Hades

By: Tracy Cook

Disclaimer: I do not own anything; these characters belong to the creators of The Vampire Diaries.

Pairing: Bonnie/Damon

Rating: M

Chapter One

"O shining Odysseus, never try to console me for dying.
I would rather follow the plow as thrall to another
man, one with no land allotted to him and not much to live on,
than be a king over all the perished dead."

Some days he simply took pleasure in watching.

Watching the souls as they perished, as the skin melted from their bones and rolled from their brow into their eyes, blinding them. As the Minotaur gnawed on their bones and crushed their skulls, only to once again be rebuilt and crushed again.

Tartarus was a punishment that he would never wish on any living being. It was the brutality of your worst nightmare coming to life and killing you over and over again. But, he took pleasure in it, because the people who were trapped beyond the walls of the dungeon deserved what torture they received.

And despite being envious of his brother who got to find love and spend his time in the Heavens, this was his job. It was what he was meant to do.

He was Damon Salvatore, the ruler of the dead.

Currently his clear blue eyes were fixated on a middle-aged man who had slaughtered his entire family and then burnt his village to the ground on a whim. He had killed dozens of human beings for the sake of killing them, and now he was being judged for it. His punishment was a severe beating for all of eternity.

After he had witnessed enough of the torture he turned and started through the corridor, stopping only to tell one of the guards that he was doing a good job.

Damon had lost many a guard to the underworld. They would attempt to steal his souls and leave the realm and he would be forced to destroy them and force them into Tartarus. Honestly, he was not an evil God, he did not wish to be evil, but he had to keep the peace and enforce the rules. His rules were simple. Once in the realm you cannot leave the realm, you cannot cheat death, and you must be tortured for the sins that you have committed.

The walk to his throne was always long and lonely. He spent so many years of his life living off of the suffering of others, their tears, their sighs, and their bloodshed, that he never once got the chance to live himself.

He was among the dead and he himself was dead. Damon had never found love. Once, he had loved a woman named Katherine who wandered into the realm and she had claimed to love him in return. But, soon he found that she was only there to steal from the riches of the land and then escape. She was not truly in love with him. No one could ever truly love him.

Humans hated him. They feared him. No one dared get close to him.

He was a monster in their eyes as he was in his own.

Damon paused in front of one of the mirrors in his throne room. There was something about a mirror when you hated yourself. It was like people who hated themselves surrounded themselves with mirrors to constantly remind themselves how much they hated themselves. This was a torture method.

He stared deep into the reflection of his eyes. They were a clear blue that used to shimmer with life, now they were dull and dead. His lips formed a scowl and his brow was permanently furrowed. His hair was down to his shoulders and wildly unruly. Curling here and there and sticking up in every odd direction. He even had spots of facial hair growing in unevenly along his face.

Honestly, he did not care about his appearance.

He took his seat upon his ebony throne and stroked each of Cerberus' heads as the three headed dog took a seat beside him. He did not care to favor one head over the other. He loved them all equally. Cerberus was the only one that he could count on to protect him no matter what, to love him no matter what.

Startled from his thoughts he glanced up as one of his guards ran into his throne room.

"Sir, Sir! Someone has come to offer you a sacrifice and make a deal with you."

"Well, what are you waiting for? Send them in." Damon responded sarcastically.

"But, Sir. She claims to be from the human lands. She is a mortal. I know that you do not wish to make deals with mortals."

His brow furrowed and his eyes darkened angrily. He grew so weary of humans coming into his realm and asking him to fix their petty problems. Fix my marriage, bring my loved one back from the dead, give me the riches of your land to help my family, make the crops grow this year. Did humans not understand that there were far more pressing matters at hand? That their pathetic lives meant nothing to him?

"Send her in. I will deal with her."

O

Bonnie Bennett had lost the last person that meant anything to her. When she was young her mother and father had abandoned her leaving her to be watched over by her grandmother. A year later she watched as her grandmother grew sick and slowly deteriorated. Until, one night she brought her some soup to help her feel better, and she found her lying sprawled out on the bed with her eyes wide open.

She had rushed to her side in an attempt to return the life to her. Nothing that she did worked. Her grandmother was gone to the world.

Many years had passed after that and she had spent them alone. She never wanted to get close to anyone again, believing that they would all just leave her one way or another. Yet, one day she did find someone to love again. He was a handsome young thief who roamed the streets living day in and day out off of whatever he found.

His name was Jeremy Gilbert, and he was the love of her life.

He had meant everything to her. So, when he asked for her hand in marriage she told him that she would love nothing more.

Then one tragic night he was attacked by the city guards for stealing from one of them and the guard pierced his heart with his sword. He was gone just like the rest of them. Only this time Bonnie was not willing to accept that he too had died. She was not willing to accept that he was not going to be a part of her life. Thus, she traveled into the darkest parts of town to find some sort of witchcraft or way to bring him back.

What she found was rumors.

Rumors of a door into the underworld guarded by the God Damon himself. Some called him Hades to avoid using the name of evil. He was the God of the underworld. She thought it preposterous and so she continued her search for any other way she could get Jeremy back, but it continued to come back around to the passage into the underworld.

And when all hope was lost, she gave it a shot. What could it hurt? She had figured.

If she knew now what she knew then maybe she would not have gone.

Her green eyes glanced around the fields. The grass beneath her feet was dead and crunched with every step that she took. Fog filled the air and made it impossible to see where she was going, and the sounds of people moaning and groaning and screaming out in pain could be heard all around her. It made her stomach flip with unease as she dragged along the heavy bag with the sacrifice for Damon. The rumors said that he required a sacrifice to grant your wishes.

Her heart was pounding so loudly that she thought it might break through her ribcage. She felt sick and dizzy like she was going to pass out. And there was a huge part of her telling herself to turn around and leave the underworld. But, even if she did turn around she could not leave. The guard had told her when she entered that if she did she would not be allowed to return to the human land.

Jeremy was worth it to her.

The guard had informed Bonnie to follow the path, that it would lead her directly to Damon Salvatore. He had also muttered the words "Do not turn back, no matter what you see…" under his breath.

She wondered what all she would see. What terribly evil things that the God Damon was capable of. She could only imagine.

O

She found herself in a field. The grass was dead all around her and there was no sign of a path. Bonnie had no idea which way to go in order to find Damon. The guard had told her to simply follow the path and she would find her way to him, but now there was no path. There was nothing. All that she could see stretching in every direction was tall yellow grass.

Bonnie took a step forward and jumped when a giant black crow swept down in front of her and let out a loud noise. "Ahh!" She screamed and reached for her racing heart with her free hand. She had not been expecting anything to pop out at her.

Her green eyes followed the crow as it flew across the field and landed on one of the trees off in the distance. She did not know what compelled her to do so, but she had the feeling that she needed to follow the crow to get to Damon. That he would somehow lead her to the God.

So, she did.

She followed the crow all the way through the field until she heard the sound of running water and the bird disappeared. Bonnie glanced around for any sign of a river and she found one off in the distance.

Walking through the tall grass she made her way toward the river and hastily realized that its waters were so dark that she could not see through them. There were people reaching out from the waters as they drifted along in agony, and there was a man in robes standing in front of a boat with a scythe in his hand. She had heard many rumors about the River Styx and the guard requiring an offering to cross it.

'This must be it…'

Bonnie cautiously approached the man in the robes, eyeing him warily. She had no idea what to expect. When she finally witnessed his face she was baffled and disgusted. His skin was rotting from his bones to the point that he looked like a walking skeleton, blood had dried inside of his eye sockets and maggots had found them a good home as they wiggled around inside, a few falling to the ground. He still had rotting muscle clinging to some of his bones.

It was the most nauseating thing that she had ever witnessed and it made her stomach twist in knots and the sick urge to vomit to arise.

He reached out his putrid hand and held it open for her.

He wanted her offering.

Bonnie did not hesitate to offer her family necklace to him. It was the perfect gift for him. For not only was it expensive and beautifully crafted, but it was also sentimentally valuable. It was the last thing that her grandmother had given to her. She wrapped it around his boney fingers and watched as he lifted it to look it over. It confused her. She wondered how he could possibly know what she had given him.

Then he stuffed it in his robes and held out a hand to her, helping her onto the boat. Bonnie took his help despite her disgust and climbed onto the boat. She actually was starting to feel rather bad for the poor dead soul.

They road along the river Styx until they could see the palace in the distance. Her green eyes widened at the sight of it. It stood up high, the tallest towers stretching up into the clouds. Its walls were made of dark stone and metal and there were giant statues guarding the exterior walls. There was a moat and a large drawbridge, and on the other side were guards surrounding the castle. The guards were sitting atop black horses and they too were mere skeletons. They had no skin on their bones.

Her heart was hammering away loudly in her ears and she was already starting to regret her decision to travel into the underworld.

Jeremy was still the most important thing to her though, so she did not turn back. Not that she could have if she wanted to. She had to follow through with her sacrifice now or she would be forced to stay in the underworld forever.

"Halt!" One of the guards shouted at her as she climbed out of the boat.

Bonnie froze in place and stared up at him. Directly into his hollow eye sockets.

"This is the king's palace. I believe you may be lost. Where is it that you were wishing to go?" The guard asked.

"I wish to have a meeting with the king, Damon. I need to speak with him immediately, I have brought a sacrifice to offer him."

He glanced down at the bag that Bonnie was carrying as if he were trying to see what she had brought to offer up to their master. She suddenly felt extremely nervous, like he was going to decline her.

But, then he nodded and said, "Right this way."

O

Authors Note:

I hope that you all enjoyed this chapter! I was going to make this just a simple one shot for Bamon Week, but decided to make it longer because I wanted to do a lot with it! If y'all are enjoying the idea of this fic then please send me some reviews and tell me what you think and I promise to have the next chapter up quickly! :)

Thank you all for reading! You are all wonderful and I love you guys!

-Tracy Cook