Why Leave the Future Wasting
"Bonnnnnieeeeee."
Sigh.
His acute vision, now focused on the drab ceiling of her bedroom, reveals a faded pink bleeding through the austere white of the space.
"Your ceiling was pink TOO?" he asks, incredulous cynicism threaded through his voice. "How do I even know you?" he mumbles after his exclamation is met with silence. If he were human, the fingers clasped behind his head would be numb by now. It has been hours – okay an hour – that he has been in her room, forced to be good and patient and still, things he most definitely is not, while she finishes up her assigned readings for her Anthro class. Reclined on the bed, legs crossed, he tries to be a good friend, he tries to give her the time she needs to finish up so they can just get going and have some fun already. He tries.
"Aww c'mon Bon Bon, you know you know this stuff better than even your instructor probably does." He sits up and swings his shoeless feet to the ground (he viscerally learned some time ago that Miss Bennett does not tolerate shoes on her bedsheets) and makes to rise and head over to her at her desk.
"Take another step Damon and I'll pin you to a wall." Bonnie does not even look up from the textbook she has propped up against her thighs, seemingly making herself even smaller as she sits folded up in her chair, her heels on the seat. Although he knows the threat is real, and if she was annoyed enough she'd do it and probably muffle him too, that is not the thing that irritates him most.
Demurred, he mumbles his repost as takes a seat on the bed. "Some way to treat your best friend there Judgy, ignore him for hours and then threaten violence."
Another sigh. "It's been –"she grabs her phone and glances at the screen – "47 minutes. Damon." Voice all monotone condescension.
Damon flops back on the bed and it's his turn to sigh. After a beat his crooks his neck upwards.
"Why can't you at least read over here? I'll be your study partner." His hand gently pats the spot beside him as he lewdly waggles his eyebrows at her. Somehow, of course, he has made the term 'study partner' sound X-Rated.
She ignores him because she knows he wants to distract her by drawing her into some kind of sexually-tinged banter that will frustrate and infuriate her to the point that she stops her studying. Nope. Not gonna happen. So Bonnie reaches and grabs a pen to make a note in the textbook's margin. She quickly annotates the passage before placing the tip of the pen between her lips.
This action sets off a whole new level of complaints that cause a reaction within Damon that he knows from experience will be as impossible to hide as it is to ignore.
His frustration morphs into something requiring immediate action and before Bonnie can cry out he has grabbed her and pinned her beneath him. Her eyes are wide at first, but begin to narrow and by the tingle he feels moving up his arms Damon knows she is about to let him have it. So he pre-emptively replaces the pen with his lips and wedges his pelvis between her legs so he is flush against her. Her surprised shout is swallowed by the attention his lips and tongue are giving her mouth until she emits an appreciative moan, and for the first time in hours, okay, 47 minutes, Damon has her full attention. And since he's been waiting a long time, instead of backing off to let her take a deep breath, he occupies her mouth like Wall Street, using his tongue as a placard of protest, and of course Bonnie is swayed to join in too. Finally, he pulls away, just slightly, to trail his nose behind her ear, and down her neck to her collarbone, where he inhales her scent before turning his face inwards to trace girly hearts with his tongue on her neck.
Bonnie feels her heart race. She knows how this will end if she does not put a stop it.
"Daaaaamonnn". Her exhortation is half-way between a whine and a moan. There's a restrained laugh in there too. "You're not playing fair"
"When have I ever played fair, Bon Bon?" he mumbles lowly, slowly grinding his hips for added emphasis.
"You're playing dirty". Her voice is lower, huskier than usual when she replies, and the combined change in tone and her utterance of the word 'dirty' make Damon smile in all kinds of satisfaction.
"Mmmmmmmmm, let's both then," he growls, deftly flipping them over so Bonnie is now atop his chest. His arms encircle her, vice-like, pinning her to him just where he wants her. She arches her back, futilely, trying to gain a modicum of space so she can regain her faculties and control of the situation.
"Damon you have to let me finish-" he opens his mouth to make a dirty interjection but she cuts him off "-studying." She wiggles her arms free so she can prop herself up on her elbows, and Damon frowns. But then she looks at him, her face a symphony of emotions that are all for and about him, and any distemper fades. Her gaze maps his face, pausing on his lips for a moment before returning to his eyes. She shifts her weight, eliciting a not-unhappy groan from Damon that makes her smile. She raises her hand to lightly brush aside his bangs and her countenance is pensive. Damon furrows his brow in confusion, her mood change making him apprehensive.
"I love you Damon Salvatore."
Now it is Damon's turn to widen his eyes. He opens his mouth to speak but is surprised by his own inefficacy. He wants this moment to last, so he can really remember it and replay it over and over again. His brain fails to multitask so her declaration is met with wide-eyed silence.
But Bonnie laughs and it spurs him to speech.
"You said it first." It's not what he thinks he should say, but it's honest.
"Yeah, but you showed it first, so call us even. Anyway, I know you love me." Bonnie's smile is characteristically crooked, her eyes dancing with mirth. She sits up, knees bent as they wedge his torso between them. Her hands go all 'Vanna White' as she gestures to herself. "How could you not love this?"
'"You've been hanging around me too long", Damon grumbles good-naturedley, his hands roam, smoothing up her thighs, fingertips sneaking under the hem of her top so his thumb can softly stroke the underside of her bra. "There's only enough room for one narcissist in this relationship." He pauses and looks pensive. "Can we at least get rid of this?" His hands are already reaching around to unfetter the clasps at her back.
Bonnie wiggles free to fall on the bed beside him and turns to face him, and he immediately mirrors her position, hands wedged in a prayer beneath his cheek.
She smiles again and he cannot help but return her grin. Bonnie rolls her eyes. "You are unbelieveable-"
"-ly amazing" he interrupts, his voice a lyric, his grin so self-assured that it is def-con shit-eating.
Her demeanor shifts and the glee morphs into a serious thoughtfulness that makes Damon swallow nervously.
"I'm happy, Damon. For the first time in a really long time I'm happy." Her eyes roam a circuit around his face as her lower arm stretches out so she can place her hand where his heart would be as she gives him the content of hers. "I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to say it to you, now, because –" she pauses and Damon swears that his heart has risen phoenix-like and is thump-thump-thumping in his chest. He slides a hand down his body to grasp Bonnie's because he needs to be the one touching her now.
Bonnie laser-beams her focus in, though Damon's eyes, as if she is trying to see into that part of his mind that won't let him let go of his indelible suspicion that he is never worthy. "I choose you, Damon. I want you to know that. I choose you. First. Always." She shrugs her shoulders because it is so obvious to her.
Damon grasps her small hand in his and squeezes.
Damon cannot speak
But Damon can show.
So he does.
A/N: the title is an admitted bastardization of a line from a Big Country song, "Harvest Home", from their forever-awesome first album, The Crossing.
