/you had jesus on your breath and I caught him in mine/ sweating out confessions/the undone and the divine
i.
Their little corner of the world has flourished untouched by Zeus and the rest of his kind for as long as she can remember. Her grams has one job, and that's to keep everything running smoothly. She does that and so much more- she teaches Bonnie everything she knows until Bonnie herself could be the goddess of the seasons.
But she's not, and she's thankful for it. She lives the first nineteen years of her life surrounded by life- the wheat grass that has been brushing her legs since she was born learns to flourish under her touch. She tells herself she's satisfied with living in the tiny town and using her powers for nothing more than to grow flowers.
"We will not remain undiscovered and unharmed for long," her Grams predicts not long after her nineteenth birthday, and Bonnie wonders -even though she shouldn't- if that will finally mean the tiniest bit of excitement for her.
Her grams knows though, what Bonnie's thinking. She's not stupid. Be careful what you wish for, is the unspoken warning behind the smile her grams shoots her when Bonnie says she's just going for a walk.
The sun's low in the sky when she makes it to her favourite field, feeling the familiar brush of yellow rapeseed against her bare legs and the crumble of the cracked soil beneath her feet. Bonnie runs her fingers gently through the yellow flowers and continues to walk, further and further into the fields until she can't see the shadow of the house behind her. If she can't see the house, she supposes, she can't feel the disapproving gaze of Grams either, as she decides to cross the stream that separates their little farm from the outside world.
The stream itself is wide enough that she has to step on the flat stepping stones carefully to get across. There's a thudding in her heart, a quiet drumming that seems to grow louder with each step she takes from the house. The clear waters stretch around her, cool and inviting, and she wonders how they would feel sliding across her bare skin as she dips the flat of her foot gently into the water.
"Careful," someone says, and she almost looses her balance on the rock as she tries to see who is in front of her. "You might slip."
There's a man, boots planted firmly in the crush of purple velvet flowers she never learned how to grow because 'they were a bad omen' and he's looking at her with cerulean eyes.
Bonnie moves her foot back onto her stone and drinks in the sight of him, in nothing more than a plain white t-shirt and jeans. "I'm always careful," she quirks her lips up at him and turns to make her way back to the fields as the sun begins to set, hanging low in the sky like an apple ripe for picking.
His chuckle follows her back to the fields and she hugs the memory of him to her chest, because he is hers and only hers.
ii.
The months flit by in a haze of barn nights and small town gossip, and Bonnie finds herself pushing away the attentions of the men around her more often than usual. She's not averse to a boyfriend; yet all of the guys that want to go on dates with her seem more empty and shallow than she'd like.
"You're nineteen," Caroline whispers when they're sitting on a hay bale and she notices Matt looking at Bonnie, "and he's been staring at your for about three songs. Have a little fun."
Her green eyes flit to where a few couples are swaying to the acoustic guitar, and shakes her head.
"I'm bored," she admits, fingers playing with a bit of twisted straw she deftly untangles and begins to replait, "I want to get out of here." Bonnie watches the print of Caroline's blue summer dress shift from the corner of her eye, and feels the blonde exhale beside her.
This is not the life Caroline wanted either; they are two kindred spirits locked away in a tiny town when they would rather be just about anywhere else. Even tonight, Bonnie can think of a hundred better places to be than a barn night watching old people dance together and fireflies burn inside the fairy lights they'd stung up haphazardly that afternoon.
She's about to suggest they run away and be done with it when Caroline's fingers stop tapping out a restless rhythm on the haybale and she straightens beside her.
"Holy shit," Caroline breathes, and Bonnie rolls her eyes as she looks up, fully expecting Caroline to be praising the new farm hand she had her eye on.
He looks so out of place here she wants to laugh.
She doesn't- she's too busy trying to discreetly smooth her wavy hair and adjust the crumpled cotton of her flower printed dress.
"Who is he?" Caroline asks, eyes locked on the denim clad figure at the entrance of the barn. "Do you know him?"
Before Bonnie can say anything at all, she's being dragged towards where he's standing by her best friend. I'm a goddess, Bonnie thinks with a slight smile, surely I have something that will help me get him.
It's an odd feeling, wanting someone. One she hasn't really felt before, but as she studies the man before her it hits her full force. He introduces himself as Damon with a smirk that can only be considered lethal, and she feels the little zings of awareness course through her body when they make eye contact.
"Bonnie," she takes his hand and agrees to take a walk outside with him, leaving Caroline slack jawed behind them.
The darkness outside swallows them quickly, and she looks to the gold light pouring out of the red barn and knows she'd rather be out here with him than in there, wishing Matt would stop staring at her like that. Crickets chirp a lazy song around them, and Damon is watching her with blue eyes that are luminous in the night.
"Having fun?" he asks, and she leans into him the slightest bit to savour the sound of his voice while she can.
"None at all," Bonnie confesses lowly, locking eyes with him and wishing that she had the courage to do something impulsive, like kiss him.
As soon as the thought is out there she wishes she could take it back- her gaze flutters to his lips and when she finally musters the self control to drag her eyes back up to his, she almost swears that his eyes are darker than they were before.
His hand brushes a caramel curl behind her ear as he smiles, and Bonnie licks her lips, because she knows what he is going to do, has been told countless times by Caroline.
"A pity," Damon says, and brushes his lips against her forehead.
Next time, Bonnie promises herself as she watches him walk away, next time I will make him kiss me.
Next time I will kiss him myself, she thinks as she listens to the sound of his boots grow further and further away from her.
iii.
She sees him all over the farm, in the corner of her eyes at all times, a tantalizing glimpse of what she can't have, dancing just out of reach of her greedy fingers. Whenever she turns to confront him, he is gone, and Bonnie grows more and more restless as he slips out of her fingers time and time again.
"Damon," she calls to the sticky air in the middle of her rapeseed field, aware she sounds stupid. "I know you're there."
There is no answer but the whistling of the wind around her, lazy and slow, like someone's breath on her bare shoulder. Fine, Bonnie thinks, and walks back to the stream where she first saw him, telling herself that she's content to sit on one of the rocks with a book and just read.
She does just that, settling herself comfortable on a large, flat stone in the middle of the stream, sunlight dappling the water around her as it flows through the trees on the banks either side of her. Bonnie trails her fingers in the water and revels in the crisp, clear feel of it against her warm skin.
If she looks up, she can see the purple velvet flowers she has always been told to keep away from, not quite out of reach but far away enough that she has to stretch to grasp them between her fingers.
"You don't want to do that," she doesn't even jump at the feel of him crouched behind her, warm breath tickling her neck.
"And why not?" Bonnie asks defiantly, flowers merely centimetres from her fingertips.
Damon only laughs, and Bonnie twists so she is fully facing him on the stone. "Why?" She presses, curiosity getting in the way of her vow to herself just a few weeks before. "Why not?" She asks again, suddenly aware that there is barely any space between his lips and hers.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Damon says, and it is only a whisper, but it's one that creeps into her heart and twists and Bonnie thinks she's falling for him. She wants to tell him things she's never told anyone-that she is a goddess in her own right, that she could kill him without so much as batting an eyelid. Instead, she raises an eyebrow and closes the gap between their lips.
It's not gentle; and the minute their lips meet she wonders why she ever thought it would be. Their hands are everywhere- his span her back to cushion it as he pushes her onto the stone and angle her face to just the right position and Bonnie finds that hers have crept up his shirt to feel the warm wall of muscle beneath it.
Damon hands tangle in the dark waves of her hair and brush her scalp, gentle but insistent. "Stop," she breathes when she resurfaces, a little pop in her mind dragging her back to the present as if she had been underwater before.
She thinks she hears him mumble"-I can't" as he drags his lips off hers and ghosts them over the smooth skin of her neck, once, twice, again and again until Bonnie thinks she will come undone.
"No," she says finally, opening her eyes and forcing him away with a gentle push. "We can't."
Damon is a dark blur on top of her when her eyes flutter shut, and Bonnie allows herself the brief reprieve of a few seconds before opening her eyes again. He looks at her with inscrutable eyes for a beat before rolling off her, and Bonnie can almost not bring herself to sit up again, hair tumbling down her shoulders in mussed up waves.
Bonnie doesn't look at him as she walks away; doesn't even brush her lips to his cheek as she walks back to the safety of the rapeseed field and the flowers brushing on her legs.
iiii.
Her Grams knows- she knows that there is shame, and that Bonnie carries it with her always, burning low in the pit of her stomach, ever present and all consuming.
They sit in the living room together, fireplace unlit and windows thrown open to catch the last golden rays of sunlight spilling into the large room, and they do not speak.
To Bonnie the silence is suffocating; stifling, but she supposes that her Grams likes it.
She doesn't see Damon again and doesn't think to seek him out, instead choosing to remain in the safety of the farmland she owns. Caroline pokes and prods but gets nothing. Bonnie listens attentively to everything her Grams tells her, and learns to make gold wheat from a few spools of gold thread.
The midsummer ball is something she has not paid attention to, but it rolls around and before she knows it she is dress shopping with Caroline, surrounded by lengths of velvet and tulle and silk.
"Where is your brain lately?" Caroline asks her as she does Bonnie's hair, and Bonnie thinks of Damon above her and the way the light slanted across the angles of his face, and asks herself the same thing.
She is a vision in electric blue; the dress falls to her feet in swathes of electric blue silk, the bodice made up of dozens of intricate knots. Bonnie doesn't even look up from the marbled floor because she knows there's no one to look at.
Caroline offers her brandy and a sympathetic look and tells Bonnie to take a walk.
"The rapeseed fields are beautiful this time of summer," she suggests, taking Bonnie's glass and pushing her in the direction of the gardens, dark and enticing.
"I shouldn't," she says, but leaves anyway.
Later on, she will say it was sheer suffocation that made her kick off her shoes and run towards the fields, gasping for air as branches snag on her dress.
And then, she is back where it all began, bare feet flat on her stone, hair wild and eyes wide.
The purple velvet flowers look just as enticing as ever, shining in the dark. It is second nature that tells her to brush her fingers on the tiny petals.
"I was hoping you would do that," a deep voice says from behind her, and Bonnie has the time to register a twinge of anxiety before she is falling.
i.
When she wakes, it is to darkness. It takes a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the gloom and register the feeling of silk sheets at her back, cool and pleasant.
The sheets fall off her with a rustle and she stumbles to the door, which swings open with the slightest push from her fingers.
Outside, a grey stone corridor stretches before her, and Bonnie tries not to panic as she thinks of the silly soft feel of the purple velvet on her fingertips.
"What have I done?" She whispers to empty air as she walks down the corridor, strides long and breath shallow.
Doors-hundreds of them, on either side of her, but they blur before her green eyes as she focuses on the one at the very end of the corridor. It should lead to air; to freedom.
The silk of her dress clings to her bare legs as she bursts out onto the balcony, looking for air and finding only ash and fire.
"Bonnie," Damon says from behind her, and tears her gaze away from the burning wasteland below her feet and turns to face him with glittering eyes. "Come inside."
Bonnie takes on last look at the crumbling city before her, reduced to nothing more than a burning pile of rubble, before he gently takes her arm and leads her to a living room, complete with a fireplace the same as the one in her own home.
"What-what was that?" She chokes, collapsing into a sofa in front of the fire and drawing comfort from the leap of the flames before her eyes.
He looks at her-Damon is always looking at her- and takes her hand.
"I think you know," he says, and Bonnie focuses on the feel of his flesh on hers, warm and comforting strings of muscle and flesh and bone.
"Maybe," is the whispered agreement that falls from her lips. "Maybe I do."
It begs the question-what is he?
ii.
Time seems to flicker in his house. Bonnie roams the rooms with a smile and explores the dusty furniture and claw foot bathtubs with unrestrained curiosity.
"You're beautiful," he whispers when she's examining a painting, the swirl of brushstroke on canvas evoking emotions she didn't know she had.
She looks at Damon's face, half shadowed, and he catches her gaze defiantly.
"What?" He says, hands snaking up her face to grip her cheeks, thumbs brushing the sides of her face. "Am I not allowed to tell you that?"
Bonnie smiles at him slowly, the spread of her pursed lips deliberate. "No, you should tell me that more often."
He matches her smirk and moves his hand to fist in her hair and bring her closer to him. "Only if you do the same, darling."
Their chemistry is just as explosive as before, and she drags her nails over his scalp with a ferocity he matches when his teeth tug on her bottom lip.
Bonnie can't think anymore-all there is to her now is the feel of his hands brushing over her skin, the hitch of his breath as she presses her lips to her abdomen. The feeling seems to eclipse everything she has ever felt before, but she realises that that feeling is Damon; equal parts darkness and love, the kind of paradox humans will never solve.
He presses her down into his bed with the weight of him and she grabs his fingers in an effort to anchor herself against the weight of the emotion she feels in the air around them, potent as dynamite.
"Do you want this?" He asks her, lips pressed into the curve of her neck, and she can feel him frown against her skin.
It annoys her- the thought that it will be her left crushed at the end of it-that it will be her who will remain hung up on him until the end of time, and Bonnie lets out a hiss and pulls away from him. "Shut up," she says fiercely.
He obeys; he will obey for millions of years after this; she will own him; he will own her.
And then there is nothing but the feel of him filling her, and Bonnie can't form anything but she gasps; the warmth of her breath skittering over the smooth skin of his back.
She inhales deeply after it is all over, watching him through lidded eyes with one arm spread behind her head, skin turned to warm jelly.
Around them, the house creaks and shifts and her mind flits back to the wreckage she saw before.
Bonnie shifts closer to him, drawing her arms around him and pulling one leg up over his hip. "I am a goddess," she whispers into the sweat of his skin, smile at her lips.
Damon smirks and pulls her over him, large hands spanning the edge of her thighs and drawing her closer. "I should have known," he chokes as she sinks onto him once more.
iii.
Bonnie knows how this game is played. She knows of Damon and Hell; has heard the stories that suggest there is a way for her to be free there.
She likes him, she really does- she likes her Grams more. Or rather, she knows Earth will die without her at her Grams' side, her rightful place amongst mortals and men.
"We all have duties," she broaches the subject the morning after, when there is an artificial candle light burning and the absence of birds chirping outside their stone walls. Her fingers curl around the rich brocade of the coverlet and she wonders why Hell is cold.
"Stay with me," He asks, and she's so conflicted she can't do anything more than look at him with wide green eyes and think of the farm, of the wheat grass brushing against her bare legs and the stupid barn nights with the locals. It's all she knows.
"You were made to be Queen; you were born to rule," Damon whispers to her, eyes glinting with mischief and an unrestrained need.
"I can't," Bonnie says finally, and watches the last vestige of hope slip from his face like a king who has lost his crown.
He stands; the bed shifts beneath her and she does the same, wrapping the thick sheet around her frame and trying to smooth the rumpled curls of her hair. "I'll get Zeus," Damon mutters softly. "Get dressed."
Bonnie knows she has disappointed him; that she was the one supposed to be heartbroken at the end of this- he was supposed to walk away. Or maybe, it was him that fell in love with her first, and he saw her as a way to escape the aching loneliness that was his life down here.
She listens to his heavy footfall until it fades, sinking into a seat in front of the roaring fire. In front of her, on the table, there is a bowl of pomegranate seeds.
Her stomach rumbles.
iiii.
The one memory she will always remember of Damon is the triumph on his face after he broke away from her goodbye kiss; the slow spread of the smirk.
Her unfurled her intertwined fingers and saw the reddened tips, pink with the juice of pomegranates.
"Six seeds," She admits when Zeus asks her. They slipped down my throat easily, she doesn't say. I would have eaten more if I had the chance, she keeps inside.
Darkness becomes her; Bonnie adjusts to it faster than she ever thought she could. And sometimes- just sometimes- when she is with her Grams at the farm, she wonders what Damon would do if he were with them, and she misses him.
"You were made to rule," Damon repeats every time she returns, obvious relief in his eyes that he will not have to do it alone any longer. "I can't do it without you."
Bonnie grips her rusted crown and looks down at her burning kingdom with glittering happiness in her eyes.
A/N: Let's be honest, Bonnie would make a great queen of the dead. And the Damon that lives in my head would make a great king of the underworld too :)
R&R please!
(also the song is bedroom hymns)
