I'm deeper than the shit I'm in and I don't really give a damn

-Iggy Pop

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This shit was real. They were real.

They weren't action figures, Rock gods stuck behind the gritty pages of a magazine poster hanging on his bedroom wall. They were here, now and waiting to be bedazzled by him.

Damon raked his trembling hand through his dishevelled raven hair. His lips parted for a well-rehearsed speech but as his heart collided with his ribcage, the air trapped in his throat. He moved around the stage trying to loosen his limbs, trying to alter his body chemistry to match the new milieu.

His eyes locked on Bonnie's in attempt to anchor himself.

Someone cut the lights and it was just him, his wheezing chest and the swallowing darkness. Flipping the white electric guitar around, he untangled its wires then tightened his grip around the neck of the instrument as the spotlight sprang to life. That nauseating, white burning light he loved and hated with the same glorious intensity.

Damon left. Damon didn't live here anymore.

Whatever remnants of the soul left behind exploded and his demons took control. They fed their hunger with his pain, his supersonic riffs and the rushing blood in his sweet pumping veins.

Damon left.

The devil breathed fire into his bones, elevated his spirit and spit an igniting flame into his rasping voice. He was the prodigal son, here and now, taking and giving equally. When he was done and spent on the drug and his rush, he stood drenched and soaked in his power, his acrid sweat.

"Great, buddy!" Alaric yelled from the back of the cavernous hall. Damon squinted out into the darkness, hand over his narrowed eyes.

"Now, try it without the fucking antics!"

"Give it to me raw, stripped…let me see you"

Bottom lip gripped between his teeth, he poised his shaking sweat soaked fingers over the waiting cords. Waiting for something but he didn't know what.

A hard, quaking ache ripped through his belly and shot through his heart, a pained growl pushed through his lips as he began the bloodcurdling act of singing from his gut. He shut his eyes and the song came. It was something familiar like the security blanket he had shared with his brother back in Alabama.

"Love, soft as an easy chair…" somewhere he chanted, somewhere Damon rasped and stroked that aching guitar. He sang clean, he sang blue and he sang tough. He crooned like a man with grit as his mother used to say.

"….Love, ageless and evergreen… Seldom seen by two…"

He sang for her, he hummed for his mother.

Damon laughed. He screamed. He came. He cried.

When he opened his eyes the hall was quiet and then slowly the sound of singular applause filled the hall. Damon simpered when he saw Bonnie clapping for him. He beamed and then laughed. It was all so damn fucking beautiful that it made his eyes water.

Floating down the small side steps, he flew off the stage as Alaric took wide strides toward him. His hero was smiling and this was a good thing, Damon thought swinging the guitar.

"That was beautiful man, gay but beautiful" he laughed tapping Damon's shoulder. "You actually made Barbra Streisand rock!"

"Not bad, mate" Enzo offered, a lit cigarette slumping from his slanted lips as he rose from his chair. Damon took the compliment because he figured Enzo was not the type to dish them out readily.

A hulking Lockwood dove into Damon with a gruesome bear hug "great job, buddy" he yelled before slapping his hand for a fat high five.

"Thanks, "nodding sheepishly, Damon stepped back away from the lime light and waited for their verdict. His heart was beating faster than a cocaine aficionado's after an anxiety binge.

Stop. Slow. Breathe.

"Great set buddy, "Alaric offered him a handshake "We'll let you know"

Damon smiled through the deafening sounds of his shallow breath.

"Yeah' he managed grinning through his onrushing cardiac arrest. They pat his shoulder, tapped, touched knuckle to knuckle like a brotherhood and then left him there, standing outside in the grey wet rain.

At least he was standing with her. Avoiding her eyes, he pulled out a ratty old beanie from his back pocket and slipped it on his head.

"You were on fire out there, "she smiled punching him lightly on his chest.

They stood for a moment outside, the rain pelting down on the heads.

"I have a bottle of tequila at my place" he grinned, eyes drifting to her fingers as they toiled with her zipper. It was a sucker bet, Damon knew this before he spit the rhyme reeling her in with a tired line.

"I have a cocktail dinner with my boyfriend" she said stepping back and pulled her hair into hair into a sloppy ponytail that only seemed to add to the charm of her face.

"And…she drops the bomb" Damon chuckled ruffling the hair peeking out under his beanie falling over his forehead. "Is he a sunset guy?" his voice was soft and lower than he had expected.

"What's a sunset guy?' She squinted up to him, brows furrowed in the silver drizzle.

"That guy you ride off into the sunset with, that guy who rarely lives up to your expectations of forever after"

"He's not sunset guy" she laughed "he's more than sunset guy"

"What guy are you?'

"Sunrise guy" he tossed a shoulder grinning

"Now you're just making this shit up"

"I'm that morning guy you forgot about, the one you took home that one night and forgot about…"

Bonnie bit her lip as if to say something but she stopped herself. She drew her satchel tighter around her torso and glanced behind her signalling to her parked Mazda.

"Hey, thanks for the action" she finally offered with a bashful wink.

"Anytime"

"And congratulations"

"I don't have the part yet"

"Of course you do, "she grinned "You're Damon-fucking-Salvatore"

With that she turned and moseyed to her mud streaked car. Damon watched, hands deep in his pockets and his heart hurtling into his ribcage like freight train.

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