Disclaimer: No "real" novel would have a chapter this short. I clearly have no concept of producing proper chapters. LJ Smith wrote the Vampire Diaries, and I think the CW made it into a TV show? ITV2 show it over here.
I know this is very fucking short, very fucking cryptic and very fucking transitional, and I apologise for the language used in this sentence, but I'm kinda pre-empting the irritation you guys will feel.
Hope this throws you right into the mix
Enjoy!
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2010
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Bonnie was anything but concerned about Damon. She had seen his future, and it was as pretty as his black-and-gold, shining, dangerous-yet-pretty aura. Pretty something, she mused, and it caused a smile to split across her face. She grinned down at Damon, who was sitting at her feet, telling her each of the answers to all of the pieces of homework she had set around her.
"What're you smiling about?" He frowned up at her, "You know, if you're going to sit on the angel again tomorrow, then you're not wearing a skirt. It's not nice to see your Hello Kitty panties, Connie."
"It's Bonnie." She retorted, feeling a flush against her cheeks and knowing that he had succeeded in his attempts to distract and disturb her, make her feel awkward and then irritate her to the point that she would fight him.
Damon liked girls with a little bit of fight.
"Whatever your name is," He muttered, "Quit flashing. Hello Kitty wasn't cute when they first brought it out, and it's not cute plastered all over your pixie's derriere."
Francesca had always hated Hello Kitty.
"Well, so-rry." Bonnie huffed and went to jump down from the wingtip of the angel, then thought better of it as she overbalanced and fell a little to the side. "Help!" She was clinging on tight with her legs as she tried to keep herself upright.
"What's wrong?" Damon was now looking anywhere but at the way she was holding herself up, "Oh, God, don't die." He sighed, "You're about the only person I like around here."
"Well," She muttered again, "I'm sorry if this isn't convenient for you, but-"
"Oh, shut up, you sarcastic witch."
In three steps, Damon had jumped up onto the top of the Angel, and was holding his hands out to Bonnie.
"Grab on," He muttered, "I haven't got all day."
"Yes you do," She retorted just as quickly, "I thought you were only hanging around here because I tolerate you."
"Very funny. You know, I feel like I should leave you here to think about what you've done, don't you?"
"I don't find that very funny, Damon." She replied, still afraid of loosening her grip and falling the nine or ten feet to the floor, "I don't find that funny at all."
"I do." He sing-songed the words as he watched her for a moment, before leaning over and detangling Bonnie from the angel's wing. Gripping her wrist and almost flinging her toward him, he swiftly took the same three steps back down to the grass of the cemetery before placing her on the floor and sitting back down with his back to the angel.
Bonnie stared back at him with her mouth wide open and her arms crossed across her chest. Damon unsuccessfully resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
"You are so weird, you know that?"
"Yep." He nodded, and couldn't help but smile at the thought.
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Italy, 1993, February
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"You want to change me?" Francesca's smile was hesitant, but very, very certain.
"I said forever," Damon whispered, pressing his lips to her neck, "I never go back on my word." He stopped and pulled back to look at her. "But only as long as you're sure. I need you to be sure."
"Of course, she whispered without hesitation. We said forever."
There wasn't even a waver in her voice as she looked up at him, beaming, and ran her finger down a vein in her arm unconsciously.
"So, how do we do this?" She tilted her head in a businesslike manner, and Damon let out a short laugh because it was just so cute to see her so confident about something she did not even begin to understand.
"You drink from me, then you die, then you drink from a human... It's complex." He let out a short laugh, "but easy if you know how." She nodded, feeling more aware of the second part of the process than anything else he had said.
"I die?" She asked nervously, "... As in, I... Die?"
"Yep, die as in... Dead." And Damon caught the glance of fear in her eyes. "But don't worry... It'll be painless, I promise you. I'll make sure of it." He leaned down and ran a hand through her hair gently, "I'd never let anything bad happen to you."
There had been a very, very long list of options that Damon had given her - quick deaths, all of them, some of them more painful than others, some of them faster, all of them frightening, at least to Francesca.
"I'll be there every step of the way," Damon had whispered quietly, holding her hand and toying with her ring as he usually did when he sat with her. "Io non ti lascerò mai da solo."
"Arriverà un momento che te ne pentirai," she laughed, but with her words, Damon's jovial mood began to recede.
"Don't say that. When we do this... We'll have forever together." His hand was holding hers tightly, and as she settled on the method which would soon secure her change, she felt that she needed that support.
She was becoming a part of his world, and this would make it permanent. It would make it... everything perfect.
"That one." She said simply, searching for the bright red pen that she so liked to draw with. Quickly, she circled it, and Damon smiled down at her as he wrapped himself around her and twisted a few strands of her hair between his fingers.
"I like it," he laughed lightly, "Theatrical, fast and very us."
"Us?" Francesca laughed, although she did desperately want to mention that their relationship was a little more like erotic asphyxiation - a desperate need, a desire and just a little bit of fear. Well, actually, no. It wasn't asphyxiation, no. It was far closer to a massive feeling of relief.
"When do you want to...?" Damon left the option to her, and she let her shoulders shrug. She didn't know. She did, however, know that she wanted it, and she wanted it a lot.
"Well," she said, far more confidently than she felt, "I'm going to be twenty two in two months, and you're already twenty fourish," she said with a smile, "Let me catch up to you a little way first?"
"September, then?" Damon smiled as she nodded, "I'll make it a night you'll never forget."
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2010
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"Stefan?"
Silence in the darkness of his bedroom. He was gone for the night, most likely hunting for some animal out there somewhere. Elena stretched and looked around in the shadows of the night, before pacing around the bedroom to find her slippers and put them back on.
It was cold in December.
"Who's that?" Damon's voice startled her, "Oh, just you." He muttered as he glanced up and saw her, even though to her, his body was simply a voice in the darkness.
"Damon, where's Stefan?"
"He left a little while ago." There was a smirk playing about his face, Elena realised as she flipped the switch to turn a lamp on, "We had a..." Another pause in the conversation, "Subtle disagreement?"
"About?"
"Oh, he wouldn't want you to know." It was as though an electric current passed through Damon, his smile grew so large in less than a second and Elena gripped the arm of the sofa tightly. "So, I'll tell you all about Saint Stefan, and his merry bag of tricks."
"What?"
"Sorry, that was overly poetic, wasn't it?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"Well, Elena," He raised his eyebrows, and she sat forward, suddenly intrigued by the words flowing from my mouth, "What I didn't know about Francesca would probably fit into a very, very small pocketbook, but her family? They had a lot of things they never, ever told anyone, and that was a little bit of a problem."
"Why?"
"Well, let's just say that Madre Luch knew more about Saint Stefan than she really cared to let on, and he didn't remember a thing."
"What?"
But Damon would leave it to Stefan to explain. He rose from his seat and stepped from the room as though he had simply finished speaking to her, though in his chest, he felt the hesitation which came from his conscience, and told him to go back and tell her everything.
Of course, he never could resist causing trouble.
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A/N: The next chapter will be up Monday, the one after that Wednesday...
Review?
Translations:
"Io non ti lascerò mai da solo." – I wouldn't leave you.
"Arriverà un momento che te ne pentirai," – One day, you might have to.
"Madre" – Mother (Meant to be read in the sort of 'Mama Luch' way)
