Note: So, I'd started on this some time ago, but with my new job and that time that my car was a POS for three months, I've been pretty busy screaming into the void and slotting in naps with the little free time I had. But here it is, my darling Lafayette in all his sassy glory, and all your favourites being messy and trying to organise a concert and stay sober enough to remember all the ensuing shenanigans! Enjoy!
Pretty When You Cry
I can't tell where your lust ends
And where your love begins
Stefan Salvatore was many things. A glutton for punishment, an author, an openly gay member of Mystic Falls, best friend to the pioneering Rockstar that was Bonnie Bennett and a soft-hearted teddy bear where it counted. What he wasn't however, was the kind of person to put up with his brother's nonsensical and whirlwind logic whilst he was in the midst of a hangover from the seventh circle.
"Damon," he seethed, "You know how I feel about repeating myself when it comes to having idiotic conversations with you," a sarcastic chuckle sounded on the other end of the line, "But yes, for the umpteenth time, I will tell you that no, Bonnie is not having sex with anyone in Sylvia's Wrath."
"What is that name about anyway?" Damon hissed, like he hadn't spent the last fifteen minutes wrangling Stefan for information on his ex-girlfriend. "It's like she's trying too hard to be poetic, by literally being poetic, you know?"
"No I don't know," Stefan sighed, "Now go away before anyone thinks I'm on your side about any of this." Damon made a 'pfft' noise. "And let the records show that I still find you impossible, frustrating and cunt-ish, and that when it comes to you drawing the line between you and Bonnie, that I will be on her side – always. Now stop calling me, I'm not one of the thousands of girls campaigning to suck you off –"
"Oh my god you saw that –"
"Goodbye Damon." A click. Stefan lifted his eyes off of his feet and almost jumped back when they connected with Lafayette's dark brooding gaze. "I'm allowed to talk to him, he's my brother." Lafayette clicked his tongue and sneered sassily in response.
"Like I care about the fact that you feel stuck between these two obvious morons in your life. Your choices are the soundtrack to your insomnia, not mine. So, are you gonna keep sulking or are you going to help me find something to wear?" Stefan held his gaze for a moment and felt a smile spread across his lips. He found himself wanting to know something about Lafayette and not just the boy's opinions on everything (that generated in the spheres of sarcasm, the indignant and the coy).
"How did you meet Bonnie?" Lafayette stopped mid-twirl and turned back to face Stefan, leaning in conspiratorially.
"She found me." Lafayette laid out an arm holding a mesh vest onto the rung of a rack of other cloths, "I was trying to be indie and alternative and was actually just borderline homeless and abstract. I didn't need the money at first, my parents were supportive enough in the beginning, but then, you know, life started to take precedence over art and I couldn't accept that. So. Now they don't talk to me, but at least I have the band."
"Your parents?" Stefan pressed.
"Alive and well. Just, without me."
"Did you tell them?" Stefan asked, the intensity of his focus blurring the spaces between the folds of action and reaction for Lafayette.
"Oh," The dark-skinned boy smiled sardonically when he realised the implication of the question. "You mean; did they conveniently disown my passion when they found out that my love comes in all the colours of the rainbow?" Stefan only managed a nod. "I try to pretend otherwise, but yes, no one likes a gay boy who went from being nouveau to plain old homosexual."
"So jaded." Lafayette snorted as he ran his eyes over Stefan's front. "I know what that sounds like coming from me, I'm not trying to compare our stories or anything like that, it's just...are you really happy?" Lafayette locked eyes with him then, understanding how equally simplistic and intense the question was. "Because you seem happy."
"I want to be." Lafayette said with a slow nod and a faraway look shielding his eyes. "I want to be happy." He smiled when he refocused on Stefan's face. The taller boy ruffled his own messy pompadour hair and shrugged.
"Then you will be."
"Hey!" Pogue slid – literally – between them and grabbed at the mesh vest in Lafayette's hands. "Is this for me, you shouldn't have."
"Boy," Lafayette laughed, "You know damn well your nipples almost started a sex riot in Chicago the last time you wore one of these things." Pogue grinned and bumped his hip against Lafayette's, which didn't go unnoticed by Stefan.
"All the more reason to wear it, my dear." Pogue blew them both a kiss and skipped off, yelling something about mustard-coloured skinny jeans.
"My god, one of these days I'm going to wake up grey and have no one else to blame but myself." Lafayette sighed.
"Let's get you a shirt, shall we?" Stefan jerked his head in the direction of the store that screamed psychedelic and grinned as Lafayette's eyes lit up.
Bonnie and Caleb were rooting through the section of the store that she'd affectionately dubbed, 'The Black Parade'.
"Seriously," she was saying, "I don't even know how you tell the difference anymore, they're all the same size and the same gradient of black, it's like…oh my god, it's like you're a cartoon character with a wardrobe full of the same clothing ensemble."
"They're jeans, Bonnie, if you're going to insist on me getting a new pair, I'm going to insist on them being black." She stuck her tongue out at him and grinned.
"Whatever old man," she laughed, "I will, however, draw the line at you wearing a pair at your own funeral, at least give me that?" She looked over her shoulder up at his perpetually pensive face, her eyes bugging as his hesitation lingered. "Caleb Danvers, you're officially a lost cause." Pogue cackled from somewhere behind them.
"And you're just figuring this out now?" The blonde teased. "He puts up with Sarah, never orders anything he's never tried before – don't ask me how that even works out – and only wears black. Literally, even his underwear; all black!" Caleb pulled a face at the last part while Bonnie laughed.
"First of all," Caleb swung his body around so that Pogue could get an undisturbed view of his raised index finger, "I don't want you digging in my underwear anymore –"
"All black –" Pogue interjected.
"Second of all, Bonnie-who-started-this," The girl's laugh hiccupped as she waved her hand at him in denial, "You have half an hour left before Stefan has to leave to finalise the prep for the concert and that leaves another hour after that before we do a dry run of the set and meet up with the who's-who in your hometown. So if you're gonna buy that studded denim jacket," she held it closer to her chest, "You better do it now missy, I don't want you and Pogue arguing at the till for two hours like last time either, separate your clothes and speed up the process."
"I have a question." Pogue raised an arm.
"...What." Caleb sighed, resigned to the idiocy of whatever was to come.
"Are you like this during sex too?" A coat hanger flew at his face in response.
"Half an hour!" Caleb yelled over his shoulder as he went to pay for his black jeans.
As they all clamoured into Stefan's Jeep, Bonnie's phone rang, the death march halting the pointless argument between Pogue and Lafayette about who was going to sit in the middle and deal with Caleb's unending loop of sighs.
"Shut up, it's him!" Bonnie hissed, slamming the door behind her, after she'd scrambled back out into the parking lot. "Kai, hey!"
"Bonster, how's my favourite musician?" She could picture his mile-wide plastic smile all too clearly.
"Not as great as my favourite agent!" She cheered, turning to the car and making a throat-slitting gesture at the boys. Kai's laughter crept into her ear, making her want to toss her phone and stamp it into the sidewalk.
"So listen, about this little 'indiscretion' of yours in the bathroom with Damon Salvatore –"
"Kai, I didn't –"
"I'll tell you what you did do," he purposefully interrupted, "You got the show sold out, you got a spike in album sales and merch and the people at Wendy Williams haven't stopped calling."
"The…people from Wendy, Williams." God no, please, Bonnie begged internally.
"I know. They're gross. And I would have made you go if Ellen hadn't called. Look at her, her impact is boundless."
"Infinite." Bonnie muttered.
"You can thank her next week when you're back home. Until then, try and get a kiss with him on snapchat or something, let's see how far this scandal takes us." He was far too giddy for a man so profoundly unhinged.
"I'm not kissing my ex-boyfriend to sell my music." Bonnie snapped before she could stop herself. Kai sighed, long and hard into the phone.
"Listen, I get that you're mad about whatever it is that you're mad about. No one cares about that though. You're in the what, again?"
"The music business."
"Business." He emphasised. "Music. Business. Let's put a heavier emphasis on the business from now on, okay kiddo? You can be angsty on your own time. My time is when we make money, your time is when you make the stuff we sell to make money. But without you taking up my time, your time becomes a waste of time. So, just don't waste our time Bonnie-bear. Clear?"
"Crystal." She ended the call. Taking a deep breath, she spun around and climbed back into the car. "Please, someone, get me a drink."
"Easy tiger, you've just sobered up from last night." Stefan said with caution.
"Oh, let her drink," Caleb said easily, leaning back into the plush seat as he tossed his arm behind Lafayette, "It gives her voice texture. Between that and my mesh shirt, this parade is going to turn into one hell of a party."
It was still the early afternoon when Sylvia's Wrath were rehearsing. No one noticed the dark haired man sneaking in to stand on the far end of the field that was yet to be sectioned off securely for the following day's parade. Damon lifted his phone to his ear and muttered something to his assistant, something along the lines of firing her if she called again while he was in Mystic Falls, and ended the call. He kept his eyes on Bonnie; watched as she danced around the stage as Pogue sang 'Sacrilege Sister', her perfect teeth on full display as the four of them ran through the sequence of their performance. His phone rang again and he almost snapped it in half until he saw who was calling him.
"What happened to hating the sound of my voice?" He said by way of greeting.
"What happened to leaving Bonnie alone?" Stefan countered, wiggling his fingers at his brother from where he stood at the foot of the stage. "You're only getting creepier, brother," Stefan noted as he walked away to clear up the line from the live music behind him, "And, while I know you're a man of few limits when it comes to inappropriate and unwarranted behaviour, I'm going to ask you nicely one last time – leave, her, alone."
"You sound just like him." Damon noted. "Dad. 'Inappropriate and unwarranted'," he scoffed, "Takes me back to when I was home for the summer one year in college and you and Bonnie were away on some art camp and I got the never-ending lecture on life's responsibilities and what a swirling void I was. Am."
"I don't have time for this."
"It's not my fault I love her." The words were out of his mouth before Damon could stop them.
"You blamed her for everything else Damon, don't you dare try and make her accountable for everything you felt as well."
"Blame her? When did I blame her?" The elder Salvatore was incredulous.
"Goodbye, Damon."
"Fine. Maybe I'm a terrible person, so is she!"
"And that's why you picture the two of you riding off to the Seventh Circle together like it's a goddamn sunset? Because you think that that's how love works? And if you knew Bonnie at all, you'd know how perfect she is. You'd know that loving you at the age she did, the way she did, would turn just about anyone into a monster. She was only terrible because of you Damon, and you're only terrible because you refuse to acknowledge who you really are. Instead you insist on rebelling against the only people who love you in this twisted pursuit of infinite rebellion from a demon with your face."
"– That's poetic, really."
"Shut up. I'm done sugar-coating the pills you need to swallow because you're my brother. I will never forgive you for what you did to my best friend. I will never forgive you for what you did to our family – and if you ever come for either of those two things again – I will make it my mission to do to you, what you tried to do to Bonnie. I will destroy you and everything you have, from the ground up. Now go, away." The line went dead before Damon could respond and by the time he looked up from the device shaking in his hands, he was being escorted out by security.
A/N: Well, well, well. What happened between Bamon and Defan when they were younger? I wanted to establish very clearly which Damon we're dealing with in this story – the damaged, blame-the-world-for-my-bullshit Damon is what's being served up with PWYC, the one who doesn't want reform, and that's all there is to it! (For now, in any case.) I think delving into this version of Stefan is so refreshing (at least for me to write) because it emphasises certain aspects that I love about his character as well as adding the different dimension of his sexuality as an overtone on his demeanour and choices. It's a good fit, and I'm happy with how he's panning out. There is some friction coming up between Pogue, Lafayette and Stefan and a surprise addition to that mix which will add some more layers to Lafayette and Stefan and allow Pogue to be the free little pansexual butterfly he is! (No, it's not an orgy)
Sorry for the long-winded note, but it's been so long and I've been so quiet from my side, I hope you're all still out there, reading FF and being the darling shippers you are! Stay excellent XO