since memorized the song. Chopin’s Funeral March it encompassed the room spilling through the crack of the door gushed into the hallway passed the cabinet guard, and out the long forgotten open window in the 2nd floor bedroom. It spilled towards the garden and seemed to spring the flowers from the Virginia weather to a beautiful ethereal bloom. He played legato he was a master at this craft and the world seemed to fill with his music. The room took on a somber look as he continued to play hitting the keys slowly melodically in time to the tune.
He moved to slow down then as he heard the small engine of a car stop in front of the house. He played forte when it passed raising the music to a crescendo speeding up the song so it sounded upbeat and in 2/4 time he couldn’t stop the tears coming to his eyes. He didn’t want to remember his mother in death anymore so he stopped one bar from the end. The room and the world ceased with his playing, he listened to the old house again and remembered his mother’s words.
“Damon when the house moves it means that it wants us to lull it back to sleep.”
He let his finger’s drift back to the piano and let them flow to their undead master’s content. They lulled the old house back to sleep by playing a slow melodic song that was somehow eerie in its happiness it sounded like the Cuckoo at first but in the wrong time signature more like 4/4th instead of 3/4th. It changed though it to something like a repeating of D, D, E, E, G, F, D, E, G, F and then it changed it again his hand slowly rolling the keys. It kept changing not really a song but a lullaby to lull the house back to sleep.
Salvatore Mansion (3 hours later)
Stefan had walked home from Elena’s house he had run out of gas and was going to get a gas can from the garage instead of bothering Damon to come and pick him up, Stefan had seen how Damon would get moodier and moodier lately it was weird like he was in withdrawal of something.
He had stopped to listen on the driveway near the garden around back he listened to the music was that coming from the living room piano? He zoomed into the house making no noise and saw no one at the player piano or the Baby Grand. The door slammed shut and instantly the music stopped. He knew then it was Damon who been playing, he knew about his brother’s secret room and how Damon thought he kept it a secret.
He didn’t want to worry Damon about it so with vampirism speed he grabbed the gas can from the garage and headed to a gas station. He left the boarding house only to come back 10 minutes later in his Porsche.
He knew Damon would be unpredictable if he knew that Stefan had discovered the music room in the 1960’s back when Lexi had him feeling emotions. That room held so many things that looked like it was important to his brother so as soon as he found it he looked at the room and spotted the metal flute thinking it so strange. He could see Damon playing some of the instruments in the room the piano sure the cello a far fetch but the flute didn’t look like anything Damon would play.
Over the years Stefan had thought of that flute especially when Damon would look at the piano in the living room something longing in those piercing blue icebergs. When Damon would play music so loud it would make it hard to think in the Boarding House. That silver flute would come to Stefan mind and the inscription that was underneath in small delicate script.
“When times are hard remember music my love.”
Back in the music room
Damon heard the door slam and thought was that the wind or Stefan he stopped playing the lullaby. I really hope he didn’t break the door I liked that door.
He stood from the piano placing the book full of sheet music back on the shelf; the shelf was full to the brim with music books and things from his travels that or mementos. It was just like the chest in his bedroom there was no system of organization what so ever.
He looked at the violin in the corner unhappy that some of the strings looked bad. The D-string looked like it was about ready to snap he must have been in a mood the last time he played it to have left it for so long in this atrocious state. He picked it up and plucked the other strings, hearing the out of tune quality he decided to tune it. He would have to find another violin store the one that he had loved to use was long since out of business in New York and he could probably find a closer one.
He left the room walking past his things and down the hall pulling the latch on the side of the door to let him out from this side. He cast a sigh of relief as heard the latch click telling him his secret was kept.
He walked to his room the violin tucked under his arm, he reached his room and went to the closet. He swiped some of his shirts to the side and pulled a false panel away and hid the violin their so he could grab it later. He replaced the panel and pulled his shirts over it making a mental note to retrieve it later when he could find a decent store that could replace the strings. He would do it himself but he only knew how to fix his clarinet and saxophone not his violin.
He heard the Porsche coming down the driveway and got worried if that is Stefan now who slammed the door earlier he thought as he walked out of his closet. He went to the hallway, went down the stairs to see Stefan emerging through the door.
“Someone was here earlier I heard the door slam was it you?”
“No I just got home,” Stefan needed to keep it secret that he heard Damon he didn’t want him to overreact. “Do you think someone broke in?”
“To the creepiest place in Mystic Falls?” he said nonchalantly allowing the uncaring mask to fall into place.
“Okay well then I’ll check the house, check upstairs and don’t go stalking off,” Stefan said with a no nonsense tone.
“Fine whatever,” Damon conceded as long as it wasn’t Stefan in the house earlier.
The brother’s ran about the place Stefan only half-heartedly it had been him after all who had come in to hear Damon playing the piano. He wanted to keep a secret and keep listening to soft but all sense consuming music but the door had slammed and ruined the moment.
“It’s clear up on the 2nd and 3rd floor what do you have, Stef?” Damon said as he looked at Stefan’s diary he would have to read more later, embarrassing Stefan stories in the 80s were always gold.
“Nada,” Stefan called back answering his brother from the living room having just returned form the basement. “Will you get down here now?”
“Uh-huh,” he called on the way down the stairs, “I just thought we filled our brotherly love quota last time the whiskey and bourbon and what was that girls name again… oh yeah Brandy have not yet recovered.” He said with his usual Damon smirk and moxie.
“Okay but I thought her name was Candy,” he said putting his hands in his pockets and planting his feet as if he was preparing for hurricane Damon
“Oh yeah that’s right Brandy was the other girl,” Damon snapped his finger in remembrance and poured himself another cup of whiskey and pulled out his phone.
“What are you doing?” Stefan asked noticing that his brother was texting someone he didn’t know.
“Using this grand new invention it’s called the telephone,” Damon remarked and continued typing a message to an unknown caller only named Wolfy.
“Stefan brushed it off and went upstairs he wanted to sleep and remember when the house used to be filled with music. That was a very long time ago too many years it seemed. He heard the door close a few minutes later and Damon’s mustang roar to life and leave the boarding house.
A/N This is just where I thought I could stop did you like musically inclined Damon? Review please and tell me what you think, please do it for the piano playing Damon.