Disclaimer: I don't own the Vampire Diaries or anything affiliated with the Vampire Diaries or really much of anything at all in general. The most depressing disclaimer.
Chapter Soundtrack: Birdy - Wings
Damon blinked.
Long arms were thrown around him, and a cascade of brown hair was all he saw as his vision began to adjust.
The loamy smell of earth, damp and ripe, filled the air. Vaguely he noticed that walls of dark, craggy rock rose on every side, reaching up and over him menacingly.
Where... where was he?
"You came back... you kept your promise, you came back to me." The words were mumbled into the fabric of his shirt, humming over his collarbone. The voice, though... he knew that voice.
She leaned back, and he saw her face. Elena smiled, tears rolling warm and heavy down her cheeks.
Past her, he saw Bonnie, crushed in the embrace of the blonde one... Caroline.
Elena was looking at him expectantly. "Your hair, it's straight again," he said dazedly.
The brunette laughed. "I've waited five years, and that's all you have to say?"
He said nothing to that, and his eyes drifted towards Bonnie again. She was looking back at him now, a tense crease forming between her eyebrows. He pushed Elena's hands from where they rested on his shoulders.
Elena held onto his hand and led him forward, towards scant rays of sunlight that filtered into the cave from some way out. His eyes were still on the witch as he followed, disoriented.
Bonnie's eyes fluttered to disguise the gleam of unshed tears. Instead she looked away, giving Caroline a strained smile.
[5 years earlier]
The eerie twilight blue of the Other Side was shifting, the forest awash in blinding white. It wasn't hot like the center of a lick of flame, and it wasn't cold like white ice. It felt like... nothing. Like emptiness inching closer and closer. Like oblivion calling her name.
She didn't know what to make of Grams' cryptic assurances, but she decided that they were why she felt safe in that surreal moment. Not because of the vampire standing beside her, nor his fingers interlocked with her own.
The ground trembled. Bonnie inhaled and squinted into the light around them as it grew in intensity. "Do you think it will hurt?"
His fingers squeezed hers, and all she could see was white.
Damon turned his head to her and saw her close her eyes. "I don't kn-"
His voice broke off midsentence as every cell of his body reverberated into the void of the white light that consumed them. After the initial jolt, he realized it felt calm, almost soothing. He was floating, rocking back and forth in the cradled embrace of an endless sea of light.
He lost sense of the edges of his body, melting into that ocean. He was expansive, a vast vista of something unknown.
It could have been a moment later, it could have been eons, but somehow he felt pressure. Gentle squeezing of fingers. His fingers.
And he was yanked from bliss, painfully aware once more of where he ended and where the great expanse began. He felt himself being compressed and stretched in equal measure, drawn out thin as a wire and moving, rushing, pulsing towards... something. He was careening forward, summoned by forces he couldn't even begin to comprehend.
A nameless panic washed over him in waves of overwhelming fear, and the only thought he allowed himself to focus on was the warm fingers twined tight with his own. Those fingers oriented him, they made it feel more plausible that he still existed at all.
And then, as quickly as it had all begun, it stopped. He stood upright and tottering, the leather of his boots snug on his feet.
Acrid air filled his lungs as he inhaled in short spurts. His eyes were clenched shut.
"Damon... Damon, look," a whisper echoed from somewhere beside him.
The fingers in his grasp began to pull away. "No! Don't," he rasped, lurching forward and clasping them tighter.
The voice beside him hissed in pain. "Open your eyes, Damon."
Slowly, he complied.
All he could see was destruction. Flat plains of ash spread outwards in every direction. It swirled and rose up in spirals with the wind, and fell back down to the ground with heavy droplets of rain.
Beside him, Bonnie exhaled. "What is this place?" she wondered aloud.
"Hell?" Damon suggested.
"Not enough fire..." Bonnie murmured, taking a few steps. Her hand slipped from his. "I think I see something over there."
She pointed out across the vastness, and far in the distance Damon saw it too. Something dark rose in the horizon, though it was difficult to discern through the ash and storm.
She began walking towards it, and he followed.
The walk was more of a heavy trudge, as ash and mud caked their boots and crept up the fabric of their jeans. The air was thick, and it seemed to bother Bonnie more than Damon, who didn't actually require breath to survive. At first he had wondered if he was still a vampire in this strange, new place, but any doubts were immediately assuaged by the stillness of his heart.
After a while, Bonnie had to stop, bent over in spasming coughs.
As she recovered and straightened back up, Damon raised an eyebrow.
"What?" Bonnie frowned.
"The rain, look."
He drew a pointing finger up to the exposed skin of her arm. The droplets landing there began to glow, fading away as they seemed to soak into her. They suffused her with a soft glow that Damon found strangely intoxicating.
Bonnie was still frowning. "Stop looking at me like that. This place creeps me out, we need to get out of here." She looked out at their target. Now that they were nearer, she saw the jagged black arms reaching out towards the sky. "I think it's a tree, maybe we can get out of this rain at least."
But before they could continue their trek, she felt a wave of... something wash over her. They both stumbled back a few paces.
"What the hell was that?!" Damon growled.
Before Bonnie could respond, another wave crashed onto them. Bonnie caught herself again, but Damon found himself on his butt in the thick, wretched mud.
Bonnie stifled a laugh. She offered him a hand, which he ignored. He climbed to his feet unaided, grumbling.
Bonnie was thoughtful. "It felt like... power, didn't it? Like a pulse of energy."
"What would send out pulses of energy? Let alone energy that powerful and controlled. Nothing like that exists."
"Nothing like that existed back home, you mean..."
Damon made a face. "And how are you sensing energy, anyway? Isn't that more of a witchy thing?"
Bonnie didn't dare to hope. But still, she reached her arms forward, cupping her palms. The rain gathering there was luminous, golden. Damon felt drawn to it, and he leaned forward expectantly. Bonnie focused on it.
Flames erupted, violent and desperate. A column of fire extended from Bonnie palms for nearly five feet into the sky above them.
Damon dove back, and Bonnie gasped. "I think magic might be a little different here," she murmured.
"How did you get your powers back?" Damon gaped.
"The rain," came a low voice behind them.
Bonnie and Damon spun around, the flames in Bonnie's hands extinguishing as the liquid sloshed messily. A man stood before them, his clothes coated in the same dark ash and mud as them. Dark hair hung messy and wet, clinging to pale, porcelain skin.
Two black eyes, dark as a starless night, bore into them.
"Who are you?" Bonnie demanded.
"This storm was borne of the destruction of a vast amount of energy, the largest star ball ever known. Every drop is seeped with immense power. It restored me too. Though as much as it pains me to admit it, my power is nothing to yours." He eyed Bonnie predatorily.
Bonnie edged backwards, her hands poised and ready.
Damon moved in front of the witch. "That answers one of the questions, sort of. Who are you?"
"I should be asking you the same," the stranger replied. He turned his gaze back to Bonnie. "So much power in such a diminutive frame... just a sip or two from you, and imagine what new abilities I could discover."
He took a step towards her, and Damon placed himself directly in the man's path. Dark red veins writhed beneath Damon's eyes, and he bared his fangs with a wicked smirk. "We asked you first, didn't we?"
The stranger stopped, and flashed them a dazzling smile. He spread his arms out in a casual gesture of surrender.
"Fair enough." He cocked his head at Bonnie in a way that seemed distinctly bird-like. "I'm Damon Salvatore."
A/N: Hi folks! Did you like this? I hope you liked this.
This is the prologue for a multichapter crossover fic I've been working on, where Bonnie and Damon end up in the TVD book!verse after the ending of 5x22. Specifically the book!verse at the end of Midnight, when book!Damon comes back to life after sacrificing himself to save book!Bonnie. I'm really really really excited about this, and it's been a while since I worked on a larger writing project, so I really hope you'll enjoy this. Please R&R, my loves!