Chapter Four: Success

Damon

A persistent throbbing held residence in his skull. Every time he tried to move a muscle or open his eyes, the throbbing intensified so he had to stop. The night before was a rare success, not in terms of his party, that was always a success but in terms of him finding that perfect peaceful place. He kept that peace of mind longer than any of the other times. Still, it was not enough. It was never enough, until it lasted forever. He knew that he had to do a little more than drown himself in sex and alcohol to reach final, infinite peace but he could not do it. Peace was too good for him and he already indulged enough in those stolen moments which he did not deserve either. Or maybe he was just a coward because he did not dare to simply end his miserable existence.

He could hear someone talking outside his door. It sounded like his brother, arguing with someone but he might have been talking on the phone because he only heard his brother's side of the conversation. His voice got louder as he came closer to his room and when he knocked on the door, Damon winced from the loud sound that only added to the throbbing in his head.

He finally pried his eyes open and reached for the water and aspirin on his nightstand, surely put there by his brother. A moment later, Stefan entered the room with his phone in one hand and a frown on his face.

"They know."

"What?" Damon said, annoyed at the vagueness of that statement.

"They know about the parties, Damon. They know what happened, what you served and what people where wearing," he said, exasperated.

"How?" He sounded bored and indifferent. Of course he knew it would come out sooner or later. He had just hoped it would be later.

"Some journalist published an article about it online and since then every other website and magazine has been quoting it."

"Where did he get the information?"

"It's a woman, Elena Gilbert, and I don't know how she got the information, but she has pictures of the masks, the house and the performances."

"Well, it was fun while it lasted," Damon shrugged then winced form a jolt of pain as his body rebelled against the unnecessary movement.

Now no one would dare to show up at another one of his parties in fear of getting exposed. That was how they were. They did all kinds off shit as long as their prized image stayed intact.

"She wrote about the escorts too." Stefan said after hesitating for a bit.

How did she know about that? He assumed that she got her information from the caterers but he had made sure that none of them were there in the second half of the night.

Stefan made his way across the room to the glass doors that led to the balcony overlooking the pool and the garden surrounding it.

He had not told his brother any specifics about his parties and Stefan was not really a fan of his lifestyle but his brother was always there for him in the morning.

"Damon, Giuseppe is furious. She cut our name into shreds." Stefan said in a tired voice, his shoulders slouching.

Damon did not give a damn about Giuseppe but he did not mean to put his brother in this situation. Stefan worked at Salvatore and Co. along with their father. He chose to major in business and asked their father for a job in the company when he graduated, all around the exemplary son. Now, he was put in the middle whenever their father tried to resume control over his eldest son. Yes, Giuseppe wanted to control him like a puppet, and he had been for at least 24 years of Damon's life. He chose everything for him; his school, college, courses, his major and his job. Then his life changed and he refused to live as a guest in his own life anymore so he quit his job and left the whole city.

In short; he started this whole party-business knowing full well that it would get out at some point and Giuseppe's precious reputation would suffer. In fact, it was part of the appeal but he did not want to hurt his brother. Stefan was just collateral damage.

"What makes you think I care about Giuseppe or his name?" He finally said.

"At least read the article," Stefan said with a sigh as he made his way out to get back to work.

Fine, he would read the damn article. It could be amusing to read what those morons thought about their rich and famous idols acting like pigs.

Elena

She wrote it as soon as she came home the night before. She knew that news was best served hot so she went home, sat with her laptop and wrote the whole thing down. By six am, it was ready to be uploaded. Tyler had already sent her the pictures but Caroline had to add her fashion piece later due to her drug mishap.

Yeah, about the cocaine; when they got back to the apartment, they had Bonnie check on Caroline. She assured them that she was going to be fine by morning so they just helped her into bed and hoped for the best. Thankfully, next morning, Caroline was right back to being her normal chipper self.

Elena did not include the drug-related piece of information in the article, though. Maybe she should have, but it did not feel right. When she left that mansion the night before, she was disgusted with the whole experience and when she found out about Caroline, she was furious but during the night, she started processing everything and ultimately seeing things in a different way.

Serving people drugs in their food was wrong and organizing sex orgies was way too messed up, but what made anyone fall this low? What horrors had he seen that made him give up on humanity? That look on his face before he descended the stairs was of pure disgust. He stripped those people to their most basic animal selves and only then did he join them. How low did he think of himself, if he only felt like one of them when they were at their worst?

Damon Salvatore used to be a picture in a magazine. An idea of what someone rich, young and handsome would be like. When she saw him in the flesh and talked to him, he became real. He was never a real person before she actually met him and looked into his eyes. In those eyes, she saw things that confused her. There was a darkness so deep that it could swallow everything surrounding it and bury it in misery but there was also a light so pure but so small like it was barely holding on. That light did something to her. In the heat of the moment, she did not notice it but now. So many hours later, it was the most significant memory of the experience.

That was why, she did not write about the cocaine. The parties had to stop but she did not want to ruin his life. Whatever hurt him this bad did not ruin him completely and she hoped, he could pull back from the self-destructive path and start getting his life back.

She tried to explain some of this to Caroline but her friend still thought that she should have exposed everything in the article. It was understandable considering the fact that Caroline had a horrible night because of the drugs and Elena felt bad about it. Like somehow she let her friend down, but she was torn between her loyalty to her friend and keeping someone from falling over the edge. In the end, she decided that saving someone from himself was more important and Caroline would eventually forgive her.

It turned out that Caroline could not keep a grudge for very long though, because when the article was uploaded, it caused a major media uproar and the site-visitor's count soared through the roof. Everyone else was quoting the article and their names and #TheGreatSalvatore were trending on twitter. All their colleagues were both happy for the attention to the magazine thus their work and also madly jealous of their success. Once Caroline saw the devastated look on Rebekah's face, she could not keep the huge grin from her own and ran to tell Elena about it, all problems forgotten.

Now they were celebrating in a club. Of course it was Caroline's idea and she even convinced Bonnie to join them. So they were all sitting in a booth at some popular club with overpriced drinks. But as Caroline said, they were celebrities just for today so they might as well enjoy it, hence the tequila shots they were clinking against each other in a toast.

"To success!" Caroline shouted with all three of them right behind.

They all threw back their heads swallowing the burning liquid and before they put their glasses back on the table, Caroline was on her feet pulling Tyler's arms.

"Let's go dannnncccceee." He had no choice but to follow her. The poor guy could barely keep up with her. She had too much energy, Elena thought, giggling a little at her friend's extra bubbly mood.

"So how do you really feel about this, Elena?" Bonnie was looking at her questioningly. She was always so attentive to her feelings, sometimes annoyingly so because she could never hide anything from her.

"Well, I am happy of course. I mean this is great for our careers"

"But?"

"But nothing. It's just that I met someone at the party." Elena hesitated. She had not told Caroline about her brief encounter with Damon Salvatore and she was not sure if she should tell Bonnie either.

"I met Damon Salvatore," she finally said, deciding that she needed to confide in someone about her confusing thoughts.

Bonnie's eyebrows shot upwards. "But that's the guy who…"

"…who hosted the party. Yeah," Elena interrupted.

"Wow. What was he like?"

"I don't know. He asked me what I thought about his party and when I insulted him, he lashed out at me."

"You insulted him in his own house?" Bonnie asked trying to hide her amusement.

"I did not know who he was, when I said it. I couldn't see his face."

"So what's the problem now?"

The problem was that she could not stop thinking about him. That look, in his eyes, was haunting her and she could not help but wonder what made him this way.

"I guess I just feel weird about exposing him."

"You did the right thing 'Lena. He's probably better off now that you put an end to his madness."

"Yeah you're probably right."

"You know what? We need some dancing too. Just because we're single does not mean we don't get to have fun."

Bonnie got out of her seat and held her hand out to Elena who took it right away. They both headed to the dance floor and Elena decided to push all her thoughts away and just enjoy herself for tonight.

AN: Thank you for reading. Please be kind and tell me what you think. You don't know how happy and inspired, I get when I read even a single word from one of you.