A/N: When you write so much everything you put out starts to feel the same; that's the dilemma. Here is Part I of the final segment of the Cat & Mouse/Mine Again series. Yea! I had to break it up in two parts because there was too much that needed to happen that I couldn't squeeze into 20 pages. Hopefully Part II will be up later this week, Thursday by the latest. For those who are new to this series, you might want to read the aforementioned stories to get the gist of what's going on. If you're not new and you want to read them again I won't stop you *wink-wink*. Thank you guys so much for waiting for this to finally come out! Enjoy.
Disclaimer: These characters are the creative property of the LJ Smith and The CW. No copyright infringement is intended.
"Sometimes it's an indignant murmur, sometimes it's an angry tirade, but lately you hear it louder and louder…" -Celeste Perrino-Walker
Like screams that begin as a whimper that turn into a sob before erupting into wailing cries that frighten the soul and shatter one's sense of normalcy. Having a normal life was forfeited the minute Bonnie uttered the words of a spell, the second she felt heat tingle in the palms of her hands before fanning out to her fingertips and she made feathers float and proclaimed…
"I'm a witch."
Back then she said it with pride, with wonder, with reverence though it had taken a while for her to adjust to the blatant truth that there was more to her than mere skin, bones, blood, pretty eyes, and an amazing smile. But being a witch eclipsed everything else. From having a life that was truly her own, right down to the fact she stopped loving herself along the way. Magic became her security blanket, her parent, her lover, her best friend. It was her identity; the reason she climbed out of bed in the morning, and the reason she lost track of time at night. It monopolized her thoughts, synchronized her actions to the point of obsession. If she could protect her friends no matter what, stayed one step ahead of her enemies then it meant she was important on the scale of things, right? It meant there was a divine purpose to why she had been called to do this.
Bonnie became so good at what she did that's all everyone demanded of her. That's all they saw her as. She wasn't a person capable of embodying emotions and exhibiting feelings. She was simply…
A witch.
The witch.
Their thirst, their craving, their hungering for her to swoop in and make all their follies into steaming piles of gold marked the catalyst for Bonnie seeking out ways to obtain more power. Regardless if it came from the earth, the spirits, stars or the moon, she was open to it and couldn't stop once she tapped into raw power without limitations.
No limits. It was different, this kind of magic, because the kind she had inherited from the right set of genes had limits and consequences, more so than carrying a loaded weapon. And that's what her friends and enemies had turned her into, what she allowed to take place because she had been too weak to say no; she couldn't let people down.
Her spirit had been weakened because of crushing loss and constant disappointments and setbacks, but her magic itself had thrived, changed shaped, altered to whatever ritual needed to take place in order to save lives. Her life force had nearly been depleted but the magic inside of her needed a source of its own to tap into. It was drying up, becoming extinct and with it her voice grew smaller and smaller, until finally she was screaming but the sound was on mute.
Abandoned and shunned by her ancestors, Bonnie had nowhere to turn for answers, for help. And if she couldn't help then she had very little value to those around her. It was never explicitly said but instinctively felt. She couldn't lose her place, her spot; she couldn't be benched simply because she had nothing left to give.
Help arrived yet came with ulterior motives, backdoor deals, and conversations she was excluded from. They played her and she allowed herself to be played. She helped, was kicked around like a soccer ball, and no matter how many times she awed them Bonnie could never escape feeling as if her best still wasn't good enough.
They wanted her to do everything. They wanted her to be God. Sick thing was…she wanted to be their god.
So she branched off when no one was looking, when the least bit of attention was paid her way. It was easy to fall between the cracks, slip off the radar, and naturally no one took notice until she stood aside, arms folded over her chest as her 'friends' were seconds away from being ripped to shreds by friends of those who lost their lives the second they entered Mystic Falls city limits.
"Bonnie! Do something!"
"Help!"
"We can't fight them all on our own!"
"Bonnie!"
"Bonnie!"
"BONNIE!"
She had stood there, back against the wall of the nearest building, studying her nails for a second before flicking her reptilian green eyes in their direction. The sorry asses, the poor lot who couldn't do anything without the aid of a witch. Bonnie had given up hope they would be able to see her as more. There was no redemption to be found among those people who only sought her out when they needed saving and disregarded her like trash the second they didn't.
"Sorry," Bonnie muttered softly, gently as if she were singing a lullaby to a sleeping baby, "I see no problem from where I'm standing."
She walked off down the sidewalk listening to their screams as they grew louder and louder, cried their tears of indignation she would abandon them at such a critical time. A few promised to get her back for this, but she only smiled. Ghosts, dead men, and all other shades of beings who had no foothold on this side of things simply put, couldn't do shit to her.
As fate would have it, they all survived and thought giving her the silent treatment, the evil eye, the long suffering irritated sighs at the mere sighting of her presence, and turned backs as she walked down the sparsely populated halls of Mystic Falls High would be a sufficient punishment. As if their cold shoulders would make her cave, save face, and return to them to be taken for granted yet again.
She was done.
Living in denial kept Bonnie blind to the truth. That word friendship lost its meaning at some point. It used to carry weight; it used to be sacred, but when friends started stabbing friends in the back in order to keep their paramour alive, and friends lied to one another under the presumption of keeping friends safe, and friends started making deals with the devil in order to save a known betrayer, friendship meant absolutely nothing if a person couldn't live up to their words or keep their promises.
Yes, Expression came into her life at the right time, at the pinnacle moment where Bonnie would have done whatever it took to get her normal life back.
It backfired. Severely.
The high, the freedom, the exclusion of pain and suffering, the novelty, the fact trees and blades of grass, even the birds and insects trembled as she walked by gave her what Bonnie thought she lacked all this time. Control. She had it. She could wield and dispense it at her will, doing what she wanted because there were no checks and balances. There was no one to tell her no and everything to tell her yes. She was the head and not the tail. She was above and not beneath. They had to come to her and they had better grovel when they did.
Bonnie was not dumb. She knew her friends were petrified of her. No, they weren't afraid for her in that Expression had twisted her mind to where she couldn't differentiate right from wrong. Absolutely not. They were afraid of her because of what she could do now that she no longer did things according to her strict moral code.
She had unparalleled power. She could do whatever the hell she wanted and there was little clout or ground for any of them to stand on to tell her otherwise, and trust Bonnie had given them plenty examples of what she'd do if they ever so much as raise their voice at her.
Okay, so peeling the skin off that police officer might have been a bit extreme. She didn't kill him. The heart attack he suffered was what did him in. Nevertheless, Bonnie didn't like to think of the fact that her peeling his flesh off might have precipitated his heart attack. No, it was much better for her conscience to go with the story that his heart weakened by stress and poor diet was the reason he died.
Supposedly, that had been strike three with her friends who tried to stage an intervention with the help of some witches from some gutter town in Mississippi. Friends of her mother or former friends since Abigail Bennett-Wilson had been excommunicated the second she became a fanger.
This scene had been filmed a thousand times in movies. The last stand. The final showdown of good versus evil where the audience knew that good would prevail because everyone was a sucker for a happy ending. Bonnie didn't see herself as evil just fed up.
There she stood in the middle of the street, maniacal and wild with fury as the coven of witches surrounded her chanting in Gaelic Scottish trying to bind her powers so they could get close enough to cleanse her. It would take more than Arm & Hammer baking soda to get rid of the tough stains left behind by years of neglect and ill-treatment from her friends and family who all thought they were doing her a favor in freeing her mind.
"It won't work," Bonnie taunted. "I'm too strong for that because I'm not bound by any kind of ritualistic magic."
Bonnie watched as twelve noses began to bleed yet the determined witches didn't give up and forfeit what they knew was a lost battle way before they even entered into the arena.
"Bonnie…please…" Elena cried her vampire tears. "We just want to help you. We all want things to go back to the way they were before, and we know that they can't, but it doesn't have to be like this. Please, just let them help you. We still love you."
"Love?" Bonnie queried and because she felt like it, broke the leg of one of the witch's severing the link, weakening the others. "You all think you're doing this because you love me?"
"Bonnie," Stefan stepped forward next. "This isn't you. We understand. We weren't there for you like we should have been, and we're all deeply sorry about that. We just want to be here for you now."
"Just like you were there for me in the past?" she ridiculed. "Don't lecture me about love and wanting to be there for me. I haven't forgotten that this," Bonnie waved her finger around to include the area, "is your idea. I told you all to leave me alone but you refused to listen. So what happens to these witches will be on your head, Stefan."
"Bonnie don't…"
"Abby…now!" Stefan shouted.
And just as Bonnie opened her mouth to do a counter spell, a cold, undead wrist was lodged in her mouth and blood began to ooze down her throat. Bonnie's eyes widened as realization hit her just seconds after the feeding began and she glowered accusingly at those who stood and watched.
"I'm sorry, Bonnie but there's no other way to stop you, and you need to be stopped. Forgive them and forgive me for this."
The sound of a neck being snapped stopped all activity on the street. No one breathed, blinked, moved a muscle, or thought too loudly afraid that any noise or sudden movement would disrupt what was about to happen.
What day was it? What was the hour? Where was she? Bonnie had no answers to her questions as sound returned to her ears along with feeling in her body, but things felt off. Way off and she heard two people arguing.
"Why would you do that?!"
The stress of the voice, the disbelief that a cardinal rule had been broken confused Bonnie until events of tonight came spiraling back, jostling for position.
"Everything changes."
Her moans stopped the commotion in the room and Bonnie sensed everything even with her eyes closed. There were six people in the room with her. Two were standing in front of the fireplace, one stood on the opposite side of the couch, one hovered by the entrance which led into the room, one person had been pacing back and forth insistently, and the last person was seated on the end table beside her head.
"…what…did…you...do…?" Bonnie's voice was practically inaudible.
A warm, large hand engulfed her much smaller one and Bonnie felt blood flowing through the veins and filling up capillaries. She was suddenly ravenously hungry and couldn't understand why she wasn't thinking about sinking her teeth into a juicy cheddar burger from the Grille but more so wanting to sink her teeth into salty, human flesh.
She sprang off the couch startling everyone who stood still and on the defensive.
Though the only source of light in the room came from the fire in the hearth, it still stabbed her eyeballs like needles forcing Bonnie to shield them with her arm, and distance herself from the flames. When she focused on the fibers in the carpet she could see each hand woven strand—how was that even possible? When she took a cursory sniff of the air she smelled everything from different brands of perfume and cologne she could almost identify by name and brand, to the Pine Sol cleanser that had been used to polish the floor and furniture.
Her jaw was on fire, there was a maddening beat pounding in her head, and as she stared at Jeremy all she really saw were the network of veins and arteries hiding under his skin. She licked her bottom lip, heard her stomach growl, and knew she was exactly two seconds away from pouncing on him.
But someone stepped in front of him forcing Bonnie to jerk backwards though she stood nowhere near Jeremy at the moment. That wall of chest morphed into a full picture and she was looking Damon Salvatore in the eye.
"I wouldn't mind if you ripped his head off, but I'm sure others in this room might have a problem with that. Bonnie, I need you to listen to me because what I'm about to say…"
"Changes everything," she supplied quietly and then whirled around to face the person who had been as quiet as a church mouse and looked as guilty as a busted politician. "You dirty bitch," she seethed at her birth mother. Abby had never been a real mom to Bonnie and whatever could have been between them relationship-wise was irrevocably over now.
"You did this to me," Bonnie placed a hand over her heart as her chin quivered.
The woman in question stiffened, "There were only two options left, Bonnie," Abby got the words out though they were difficult to speak. "Either the witches tried to cleanse you and it was looking kind of impossible at the moment or…you were turned. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry but there was no other way. Expression had too much control over you!"
"I don't want to hear it!" Bonnie yelled and felt rage boil and she had a good feeling her eyes were changing color. If she looked in a mirror she wouldn't like what would be reflected back at her. She jammed the heels of her hands into her eyes. "I can't believe you would do this to me."
Caroline attempted to move next to her friend and stopped dead in her tracks at the cold, steel look in Bonnie's eyes and the sneer on her face. Even at her most pissed off, Bonnie never looked at her like she wanted to peel her like a grape.
With her partially distracted, Stefan touched her shoulder but then found his throat being crushed in her tiny hand, knees on the floor, vein bulging from the center of his forehead.
What was it Stefan said? Oh, right. Abby…now. Had turning her been his ingenious idea?
Bonnie opened her mouth and two sharp little points were poking from her gums. Her transition was happening much faster than it would in an ordinary human, but Bonnie hadn't simply been human.
"Bonnie, you need to feed," Damon told her as gently as possible, eyes shifting between her and his brother.
Her eyes on the other hand were lifeless, her tone subdued. "You're right. I do."
And before he could stop her she clamped down on the side of Stefan's neck, not to feed but to turn his throat into ribbons.
Gasps, screams, and curses filled the air as Bonnie yanked back in a nanosecond and spat out a mixture of skin, muscle, fat, and blood. She wiped her chin and lips with the back of her hand and zoomed out of the house.
Matt had been the one to find her just an hour before sunset. She sat huddled on top of the clock tower in downtown Mystic Falls, knees drawn up to her chest waiting for death to finally come and take her out. There was no way she could transition to be a vampire because that meant she'd stop being a witch, and being a witch…that's all Bonnie had left after too much had been taken from her.
Who would she be if she couldn't be a witch?
She wiped her tears with her hands and shirt, cursed the planet and every, living breathing thing on it.
Matt sat with her and the two of them talked. Talked the way they used to when boredom struck and there was nothing else to do. And it felt good to just be able to say whatever was on her mind, not having to choose her words carefully so that she could be taken seriously. It felt good to have a simple human conversation that had nothing to do with magic, spells, or putting her life on the line in order to spare another.
She had missed it tremendously. Being treated like a human.
"If you want to complete the transition that's your decision alone to make, Bonnie," Matt rubbed her shoulder affectionately. "Whatever you decide to do, I'll be here to support you."
Bonnie cried some more still feeling deeply indecisive. "I've hurt so many people and I don't want to live like this. I don't want to be this thing," she said contemptuously.
"Then don't be. What did you used to tell me whenever something bad would happen? Like if my mom forgot to pay the light bill, you'd say pretend it was the Shakespearean era where everyone lived by candlesticks. Or I bombed a test, you'd say there were more tests for me to take and shine. Always look for the silver lining, that's what you used to tell me. What's happening to you doesn't have to be looked at like a death sentence, Bon. Think of it as an extension."
"An extension?" Bonnie intoned and thought. An extension meant more allotment of time. And what did every good plan for revenge need? Time.
"Everything happens for a reason, Bon. Find the reason for this."
"What if there is no reason? What if I'm just doomed?"
"I think everyone's doomed in some form or fashion. Doomed to live alone. Doomed to live in debt. Doomed to fall in love with the wrong person. Doomed to find everlasting happiness."
"Doomed to drink human blood in order to live. I can't do it, Matty," tears slipped down Bonnie's enflamed cheeks.
"Then that'll make me doomed to watch another friend die."
Bonnie cried even harder.
While she had been distracted with her thoughts, Matt had taken out a pocket knife and sliced into his wrist.
The scent of his blood caught her immediate attention and Bonnie had to dig her nails into the rooftop in order not to jump on Matt and suck him dry.
"What are you doing?" she shrieked.
"Being there for my friend. My best friend."
Bonnie was flooded in a sea of earnest blue before redirecting her gaze to the sea of crimson that flowed and was being wasted.
"Your decision, Bonnie."
"My decision."
"Life or death. What do you choose?"
Her chest rose and fell deeply and heavily and gently she cupped Matt's wrist and lifted it up to her lips. She paused and simply inhaled the decadent smell. This, blood, was all that would matter to her from here on out. Did she want to do this? Was she ready to accept this massive detour of her life? Would she be strong enough to handle being a vampire, no longer a witch? She'd be something of a nomad fitting in with neither world. Could she handle that?
Bonnie supposed with time she'd find out.
"Neither," she ruled.
Leaving no more room for second guessing, Bonnie lapped at the blood before enclosing her lips over the wound where she began to suck.
Her pupils shrank in size, there was a tingling sensation happening under her eyes. The world enlarged and was magnified by frightening proportions that made Bonnie feel microscopically small to Herculean big. The pounding in her head and gums instantly ceased and there was nothing in the world more loving to Bonnie than the substance that flowed down her throat and filled her belly.
"Bonnie…?"
Why had she deprived herself of this for over twelve hours? Bonnie wanted to make up for lost time by going on a binge. Would other people taste different? Would she want to drink from anyone besides Matt who was turning out to be fucking damn delicious? What if someone out there tasted better than him?
It was that final thought which made her stop. She'd always been curious and now her curiosity had been piqued like a bloodhound that just came across a distinctive scent and she honed all of her senses on tracking it down.
Yet before she went off on a hunt, Bonnie faced Matt who wobbled a bit and appeared as if he were under the influence of a really good drug.
"Ohmygod, Matt! I'm so sorry."
"S'okay," his words slurred a bit and Matt nearly wobbled himself right off the roof.
Bonnie got him to safety and fed him juice and cookies at his house before promptly tucking him into bed so he could recover. As she stared at his ashen face and the dark circles that formed under his eyes, regret and shame prickled her. She had done that to her friend, and she realized she could have done much worse to Matt. She could have killed him! Hell, he looked as if he were ready for his funeral as he slept.
"You're stronger than this…I'm so proud of you…"
Bonnie heard her grandmother loud and clear in her ear. She hadn't felt strong then, or proud. She did want few others could do and that was it. Would Grams be able to look at her today and say she was proud of who she was now?
She highly doubted it.
Reinvention was a part of life. Bonnie supposed it was time to make herself over. Give herself a new identity because Bonnie Bennett the witch was dead. And in her place…was something else.
The city that never sleeps…
You want what you can't have. It's a behavior that's self-taught and developed in childhood and with some the mentality remained way into adulthood. You saw someone playing with something and it instantly made one curious to find out what tricks it could do and why it's suddenly important. Covetousness was one of many sins. Lying, cheating, stealing where habits developed to either avoid getting into trouble or used to get out of trouble. Damon Salvatore was no different from the masses but he had a special built-in trigger wired into his prime directive of being a vampire, a professional bloodsucker in which his actions were always straight and right on the money. In his eyes the only wrongs he committed was not always listening to his gut.
New York City was a five boroughs deep hunting ground to sate or exploit one's appetite. Gluttony was revered whereas waste was abhorred. Blood was blood, life was life and for the right price you could get your hands on both without staining your clothes in the process.
Whores sold themselves on the streets while bankers and stockbrokers sold their souls to the financial gods and everyone in between did what they had to, to live in their shoebox apartments; yes New York was his kind of place.
Women gawked at him. Men eyed him for his leather jacket probably to place the designer. Fashion was just one of many languages spoken in this cosmopolitan melting pot. Blending in was for cowards with no ambition, and it had been too long since he stood out to play.
Mystic Falls kept him in a bottle, like a neatly wrapped bomb that sometimes exploded and other times popped out a flag that said "Bang!" He could only be himself in small dosages because no one could handle him at full throttle. His towering inferno became a flare and then a spark, and now it was nothing but a flick of light ready to be put down, euthanized, and entombed.
When did he become so lame?
Drinking from blood bags and economizing on killing was probably the start of his downfall from grace.
He had fangs gotdamit. They weren't there for decoration but to be used to tear through simple, human flesh. He had speed, not to break world records in the Olympics, but to escape before being caught or to cut off his running prey. He had strength—not to change a flat tie, but to be able to defend himself against bigger, tougher, deadlier things than him. He had compulsion that was supposed to be used to make his victims do whatever he needed them to do so he could eat in peace and so they wouldn't remember his face.
Damon used those gifts but applied them the wrong way as of late. He stopped being himself the second he was dumb enough to fall in love.
How does one even fall in the first place?
Falling implied you stepped into something you couldn't see and lost your balance. Did anyone go to sleep one night wake up the next day and say "Hey, I think I love such and such? Gee, must have fallen in love."
In Damon's eyes, loving someone was a choice. A choice a person made whether it was implicit or explicit. Whether it was right or wrong. Sometimes it didn't feel like a choice because loving someone could hurt very, very much. Falling had very little to do with it other than falling all over yourself to prove you were worth something. Or making a mockery of yourself just to have your face cracked, hopes and dreams obliterated because the person you loved, loved someone else.
Why the hell am I thinking about this, Damon wondered and shoved the keys to his car deep in his back pocket as he slipped through the atrium of the hotel.
Bonnie had hopped out the second he killed the engine after parking in the insanely expensive underground parking garage of where they would be rooming for the next three or more days, saying she wanted to explore on her own. Damon had argued that her going off without his guidance defeated the purpose of their trip. A trip they had yet to tell anyone back home they had taken.
Bonnie stopped her sprint-like walking to spare him a glance. "You know how babies learn how to swim? By throwing them in the water."
That was euphemism talk for she didn't want his ass following her around being weird and creepy while pointing out important and historical landmarks like a wide-eyed tourist from the south.
Bonnie was grown, an adult. She could look after herself and deal with whatever issues or adversity she might face being such a small, tiny, microscopic being who inconsequentially had a thirst for blood—human and immortal alike. He wasn't going to rain on her parade and there were plenty of devices and distractions he could get into without having to double check to make sure she hadn't been abducted by human traffickers.
He hadn't packed a single thing, not even a sock when he checked in. Bonnie had since the decision was made at her abode and she hurriedly threw items in a pink rolling suitcase she forced him to take up to their room once he got everything settled.
Damon tossed her shit on the bed before throwing himself across it. The room was more of a suite, a split level suite. Downstairs was the living room and a miniature kitchen. Upstairs was the single bedroom. He could have settled with something a little more plain and efficient that offered two beds, but there was no need for he and Bonnie to be shy. They've done more things to each other in such a short span of time than married couples who had been sentenced together for years.
He wasn't ashamed of anything. Damon had spectacular hygiene habits and Bonnie wouldn't have to worry about him leaving the toilet seat up. Besides he didn't think either of them would be getting much sleep and that was the plan.
New York was perfect for an insomniac.
After ordering a steak—extra rare, two bottles of champagne while debating if he should pamper himself to a spa treatment, his cell buzzed. It was Bonnie calling some four hours later wanting to know the room number.
Damon sat on the edge of the king sized bed, swinging his crossed ankles back and forth, "Think I'm going to dispense that information without payment, vitch?"
"I was hoping you'd show me mercy," her words dripped with playful promise.
Damon moaned a bit into the phone prior to wedging it between his shoulder and cheek. He reached for the hem of his shirt lifting it up until his belly was exposed. He scratched his stomach.
"I'm known for granting many things, vitch but mercy isn't one of them."
"Come on, Damon. My arms are about to fall off. I did some shopping."
He yawned, stood up to undo his pants and realized the wad of cash he kept strapped on him was missing. One plus one equaled…
"You thieving…"
"I promise to pay you back. One day," Bonnie cut him off. "The room number?"
"Twelve twenty."
Silence filtered through the static. Bonnie must have stepped on the elevator however that didn't make the irony lost on either of them. Twelve-twenty had been the number of the storage unit where he hid Klaus' desiccated body for all of an hour before Dark Alaric came marching into town.
Moments later something banged against the door and Damon was there to open it. He stepped aside after taking one look at an irritated Bonnie and her cargo. A legion of packages fell from her tiny little arms and she blew a wispy strand of hair out of her eyes just for it to fall right back into place. Without even thinking of the message his actions might convey, Damon tucked the strand behind her pierced ear.
For the first time since she turned Bonnie appeared bashful and she took a cautionary step away from him.
Damon had to remember he couldn't do sweet and lovey-dovey things with her because it wasn't like that between them. She jumped him, pilfered his blood, snapped his neck, and disappeared like mist. That was the established routine and doing anything to disrupt it would set off a chain of events neither one of them was emotionally ready to handle.
"So," Damon canceled the awkward moment by asking a question. "What's in all these bags?"
"You're not mad that I stole your money?"
"You steal my blood. Why should I care that you take my money? There's always more where they both come from," he ended his spiel with a wink.
Bonnie arched a brow and reached into one of the bags marked Louis Vitton. She pulled out a scrap of fabric that was intended to be a dress, and held it up under her chin. "How do you think I'd look in this?"
Damon prided himself on his overactive imagination. "I'm sure you'd look like a hot tamale in it, but I'm sure you'd look a thousand times hotter with nothing on."
In a classic Bonnie move she rolled her eyes, "I'm sure your pig-headedness might appeal to some but it doesn't do a thing for me."
"You asked a question and I merely supplied you with an answer. Why is it so hard for you to lighten the hell up? Hell won't freeze over if you laugh at one of my jokes."
"When you actually tell a joke then I'll laugh. Where's my room?"
What a demanding diva, Damon pouted and then pointed toward the staircase. "It's at the end of the hall."
Of course he was going to let Bonnie discover that there was only one bedroom and they were sharing.
Damon busied himself for about fifteen minutes and couldn't fight his curiosity any longer. He had expected Bonnie to storm down the spiraling staircase demanding to know just where the hell he expected to sleep, and once he calmly told her they would be sharing a bed he naturally assumed Bonnie would shriek he find them another room that offered two beds, or pay for her to have her own room. When none of the above happened he traipsed upstairs to find Bonnie zipping up a pair of metallic snakeskin boots…in her underwear. A peach set with flowers sewn into the cups of the bra and her lacy boy shorts.
She caught his reflection in the mirror but didn't spin around waving at him wildly to get lost.
Maybe vampirism knocked down all her barriers and reservations where he was concerned. In any case, he wasn't going to squander the opportunity to ogle her lasciviously but then he remembered something in particular, someone in particular, and averted his eyes.
But it was too late. The damage had been done. In just that glimpse he had painstakingly memorized all of her dips, hollows, curves, defined muscles, and the texture of her supple skin. The back of Damon's neck was hot and he felt dehydrated.
He cleared his throat before speaking. "How do you like the room?"
"It's nice. I've never been to a place so nice before."
"You haven't traveled much outside of Mystic Falls have you?"
"Why won't you look at me?"
The gentleman in Damon evacuated and in its place was the ribald playboy who loved pussy. He didn't just look. He stared, gazed, gawked. He ate her up visually and reflected back to Bonnie just what standing across from her dressed in panties and a bra was doing to him.
Bonnie sauntered over to him. Swinging her arms, swaying her hips, deliberately placing one boot in front of the other. When she stood barely a foot away, Bonnie pulled down the scoop collar of his shirt and brushed her fingers over his clavicle before heading north to travel along his thumping carotid artery.
Damon swallowed and forced himself not to move or have any kind of reaction.
"What are we doing tonight?"
Each other, Damon was so close to saying but snapped his jaws shut and muttered through clenched teeth. "Whatever you want to do," he walked around Bonnie because he needed room to breathe and think. "I've been to this city over a dozen times. I lived here back in the seventies but most of the places I used to frequent have been turned into banks, shopping centers, and high-rise condos."
He sat down in the Queen Anne chair that sat caddy corner across from the imposing bed. Maybe getting a room with one bed was not such a good idea.
What was he doing? Damon had no clue.
"From the looks of things I'd say you've done enough exploring for one night," he pointedly stared at her collection of bags.
"All my clothes scream Mystic Falls," Bonnie perched herself on the edge of the bed. "And we're definitely not in Kansas anymore. I want to do things I never get to do. I want to see things I've only seen on TV and in the movies. And..." she let her thought trailed off allowing him to fill in the blank.
Both of Damon's eyebrows lifted clean off his forehead. If she kept implying shit like that and looking at him like she literally wanted to eat him…
She was off the bed, out of the boots, and headed towards the bathroom. Bonnie stopped under the threshold and crooked a finger in his direction.
Without complaint he followed.
Warm water and foam bubbles lapped around his naked body. Something heavy bore down on his legs while tiny, inquisitive fingers slid up his torso. A tongue licked along the vein that protruded from his bicep and Damon held his breath wondering when she would strike.
That naughty little tongue made its way to the base of his jaw before heading back south to lap at the beads of water that collected on his chest. Now this was definitely his idea of a tongue bath. Momentarily he allowed himself to be distracted by the waves of smoke that rose from the burning tip of the candles. Fog covered all the mirrors in the bathroom and he was deliciously warm and more than convicted he had made the right decision.
"Fuck," inadvertently slipped through his parted lips when that tongue danced around his nipple making it pebble and harden until she was able to flick it back and forth, around and around.
There was no containing the python between his legs that was practically weeping for the same kind of attention, but Damon knew better to even bring that up, or whisper it as a suggestion.
Being who they were it was never going to happen.
"Bonnie," he groaned her name like he was in pain and in a way he was. Heightened arousal hadn't been known to kill any vampire but Damon thought under the right conditions it was possible. She had switched over to his other nipple not wanting to neglect it. He couldn't touch her which was maddening on its own, but it only added to the anticipation of things to come and experience yet amplified his frustration.
Deceitfully innocent celadon orbs peered up at him at the same time a corner of her lips formed into a naughty smirk. Bonnie couldn't play the naive card and debate she had no idea what her oral ministrations were doing to him. He had known all along that under the blouses that never fit her quite right, the tight jeans that only showed a hint of her true figure, Bonnie Bennett was a sensual person who could get a man to pledge his allegiance to her flag with a simple look, touch, or gesture.
She stopped suckling him which naturally made Damon's head snap up. "Why'd you stop?"
"There's a hair in my mouth," she plucked said object out of her mouth, flicked it away, and shifted again in the Jacuzzi tub causing the water to lap perilously close over the edge. "Now where was I? Oh, right. Here," she poked his erect left nipple with her finger before wedging it between her top and bottom lip.
Damon sighed happily. He had been returned to the top of Mt. Everest again.
But then that sigh turned into a hiss the second Bonnie buried her fangs into his man tit and began to feed.
"Ummmm," Damon moaned deeply, gutturally like a tiger on the hunt. He curled and uncurled his fingers and toes.
He returned to that place where a PowerPoint presentation of his life flashed in his mind's-eye and converged with feeling he was betraying the people closest to him. Constantly swapping blood and doing so, so frequently was like inviting a third person into your marriage. Damon was well aware of the risks and repercussions involved, but this all went hand-in-hand with his selfishness.
Quite simply he wanted it all. He wanted the wife, the kids, the dog, the mistress, and the girlfriend. However, what he wanted the most didn't lie in Mystic Falls.
His thoughts shifted to Bonnie and what he would do the second she grew tired of feeding on him.
And the second that thought passed through his brain was the second she stopped feeding. Damon lifted his head from the edge of the tub and stared at her. Toffee skin, sharp, hawk-like eyes that never missed a thing, dark hair pinned up in a messy bun, lips that were lightly speckled with his blood—that was the sight she presented to him.
For a vampire Bonnie was a very clean eater. Not a drop spilled or wasted. Most vampires made a mess because they had watched too many movies and probably figured you hadn't really fed unless your chin, neck, and shirt were drowned in blood. He was guilty of exhibiting bad table manners as well.
Sometimes a kill wouldn't be cooperative and things could get ugly.
The feed was nearly as important as the hunt. Scoping out prey was like a human going to a grocery store. You looked for sales if you had the time, but when the store was ten minutes to closing and you needed that last ingredient for the soufflé you were making, most of the time you had to grab and go. Being discovered was right up there with scoring. But when a vampire had time, when you could get to know your prey and appreciate what they were about to do for you, then finesse could be applied and everyone could walk away happy and in one piece.
"Full now?" Damon asked flippantly and broke the allure of her spell.
"Hardly." Bonnie rose from the tub and watched as Damon's Adam's apple bobbed up and down. He didn't blink so he wouldn't miss a moment of the bath water sluicing down her body. Unlike Damon, Bonnie had opted to remain in her underwear that was thoroughly wet and enticingly transparent.
She stepped out on the soft carpet on the floor and turned a little when she heard Damon whimper. Bonnie smiled, reached for a towel and took her time drying off her arms and legs.
"You should call her. I'm sure she's worried about you since she hasn't talked to you in the last…six hours. Must be a new record," Bonnie snorted.
Annoyed, Damon blindly reached for the bottle of champagne and brought it up to his lips. He guzzled greedily for a second and belched after he had gotten his fill.
"Looking into my thoughts again, Judgey," he chastised. "I thought we had come to some kind of agreement on that."
"No," she turned fully to face him. "We never agreed on anything other than you showing me a good time in NYC. So far things are sucking."
The insult was a challenge, Damon knew that. However, it irritated him no less that Bonnie was not taking him or this trip seriously and wanted to trivialize everything! He calmed himself down before speaking again.
"We're going out tonight and what you'll see I can fucking guarantee you've never seen in Mystic Falls."
"You see nothing but dead bodies and girls in petticoats in Mystic Falls. I have to keep reminding myself this is the twenty-first century, but you'd never know it with all those stupid Gone with the Wind traditions. Shit is annoying."
"Then why don't you," he was standing behind her now dripping on the floor, "Miss Bennett do something about it?"
She pivoted on the balls of her feet and grew slightly distracted with a few drops of blood on Damon's pectoral that managed not to end up in her mouth. Bonnie pouted slightly and wiped them off with her thumb before depositing it in her mouth. She moaned a bit. Damon mashed his back molars on top of one another.
Why did everything she do was such a damn turn on? Damon imagined her constipated on a toilet and she'd still find a way to make that look sexy.
"I would if I could but that might entail eating the council. The new council," she amended. "I can't now. My dad…he still doesn't know," she dropped her eyes to her toes.
Damon cupped her cheek knowing that being vulnerable in front of him was killing her. "Can't believe I'm about to say this, but you need to tell him the truth, Bonnie. It's been four months."
"I know how long it's been but how do I just go up to him and say…your ex-wife fed me her blood, snapped my neck, and I turned into a vampire? He'll ask questions about my magic, and I don't want to go there. Not yet. I'm not ready to accept…" Bonnie couldn't get the words out. There was a traffic jam in her mouth.
Damon bent his knees a little to be at eye-level with the newborn. "Not ready to accept what?"
Bonnie sighed and swiped a few strands of hair off her face. She pierced Damon right into his soul with her gaze. "I'm not ready to accept the fact I'm no longer a witch."
There. The final blow. The killing blow. The guillotine that had been hanging over Bonnie's head since the moment she drank Matt's blood and finished the transition. She hadn't been able to bring herself to say those words because she knew the minute she did all her hopes about going back to the beginning were over.
"The cure," Damon said suddenly.
Bonnie stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment.
"If anyone deserves a second chance it's you, Bonnie."
Bonnie was quiet. Damon watched her think.
"Taking the cure means opening up a wholly different Pandora's Box. Taking the cure means waking Silas. He is the cure and we can't take that risk. I can't."
Damon nodded and dropped this particular conversation. "You said that you still feel connected…more connected to nature now that you're a vampire. So what does that tell you? You haven't stopped being a witch; that side of you is just dormant now. In hiding."
"Maybe," Bonnie looked away feeling doubtful.
"You want something bad enough you'll do what's necessary to get it. And for the record I'm not calling Elena or checking my phone."
"Rebel."
"Damn straight. She can go police everyone else and act like their mother. I brought you here for a reason."
"To get me away from Klaus."
Damon rolled his eyes and reached for his own towel. He stood less than a foot away from Bonnie while he dried himself off.
Their eyes stayed glued to one another even when he ran the towel over his prominent erection that was more than pissed at the both of them for its lack of use.
"Thinking what I'm thinking?" Damon smiled wolfishly.
"Nope," Bonnie shot him down and maneuvered around Damon. She reached the door, wrenched it open, and stepped into their bedroom.
Damon glanced at Bonnie when he could. Hummed as she peeled off her wet underwear. Sang off key as she took a real shower and popped out of the bathroom smelling like a platter of fruit. Ogled her legs while she applied lotion. Counted the number of times she brushed her hair. Took meticulous notes as she did her makeup.
Bonnie and Damon dressed in relative silence and by the time she was done he was working on his second bottle of champagne.
She scrunched up her nose. "I've been meaning to tell you this…you need to cut back on the alcohol."
Damon was instantly affronted. "Excuse me?"
Bonnie was doing that thing again where she moved without moving, weaving a spell with whatever magic was in the air as she came to stand between his parted legs. She reached for the bottle, took it out of his hands, and placed it on the night table before lightly cupping his face.
"Alcohol overrides the taste of your blood. When you drink a lot you taste like turpentine. I could smell it on you like trash rotting in the sun, and on those nights, I left you alone. But when you didn't have a single drop," she dragged the pad of her thumb over his blush pink lips, "that's when I decided to feed on you. I like your blood untainted. It's sweeter to me and," Bonnie craned Damon's neck as far back as it could go as she loomed over him, "I can never get enough."
Her hair became a curtain, entrapping them both in a shroud, making the world around them disappear.
"And here I thought you attacked me only when I wore black," he leered. "Consider me finished with alcohol," Damon proclaimed and ran his hands over her back and moving lower to grip her ass. He squeezed her cheeks and lifted her up slightly to straddle him.
Their lips became magnets and were fused together. Submitting, dominating, taking, and giving in equal measure. Everything a kiss between two alphas should be. Soft and gentle, hard or coarse, they shifted pressure when needed and added enough that they could have made diamonds.
Kissing was a gateway which could potentially lead to other things and they were already on a bed so…
"Why do we keep doing this?" Bonnie asked and pecked Damon's lips. "Why do we keep kissing each other?"
"Because we want to," he whispered and stabbed his tongue deep inside the vitch's mouth. "Because it feels and tastes good."
Bonnie swiped her tongue teasingly against his teeth before pulling away and fixing her clothes. "We should get going. You promised me a night out on the town."
"Rain check?" Damon crossed his fingers.
Wagging a finger, Bonnie pulled Damon up to his feet by the belt.
Both of them were decked out in black: Damon in form fitting leather pants and a mesh shirt that was teasingly transparent, hair styled in a Jared Leto-esque Mohawk. Bonnie donned skin-tight jeans, a risqué lyrca tank with deep cuts on the side that sort of gave a peek-a-boo effect. Five inch platform pumps adorned her feet, and a silver tiered necklace was the only jewelry she wore.
And she was wearing it well as Damon waited for her by the door and wondered if the twins might make a special appearance sometime tonight. Guess he would have to wait and see.
Painting the town red had a new meaning or maybe the original meaning had been exposed. Eyeing necks, cleavage, listening to couples quarreling debating if divide and conquer would even up the spoils, Damon had immersed himself in the life. Bonnie tagged along because she had no other choice. But he couldn't help but watch her from the corner of his eye, not out of fear she'd lose her mind because of all the options that walked around, but mainly he didn't want to miss a single moment of her in action.
Men stopped to gawk at her, even women and children they all seemed fascinated yet were too scared to approach. Bonnie was oblivious to it all as she touched whatever suited her fancy, smiled and blushed when she was complimented, and said sorry when she accidentally bumped into people.
Everything she did was calculated from the way she blinked her eyes owlishly, to the way she tilted her head and ran the tip of her tongue over her canine tooth. Not a single person in the nearby vicinity had been immune from her spell. They were all captivated and wondered if Bonnie were a model, actress, or famous for just being infamous. This was New York after all where people came "to make it" and live out the Broadway version of the American dream.
The pulse of the city was like quicksilver running through her veins. Occasionally she'd touch his arm to point out something that would be outlawed in Mystic Falls—mostly skyscraper sized ads advertising a number of violent crimes against women in order to sell a fragrance or a pair of pants. Did sex sell anything? No one needed to buy Versace to get laid. Damon drank her in while she tossed back the city like whiskey.
He tried not to react whenever Bonnie leaned up on her toes to whisper a comment in his ear about someone who looked like a prospective meal. He kept his focus on her words and not the light flutter of her berry red lips brushing the shell of his ear. This side to her was certainly different and off putting to Damon.
Perhaps he was still reconciling who she used to be to who she was now. A huntress fully off her leash.
He observed from the shadows as Bonnie sat down at a table in SoHo, surprising a man who had been reading a book while listening to U2 from his iPod. She engaged her mark in conversation, flirted with him, led him on to think that tonight was his lucky night. The man pretended to remove a piece of lint from her hairline when all he really wanted to do was touch her. Heat flashed through Damon momentarily before he told himself to knock it off. This was just a game. It didn't mean anything.
After ten minutes Bonnie rose from the table and walked down the deserted end of the street. The man eagerly followed behind her and when they disappeared around the corner, Damon turned up the volume of his ears and heard Bonnie as plain as day.
"This will only hurt a little."
"You can hurt me all you like," the man replied and Damon wondered if he was running his hands all over her.
He heard the distinct sound of skin breaking and blood flowing and Bonnie emitting little mewls of joy and pleasure.
Thankfully it was over soon enough, and he didn't have to be a voyeuristic third party any longer. Wind blew behind him, the chill signifying the arrival of a vampire. Slender fingers trekked up his arms and over his shoulders, and her lips were back at his ear.
"Did you enjoy watching that?"
Damon didn't answer but merely dragged Bonnie to an underground dance hall where Afro-Cuban and Calypso beats ruled. Commercial artists were prohibited in this place that featured local talent or music from the West Indies, Virgin Islands, Jamaica, and Barbados.
The gyrating bodies inside ranged from onyx black to milk-white. Natural twists, locks, afros, chemically relaxed tresses, wigs, tattoos and other forms of body art, sneakers to red bottoms, no one had been excluded entry and everyone was accepted. They were here because they loved music and they loved to dance and upon closer inspection a few loved to suck necks raw.
Men danced with women, women danced with both women and men, and some men dressed as women danced with men.
Bonnie stared mouth agape. Damon was right she had never seen anything like this in Mystic Falls. She looked up in surprise never thinking a place like this would interest the vampire standing next to her.
"What can I say," Damon shrugged as he pulled Bonnie flush against him. "I'm a bag full of surprises. There's no use in traveling if you're going to do the same thing in a new place that you'd do at home."
Lazily draping her arms over his shoulders, Bonnie began to move across the floor. "I suppose not."
Hours melted into one another and the music never took a break. Occasionally people were pushed to the outer ridges of the club when a dance battle would break out and patrons felt it was their duty to represent their country with signature moves to prove who was superior.
Several times Bonnie and Damon split up, went their separate ways but no matter which corner they ended up in their eyes would lock the second they found a willing donor who offered up a vein and a pledge of unwavering fealty.
By the time they met in the middle slightly dampened with sweat and smelling like a collaboration of scents, Damon held up a white and blue pill. Bonnie shook her head and said she didn't do drugs. He frowned a bit wondering if getting high was even possible since their healing abilities compensated any kind of infection, virus, or foreign invasion from taking root in their bodies. If it wasn't vervain or werewolf venom it would have little to zero effect, but Damon would have loved to document Bonnie popping a Molly or X. Corruption of the youth wasn't complete until you had them hooked on drugs.
Molding himself to her once again like Velco, he professed, "I know what your drug of choice is," and proceeded to bite into his tongue. A drop of blood formed on the tip.
Bonnie pulled away a bit, stared at the offering, then at Damon before pulling his head down. She swept her tongue over the blood, savored the spicy and heady taste. They made out for the rest of the night.
They shut the place down, reemerging to a world where the sky had transformed from night to day. Stores that had closed hours earlier were getting ready for the next influx of shoppers and Damon purchased Black Forest Calla Lilies and Queen of the Night Tulips for Bonnie because they reminded him of her hair when it was wet.
He could be an attentive suitor when he wanted to be.
Oh, shit he was courting her.
Sitting atop Trump Towers eating burgers and crinkle fries they watched the sunrise.
"I'll race you back to the hotel," Damon winked and jumped off the roof of the building, hopefully no one was thinking he was committing suicide. As soon as his boots hit the pavement he was off rushing down the avenue maneuvering too fast to be seen by human eyes and arrived at their hostel in seconds with Bonnie close on his heels.
When the door slammed shut and they were upstairs, Bonnie on her back, Damon over her, the moment felt too surreal to them both. Bonnie pulled the strap down to her tank top as a silent invitation for him to drink from her. Damon licked his lips, bent his head, opened his mouth, and stopped.
Could his actions be construed as cheating? Technically Damon supposed he was with Elena though there weren't any official labels between them. Being a couple was implied. She was still sired to him despite the fact the bond didn't seem as ironclad as it once was. And how could he trust her feelings were genuine when there'd always be a part of her that would do whatever he said to make him happy?
But…he couldn't deny he loved her.
What was happening between him and Bonnie wasn't right, either. He wasn't completely single. He and Bonnie weren't friends, could be friendly to one another on occasion but it had never been anything that was earth-shattering. There were things about her he liked a lot, and there were things about him that she knew that no one else did. Did that give her an unfair advantage or even the playing field?
Too many questions and too many obstacles and obligations stood in the way.
"I can't do this," Damon slipped away and got off the bed.
Bonnie sat up and peered at him in confusion. "Can't do what? We weren't doing anything."
He sighed heavily, faced her, and warred with climbing back into bed and finishing what had been set in his mind and heart to do.
"We can't keep doing this, Bonnie. You can't keep feeding on me and I can't keep feeding on you."
A determined look to change his mind came into her eyes but he had already walked out the door.
Bonnie found him staring out the window in the living room.
"I'm going to take a plane back to Mystic Falls," he said. "You can have my car. Enjoy the room, enjoy the city, but I can't be here with you anymore."
"You pick a fine time to grow a conscience, Damon."
He shrugged because he couldn't disagree. "You'll thank me for it later."
In a blink, Damon stood in front of Bonnie. What an abrupt way to end what had been the best twenty-four hours of his life in a very long time. He didn't know what else to say to her except…
"I'll see you back in Mystic Falls."
End of Part I.
A/N: I know, I know, I know so freaking abrupt. My apologies. Don't worry I have it all planned out. Okay so I so totally ripped the bathtub scene from Queen of the Damned (don't sue me), and I know the party scene has been done to death and that's why I didn't want to spend too much time on it. Damon has some soul retconning to do once he makes it back to Mystic Falls. You know me. Expect twists and turns. Stay tuned…