Summary: After 'As I Lay Dying', Bonnie is having nightmares and Damon is concerned about Alaric's activities, and the town has zombie infestation. A Bamon fic.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the vampire diaries characters.
Bonnie Bennett stirred her alcohol free mojito. The zing from the lemon and mint were both doing a good job of making sure she didn't fall asleep on her face yet. Matt may have commented for the fourth time on the bags under her eyes but bleep deprivation wasn't a normal look she supported; it was just a current phase. She was having disorienting nightmares and they were getting more and more intense. Every time she closed her eyes, dead bodies and the smell of decay made an appearance. It was a pity none of them made any kind of sense to her.
The Only thing she was sure of that her nightmares always spelled some kind of witchy trouble. The 'lots of people dying' kind of trouble and as always for the umpteenth time she would do her best to stop humans from getting killed from any rising supernatural threat. In fact, she felt pretty much resigned to her outlining of contingency plans even before she knew of whether a threat was imminent or whether it was just her overworked brain making up trouble to keep her adrenaline from the last few eventful days from running out.
She'd already tried a spell to conjure an explanation for the dreams. It required her staying awake for seventy two hours straight; not the worst kind of physical duress she's been through with her spells only her eyes felt like they might fall off from the extreme need to close them…for a long time, which is probably why she almost missed Damon slipping onto a stool right next to her. He usually avoids her, so this was an odd occurrence, she did not ask why.
Not that his obnoxiousness wouldn't make his presence felt soon enough.
'Sooo where's the party?' He asked nudging a look in the direction of her drink. She'd only spared a fleeting glance at him swallowing a shot of something awful, no doubt, and tried rubbing her tired eyes to clear her cobwebby vision. It didn't help as much as she hoped.
'It's Non Alcoholic. For your information, I don't get drunk and start throwing people around the pool table like they're inanimate objects'. Now he gave her his full attention without a bout of offense. Classic Damon, for some infuriating reason he was always immune to her caustic reaction to his general presence. He put his glass down to give her sarcasm his undivided attention.
'Oh yeah I forgot, or else how would you judge the rest of the world and their mother through your witchy may care eyes if you got smashed like the rest of us poor slobs once in a while… and for the record the throwing people around the pool?… only happened once, with the tequila..and the dancer…and the spell..'. He trailed off looking into space longingly as if a particularly fond memory had struck him.
Her most glowering of glares usually did very little to dissuade him from further tormenting her verbally with his crap so she didn't even try anymore, it probably helped she hadn't slept for two days and her brain felt full of fog. 'Go away Damon, I'm really not in the mood for your brand of snark tonight, okay?'
And she thought that was the end of it.
No sooner than her thoughts turned towards her longing of staking the vampire…He sighed sadly, sidling up uncomfortably close to her, she flashed her eyes at him in warning, it was one thing when they snarked and bantered with a referee in between, but now that every was gone or relatively missing, she found her patience thinly stretched, 'Oh come on Bonnie, everybody we know has disappeared, run off to some retreat or just plain dead, we should irritate each other a little for the sake of normality.'
Bonnie pulled out the straw from her mojito and swallowed down a big gulp of the cold drink getting up, 'Fine, I'll leave…you stay.' Before she could move in the general direction of the exit there was a tug on her hand, Damon had a firm hold of her wrist and he wasn't letting go.
'Damon…' she said with heated warning and reminded him of the time she almost fried his brains for good which she felt was a perfectly good threat, something she could follow through even in her sleep.
'Hey just because we aren't friends you don't have to take that tone with me…' Bonnie rolled her eyes and tried to tug herself out of his grip anyway, 'But that's just it, we aren't friends Damon…you remember the time you tried to kill me and how because of you the only loving relative of mine is dead? and how everyone I care about keeps getting killed or turned into a vampire ?'
There were frown lines between her brows which had appeared shortly after Jenna's death which she wanted to blame him for as well but thought might sound too petty. It's the aftermath which really gave her frown lines. Elena's took off to some spiritual retreat because Jeremy almost died, and apparently Jeremy felt he needed space away from everyone including Bonnie to figure out his life, which she just could not pretend to understand. The best thing would have been for them both to stick together, and get through this time as a couple. Because she knew well how loss and uncertainty of life can make you drift away from everyone you love. Someone like Damon could never understand her mistrust of his basic nature. Because she felt he was the reason for all misfortune that had befallen them all from the last two years, destruction ran unchecked in their human lives since Salvatore brothers arrival into Mystic Falls.
He still took her rant in stride, 'Okay point taken…but I need you to do something important for me.' She looked at her wrist again, which he promptly let go and slid back onto his stool and ordered a beer. She just masked her annoyance enough to sit back down ignoring Matt's look of concern from behind the counter while cleaning glasses and shooting murderous glares in Damon's direction from time to time.
'Damon I am not your magic eight ball or hotline to the powers that be and I'm not doing any spells for you unless they are approved by and in the presence of some sane person.' He gave her a practiced hurt look at that and waved her off. 'Oh come on, you know you like it when we all pressurize you for some life saving witch action'
She reminded him once again that she was not a performing monkey and her spells were not out of a recreational need. Most of her recent spells were inspired by Klaus who had blown town with Stefan without leaving the slightest of trails. There was a brief moment of silence to reflect on all the damage left behind by the Original vampire and then a grunt of mutual discontentment from both unwilling acquaintances. She supposed he needn't a reminder of how his brother sacrificed free will in order to keep Damon form dying from a wolf bite or that he was the main reason Klaus took Jenna as a sacrifice. She only hoped he felt bad enough to stay away from all of them.
Bonnie was sure he could read her mind without actually reading it his expression hard and unreadable, he looked away, she almost felt bad for reprimanding him harshly…but not quite. In her book he deserved the harshest punishments as they came.
'I need you to work your witchy magic on Alaric, something's wrong with him.'
Damon's definition of wrong could range typically anywhere on a normal day from morally ridiculous to death defying serious, and if Alaric was in any really life threatening danger she doubted Damon would sit around for a drink or two while insulting her lineage before getting to the point, which is why she silently contemplated whether to finish her drink and let her gulping do the talking; she was not getting roped into anything that would jeopardise her sanity beyond what its endured already. And if she had a dollar for every single time she's wished the same … she could probably buy herself mojitos for life.
'He's acting weird and mysterious, and not at all like himself.' He further clarified for her, as if she were listening. All this eye rolling was giving her a head ache but she went for it anyway, 'Weird? because he's not talking to you?…' the pause said more than his actual rendition of the problem, He looked at her side ways with a mouthful of beer , which she returned with a fake smile. How odd that the vampire needed the attention of a high school teacher to feel comfortable in his irritating skin. She thought about Alaric's odd alliance with the vampire and how he must be some kind of 'disturbed' to let Damon be his friend after he murdered his wife. She could never be that forgiving. Maybe that made her judgemental and harsh in her friends' eyes but that's who she was, it's not like she could make the decision for others. They'd have to realize someday…
'The guy's mourning give him a break Damon, he's probably taking stock of his life.' She knew she was, since Klaus left everyone was feeling emotionally vulnerable. Death and violence never really get old no matter how many times there's a reprise.
'Yeah sure 'Doctor Phil', but when your washing your mouth out with scotch first thing in the morning and calling everyone in sight 'ginger' then you know there's a seeeeerious problem.' She glared at the nickname, he ignored it, and was a wonderful heart to heart moment. Damon smashed back another shot of something crude which made his face twist into a sour grimace.
'So, talk to him, he calls you his friend, I'm sure he'll feel better if he knew you're concerned…' she paused 'Wait, did he call you ginger?' There was chuckle of ridicule at her expense which she has expected all along but then that was just the vampires way, she was too sleepy to take the proper amount of offence she usually would.
'Have we met? I don't do concern, besides Alaric doesn't need empathic shit …he's …complex, and what's with you? I thought you were into all this emotionally debilitating crap that involves talking about your feelings constantly?' This was really the first time they were having a conversation that didn't involve him coercing or manhandling her into performing a morally reprehensible spell, and she was too delirious to be clear about her blatant dislike of him. Not that something like that would stop him. She rested her glass against her forehead and almost fell off her stool, the cold made her feel worse she even wasn't sure why she did it.
'He's not a vampire Damon, You can't expect him to shut off his emotions just because he's alone and he hunts vampires as a side gig.'
'Oh hey, look at you all observant…I KNOW he's not a vampire which is why I'm asking you to do something, because every time i 'talk' to him, it ends with him punching me and me breaking his neck, killing him stone cold dead and then he comes to life again hating my guts…for a while.'
She would look at him funny but he was probably just being honest. 12 pm on her watch marked the seventy hour requirement for the spell; if she had known another spell to materialize herself home at the click of her fingers she would do it just to phase Damon. He continued talking about Alaric and his issues at the expense of her indifference, only the beeping of her watch's alarm distracted him. That or her sliding off her stool to leave was a sign of how much she wasn't listening. Something known not to stop the vampire from carrying on; she only stopped outside the grill to notice the moon's strangely eerie fullness and the silence of her surroundings unable to let go a feeling of déjà vu before she felt Damon's oppressive silence again imposing on her freedom to leave.
'What Damon? I don't know what you want me to do, I can't bother him if he doesn't want to be bothered…'
'I just want to stop Ric from doing something stupid, and if you care about general human life as much you pretend to then you better do something about it too' He slapped a day old newspaper in her hand before storming off into the night leaving her completely bewildered and mildly irritated.
'The front page of the newspaper read, 'Zombies in Mystic Fall?', 'Official's refuse to comment on the disappearance of 5 corpses from the local cemetery.' in bold letters, leaving Bonnie to wonder what any of it had to do with Alaric Saltzman.