A/N: In which Damon and Bonnie get defensive. The reviewers have spoken. Free write interlude #2, in which Bonnie and Damon get defensive. Enjoy.

She's a loser. Maybe.

Morning came with dew. Bonnie woke with her head on the car door, wind brushing her face. She stretched as the car rolled into the parking lot of a roadside diner just opening for business. Damon compelled the cook to make her a bacon cheeseburger while he had a Bloody Mary. They shared a plate of Liege waffles. Bonnie paid for the meal. When they were ten miles from Mystic Falls, Damon called the boarding house. His voice turned soft as he spoke to Elena, reassuring her while telling her nothing. Bonnie listened and took her cue. All must be forgotten.

And it was. For a week. No one seemed to notice or pretended not to notice. Everything was as fucked up as it ever was. Bonnie studied the craft, hung out with Matt, commiserated with Elena, coordinated possible POAs with Stefan, avoided Caroline and Jeremy, tolerated Damon. She stopped trying to contact Abby, as that relationship was nothing more than biological. She struggled a bit on Wednesday. Stefan wanted to track down Rebekah for the ostensible reason of vengeance, and she had to cast a search spell requiring human blood. It felt good. Toe curling good. So good she lost track of the spell mid casting and ended up finding Elijah. After, at home in her room, she panicked. She had gained access to a power source that didn't beget nosebleeds and blackouts. And at least then she knew the payment. But dark magic had a higher price. She shut herself up on Thursday trying to reconcile the supposed cost with the necessity.

Friday came. Unexpected giddiness made her jog to the Salvatore door. Elena appeared with a grin.

"You're early," she said. She stepped aside.

Bonnie ducked into the foyer. She kept her answer vague. "We have to drive farther."

"Or bring a bigger cooler."

Bonnie raised an eyebrow. "Or maybe you could learn moderation."

They stared at each other. The tension between them had started to manifest itself in how they behaved towards one another, with stiff familiarity. It affected their tones, their silences, their glances. Bonnie didn't want to think about the mutation of her last, stable relationship, she didn't want to see the peculiar detachment lighting Elena's face whenever she had to respond in kind. She turned to the staircase.

"Damon! Move your ass!"

Damon came a minute later. He had on sweats and a pullover. Bonnie motioned to his outfit. "What is this?"

"My comfortable clothes," Damon said.

He jingled keys at her. "We're wasting time. You can admire me in the car."

"Admire what? You look sloppy as hell."

Damon wiggled his eyebrows. Bonnie sighed. Elena stood in the doorway as she watched the depart. She watched Bonnie slide into the passenger seat. She watched Damon say something and Bonnie laugh. Damon honked once and sped off down the pebbled drive. Elena raised a hand until the taillights disappeared. Her wave curled into a fist.

Damon pulled into the stadium parking lot. The flood lights were on from the game earlier that night.

"I thought we would do something different," Damon said.

"Damon," Bonnie began. "you and I have an arrangement where we steal blood to feed my friend, your eternal flame, Elena. Outside of that arrangement, we do not associate. So unless there's a blood rally going on here, right now, there is no different."

Damon grinned. "God, how do you make being a condescending killjoy sexy? I am dy-ing to know."

Bonnie looked intently at his face. "You are a grown man, you know that?"

He reached behind him and lifted a black cloth sack. "Come on," he said.

He led her onto the field. Bonnie examined the area with a suspicious eye. Damon whistled and she turned. Her heart froze.

Damon leveled a shotgun at her chest. He smiled.

Bonnie didn't even think. She sent Damon to his knees in seconds. While he writhed on the grass she snatched the gun from his weakened grasp. Next to his body was a case of shells. She picked one up. It was made out of wood. She sniffed it. Vervain soaked wood.

Bonnie stepped back a few yards before releasing the trigger. Damon staggered to his feet, swayed, then shook himself hard. Bonnie rested the gun stock against her hip.

"I disarmed you in fifteen seconds."

"As a zombie."

Bonnie shrugged. "So is this what you had in mind?" She shot him in the knee. Damon collapsed with a yelp as the crack of the blast echoed through the air.

"If you wanted me to shoot you, we could have done this in a less conspicuous place. Like the woods. Or my house," Bonnie said.

Damon dug the bullet out and threw it in the box with the other wooden shells. "Is that an invitation?"

Bonnie pointed at the now healed knee. "That was a wooden bullet soaked in vervain. How—?"

He jumped up and flexed. "Alaric has me on a strict regimen of pain. If I'm going to be the monster asshole everyone thinks I am, I have to fit the bill."

"And that explains the wide open torture session?"

"I figured I'd make it a two-for-one torture session," Damon rolled his neck. "You see, I know all about your nosebleeds. And that's no bueno for the B Team."

Bonnie twisted her mouth in annoyance. Jeremy and his damn mouth. She leveled the gun at his other knee. She wanted to shoot but she probably had a bullet left. In the time it would take her to reload, Damon would be on her. What a shit way to spend a Friday night. Might as well make it count.

"I'm listening," Bonnie said.

"I need endurance training. You need practice in witchy multitasking. It's not as terrible as it sounds," Damon said. He sped backwards to the end of the field.

"Can you hear me?"

Bonnie nodded. "Like a mosquito in my ear."

"Perfect." Damon flashed her a grin. "Now to the reason we're here. I'm going to try to push you to the end zone. You have to stop me with whatever means available to you, excluding fire," he added when he saw her smile, "while you muzzle the sound of our play."

"This sounds like more of a test of my endurance than yours," Bonnie replied.

"Oh, to be young and naïve," Damon said. He ran in place. "You ready?"

"Wait, if this is a game, we have to have conditions, time frames, rewards."

"Okay. No fire, first sign of witch blood we stop, five minutes of gameplay, and if you win, you're off blood duty so you can be a teenager and blah blah blah. I win, we attach a clause of my choosing to that arrangement."

"Too vague."

"I'm being generous."

"I can walk away."

Damon smiled. "You can but you won't. You're bored!"

It nauseated her how often he was right.

"Fine. On three," Bonnie said. She grabbed a handful of shells and stuffed them in her jean pocket. She reloaded the gun. She didn't know a noise cancelling spell, but there was one that created something like a sense dampening net within a designated perimeter. Aside from the noise, there was the visibility issue. How many things did he want her to do in addition to trying to kill him?

"One," Damon called.

Bonnie raised the gun. Wait until he got close. Conserve the bullets. Remember that vampires jumped higher and ran faster than a human girl, even one with the power of nature at her back.

"Two."

Damon's blue eyes disappeared into a swell of crimson. Bonnie curled her finger around the trigger. Do not aim at his heart. Do not aim at his heart.

"Three."

Damon rushed across the field. Bonnie held her ground. "Do not aim at his heart," she whispered.

He appeared in front of her before she was even aware of it. The gun went off. The sound ricocheted off the bones of her brain. Damon fell to the ground but was up and snarling in seconds. Bonnie staggered back. She fired again, into his stomach. He grunted but kept advancing. She reloaded and fired but he caught the bullets.

Bonnie tossed the gun aside. A barrage of aneurysms rocked Damon off his feet. She increased the frequency. Another thirty seconds and he'd give up. A wave of disorientation hit her. She watched as Damon crawled forward. He struggled to one knee, fell back, then fought against the incessant attack to stand. The disorientation turned to cold fear when Bonnie saw his dark eyes fix on her.

It wasn't impossible. Katherine did it. But she was old. Damon took a couple quick steps before Bonnie blew him back thirty yards. Metal tinged the air. The back of her throat was thick. There was too much going on. She needed to conserve. Damon rushed her but instead of a turning his brain into strawberry syrup, she tossed him clear across the field, into the goal posts.

Damon had a minute left. Bonnie ran for the gun just as Damon collided into her. They wrestled. Bonnie tried to propel him off but he had her too tight, and she flew with him. They battled, locked in a literal power struggle. He edged her towards the white line. Panic drew on instinct. She tapped into his strength, fused it with her own, and they broke apart in an violent combustion of air, grass, and earth.

Bonnie stirred and looked up. Her hand rested on the white line. She won. Damon was on his back yards away, one leg propped up. He wore a rueful grin. Dirt and drying blood grimed his face. His pullover and sweats were ripped. Bonnie laid next him. They breathed in unison. For all the effort, and despite the fact she'd have to pay for it tomorrow, Bonnie felt exhilarated. She fought a vampire and won.

The floodlights shut off. Darkness swept over them like a cover.

"Fuck me, you are one formidable witch," Damon said.

"You were okay." Bonnie looked over at him. His profile stood out in the dark. Last Friday she got high and had a great night just being. Tonight she had a great night kicking ass. Because of Damon. Damon and their arrangement.

"I was okay," Damon repeated. "I pushed through your brain bombs. I think that qualifies me as good, possibly great."

Bonnie let the silence stretch. She stared up at the stars. His arm brushed hers. He's been closer, but not as close as tonight.

"You beat me, so I guess that does qualify you as good."

Damon lifted his head to glance at her. "Really?"

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "Don't get too excited. If fire was allowed, you'd be screaming mercy five seconds in."

He continued to stare at her. Bonnie sat up to dislodge his gaze.

"I don't even have a speech prepared," Damon said. Bonnie relaxed. They sat there for another minute. Damon got up first to retrieve the gun and bullets. Bonnie stood up when he was done. They drove back to the boarding house, silent and tired.

Bonnie spent the night in the guest room. She slept facing the door, wondering about things she never thought to wonder.