𝐇𝐎𝐀𝐗 | tvd & reign oneshots

- 𝙨𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙢𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙙𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 (1).

- Stefan Salvatore thinks he's lost everyone he's ever loved, but he still manages to save them one final dance---part i of my "1,000 words - may drabbles." there's more coming in the next few days. my mother's just screaming at me right now to clean my room, so i had to make this quick. 920-ish words for my first day, I think I did pretty well...?

...

IT WAS HIS MOTHER who Stefan had to thank for his dancing skills and love thereof.

He remembered his childhood and teenage years pre-vampire; waltzing to piano music in the Salvatores' library and his mother's melodious voice making up tunes that transported him to another world. His first dance lessons consisted of constantly stepping on his mother's toes, dancing out of tune, and tripping over his feet—in time, however, he was gracefully spinning across ballroom floors.

Alessandra Salvatore was an Italian noblewoman before she uprooted her entire life and immigrated to Mystic Falls with a mere farmer, then bearing ten children for him (the eight who died in childbirth or before ever seeing the light of day all had wee graves standing on the edge of the property, their names all permanently etched in stone and their bodies forever in the ground.)

Stefan didn't spend his afternoons going hunting or engaging in heated debates with Giuseppe Salvatore; he much preferred the company of his warm and adoring mother, who showed him the world through her eyes—she read him plays she'd brought to America from her days as a girl in the Italian court, taught him how to dance, learn Italian, and how to cook all the traditional favorite dishes she had growing up.

Of course, they only did this when Giuseppe was out of the house—which was very often, as he was a member of the Mystic Falls council and one of the founders. Sometimes, when Damon was willing to, he'd come inside from football in the rain and help them.

Although they could've gone to a ballroom and done it, Giuseppe was extremely strict against it—he didn't want his boys learning those "senseless, frivolous" things. Stefan knew that firsthand; he'd snuck out once to the Lockwood home to see the ballroom, to which Damon had begrudgingly been permitted to attend; and had been dragged off later to his father's office, coming out with scars and bruises of all colors.

His mother always tended to those bruises, and just like magic, the next morning he'd wake up and find himself stumbling to the bathroom, wincing when he touched the scars still left from the night before, but amazed when he saw how they had almost completely disappeared.

The day before Alessandra died due to miscarrying yet another stillborn baby, everyone was scared that she would die—all night, Damon and Stefan stayed by her side and did as the doctor and their nanny required them to.

Soon she'll get better, was what everyone had said after the eleven other babies. As time went on, and she managed to recover after each obstacle, Stefan truly thought his mother was the bravest woman ever, and that really, she was invincible, like in those folktales she'd read him.

This time, he wasn't so sure.

Eventually, Damon went downstairs and kept a watch out to see if Giuseppe would walk through the door anytime soon—as the clock ticked and the hours passed, friends of the family came in to offer him their condolences, going upstairs to check on Alessandra, and soon, he was joined by Stefan. The two siblings spent the entire night shaking hands and being enveloped in tight, tearful embraces.

When it was 2 AM, the last of the guests had finally left, but their runaway of a father was nowhere to be found. Slowly, Stefan reached out for Damon's hand, and his brother grasped it tightly as if it were his lifeline.

They spent their restless night looking after Alessandra, and when the sun came up, they had both awoken to their mother, sweaty and smiling, but still as beautiful and radiant as ever. She stood up from her bed, led them both to the library, and started to play the piano, and all at once, their problems seemed absolutely irrelevant as they got lost in the melody for the rest of the day, savoring those final moments.

When the evening fell, they all lay sprawled out on the couch before the fireplace, either brother by their mother's side and listening to Alessandra's euphonious voice narrate tales of her childhood and stories of times long forgotten. Eventually, her voice drifted off, her words still lingering in the air as she drifted off into a deep slumber, this time an everlasting one.

Somehow, Damon knew that was the end, but Stefan didn't.

When they woke up to the open curtains streaming out sunlight the following morning, Stefan lazily rubbed his eyes and crawled out of his mother's embrace, spotting the peaceful smile on her face. He kissed her forehead, deciding to let her rest, and went to prepare breakfast to bring to Damon.

When he entered Damon's room with his brother's favorite spaghetti, he noticed him in the corner of the room, back facing him. "Damon, what's wrong?"

When Damon finally answered, his voice sounded as if he had been crying for some while now and was struggling to hold back his tears. "I should've known, Stefan... we should've known..."

"Known what?" Stefan set the plate down on Damon's bedside table and went over to his brother, taking a seat on the floor next to him.

"She's gone, Stefan. And this time, she's never going to come back."

"...Mom?"

Damon slowly nodded, and then the tears started to fall for both of them—it was just them, in Damon's dark, cold, silent room, holding each other as if they were the only two people remaining in the world.

At least they had one final dance.

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I wrote this to drown all my sorrows of fucking up a presentation. I am never going to be good at public speaking---WHY DID IT SOUND SO MUCH BETTER IN MY FUCKING HEAD

Anyway... keep reading, keep writing, keep dreaming - V