Fame and Fortune and Many Casualties
Damon Salvatore was very, very bored with his life. It was the year 3067, and he'd already witnessed the huge natural disaster that destroyed much of North America, the many wars that ensued, the creation of the shining, modern Capitol which was where he lived now, and then even more wars, resulting in The Hunger Games (which happened to be one of his favorite shows– humans killing each other ranked pretty high up there on his favorite kinds of entertainment).
Resting upon the super huge, soft bed that he shared with his brother Stefan and their vampire girlfriend Elena (who never had made a decision about which one she liked more), Damon decided that it would be really cool to be famous.
After all, he was going to lose his chance pretty soon; he wasn't stupid, he'd heard all the rumors about the Districts beginning to rebel against the Capitol. He wouldn't be surprised if in a year or two he'd have to take his friends and move to Europe (not Italy, unfortunately– it was gone).
He walked over to the wall, pressed a button, and instantly a mirror appeared. Damon surveyed his appearance. Unlike Stefan and Elena, he hadn't been gripped by the crazy Capitol fashion and continued to dress in his trademark outfit of black jeans, black boots, black leather jacket and Ray Bans that were now thousands of years old. They'd held up pretty good considering everything he'd been through. He took them off for a moment to look at his face. It was perfect. Yes, he thought. This face was his key to fame.
Now, to find the right people. Did he need an agent? He wasn't exactly sure how to go about becoming famous right now– he hadn't propelled himself like this into the public eye since the early 1900s, where he'd gone under the name Count Damon de Sangue and been loved by all. It was probably easier to become famous now, actually, what with the Super Internet and cell phones and reporters roaming the streets like insects, just waiting to see a celebrity so they could add stuff to the many online tabloids.
Damon decided that he'd make a quick stop at the Talent House, which was supposedly all people with a special talent went to become super-awesomely famous. They'd be instantly charmed by his looks and if he needed to, he could wing it from there– or should he say compel it. No, he thought, I shouldn't say that, because it just sounds stupid, and sounding stupid is certainly not the way to become a celebrity.
He left his house and took a hovercraft taxi over to the Talent House. There was a line there, going out the door, but it was getting cycled through quickly as freak after Capitol freak got rejected. Damon waited patiently until it was his turn, and he walked into the room the Peacekeepers directed him into with confidence.
"Welcome," said the weird Capitol Man that was sitting on (not at) the desk when he entered, "please fill out this form quickly and then we can talk."
Damon accepted the piece of paper and pen and looked at the questions.
NAME _
DATE OF BIRTH_
ADDRESS (if more than one, please write the one where you spend most of your time) _ _ _
TALENT_
POLITICAL AFFILIATION _
MEDICAL CONDITIONS (if any)_
Smirking, Damon answered the questions Count Damon de Sangue; 10/31/3048; 456 Mulbrery Lane, Sector 5, the Capitol; my looks and entertainment abilities; U/A; and none, respectively. He handed it back to the man who then glanced at Damon.
"Please, sir, take of your glasses, will you?" he said to him. Damon whipped off the sunglasses, and the Capitol man gasped. "OH! Datura, come here, quick!"
A thin woman who was dressed in a mermaid costume (or at least that's what it looked like to Damon) ran into the room and when she saw Damon, she froze in her tracks, placing one long-nailed hand over her chest.
"This is just the look we've wanted," the man said quickly. "Look at him– can't you imagine him, that face, on the cover of every self-respecting Capitol tabloid?"
"Yes, oh yes, Metel, I can," Datura said breathily. "What is his name?"
Damon crossed his arms as they poured over his information sheet then turned back to him. "Count," Metel said in a stunned voice, "will you honor us so much as to allow us to make you into the Capitol's newest It-Man?"
It-Man? Damon thought to himself. That sounded odd. But if it meant that he would be famous, sure, he had no problem with that. "Uh– yes, you may," he said. "Tell me, though, what does being the It-Man entail?"
Datura and Metel stared at him like he'd been living under a rock his whole life, but explained anyway. "Every year we here at Talent House elect a new It-Man to represent the Capitol for everyone that lives here and in the Districts. Not only will you be incredibly famous, but…."
This is where Damon stopped listening. Looked like he'd gotten what he'd wanted.
"That was easy," he muttered to himself.
"Is your house very magnificent?" Datura was asking him now. "Everyone will see it when you're the It-Man. We're putting the news of your new title up in an hour, so you have enough time to prepare your stuff, you know, ensure that it's all clean and well-groomed."
Damon thought broodingly of the dusty, unused kitchen in his house and the ugly poetry that Stefan had insisted painting on all their walls in red paint. No way could he fix all that in an hour. "You know what," he said. "'I'll go buy another house. I'll get back to you with my new address within the hour."
"Thank you," Metel said, shaking his hand. "We've been struggling all year to find someone good enough. We've had to delay the decision twice already."
"We're truly excited to have you onboard here in the Capitol celebrity business," Datura told him, giving him a kiss on the cheek that was unwanted and left a smear of green lipstick on his pale skin.
As he left the Talent House, people stared at him not so discreetly, and Damon could hear them whispering the rumors to each other: That's the new It-Man! They chose him! He smirked. He had no doubt in the world that he was in for a good time.
But first he needed a house. In an hour media people would be swarming him, and he needed somewhere to stay that was at least half-decent.
As he was walking down the street an amazing place caught his eye. It was actually a hotel for people to stay during the season of the Hunger Games– Damon lived in a place that was conveniently close to the center of the action, but some people had to stay in a hotel so they could make it to over to watch the Tribute Parade. Damon wanted this hotel very much: the architecture was reminiscent of the buildings he'd lived in during his youth.
He walked into the hotel and approached the lady behind the desk. Time to use some Influence.
"Excuse me, ma'am?" he said. She looked up at smiled with garish yellow lips. "May I please speak to the owner of this hotel?"
"This is she," the lady said.
Damon smiled back at her and made direct eye contact. "You will give me this hotel. You will hire people to come in here and replace everything like this–" he waved over at the frilly pink chairs and sofa that they had in the lobby and no doubt in all the rooms as well– "with things that are much more masculine, and preferably black. This lobby will be made into a dining hall that is fit for a king. You will do all this within the hour. Do you understand me?"
The woman nodded, her purple eyes glazed over like all influenced eyes were, and set to work calling her together all her workers so they could begin.
Damon grinned and ran out, dropping into the Talent House to tell them his new address (they were impressed and seemed to worship him even more than before now) and then he rushed over to where he, Stefan, and Elena lived to tell them what had happened.
Stefan was in the huge round living room, which was always kind of dark because their twenty-foot tall lamps weren't lighting it properly, and found Stefan and Elena making out on the couch over a dead groosling.
He walked over to them quietly and tapped their heads with his fingers. They broke apart quickly and smiled at him.
"What's up?" Stefan asked.
"I'm gonna be famous," Damon said, "in about… let's see… half an hour. I'm the new It-Man for the Capitol."
Stefan, who actually followed this kind of celebrity stuff, leapt to his feet in excitement. "Are you SERIOUS, Damon? This is HUGE."
"I know," Damon smirked, and then he turned to Elena, who was watching her lovers with a look of pleasure on her pale face. Her appearance and mostly kept the same look over the years– she refused to take part in the crazy make-up and hair styles the Capitol insisted on– but she still dressed like the other citizens in wildly luxurious clothes, today decked out in a magnificent golden dress. "Elena? Are you excited?"
"Yes, I am," Elena said. "I'm so proud of you. How'd you get the title?"
"I just smiled," Damon said. "They were completely charmed."
Elena leaned in and kissed him softly on the lips. "I'd believe that."
Stefan clapped Damon on the back and gave him a large, encouraging grin. "You go be famous, brother. We'll stay updated on the news. Have fun."
"Oh, you just want me to go so you can have Elena all to yourself again," Damon teased. Stefan chortled and shook his head. The bickering between the brothers and long since dissolved as they came to terms with their relationship with Elena.
When Damon arrived at his new house, having collected some of his most treasured belongings, it was completely transformed into his favorite kind of place. All the furniture was now black and manly, and even the Avoxes were uniformly dark-skinned and macho. Damon hadn't expected them to take it that far, so he told the Influenced woman that it was okay to just dress people in black, so long as they were masculine.
He heard the first hints of the paparazzi as he lounged casually against the side of his house– little camera clicks as they approached him. He tried to look his best (that was easy– he always looked great) and forced himself to be relaxed. He started to smile just as he heard the first scream.
"OH MY GOD, THERE'S DAMON SANGUINE!"
Damon Sanguine? Hadn't he said Count Damon de Sangue? What, had Metel fed the press the wrong information or something? That was just annoying. But now everyone was around him, screaming "DAMON SANGUINE!" and he had no choice but to play along… it might give a bad impression if he seemed irritated this early on.
Crowds were starting to swarm around his hotel, and men in bright blue uniforms were putting up official looking ropes around the perimeter of Damon's house, keeping the crowd back. Even more uniformed men were laying down red carpets and huge standup posters that had advertisements on them. Damon watched in interest. Soon enough cameras of every shape and size were being pulled out, zooming in on Damon's face, the huge crowds, Damon's face, the hotel, and Damon's face. Especially his face.
Now reporters were starting to come out. A woman with triangle-shaped blond hair approached him, holding a microphone and wearing an exhilarated smile.
"I am so honored to be here, talking to you, Damon Sanguine," she said. "How does it feel to be the Capitol's newest and hottest It-Man?"
"Oh, it's just great," Damon told her with a smile. "I've wanted this role for my entire life. How fortunate I feel to have it now."
The woman was clearly trying to contain her excitement, but the fans didn't care, and they let out screams of happiness.
"That's just amazing. I mean, obviously, you've been working on your appearance for years, if you've been hoping for the role, the main part being your looks–"
"Oh, this is natural," Damon said. "I've always looked like this."
The woman with triangle hair laughed like that was a joke and Damon wanted to kill her, but he contained the urge and just moved on to talk to other reporters and look at the ever-growing crowd. There were people that had signs reading "MARRY ME, DAMON", "LET'S PLAY TAG, YOU'RE IT (CHASE ME)", and "SANGUINE FOR ME". Huge balloons had pictures of his face on them. People had whistles that, when blow on, said his name. It was all thoroughly amazing.
But what was fame without other celebrities to mingle with?
"Hey," Damon said, grabbing the arm of one of the uniformed men and causing screams in the crowd, "do you think you could arrange a dinner for me? With lots of other famous people?"
"Like who?" the man asked. Reporters were starting to crowd in so Damon had to lean in to him to be heard.
"You know, Dumbledore, the president, Katniss Everdeen… maybe Elvis."
Sadly, these were the only celebrities he knew about at the moment. Dumbledore was a famous wizard (Wizards had been proven to exist several hundred years ago, and Dumbledore had been alive for three hundred since they cloned him). President Snow was a man Damon greatly admired, a man of evil who had worked his way up to his prominent position through poison. Katniss Everdeen, and her fiancé Peeta MellSomething were all Stefan had ever been talking about lately, the Star-Crossed Lovers from District Whatever who had BOTH one the Hunger Games last season. Elvis Presley was a vampire and had never actually died ("I knew it all along! The King lives on!" Stefan had said when he found out"). Damon wouldn't mind meeting any of them. Might be cool.
"How soon do you need them?" the man said, pulling out a phone.
"Oh, half an hour or so. If they can make it," Damon said, surprised at the willingness to obey him. He hadn't even used his Influence!
"You say it, it shall be so," the man said, and he started calling celebrities.
Damon turned back to the crowd of reporters. All the women had hideous triangle shaped hair. All the men were either fat and balding or young and dressed up in the Capitol's stupid fashions. Damon saw himself projected in the sky, standing amidst the crowd, looking calm and cool and collected. He was easily the best-looking one there.
And they knew it. They were screaming it at him, reminding him of just how brilliant and attractive and cool he was.
He liked it.