I posted this before and for some reason, it was oddly spaced. This is a re-post.
Damon raised his hand to knock on Bonnie's dorm door, then he lowered it. He had already brought his hand up to knock about five times, but he wanted to have his apology just right before she answered. After all, he was asking for a favor and she was still pretty pissed at him. He went over the words in his head a few more times before he clutched the bouquet of flowers behind his back and actually knocked. He heard her bare feet padding along the wooden floors, and he plastered a smile on his face. When she swung the door open, her green eyes narrowed and her jaws clenched, a sure sign that she hadn't forgiven him.
"I'm sorry," he said by way of a greeting. He produced the flowers from behind his back and thrust them at her. She barely gave them a glance before she moved to shut the door. He panicked and put his hand out, which only seemed to anger her more. "Wait. Before you close the door, can I at least talk to you?"
"I don't have anything to say to you," she said.
"Fine, then you can just listen."
"I'm done listening to you, Damon," she spat. "You can take your flowers and shove them up your ass."
She slammed the door in his face and his fingers itched to rip the door off the hinges and make her listen to him. But that kind of impulsive behavior was what got him into trouble in the first place. So instead, he channeled his inner Stefan and took a few deep breaths before calmly placing the flowers on the ground and knocking again. He didn't hear any movement to indicate that she was going to answer, so he turned the knob and let himself in. Bonnie was sitting cross-legged on her bed, with a thick textbook in her lap. His eyes raced around the room and a flood of relief overcame him when he saw the Ascendant, undamaged, resting on a desk.
"You didn't destroy it."
"I thought I told you to go away," she said without looking up.
"Look, I know you're mad at me..."
"Mad at you?" she asked, snapping her head up and giving him a death glare. "Mad at you would be an understatement. I am furious with you."
"I know I screwed up," he started, but she cut him off by holding up her hand.
"Do you?" She put her book down and folded her arms over her chest. "Prove it to me. Tell me exactly how you screwed up."
Damon opened and closed his mouth a few times, like a fish gasping for water, as he tried to think of the most articulate way to admit that he was wrong. Bonnie waited with an arched eyebrow.
"Well...I shouldn't have yelled at you," he started.
"And what else?"
"Uh...I shouldn't have lied to you and given the Ascendant to Lily."
"And what else?"
He sighed, trying to think of more. When he came up empty after a few long seconds, Bonnie spoke up.
"How about an apology for the part where you put your hands on me?"
Oh yeah, that, he thought.
"Of course, of course," he said quickly. "I'm definitely sorry for that."
She shook her head in disbelief. "Yeah right. Get out. Before I make you get out."
"Bonnie, just hear me out, please. I'm wrong, okay? I know that. But I don't want you to be mad at me anymore. I thought we were friends now. Batman and Robin. I'm obviously Batman." Her lips narrowed. "Okay, fine, you can be Batman."
"Is this a real apology?" she asked. "Are you here because you genuinely feel guilty about what you did and you want to make it right? Or is this like your bullshit coffee routine where you butter me up before you tell me something I don't want to hear about how you've betrayed my trust, yet again?"
His silence tipped his hand.
"Well...there is one small thing that I might need you to do for me."
Bonnie laughed dryly. "You have got to be fucking kidding me. After all the crap you've put me through, you think I'm going to do you a favor?"
"Lily gave Elena the cure and I think she's going to take it and I want to take it with her. But the only way I can do that is if I go back to Nova Scotia in 1903 and I need your blood for that. So can you please just do this one little thing for me and I promise I'll be out of your hair for good?"
He threw in a smile at the end, thinking it might sway Bonnie to his way of reasoning. But he realized he was wrong when she slowly shook her head.
"You have some nerve," she said.
Bonnie got off of her bed and walked towards him.
"You lied to me. Not once, but twice. You knew how I feel about Kai and yet you forced him into my face anyway. You swore to me that you wouldn't go back to 1903 and that there was no way those vampire-witch freaks would ever get out, and yet you gave the Ascendant to your crazy ass mother. Now here you stand, in my dorm room, disturbing the little amount of peace that I have, to ask me to give up a part of myself so you can run off into the sunset with Elena?"
He said nothing as she searched his eyes and face. He wanted to speak, but the fact was that she was right.
"You're pathetic," she said with a venom in his voice that he had never heard before. "You're a grown man, actually old enough to equal several grown men, and you're pining over a girl that obviously doesn't love you as much as you love her."
Damon's nostrils flared. "Watch it, Bonnie," he warned.
"What's wrong? Scared of hearing a little truth about yourself? Are you scared that you'll realize that if you have to hold onto Elena this tightly, that your love isn't as epic as you want it to be?"
"I mean it, Bennett," he said coldly.
"Poor little Damon," she continued. "Always second best, never loved the most, not even by his mommy. That's why you have to suffocate everything you love to the point of killing it. You wouldn't know real love if it punched you in the face. You, Damon Salvatore, are what the kids these days would call a 'fuckboy.'"
That was the straw that broke the camel's back. In a moment of pure, unadulterated anger and humiliation, Damon reached out and grabbed Bonnie's shoulders. He didn't know what he was going to do with her, but he didn't have time to figure it out. As soon as his hands touched her body, she fought back and wrapped her hands around his neck. She tried to take him down and they tussled all the way to the bed, where he pushed her until she her back was on the mattress and he was on top of her. He grabbed her hands and pinned them above her head, and for the briefest second, his annoyance got the best of him and he vamped out and snarled at her. Bonnie jutted her chin out in defiance.
"What are you going to do, Damon?" she asked. "Bite me? Drain me? Go ahead. It can't hurt any worse than what you've already done to me."
He saw her eyes blink furiously and he realized that she was trying to fight off tears, and his facade disappeared. He loosened his grip on her wrists and eased back slightly, without getting off of her completely.
"What I've done to you?" he asked softly. "I said I was sorry for earlier."
"Yeah, I heard your sorry ass apology and I don't accept it, but I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about the fact that you don't even see me as a person, much less a friend or someone you care about. I'm just a thing to you."
"No, you're not. You know that."
"Do I? Because since I've been back, all you've done is use me, just like you always do. And for what? For Elena? Elena won't even love you when she's human again."
Damon's nostrils flared but he didn't tighten his hold on her body. Deep down, he knew she was right. His recognition of Elena's wavering feelings for him wasn't even that deep down. He knew, felt it, right there on the surface.
"What you have with Elena isn't love," Bonnie continued. "It's obsession, wrapped in possessiveness, with a nice big lust bow on top. If your relationship was as great as you think it is, you wouldn't have to worry about whether Elena would still want you when she turns human. Her love for you shouldn't turn on that, but it does. You know it. I know it. She knows it. Everyone knows it. "
They stared each other intensely and he was silent because he couldn't rebut what she'd said. A single tear streamed out of the corner of her left eye, down her cheek, and he checked himself before he reached up to wipe it away.
"You know what real love is?" she asked, barely above a whisper. "A woman who really loves you will love you in spite of the fact that you are the biggest asshole she's never met. She'll love you even though you're impulsive and irrational and as insecure as a thirteen-year-old girl. She'll love you even though your pancakes taste like shit and your coffee orders are completely wrong and disgusting. And she'll love you even when you don't think you deserve it."
Bonnie's voice got softer with each declaration and it only took Damon a second to realize that her hypothetical woman wasn't so hypothetical. His eyes widened when he realized that Bonnie was talking about herself, and she looked down when she saw the recognition on his face. So many emotions hit him at once that he didn't know what to deal with first or how to respond. Some words finally bubbled up on his tongue, but they were interrupted by the opening of the door before he got the chance to say them.
"Oh!" Caroline said, wide-eyed as she walked in. Bonnie's and Damon's heads snapped to her direction and the three of them wallowed in thick, tense silence for a few seconds before Damon got the sense to let go of Bonnie and slide off her body. He straightened his clothes and Bonnie quickly wiped her eyes and stood up as well.
"Am I...interrupting...something?" Caroline asked.
"No," they both said quickly.
"No, we were just talking," Bonnie said.
"Talking. With Damon on top of you. On your bed," the blonde said, frowning more with each statement.
"It's not what it looks like," Damon said, and then looked to Bonnie for back-up. He and Caroline saw her nod, but then she swiped her eyes one more time and Caroline zeroed in her gaze on Damon.
"Did he hurt you?" she asked, giving him a death glare.
"No," Bonnie said. "Not...physically, anyway."
Damon looked at Bonnie, Bonnie looked at him, and Caroline looked at both of them with an expression of confusion. Bonnie finally met her eyes and years of friendship allowed them to communicate silently with a just a few glances. Caroline nodded slightly and turned to Damon again.
"You should leave," she directed.
"Bon-Bon and I aren't finished here."
"Yeah, you are."
Caroline grabbed his arm and forced him to the door, and before he could say anything else, she pushed him out and slammed the door in his face. Damon gritted his teeth, wanting to go back in but knowing he shouldn't. In frustration, he pressed his forehead to the wood and thought about what he could do to make things right with Bonnie. He was about to leave when he heard the girls talking.
"So," Caroline said slowly. "My humanity is back on. I came here to apologize to you and maybe even get some of that infamous Bonnie sympathy for all the horrible things I've done, but something is telling me that conversation can wait until you tell me what I just walked in on."
"It's nothing."
"It's not nothing when Damon is on top of you and you're crying. Seriously, did he hurt you? If he did, just tell me and I'll handle it."
Damon heard Bonnie laugh sadly, and he could picture the exact look on her face.
"We got into an argument. You know us. That's what we do," she said unconvincingly.
"Yeah, but none of your prior arguments ever ended with you in tears." She sighed. "Bonnie, please tell me what's going on. I haven't been there for you at all since you've been back and it's time for me to make it up to you. Whatever it is, just tell me."
Nobody said anything for a while, then Bonnie said something that made Damon's heart clench.
"I love him."
Damon knew that she felt that way, based on her earlier confession, but to hear her say the words... He didn't know how to feel or what to do. He walked away as he heard Caroline walk to Bonnie and pull her into a hug and tell her it was okay. He was in a fog as he left the building. He sat down on the steps in front of the dorm and tried to assess the situation.
Bonnie loved him.
When had that happened? He knew their relationship had changed and that they had definitely become friends, but he didn't know love had become part of the equation. Not romantic love. Not the kind of fierce, loyal, bone-deep love that Bonnie gave.
"Hey."
Damon looked up and saw Elena standing over him, looking concerned.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yeah. Just thinking."
She sat down next to him and looked at him with her big brown eyes. "What are you doing here?"
"I was visiting Bonnie, trying to get her to give me some blood so I could get the second dose of the cure and become human with you. That was a spectacular failure."
"That's okay. We'll figure out some other way. Or I won't take the cure."
Damon looked at her and shook his head. "Yes, you will. You want to be human. And you want to have a family. You deserve that."
"But what about you?"
"I'll just keep being a vampire. I've become pretty good at it."
She looked like she wanted to argue with him about it, but instead she rested her head on his shoulder and they sat quietly as they watched students mill about the Quad. As she interlocked their fingers, Damon thought about Bonnie and wondered if she was still crying on Caroline's shoulder. He wondered if she really hated him and if there was any way he could get her forgiveness. He thought about how much he had hurt her, and knowing he'd caused her tears tore him up inside.
"How did you do it?" he asked quietly.
"Do what?" Elena asked, her head still on her shoulder.
"How did you manage to love two people and not go insane?"
She lifted her head up and frowned. "Damon, if you're worried about me going back to Stefan if I take the cure..."
"I'm not asking for you."
Her frown deepened. "Then why are you asking?"
"For me."
She stared at him for a minute, and as the understanding flooded her face, her eyes got wide. She yanked her hand out of his and scooted away from him.
"You?" she whispered. Do you..." She shook her head like she couldn't understand. "Do you have feelings for someone else?"
He rubbed his head and groaned. "I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?" she asked angrily.
"I don't know!" he snapped.
"How is this even possible? You were just telling me that you wanted to be human with me! And now you want to be with someone else?" she yelled.
"I didn't say I wanted to be with Bonnie, I said that I might have feelings for her."
He didn't realize that he'd said Bonnie's name until Elena's face completely drained of color.
"Bonnie," she said. "You like Bonnie?"
Damon ran a hand through his dark hair. "I don't know," he said again.
"I knew there was something different between you two," she said with a dry laugh. "I knew there was more to you trying so hard to get her back than just being her 'friend.' I'm sure you two were just screwing each other's brains out in that prison world, huh?"
"What the hell are you talking about? We didn't do anything while we were there. We got close and we're friends now. It's not about sex or anything else. For the first time in my life, I actually built a friendship with a girl first."
As soon as those last words came out of his mouth, he wanted to take them back. Elena looked wounded and her lips quivered.
"So we weren't friends before we got together?" she asked. "We're just about sex?"
"I didn't mean it like that."
"No, I think that's exactly how you meant it. And I can make this decision very easy for you. I'll take the cure, stop loving you, and then you and Bonnie can run off together and live happily ever after."
"Elena..."
He tried to reach for her but she yanked away and stomped into the dorm. He groaned and balled his fists, wanting to punch something. But he didn't. He simply dropped his hands and wondered how he had managed to mess up two of his most important relationships in the span of half an hour. He fell, dejected, onto the steps again and sat there even as the sun went down and night came. He didn't move a muscle all night, and he was still there when the sun rose and people slowly trickled out of the dorm.
One such person almost walked behind him and almost walked by, but her footsteps stopped. He could tell from her scent that it was Bonnie, even without looking up. He was surprised when she sat down next to him and when he looked at her, she didn't look like she was mad anymore.
"Were you out here all night?" she asked.
"Yep."
"If you're waiting for Elena, she's in the shower."
"I'm not waiting for her."
"Oh."
They looked at the Quad together, then Bonnie sighed.
"Listen, I'm sorry about last night," she said.
"What are you sorry for? I'm pretty sure I'm the one who owes you an apology."
"You owe me several, actually. But that doesn't change the fact that I shouldn't have said any of that stuff last night," she said, looking away from him. "It wasn't my place. I was just upset and I said too much."
He nodded and watched her profile as she stared ahead and sighed.
"I have to go to class," she said.
She stood up and Damon let her get about two feet away before he spoke up.
"What if I feel the same way?"
Bonnie stopped in her tracks and turned to him.
"What?"
"I mean, you know, hypothetically," he said with a shrug. "What if after some deep thought while sitting on uncomfortable stone steps all night, I said that I might kind of love you, too?"
Her eyes widened in surprise, and then the smallest smile crept across her lips.
"Well, first of all, that would be the worst confession ever. So, hypothetically, if you did feel that way, I'd hope you would think of a better way to tell me."
"Noted."
"But aside from that..." She licked her lips and readjusted her backpack a few times. "If you did feel that way about me, I'd want us to stay friends for now. I'd want you to work it out with Elena until there's nothing left to work out, and then when you're actually over her, then maybe we could talk about us. Because, hypothetically, if we were to go there with each other, I wouldn't want you to be hung up on anybody else. I'd want all of you."
Damon nodded slowly and replied with, "okay."
Bonnie nodded and said, "okay."
What should have been awkward silence was actually comfortable between them, and she gestured to a building across the grass.
"I gotta go."
"Call you later?" he asked.
"Yeah."
He watched her walk away and a smile worked its way to his face.