"Elena, this is amazing," Stefan said, staring at his smart phone. He had it open to the Capitol News Site, which updated things about celebrities at rapid fire. It was where every media-freak like Stefan went for their entertainment news.

"What is it?" Elena said, idly flipping through the channels on their TV. It took up an entire wall of their living room.

Stefan put his arm around her shoulders and told her softly, "Damon Sanguine is the Capitol's number one celebrity right now. At the top of all the polls."

A cheer erupted from Elena's sweet mouth and she leaned her head back against Stefan's arm. "Fantastic," she said, changing channels again and landing right on live coverage of Damon's house.

"OH! Stefan! Look, here he is!"

Stefan looked up and grinned just as Damon started talking to a reporter about his love life.

"How does it feel to be the Capitol's hottest single man?" the reporter was asking him. Stefan watched proudly as Damon smirked.

"Oh, it's just fantastic," Damon said.

"Any love interests we should know about?"

Damon had long perfected the look of pretend-embarrassment, and he used this now as he said, "Well, there is this one girl…."

Elena beamed, expecting him to say her, but instead he said, "That girl over there is just… the absolutely most tempting physical specimen I've ever laid my eyes on, I must admit. So tempting."

The camera zoomed in on a purple-haired girl with a long, pale neck that made Stefan's fangs elongate with bloodlust. He checked the new website and informed Elena, "That girl is Ash Macorange and she was born December 3rd, 3050. She is "thrilled" to find out that Damon Sanguine is in love with her– er, never mind, Damon likes another girl now, a model named Yush Lovo, they've been spotted kissing and– oh, they're engaged."

"What?" Elena exclaimed, pulling away to stare at Stefan.

"Stuff happens this fast in the Capitol," Stefan told her. "Weird, right? They're getting married in ten minutes."

"TEN MINUTES!"

On the TV, another reporter had approached Damon, looking horrible in a leopard print jumpsuit and cat ears. "How do you feel about you recent engagement?" he asked Damon.

"Oh, it's just fantastic," Damon said, "Yosh is fantastic." He hooked arms with the model– who had a neck so long as to challenge a swan and so pale you could clearly see her many blue veins– and they giggled with each other.

"My name's Yush," the model corrected him when they were finished. "With a U, not an O."

Damon's smile flickered for a second and he looked extremely irritated.

Stefan checked his phone. "Yush and Damon are the Capitol's second most adored couple, just after Katniss and Peeta, and everyone is excited to see them get marri– uh oh, they had a fight."

"I know," Elena said sounding relieved, "I'm watching it now."

Stefan looked up from his phone just as a reporter shoved a microphone in Damon's face and asked, "So, how do you feel about your new status as single?"

"I like it," Damon said, smiling charmingly (Damon Sanguine was voted as having the sexiest smile in the Capitol three seconds later).

"Why did you break up with Yush?" the reporter asked.

"Personal reasons," Damon said. "We just… weren't right for each other."

Close up on Yush Lovo's tearstained face as she waved away reporters, then on Damon's eyes, which were squinting, Stefan knew, from the sunlight, not from any sort of personal distress over breaking up with a woman he'd known for a minute. He put sunglasses on to shield them from the sun.

Signs in the crowd now proudly proclaimed "DOWN WITH YUSH", "YOU BREAK HIS HEART YOU BREAK OURS" and "KILL THE MODEL BEFORE SHE KILLS DAMON".

Stefan sucked in his breath, thinking, that's extreme. But all of this was extreme. Damon Sanguine was being nominated for thousands of awards online currently, for things such as the cutest hair, or the best jacket, or the best canine teeth. He was the Sexiest Man in the World. The Most Eligible Single Male. The Youngest and Hippest It-Man Ever. Stefan snorted in laughter. Sure, he was the youngest. If the others were cave men.

"Oh my God, Stefan," Elena said sounding horribly upset, "Damon's engaged again."

"That's how it works in this business," Stefan said bracingly, though he couldn't help but wonder if Damon might just meet a permanent lover here, and if he did… if Elena might just be all Stefan's.

The newest engagement blew over very quickly, leaving Damon single again just as other celebrities began arriving at the event (which was officially called "The Crowning of Damon Sanguine, the Newest It-Man"). Dumbledore was the first to get there, Apparating into the scene wearing his signature robes and long white beard. The crowd went wild, and Stefan could see Damon beaming, perhaps the first genuine smile he'd shone all night. His smile only grew when Dumbledore approached Damon and told him, completely seriously, "I am so honored to be here, to meet you, Mr. Sanguine."

Elena frowned at the TV, and asked Stefan quietly, "Is this normal, Stefan? Or do you think… Damon might be Influencing people to act this way around him? I mean, Dumbledore being honored to meet him is a bit… much."

"It's normal," Stefan told her, "I know, it's weird to us, but it's really normal by Capitol standards. Why are you asking? Whether or not he's Influencing people, he's still famous."

"I know," Elena said, "it's just… all these people like him. And they don't even know him very well…."

Stefan smiled. "Are you jealous?" he asked her. Elena flushed, but didn't say anything. "Would you like me to take you down there so we can join the event? You're so beautiful they might let you in the roped area. Or I can pretend to be a reporter."

On screen the camera caught Damon making out madly with a voluptuous woman with olive skin, and Elena narrowed her eyes in disgust. "It's okay, Stefan. We can stay here. Obviously he has no need for us at the moment."

Stefan wasn't happy that Elena was upset with Damon, but he had to admit that if Damon broke her heart this way it might be the luckiest possible scenario for Stefan. He hadn't had Elena all to himself for thousands of years… just the thought of kissing her, caressing her, exchanging blood with her, without having to think about Damon doing the same things later on, filled Stefan with bliss.

….

The fame was getting to his head, and he knew it. But somehow, he didn't care.

Damon broke away from the woman he was kissing and basked in the attention from everyone, in the cameras and cheers. It was marvelous. MARVELOUS. Even Albus Dumbledore was honored to be here with him!

If only I had someone to share it with, he thought, his mind on Elena. She would like this. She'd always enjoyed being popular.

Watching the portrait of himself that was being painted on the side of his house, he thought of how improved it would be if his Princess of Darkness could be standing by him.

His daydreams were interrupted by an increase in the volume of the cheering (if that was even possible– maybe Damon only noticed it because of his special vampire hearing) and the arrival of Katniss Everdeen. Damon watched her dismount from the hovercraft with Peeta and the lady with pink hair who was always following her around. He had never seen Katniss in the flesh before. She was on her victory tour now, and appeared to Damon to be more attractive live than onscreen. In the Games she'd been too dirty and starving to fully appreciate.

He made his way over to her to say hello, shaking off reporters who tried to get in his way. She gave him a tight smile.

"Hello," she said, obviously not wishing to be there. Her fiancé was more polite.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Sanguine," he said, offering Damon a large, warm hand to shake. Damon took it, still looking at Katniss. She was glaring at him, and he didn't know why that could be.

"You can call me Damon," he told Peeta smoothly, letting go of his hand. He turned his back to the boy and faced Katniss. He leaned in close so that no reporters could hear what he was saying.

"I'm sorry, did I do something to offend you?" he whispered.

"No, you didn't," she said with a scowl.

"Then why are you so angry?"

"You know that model you were engaged to for a couple minutes?" she asked. Damon nodded, remembering how disgusting and unlike Elena Yush's blood had tasted. "Well, they killed her."

Damon's jaw dropped and cameras zoomed in to look at his "SPECTACULAR TONGUE". "What? Who killed her? Who's they?"

"The idiot masses," Katniss said. "The Capitol. Your people."

"But why?"

"Because you didn't like her," Katniss said, "which, in my opinion, is just ridiculous. I hope you're proud of yourself."

This was unreasonable, Damon thought, seeing as he had by no means encouraged the murder of Yush Lovo. He hadn't said he wanted her dead, and was in fact quite repulsed by the idea of her death.

"Katniss, let's go," Peeta muttered to her, pulling her away. "Remember, Cinna told us to look happy."

Her face broke into a false smile and they walked away, leaving Damon rather distressed. He stared out at the huge crowd, wondering which of his fans had killed Yush. He pictured it happening, just a couple minutes ago, crowds of people surrounding her on her way out and moving in, not letting her escape, before they went on to the kill….

He shivered.

"Damon Sanguine, are you okay?" a reporter asked him shrilly, thrusting a microphone into his face.

"I'm fine," he said shortly, trying to get away. But the reporter was persistent and grabbed his wrist with her small pink hand.

"No, something's bothering you, Mr. Sanguine. Is it because… you're lonely?"

Damon wasn't lonely. Quite the opposite. But looking at the reporter now, at the turquoise vein protruding from her wrist, he was rather thirsty.

"We killed Yush for you because we knew she broke your heart," the reporter said, like that was a good thing, and suddenly Damon was very thirsty, and he broke the nearby cameras and latched his fangs into her neck, at an angle so it would look as if he were kissing her rather than sucking her blood. Though vampires were acknowledged to exist, he wasn't sure if that would somehow disqualify him from being an It-Man, or if he wanted fans to scream at him to drink their blood.

Damon didn't kill the reporter, but he took enough to leave her unconscious on the ground. Maybe she had been the one to bring about Yush's death. She seemed awful proud of it.

Just to be clear, Damon wasn't really disturbed by the fact that someone had been killed. That would be ridiculous: he was a murderer himself, many times over. He was more upset by the fact that other people had killed her for him, without even bothering to see that that was what he wanted. He had not, in fact, wanted her dead because of him. The very idea was ridiculous.

But looking into the crowd right now, his fans did not seem to know that. The wild looks on their faces told him that they were crazy about him. And looking closer, he saw the message on one of the signs that was being held up in the air. What it said was chilling: "I WILL DO UNSPEAKABLE THINGS". Damon finished the sentence in his head: for you.

A gunshot rang out suddenly, and Damon turned around in time to see that a Peacekeeper had shot the unconscious reporter. A pool of blood welled up on her back as Damon stared. He ran over to the Peacekeeper.

"What the hell was that for?" he snarled.

"She upset you," the Peacekeeper said, sounding proud.

Damon punched him in the stomach, troubled by the fact that his fans would, indeed, do unspeakable things.