warning(s): sexually suggestive ; language ; violence
rating: high teen / mature
word count: 12,640
if you love me (don't let go)
It's not a mistake.
Damon is more than familiar with what a mistake feels like. He's made so many, they might as well be his default setting.
But this—
She is not a mistake.
( "Do you think you would've been happy as a human?" Bonnie asks one night, a month into their forced cohabitation in, what he considers to be, Hell.
They're laying next to each other on a makeshift bed of pillows she's spread out in front of the fire. She's taken to sleeping downstairs instead of in one of the many rooms. Damon chalks it up to a growing dislike for distance. Even when he annoys her, she continues to hang around. It's the loneliness. There's too much of it, and they only have each other. So, they take what comfort they can.
Arm tucked behind his head, he stares at the ceiling. "I was a piss poor human… My dad could've told you that."
"Why?" She turns over onto her side to face him, her cheek perched on her hand. The fire is bright at her back, making her silhouette stand out.
"I was weak. Didn't have a head for business or a stomach for war. Didn't care for politics and I wasn't interested in settling down, not back then. Not before Katherine…"
"Why?"
"Nosy tonight, aren't you?"
She shrugs unapologetically.
He sighs, long and heavy. "Before Katherine, I thought all marriages were like my parents. And the last thing I wanted to do was become my dad."
"But something changed." She stares at him searchingly.
He frowns, turns to look at her. "What makes you say that?"
She raises a brow at him. "Damon, you're desperate for commitment."
"Hey! 'Desperate' is a little much…"
She grins. "You are. Katherine, Elena, I mean, you devote your life to whoever you love. Even Stefan."
"Well, I promised him a lifetime of misery," he says casually. "I had to keep my word."
"Uh-huh." She rolls her eyes. "Anyway… I think you're wrong."
"Oh? What about?"
"I think you'd be a good human. You don't know how strong you really are until you have to be. Doesn't matter if you have magic or fangs. Eventually, something happens, and you have to make a choice. Either you face your fears and you do something, or you don't, and you live with the consequences."
"So, you're saying you think I'd come through in the end? Ride in on my white horse and save the day?" He smirks at her teasingly. "Who knew you were such a romantic, Bon-Bon."
Snorting, she shakes her head. "Skip the white horse. It's clichéd. All I'm saying is that… your instinct is to protect people you care about. So, vampire or not, I think you would."
He hums, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. And then he says, "But the wrinkles. And the grey hair. Bleck."
Bonnie laughs. "I don't know. Salt and pepper looks good on some people."
He wiggles his eyebrows at her. "Yeah?"
"Mmhmm." She shrugs then, and turns onto her back to stare at the ceiling. "Guess we'll never know, though."
His good-humor fades as he turns thoughtfully. "Guess not." )
He lasts two weeks.
He's not exactly a man of self control.
Fourteen days after Bonnie comes home, alive and a little broken, he just needs to see her. They've spent just about every day together, but this feels different.
He doesn't mean to kiss her.
(but he doesn't regret it)
"Do you have any idea what time it is?" Bonnie scrubs the heel of her palm against her eye and then squints at him. "You're not drunk, are you?"
He shakes his head. "Not yet. Why? You got anything to drink?"
She laugh-snorts. Crossing her arms, she leans in the doorway and looks up at him. Her hair is sleep-mussed. He doesn't have to see her living room to know she was probably curled up on the couch, trying to sleep through whatever shitty infomercials were playing. She doesn't sleep so great lately. He knows because he has the text messages to show for it. Around two, three, four am, she starts texting him to see what he's doing. If he's sleeping, she gives up. So, he turned the volume up loud enough to wake him. If she wants to talk, he'll talk.
Reaching out, he tugs at a loose curl dangling at her cheek. "Couldn't sleep. Feel like some company?"
She eyes him thoughtfully. "Usually you sleep like a baby. What's up?"
He shrugs. "House is too quiet."
Between him, Stefan, and Caroline, there's no heartbeat. Just ticking clocks and whining wood. Listening to Bonnie's heart was soothing. Comforting. At least if she was close, if he could hear it, he knew she was okay. She was real. She was back.
"Is this a hint you want a CD of whale sounds for your birthday?"
His mouth cracks into a grin. "You got one lying around?"
She juts her chin up. "Maybe I do."
"Yeah? You seem more like a soothing jazz type of person. Nina Simone or something. I can see that." He nods at her, and then lets his finger trail down the soft curve of her cheek. "Doncha know no one alive can always be an angel?"
Bonnie hums, stares up at him curiously. "But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good…"
His heart lurches in his chest then, and his good humor fades. This was a bad idea. This was tempting fate. Playing with fire.
"I should go." He shakes his head. "I, uh… Yeah. I should—"
She reaches for him, pulls at his shirt. "Wait."
It doesn't take a lot to stop him. He could've kept walking. Could've untangled her small hand from where she holds him. But he doesn't. Instead, he turns back. And without a word of explanation, he's kissing her. Hands cupping her cheeks, mouth slanting over hers so quietly, so gently, he almost thinks he's dreamt it up. His breath leaves him; trembles against her lips. And he waits for it. For the shove at his chest. For the spark of tears and anger. The 'what are you doing?' edged with horror and pity. But it doesn't come.
Bonnie's hand loosens and then tightens against his shirt. She doesn't push, she pulls.
He stumbles into her, chest to chest, pressing her against the doorjamb, one hand braced above her head to keep them steady. The other falling from her cheek to her shoulder, thumb stroking over bare skin.
Seconds and minutes pass. The fear that she might come to her senses fades. And all he's left with is a moment.
A hope.
The pillow of her lips beneath his and the strength of her fingers keeping him close.
He leans back just enough to press his forehead to hers and breathes.
Distantly, he can hear an infomercial playing in the living room. Louder than that is her unsteady heart. His hand settles atop her chest, not to quiet it, because he likes it. He likes that her heart is knocking a too-quick beat against her ribs. That his excitement is being sung somewhere, even if it's not in his own chest.
There are places that words should be said. Where declarations are made or questions are asked. Where answers are searched for, even if they're not what you want to hear. There are moments where the tension breaks and the bubble pops and reality creeps back in, bringing with it the shadowy reminder that some things are not meant to be. Not deserved.
This was probably one of those.
This was probably when life should have knocked, demanding entrance.
Instead, Bonnie's hand slides down his chest and hooks in his belt. She pulls him inside, and he grabs for the door handle, swings it closed behind him. They climb the stairs to her bedroom, without pause or question. As she stands, facing the bed, he's at her back. He catches the end of her tank top and pulls it up and over her head, tossing it away. She's not wearing a bra, just a loose pair of denim shorts. His hands fall to her hips as he ducks down and presses a kiss to her neck.
And she leans back, falls against his chest, and takes a deep, shaky breath.
She tips her head and looks up at him from soft eyes, dreamy and content.
This isn't how it usually goes for him. The rejection comes first. Then the dogged pursuit. The insistence that he's worth taking a chance on; worth turning your life upside down and inside out for.
But there's no Stefan here. No better option. Nobody standing in between them.
Except Elena.
A ghost of a girl and a relationship that has long since run its course.
It's not that he doesn't love Elena. He does. He always will. Just like he still loves Katherine in some distant, not-quite-healed part of himself. But at some point, he realized he wasn't right for Elena. That he brought out a part of her that was better left hidden away. And she does the same to him.
Damon's never much liked the idea of growth, probably because he wasn't very good at it. He's petty. He holds grudges. He has a hard time moving on or letting go. But there are days… days when he makes the right choices. When he thinks before he acts. When he puts others before himself. He does that more with Bonnie. And maybe that's not healthy. That he's only better when someone demands it of him, when someone's there to witness it. But he likes to think he's making progress. That deep down, under all the scar tissue, all the mistakes, there's a person in there that he can be proud of.
And maybe she can be, too.
Damon's had sex. He's had a lot of sex. He's buried himself in it as an easy escape. Sex, blood, and bourbon; a broken man's coping mechanisms. There's a difference though, between sleeping with some he cares about and sleeping with someone to escape. Sometimes they blur together. Sometimes, he escapes in people he loves. Buries himself in their focus and love and want. And sometimes he finds someone else completely, to avoid the pain and hurt of loving someone he can't have.
He's not escaping anything here. He's not running. He's connecting.
Maybe it's too soon. Maybe they should've talked before it got to this point.
(maybe maybe maybe)
He's not thinking of consequences, not clearly. They're there. In the peripheral. The gaping reminder that, come morning, things will change. They will change. Maybe for the better, maybe not. But right here, right now, in this moment… She is his. And he is hers.
He's going to be hers for a long time.
Because Damon is nothing if not devoted. And when he finds someone, when he falls for someone, everyone and everything pales in comparison.
His hands slide down the slope of her shoulders, drift along her sides and over her hips. He unbuttons her shorts and pushes the fabric away, denim sliding down her thighs to pool on the floor, leaving her in black, cotton underwear. He rubs his thumbs along the waist, listens to her heart skip a beat, and then sweeps his hands up along her stomach and her scar and her ribs, settling them just beneath the swell of her breasts.
She covers his hands with her own, fingers overlapping, and leans forward, towing them a few more steps toward the bed. When her knees brush the edge, she stops, and turns. His hands fall aside as she grabs up the end of his shirt, tugs on it enough that he's brought forward, their hips bumping. And then she's lifting it up and over his head, letting it fall to the floor behind him. Her palms flatten against his chest and drag down his body, taking their time, fingers spread wide.
She looks up at him as she unbuttons his jeans, and he stares back. Moonlight is filtering in through the open curtains, casting her in a cool blue glow. He's reminded of The Other Side, life behind them and death ahead.
A precipice.
He leans down and kisses her then. And he means it. He really, really means it.
( They're been trapped in an empty 1994 for two months.
Damon is ninety percent sure that he has perfected the art of pancakes.
Bonnie is a hundred percent sure she's gained five pounds.
"That's just the price you pay for a foodgasm." Damon lounges in a chair in the living room, one leg hanging over the upholstered arm, the picture of lazy.
She rolls her eyes. "You need to work on your technique before it gets anywhere near—"
"You eat them, don't you?"
"Yes, Damon, because every morning, I wake up, I come downstairs, and here you are, putting a plate in front of me. It'd be rude—"
"Admit it… you like it." He grins at her and wiggles his eyebrows. "The fangs, especially."
"What I like is not having to cook in the morning… And the fresh orange juice… Plus, your coffee isn't half bad."
Damon's smile widens. "And my company."
Her nose wrinkles cutely. "No comment."
He laughs, deep from his chest, and stacks his hands on his stomach as he stares up at her. "Domesticity doesn't look half-bad on you, Bon-Bon."
She rolls her eyes and turns on her heel to leave. "I'm not the one with a 'Kiss the Cook' apron."
"An offer you still haven't taken me up on…" he calls after her. Left alone, he shrugs. "Your loss." )
They don't talk in the morning, and Damon's not sure what that means. He's not sure what she's thinking or what she feels. He knows she makes waffles and bacon and coffee for breakfast. That she talks about everything except the fact that they'd spent the night wrapped around each other. She fishes a bag of blood out of the freezer for him, adds it to his coffee like she does her cream, and passes it over to him with a smile.
Damon's not good at the 'what are we' conversation. He feels off-kilter. He was expecting her to bring it up. Her to be the one in need of a label and some boundaries. But she isn't. And he's not sure if that's good or bad. He is sure that she doesn't protest when he lifts her up onto the kitchen counter, pulls her underwear down her legs and eats her out. She willingly falls to her knees in the shower later and takes him into her mouth. She happily climbs into his lap in the car, when they're halfway to the boarding house, and just laughs when he has to pull the car over abruptly as she sinks down on him. This is a Bonnie that's free and open and completely in control of her sexuality. It's beautiful.
Which is why he's a little afraid to rock the boat. Enough that he doesn't say anything for the three months that follow. Three months of him showing up to make dinner without calling ahead. It becomes such a norm that on the few nights he doesn't, she texts to ask him where he is, she's hungry. As far as Damon's concerned, they're dating. He's not holding her hand in front of their Misfit Toy Squad of a friend's group, but he figures that's just one of those unsaid boundaries.
But it's a thing. It's a real thing.
It's not even all sex. Sometimes he comes over just to hold her, to listen to her heartbeat while they linger in that space right before sleep. On the few days they don't have some strange, supernatural issue to deal with, they'll curl up together on her couch and watch whatever she's got stored up on her DVR. When she's on her period, he'll run her hot baths and bring her chocolate and only make fun of her a little when she cries at any commercial or YouTube video that's even mildly sentimental.
He's not a complete idiot. He can tell there's a wall erected here. Bonnie is keeping something back, some part of her that she's not willing to dedicate to whatever it is they're doing. He knows his history with women is patchy, at best. He's loved two women before her and they have the same face. Both relationships weren't exactly made of puppies and rainbows. But there was something there. Something about each of them that fed into a part of him (maybe his daddy issues, or his mommy issues, or his many other issues) and latched on tight.
But he's let go.
He's letting go.
( When Damon gets back from the prison world, he feels like he's stuck on a see-saw of delirious relief and gut-wrenching guilt. He has his brother back. There are people everywhere. He's no longer stuck in the void that 1994 offered. In the same breath, however, he can't stop thinking of Bonnie. Is she dead, alive, running for her life? What is Kai doing to her? What is the emptiness doing to her? Because he knows it too well. He knows what it's like to spend days or weeks with nothing and no one. Bonnie was the only thing that kept him sane over there. Damon might complain that he likes his space, but he's a social creature when it suits him. If it wasn't for her, he's not sure how long he would have lasted. If at all.
And that doesn't even touch on how guilty he feels that he's back and she isn't. What kind of cosmic joke is that? Bonnie, who deserved a hell of a lot better than she's ever gotten, is once again the one that lays her life down for another's. He should be taking notes on this whole empathy and sacrifice thing. Only not, because he admires her courage and her strength, but there needs to be a line between helping people and constantly dying for them.
He's drunk. He'd like to blame that on the glaring fact that Elena doesn't remember him, nor does she want to, but the fact is, Damon sucks at coping. On every level. So, there's the guilt thing with Bonnie, the abject disappointment over Elena, and the resentment he feels toward any number of people for this whole situation to begin with. Himself, for not getting Bonnie out. For making her the Anchor in the first place. For putting her in a position where she had to die and become the anchor. For everything that happened with Elena that made her so dependant on their relationship that his death meant she was unable to cope. That his brother, so distraught over his death, pulled up roots and took off, putting distance and pain between him and the only best friend he had left. For Liz, one of the few friends he has, dying of cancer, with no way to save her. He's a walking cure for just about everything that ails a person. His blood has the ability to give people a chance at forever, and he can't save one small town Sheriff from biting the big one.
It's a clusterfuck. Of epic proportions.
So, he drinks.
He drowns himself in a bottle of bourbon and he makes shitty, terrible, misshapen pancakes while he does it.
Caroline walks into the kitchen, her nose screwed up with distaste. "Gross. What are you even making?"
He looks up, a bottle in one hand and a spatula in the other. "Nothing. Don't you have your own place?"
She rolls her eyes. "Stefan called. He told my mom she could borrow some books. I guess she's been reading more, since she's effectively house-ridden. Anyway, he's not here, and I don't know where he put them. And then I smelled the fire hazard coming out of here, so…"
"Have you tried looking in the library?" He flips a pancake and scowls when it lands awkwardly, half of it folded under.
"Most of Stefan's books are first editions. I can't imagine him leaving them where others could find them. I just…" She shifts awkwardly. "I don't want to go in his room when he's not here."
"Why? Nobody's up there. Worried you're going to find Ivy 2.0 taking a nap?"
She scowls at him. "You're a dick."
"Yes. Thank you for noticing." He scrapes at the grill, trying to flatten the pancake out again.
"Oh my God…" Caroline mutters as she circles around the island and hip-checks him out of the way. "Should you even be doing this when you're so drunk?"
"I'm perfectly capable of making pancakes. I am an expert pancake maker." He lifts a finger off the neck of the bourbon bottle to point at her. "These are Bennett approved flapjacks."
"Yeah, somehow I doubt that." Caroline gets the misshapen pancake off the grill, tosses it pointedly into the garbage, and then grabs up the batter. "This is kind of thick. What kind of ratio did you use of—?"
Damon reaches past her and grabs the batter, putting it down out of her reach. "Never mind. I don't need cooking lessons. All I wanted was to make a few pancakes and—"
"And what? Drown out your grief?" She stares up at him, her brow furrowed. "That's it, right? You were going to eat some soggy, gross, probably burnt pancakes, raise your bourbon in cheers to Bonnie, and then pass out on a plate of syrup."
He glares down at her. "So what if I was?"
Caroline frowns. She takes a deep breath, squints at him a moment, and then sighs. "All right, listen. I don't know what happened over there. I don't know why Bonnie is suddenly so important to you, and I don't think I want to know. But… I've gotten pretty good at mourning lately. I know what it feels like to bury your best friend. Not once, but twice. And I'm preparing to do the same to my mother. So, just… Hear me, when I say this." She stares at him searchingly. "Drinking yourself into a coma is doing nothing for anyone. You're not the only one hurting or missing her. Put the bottle away and do something constructive. Because throwing yourself a pity party is doing exactly nothing for you." She steps back then, turns on her heel, and starts for the door.
Damon watches her go out of the corner of his eye. Once the kitchen door swings closed, he turns away. Her words sink in, past the misery and the bourbon, and he finds himself turning the grill off and dumping the leftover batter out. He and Caroline might not be what anyone would call 'friends,' but she made a good point, and he was going to act on it.
He leaves the bourbon behind on the counter and walks out into the hall. He's on his way to the front door when Caroline spots him.
"Where are you going?"
He glances at her, and flashes a smirk. "I'm taking your advice, Barbie. I'm gonna do something constructive."
Caroline's eyes narrow. "Okay… Which means?"
His expression shifts. "I'm gonna get her back.
She swallows then. "We don't even know if she's alive."
"Doesn't matter. I'm not leaving her over there."
"If this is about Elena—"
"This is about Bonnie." He turns, grabs for the door and swings it open. "Only Bonnie." )
It's late. Too late for phone calls. But Damon's been through enough of these to know that if someone's calling at this hour, it's only bad news.
He's at Bonnie's. He's taken to spending more nights at her house, in her bed, than he has his own. When he picks up the phone, he barely gets out a grunted 'what?' before Elena's frantic voice is telling him something happened. That Kai—Kai—was there. He'd attacked her and she was on her way to the boarding house now.
Half-asleep, Damon is stuck on the part where she said Kai— the same asshole that he'd decapitated a week before Bonnie came back from the prison world— was somehow alive and kicking.
If he's being honest, Damon takes off for two reasons.
The first is that the instinct to save Elena is something that's so familiar to him, he doesn't question it. It's not right or fair and he'll have to work on it, but he's not thinking about that in the moment. He might not be in love with her, but he does care about her. She was a significant person in his life, and he's still used to putting her first.
The second reason is he's hoping Elena's wrong. Because if Kai really is back, a storm of problems is right at his heels. The last thing Damon wants or needs is a pissed off Bonnie Bennett going off half-cocked on a vengeance kick. He knows Kai hurt her, damaged her in ways she's still working through, and she deserves justice for that. But there's no way in hell he wants her anywhere near that conniving little psychopath. If it was up to him, he'd put her in a car, hand the keys to Caroline, and tell her to take Bonnie as far away as she can get until the whole thing is resolved.
That isn't what happens.
When he gets to the boarding house, Elena is fine. She's gnawing on her lip, hugging her arms around herself, and looking no worse for wear.
"What the hell happened?" he demands, stalking into the parlor.
"Where were you?" Elena up from the couch to face him. "Why didn't you tell me you weren't at the boarding house?"
Stefan's brows arch, but he says nothing, merely pouring himself and Damon a glass of bourbon.
"You first. What the hell is this about Kai?" His face screws up. "Kai is dead."
Elena shakes her head. She sinks back to the couch and runs a hand through her long hair. "He isn't. I saw him. He was taunting me. Like it was some kind of game."
Caroline sits forward, dressed in Stefan's bathrobe, perched next to Elena. "Are you sure it was Kai? Maybe it was just someone that looked like him. Or, you know, maybe you've just been really stressed and—"
"I know what I saw!" Elena looks between all three of them. "He was showing off, trying to prove a point or… I don't know. But I know it was him." She stares up at Damon. "You have to believe me. I know what I saw."
Damon blows out an agitated sigh and downs his glass of bourbon.
"Where was this?" Stefan asks. He's sitting in an arm chair across from them, looking at Elena with that patient, gentle face of his.
"Not far from my apartment. There was this thing happening at Mystic Grill. An after-hours party." She shakes her head. "I just needed to blow off some steam. Finals are coming up and I've been struggling a little."
"Makes sense," Caroline says comfortingly.
Impatient, Damon waves a hand. "Get to the point."
Elena frowns at him. "I needed to decompress. I figured the party would help. I'd have a few drinks, talk to some people, forget about school for a while. So, I went, and I was having fun, everything was going great. I recognized a few people from my classes and…" She laughs. "We played beer pong. Honestly, I felt more like myself than I have in a while. There was no vampire stuff, no magical hiccups, nothing. I was just a normal college student doing normal college things…"
Damon has taken to pacing from one end of the room to the other.
Elena shrugs. "Anyway, it was getting late, so I thought I'd head home. I texted Matt; I figured the rest of you were sleeping. He was on patrol, but he said he could swing by, make sure I got home safe." She smiles gently. "I told him it was fine, I wanted to walk. It was a nice night out. I liked the fresh air."
Caroline smiles encouraging and pats Elena's arm. "Then what?"
"Then… Then, the next thing I know, Kai is standing in the middle of the street. There's nobody else around. It's just… It's empty. And at first… I don't know. I thought maybe I'd had too much to drink or I was just imaging it. Stress, you know? But then he starts whistling. It was so creepy." She looks between Caroline and Stefan, her shoulders bunched up. "I was going to run. Why tempt fate? But then the garbage bin next to me just exploded. Literally, it just burst into flames. And then there was another explosion across the street. And it was just… It was like he was playing target practice. He was making finger-gun motions and winking and I got out of there. I'm fine, really. But I'm telling you… He was sending a message."
The room goes quiet for a moment, tension filling every corner, and then Damon snaps. "It was dark. It could've been anyone."
Elena rolls her eyes. "It was Kai."
"I took his head off," he emphasizes.
He can remember, in stunning clarity, how good it felt to separate Kai's smarmy head from his shoulders. It had been building up from the first moment they met. Kai was crazy, sure, but he was also dangerous. A constant threat. And, if Damon's being honest, he held a grudge against him for getting out, getting back, while Bonnie was still trapped in 1994. Maybe there was a little transference happening there, since he resented himself for getting out, too. But at least he'd tried to get Bonnie back. Kai just seemed to find the whole thing amusing. So, sure, killing him was a gift to the rest of the world. But, more than anything, it was for Bonnie. When she came back from the prison world and he learned the extent of the trauma she'd suffered at Kai's hands, he sometimes regretted he didn't make Kai's death longer and more painful. But it was done. It was over with.
"There's no damn way he survived that," he grits out through clenched teeth, his eyes wide and angry. "I killed him. Fair and square. You can't grow back a head."
"I don't know how, I just know what I saw," Elena insists.
"You were drinking, you said it yourself."
"I'm a vampire, Damon. I burned off whatever buzz I had. I didn't just dream it up. If you don't believe me, go into town. The garbage bin is probably still on fire!"
Damon's mouth twists up.
"It's not that we don't believe you," Stefan says, ever the mediator. "It's just difficult to see how Kai could be back. I was there when Damon killed him. I'm not saying resurrection is impossible. We've all seen it happen. Bonnie is a prime example—"
"Yeah, except Bonnie had people that helped bring her back!" Damon exclaims. "If there was a loophole, I'd know about it!"
"How do we know Kai didn't have someone bring him back?" Caroline wonders, looking between them. "He has family. He was part of the Gemini coven. I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but they could have killed him in 1994, instead, they sent him to a prison world… Why?"
"What idiot would bring him back to life?" Damon throws his hands up.
"I don't know." Elena shakes her head. "But I know he is."
Damon is a thousand percent over the entire Kai issue. Which is only part of why he's relieved when Bonnie shows up at the boarding house and quickly gets things moving. He's not entirely willing to believe Kai is back, but better safe than sorry. With Bonnie locking the boarding house up tight, they're safe for the night. They can get down to brass tacks tomorrow.
Caroline frowns in the direction Bonnie has gone in before turning to Elena. Her face softens and she reaches out, squeezing Elena's shoulder before she stands from the couch. "I'll make up a guest room for you," she offers.
Damon snorts. "Glad to see you're making yourself at home."
Caroline's eyes narrow at him. "Well, someone has to, seeing as you're hardly around anymore. Remind me again, when was the last time you spent the night here…?"
"Why?" He grins darkly. "Miss me?"
Caroline scoffs. "Hardly."
Before Damon can say anymore, Stefan casts him a quelling look, and then crosses the room, taking Caroline's hand and drawing her toward the stairs.
Damon rolls his eyes, and returns to the drink cart to refill his glass. He downs that one quick and refills it for a third time. He taps his finger against the glass, letting his ring knock against it with a loud clink. He doesn't like this antsy feeling. Waiting for Kai, or whoever, to spring up and attack them.
"I was surprised… when I got here and you weren't anywhere to be found."
Pausing, Damon looks back over his shoulder. Elena's standing now, her arms hugged around her waist. He eyes her quickly, and then hums. Stepping back from the cart, he turns to face her properly.
"So, what Caroline said, about you not staying here as much…"
Damon directs his gaze to his glass. "Wouldn't want to interrupt her and Stefan's little love nest."
"Oh. Are they…?" Elena cuts herself off, shakes her head, and sighs. "Never mind. Look, I— I've been meaning to talk to you. It feels like ever since you got back, we've been… I don't know. Getting our wires crossed or something."
"Nothing to get crossed." He looks up at her. "You're living your life, Elena. You moved on."
"It's not really that simple, is it?" Her brow furrows. "Just 'I get it, no hard feelings'? Like none of it mattered?"
His lips flatten together. "It mattered."
"Wow. Past-tense." Her brows arch. "I guess that's my answer."
"Aren't you dating that Leo guy…?" He shakes his head. "The male nurse or whatever."
"He's pre-med. He wants to be a doctor, too," she corrects. "And yeah. Yes. We've been dating. Tentatively. It's not… It isn't set in stone."
He stares at her. "What is this?"
She frowns. "What do you mean?"
"This. You. Are you… You quizzing me? Trying to find out what I want? What are you doing?"
She looks startled. "I'm asking about your life. Am I not allowed to do that?"
"That depends."
"On?"
"Your intentions." He stares at her searchingly. "When I came back, you didn't remember me. You didn't want me. As far as you were concerned, I was a monster. One you were happy to bury."
"That was before."
"Yeah, I get it. Without any of the good memories, the idea of loving me must've been crazy to you. All the things I'd done, the people I'd hurt. Frankly, I'm surprised you gave me a chance even with the good memories…"
"I forgave you."
"Yeah," he scoffs. "You did. Even the stuff you shouldn't have. The stuff that had nothing to do with you. The stuff I didn't forgive myself for."
Her brow furrows. "Where is this coming from…?"
Damon licks his lips and eyes her thoughtfully. "When you finally decided you wanted your memories back, what did I tell you?"
Elena stares at him a beat, and then shakes her head slowly.
"I said you should leave it alone." He waves his hand, sloshing his drink around in his glass. "The me I was with you, the you I made you into, it wasn't right."
Her chin raises then, defensive. "You didn't force me into someone else."
"No, but being with me, loving me, it… It affected you. It pulled back the curtains and revealed parts of you that it shouldn't have."
Elena swallows tightly. "What does that mean?"
"It means you're better off without me. It means we're toxic, both of us, for each other."
Tears quickly collect and she hugs her arms around herself a little tighter. "But I remember. I remember now. All of it."
"I know. So do I." He sighs, his expression softening. "The good times were good. And I'm not gonna lie, you got me through a part of my life I probably wouldn't've survived. Everything with Katherine, when my switch was flipped, I wasn't a good person. I was… chaotic. An asshole. And I hardly deserved your friendship, let alone anything more than that."
She nods, squeezing her eyes closed when a few tears dribble out.
Damon reaches for her, a hand steady on her shoulder. "I don't know Liam. I don't know if he's any better for you. But I do know that you deserve someone good. Someone that makes you better, not worse."
She bites her lip as her mouth trembles, and then nods, a few more tears slipping out. "This is h-hard," she chokes out. "I wasn't… I wasn't expecting…"
He nods. "You know if you ever need me…"
"Yeah." She reaches up and scrubs her hands over her face before offering up a stilted, forced smile. "I think I'm gonna get some sleep. It's, uh, it's been a long day."
"Sure."
She lingers a moment longer, like she's hoping something will change. But then she turns, and leaves, and she doesn't look back.
Damon breathes out a heavy sigh, and then dips his drink back. It burns on the way down. Instead of refilling it, he leaves the empty glass on the cart. He wanders over to the armchair and slumps down into it, staring at the fire. It's a little while before Stefan joins him, taking a seat in a chair across from him.
"So?"
Damon glances at him. "So."
"Kai is back."
"Yeah." He lets out a long, heavy sigh. "Apparently."
"What's the plan then?"
Damon frowns, and turns to look at him. "Plan?"
"The last time you killed Kai, you thought Bonnie was gone for good. There was no getting her back. So, you poured yourself into revenge, and you got it."
"I thought I did." He purses his lips. "I don't get it. How does he come back from that? What's the point in killing someone if they aren't going to stay dead?"
"I imagine more than a few of our enemies have said the same of us."
Damon sighs, and slumps down into his chair. "She's not going to leave it alone."
"Who? Elena?"
"Bonnie." He stares at the flickering fire. "What Kai did to her… He terrorized her. Stabbed her and left her for dead." He shakes his head. "She was on the verge of killing herself, fed up with hoping any of us were coming."
"I'm not making excuses for him. He's clearly a sociopath. But is this thing, this hatred you have for him, about him or you?"
Damon scowls. "Excuse me?"
"You got out. You came home, and you couldn't get to her. You couldn't bring her back… I know you said you killed Kai for her, but maybe some of it was because of your guilt."
"Thanks, Dr. Stefan, these counseling sessions are really helpful. Seriously, A+ work you're doing here."
Stefan sighs, exasperated. "We both know your relationship with Bonnie has been rocky. It took you a long time to find common ground. And when you did, you were forced to abandon her with someone you were sure would kill her… That kind of thing has an effect."
"Okay. And?"
"Have you told her?"
Damon raises an eyebrow. "Told her what?"
"That you're sorry. That the thought of losing her, of leaving her behind, hurt you. That if you could do it over, you would've found a way to get you both out. That she matters to you."
He scoffs, sitting up a little taller then. "She knows I care."
"Does she?"
He glares, his expression sharp and offended. "Of course she does."
"Sex and expressing sincere feelings for someone are two different things," Stefan tells him calmly. Knowingly.
Damon blinks, a little dumbfounded.
A faint smile upturns the corners of Stefan's mouth. "You thought I didn't know?"
"I thought you were too distracted by your Caroline bubble."
He hums, eyeing Damon curiously. "You never answered my question."
Damon lets out an exasperated sigh. "Bonnie knows I care about her."
"Because you've done such a good job of expressing it."
His eyes narrow. "What's the supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. Just… Elena calls and you come running. Presumably from Bonnie's."
"And?"
"Without Bonnie."
He frowns.
"And now, knowing full well that Kai is on the loose, you're here, safe and sound. While Bonnie—"
Damon sat up abruptly, his eyes wide.
He couldn't hear her heartbeat. Nowhere in the house was that familiar, steady—
"Where is she?"
Stefan stares at him a beat, thoughtful. Before Damon can snap at him, he answers, "She didn't want to stay. She said she'd be fine."
"You let her leave?" Panic and worry bubbles in his chest.
"I have no control over what Bonnie does or doesn't do. She's fully capable of making her own choices."
"Are you crazy?" Damon pushes up from the chair. "Bonnie's the most sacrificial person I've ever met. If she thinks Kai is out there—"
"She'll what? Take him on, one on one?" Stefan shakes his head. "She doesn't even know where he is."
"She'll find him." With an angry groan, he stalks toward the front door.
"Where are you going?"
"To find her… and drag her stubborn ass back here."
Stefan frowns. "Damon, you need to respect her choices. If Bonnie—"
He whirls around to face his brother, who's following at his heels. "You were right. I didn't tell her how much I care. Because when it comes to feelings, I'm a constipated idiot. And the last thing I want right now is to tell her that I love her just to hear her say she loves me too, but not like that. Because let's face it, my record with romance isn't exactly encouragingly. And Bonnie has every reason not to take a chance on me. All I've done, from the moment I walked into her life, is ruin everything and everyone she cares about. So, I take what I can get until she chooses to move on."
Stefan takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. The look that crosses his face is all too pitying, and Damon shakes his head and walks away from it.
He has a witch to find.
( Damon is eighteen when his mother dies. If he's honest, he's not sure how he feels. Grief that he's lost her, that the only parent he has left is Giuseppe. Relief that she isn't suffering, that at least one of them is out from under Giuseppe's thumb. Resentment that it's her and not himself. Anger, too, that he's been left behind. It's not her fault that she's died, but that doesn't keep him from wanting to blame her somehow. As years pass and he lingers in the house, more to keep an eye on Stefan than anything, he can't help but wonder if things would be different if she were still alive. On his more enlightened days, he knows they wouldn't. She was just as much a victim as the rest of them.
Still, the loss of his mother highlights a gaping hole in him. With only an angry and disappointed father to play parent, it seems his worst traits are all that are -noticed or highlighted. Where once he had a mother who would tell him he was loved and cared for, even if she couldn't stop in front of him and stop the abuse his father hurled, at least her words kept him warm. Left to only Giuseppe's devices, he craves the opposite. Craves love and adoration, a calm and gentle hand, a supportive voice where there has been none.
Katherine steps into his life when he is at his lowest. The war has left him torn and rattled. He was not made for battle and the sight of so much death turns his stomach. People he once talked to, laughed with, line the ground, grey and lifeless. Their organs trail from them like confetti. Bones and blood spill out of split skin, like a dolls that have burst at the seams. All he wants to do is run and hide, and so he does. He defects, runs home, and buries his shame and trauma in a woman that twists him up and pulls at his tangled strings. He tells himself it's okay that she wants his brother, too, so long as she wants him, loves him, needs him.
Katherine makes promises of strength and power, of forever, and the possibilities balloon inside him. All his life, he's been a victim to his father's wrath, his anger, but if he turns, he will be the predator, and his father the prey. If he turns, he will never have to fear death. And Katherine—beautiful, perfect, cunning, Katherine—she too will live forever. Not like his mother. Not like all the other hapless women out there, walking toward an end date. It seems a perfect solution.
Until it isn't.
He loses Katherine and every notion of perfect.
He turns at Stefan's insistence and the world he knows tumbles down a rabbit hole he will never quite crawl out of.
His brother is a Ripper, and Damon… He isn't sure what he is.
Perhaps the only apt description is 'lost.'
He's not sure he's ever really found. )
Damon spends the rest of his night looking for Bonnie. He drives around town searching for any signs of an impending apocalypse, because with his luck (not to mention Bonnie's), she's probably gotten herself locked into an epic fight with Kai. Somehow, crisis is averted for the evening. All he finds is a burned-out garbage bin, basically confirming Elena's confrontation with Kai.
Damon is tired, worried, and not a little pissed when he finally thinks to check Sheila's house and finds her car parked out front.
He's not going to lie. After the night he's had, his oh-so-enlightening conversation with Stefan, and the very obvious fact that Bonnie is distancing herself from him, he's not in the best mood. Which is why, when she pushes to stay exactly where she is, making it clear she'll see him at noon and no earlier, he's ready to call it a day. He wants to crawl into bed, get a few hours of sleep, and then reconvene the Scooby Gang for a 'how are we going to set Kai on fire' war counsel.
He's also clearly not in his right mind. Because he should have known she was going to give them all the slip. Maybe he's just gotten used to playing partner and trusting that she'll turn to him when she needs help. Maybe he put too much stock in his own importance when it comes to taking on the Big Bads that come calling. Or maybe he wants so desperately to believe that she wouldn't put herself at risk like that again that he doesn't see the warning signs.
But later, when he's had a chance to really reflect on it, he'll realize how stupid he was to walk away believing somehow, things would just turn out right.
They deserve that, don't they?
They deserve a break from all this shit.
But when have they ever really gotten what they deserved?
( He finds her standing in the doorway to her father's room, unwilling to go in, but clearly thinking of him. He imagines she has a lot of 'what ifs.' What if her mom hadn't left? What if her dad spent more time with her? What if her Grams hadn't died? Would she be happier? Would her parents still be there? What kind of person would they have shaped her into? One that didn't run around with vampires and throw herself onto whatever grenade wanders their way? Or maybe this was just who she was. Maybe, at Bonnie's core, she is who she is, and nothing and no one can change it.
"Hey."
She startles. Right before she pastes a smile on, he can see it. That deafening loss that still chokes her when she lets it in.
"Hey. I, uh…" She shakes her head and swallows tightly, skimming a hand over her cheek. "I didn't know you were coming over."
"Yeah, well, I take an invite as an open-door policy." He searches her face for a moment and then holds a hand out. "C'mon. I'm thinking Italian."
"You're always thinking Italian." She rolls her eyes affectionately and crosses the space between them, folding her hand into his.
"That's because I have good taste." He taps the end of her nose and smiles as she scrunches it up. "All right, Bonnie Flay—"
She snorts.
"—where do you wanna go?"
"You're going to let me choose?" Her brows hike. "You? Who judges every place based on how expensive the cheapest wine on the menu is?"
He feigns offense. "Are you calling me a snob?"
"Absolutely."
Laughing under his breath, he nods, and directs them to the stairs, where he waves her forward to walk ahead of him. "All right. Point taken. But I promise, you pick the place and I'll hardly complain."
"Hardly?"
"Powdered sauce, Bonnie. I won't do it."
"Uh-huh. Anyway, I was thinking of that place we went to last month, with the piano?"
"Oh, I see… You just want to dance."
Bonnie grins at him over her shoulder, and he's relieved to see it's genuine, and the sadness of earlier has mostly faded. "I'm not opposed to it…"
"Fine. But I can't be held responsible for my smooth moves."
Snorting, she pulls the door open and crosses the porch. "Just don't step on my toes, Derek Hough."
He frowns. "Who the hell is that?"
"Dancing with the Stars!"
"You know I fall asleep whenever that comes on."
"I know you pretend to be asleep." She smirks. "We both know you like it."
Damon stares at her a beat and then huffs. "Fine. You couldn't at least go with Val or Maksim?"
Bonnie laughs. "I'll re-evaluate after dinner."
When they reach the car, he pulls her door open for her. "That's all I ask." )
Tyler isn't a hero. Or that's not what he thinks of himself as. He's not like Matt, who dons a badge and a gun and walks the streets of Mystic Falls, completely and totally aware that he is as human as they come. He's not like Stefan, who, more often than not, puts himself between danger and its victim. And he's really not like Bonnie, who jumps headfirst into the thick of things, sacrificing herself time and time again.
Tyler is selfish. He knows this. He's grown up privileged in a lot of ways. He's also grown up with an asshole for a father, who knocked him around more than praised him. But he loved his dad. Even when his father did nothing to deserve it, he was still, well, his dad. Before shit went sideways and the town became some kind of weird beacon for everything wrong, Tyler's life was okay. Minus the anger issues and his dad's temper. It was survivable… ish. He hid a lot of things. Buried his pain in arrogance and the flash of a smirk. Everybody's got daddy issues, right? Anyway. He was tough. He got through it. Some days he even misses his old man.
The thing is, Tyler learned early that it was easier, even smarter, to look out for yourself first. Because nobody else was going to. Not his dad, not his mom, not even his friends. Not always. Sometimes they can't, and sometime they won't. The point is, there are times when you have to look at one cataclysmically fucked up situation and just say, 'Nope. I'm out.' And he has. He's looked at the screwed up shit that Damon and Stefan have dragged them all into and he's thrown his hands up and just walked away. Not his problem. But then there are other times. When he stays and he fights and he stands in front of someone he loves so they won't take the hit. Because he's stronger, he can take it better.
(he can take it, he can take it)
Tyler loves Liv. Maybe it's some fledgling thing that won't go anywhere, or maybe this is that epic love that changes his life. He's not sure. What he does know is that when Luke goes missing and Jo starts calling to warn them that Kai's back, he feels that fear trickle down his back. That warning that he should go, run, get as far as he can. And he wants to. He wants to take Liv and put Mystic Falls in the rear view. But they need to get Luke first.
There's a part of him that doesn't care. That doesn't want to go back for Luke, because what are the chances Luke would go back for him? He knows that's just that selfish part of his brain talking again. The part that's kept him alive all these years. But he looks at Liv, crying and desperate and so damn worried for her brother, and suddenly everything else takes a backseat.
Tyler's an only child. He's never had a brother, older or younger, to teach him things or learn from him. The closest he's come is Matt and Mason. He'd lay his life down for either one of them, any day of the week, and he knows they would do the same for him. Or would have, if Mason was still alive.
(the bitter taste of betrayal stings his mouth)
That's half the reason he's relieved when Bonnie shows up. Bonnie's always got a plan, usually at her own expense. She's the first to fight and the last to lay down arms.
So, Bonnie's got a plan, hope blooms in Liv's eyes, and Tyler decides hell, maybe being a hero isn't the worst thing.
His heroics are short-lived. They get Luke up off the floor of some burned out house that hasn't seen life in a good decade. They're not even to the SUV when there's a shift in the wind. A pressure that knocks a trembling sense of fear down his spine. Tyler's known fear. Too much of it, frankly. When his dad's booming voice used to echo through the house, he'd find himself hiding in his closet or under the bed. Until he got older, and angrier, and tired of hiding. There are other things, other people, other moments where he's known real fear. But nothing compares to seeing the rage in his father's eyes, the spittle flying from his lips, and wondering if that was going to be him one day.
Kai is not Tyler's father. But danger wafts from him like a blaring, red sign.
Bonnie waves them off. "Go."
All Tyler hears is—
I can take this.
He's known Bonnie since he was a kid. She's always been different. A little because she stuck out, sitting in a sea of white, and a lot because she's just one of those people. With that smile and inherent kindness, how couldn't she? But nice people get stepped on. Pushed out of the way. Trampled in the search for freedom. He wishes he could say he's never turned his back and let the world drown her, but he has. He did. He is.
They get Luke into the back of the SUV and then he's jumping in the driver's seat. It says a lot, he thinks, that Kai hardly blinks. His focus is on Bonnie, like he's known this was coming. She was coming.
"We should go back," he says, even as he shifts nervously in his seat, eyes darting from the road ahead to the rear-view mirror.
"We can't." Liv looks from him to Luke, her expression sad but resolved. "He'll kill us."
Tyler feels his heart pound in his chest.
He isn't a werewolf anymore. He doesn't have the added strength or speed or the ability to heal. He's human. As human as Matt. Only Matt wouldn't have run. He wouldn't have left Bonnie behind. Because—
Because he's Matt.
And Tyler is Tyler.
He isn't a hero.
He isn't.
(I'm not)
He digs his phone out from his jeans, muttering 'fuck, fuck, fuck' under his breath as he goes.
His first instinct is to call Matt.
Matt who has a veritable armoury in the back of his truck. Matt who would stand at Bonnie's side until the very last breath. Matt who would lay down his life if it meant keeping his friends and the town safe.
That's not who he calls.
Because Matt, much as he wants to help, is still too human. Too vulnerable. Too alive.
And if Tyler's being honest, he knows that calling Matt means burying Matt, which he isn't ready to do.
Damon picks up on the second ring. "Don't tell me, Boy Witch has wandered home, safe and sound."
"No. But we found him. You were right, Kai's been sucking his powers dry. He's unconscious, but alive."
"And you called because I obviously wanted an update…"
"No. I'm calling because we didn't find him on our own." Tyler grinds his teeth. Interacting with Damon, trusting Damon, isn't easy, "Bonnie showed up, said she knew a way to track him down and—"
"Where is she?" Damon's voice loses its snarky humor and turns icy.
Tyler squeezes the steering wheel a little too tight. "Is Caroline with you?"
"What? Try to focus here, Kibbles n' Bits. Where the hell is Bonnie?"
"I'm getting to it. Is Caroline there or not?"
Damon sighs and then—
"Hey! What the hell?" Caroline shouts.
Stefan's irritated voice follows, "Jesus, Damon, you can't just barge in here—"
"Yeah, yeah, you're sleeping together. Nobody cares," Damon dismisses. "All right, Lockwood, you're on speaker. Caroline's here. Now get to the point."
"Care, you remember the old housing complex, the one we had that big party at when we were, I don't know, fifteen, sixteen years old. The one—"
"My mom broke up," she interrupts. "It's on the edge of town. There's an off-road just past the bridge that'll take you up to it. What about it?"
"Kai was keeping Luke there, in one of the houses. We got Luke out. But Kai showed up and Bonnie—"
"She stayed." Damon's voice hardens, before he curses, and a crashing noise follows.
Tyler rolls his eyes to the ceiling of the SUV. "You still there?"
"Get dressed," Damon grits out, presumably to Caroline. To Tyler he says, "How far are you from her?"
Shame bubbles up in his stomach. "We're in town. Headed to the highway."
"How long has it been?"
Tyler glances at the clock on his dash. "Not long. A few minutes."
Damon sighs. "All right. I'll take care of it."
Before Tyler can say anymore, the phone disconnects, and Damon leaves him to guess (and hope) that things will turn out right. He drops his phone in the cup holder and glares at the road ahead.
"She'd understand," Liv says, her voice quiet.
And Tyler wants to laugh. Because she's right. Bonnie would forgive him. She always does. She forgives all of them. For putting her second or third or last. For giving up on her. For walking away. For leaving her behind. For—
He swerves abruptly to the left, swings the SUV around, and comes to a crooked stop in the middle of the road.
"Tyler!?" Liv's gripping her seatbelt, looking at him from wide eyes.
"I can't do it again."
"Do what?"
"Run. Hide." He takes a deep breath and then pushes his foot down on the gas pedal. "When I was ten years old, my dad hit me so hard I had a black eye. I couldn't go to school for a week. They'd ask too many questions… Bonnie brought me my homework, every single day. She sat with me, walked me through every damn question, and yeah, when I was ten, that was the worst. The one good thing to come out of it was that I wouldn't have to do homework. But Bonnie, she was just trying to help."
Liv looks confused. "Okay…?"
"That's all Bonnie ever does. She helps. If it wasn't for her, Luke would still be stuck there, a prisoner to whatever fucked up plan Kai had. But instead, he's here. He's with us. He'll live. But Bonnie? She won't. Because we just left her with a homicidal psychopath."
"Kai is too strong. He's too powerful. Tyler, please. I know my brother. He killed half my family. He'll kill us, too. You can't—"
"I can't leave her behind. I won't."
Liv stares at him from tearful eyes. "He will kill all of us."
"If I'm going to die, it's going to be for the right thing." He stares at her searchingly. "She's my friend. She doesn't deserve this."
Liv slumps back against her seat, turning worried eyes out the window.
But Tyler doesn't have time to convince her. He's made up his mind, and that's all there is to it.
( Damon falls in love with Bonnie slowly.
It sneaks up on him.
That strange pressure on his heart that tells him she matters even when he doesn't want her to. That he'll miss her long after her human body is frail and grey and buried far away from where he is. When he's putting her in the trunk of his car after a blow-out with Klaus in Alaric's skin. When he searches the island for her because he can't just leave her behind. When Jeremy tells him she's gone. She's not coming back. Except, she's still there. A ghostly little visitor, lingering, waiting, hoping. When he's pushing Katherine, his first love, down to meet the unforgiving bite of Silas. When he's got a dying Amara in his arms and he just needs her to hold on a little while longer, just until he can get the witch back. When he's holding Bonnie's hand, staring at the great white light, and there isn't a million other people he'd rather be with. Actually, it feels like it was always headed there. Just them, at the end of the line. When the world is all but lost. When life has given up on him and them and everything else in the prison world. When she's the only voice he hears, the only heartbeat in an otherwise empty house. When she's just a little too tipsy on bourbon and she's singing along to his favorite 90's music. When she comes back, all thirteen times. When she sends him home and lays there in the dirt, bleeding and in pain. When she comes home. When she comes to him. Of all people. Of everyone in her life. After four months of being sick and tired of him... She finds him first.
The thing is, he doesn't deserve her. He knows this. If he was a better person, he'd walk away. But he's not good at that, at walking away from people who are better off without him around. Like Stefan and Elena and now Bonnie. He anchors himself to them, drags them down to his level, drowns them in his misery. He doesn't want that for her, not for Bonnie.
He's done too much. Taken too much.
And she deserves better.
She does. )
Damon skips his car and goes on foot. He cuts through the woods, panic and worry tumbling in his stomach. He's cursing Bonnie's name, and Kai's, and his own, as he runs. He should've expected this. He should've known. It's Bonnie. Of course she's going to try to take him on alone.
This is his fault. It's all his fault. He's the one that let her believe that she was the gun, Elena was the trigger, and he was the one that aimed her. When it comes to saving them, Bonnie is the first and last answer. Sacrifice might as well be her middle name, she's that familiar with it.
He wanted things to be different when they got back. He wanted to be better. But now he's starting to wonder if that's even possible. He's had over 170 years of this, of who he is, of his shit decision making, and so far, he hasn't changed all that much.
After four months in a prison world, some people might learn their lesson. Not him. Obviously. Because if he had, Bonnie wouldn't be throwing herself on a pyre of sacrifice as if it's just common sense. At some point, he must've failed to communicate just how important it is that she doesn't keep rating her life below all the rest. And yes, sure, some of that is on Bonnie. She has to work on her self-esteem or self-worth or something. But he can't say that he hasn't contributed to it. He has.
Was she a different person before he blew into town? Was she a stronger, more confident person? Or had everyone and everything else already shaped her this way? He knows about her home life. About Abby taking off and her dad not playing a big part. How Grams was her go-to parental figure for most of her life. And he's got nothing against Sheila Bennett. But Damon knows shitty parents and what kind of effect they can have on a kid, no matter what other good influences are around.
He loved his mom. Adored the ground she walked on. And when he lost her, his life turned on its head. Left to their father's machinations, he could do nothing but attempt to survive. So, he did. He wonders sometimes if his father's actions directly shaped the man that became so susceptible to Katherine's whim. He was so ready to do whatever she wanted, so long as she wouldn't deny him the one thing he desperately wanted.
(tell me you love me. and mean it. please, mean it)
Maybe at his core, Damon's never been a good person. But Bonnie has. And maybe having him in her life has been the worst possible thing for her. Chances are high that's true. Maybe the best thing he can do is walk away while she still has a chance to recover. But right now, that's not an option. Not when her life is at risk. After, when the dust has settled, maybe then.
But right now?
He's going to save his stubborn, sacrificial little witch.
( The first time he tells Katherine he loves her, she pats his cheek like a loyal dog. It might as well be an adoring caress, because he takes it as confirmation she feels the same.
The first time he says it to Elena, he compels her memory of it away. Was that selfish or selfless? He's not really sure.
Bonnie is sleeping on her stomach, naked, a rare night that she seems completely at peace and unbothered by nightmares. He lays on his side beside her, his head propped on his hand while he strokes swirling lines along her back. Her heartbeat is calm and steady.
Those three words keeping bubbling up inside. The pressure to just put them out there and hope she returns them is something he struggles with. He's an impulsive person by nature, but there are some things, some people, he knows he needs to be more patient with.
She's not ready.
Maybe he isn't either.
If he says them and she doesn't feel the same, what then?
Does he walk away? Does he stay? Tell her he can live with it if she's still in his life in some capacity? Does he hope she'll come around? See something, feel something, she hasn't yet.
Maybe it's better not to know. Maybe it's better to live in denial. To keep that hope alive.
Maybe.
He stares down at her back, alight in the soft glow of the moon. His fingers move along her back in loops, a cursive expression of what he can't say, won't say, but feels. Right down to his core. Someday, he'll get the courage. He'll look her in the eye and he'll say it and if he's lucky, if he's real damn lucky, she'll say it back.
For now, this will just have to do.
iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou )
By the time Tyler makes it back up to the complex, the sky is a violent shade of purple, black, and grey. Clouds roll over each other like waves crashing against jagged rocks. A downpour douses a field of struggling fire, while lightning strikes the ground at random.
Liv's fingers are digging into her legs, her hands clamped tight on her thighs. Her eyes are wide as she stares ahead, at the chaos growing in the distance. "Ty…"
"I'm going. You can stay here." He brings the SUV to a stop, planning to run the rest of the way. He's not sure what he's going to do, how he can possibly help, but he needs to do something.
"Wait!" Liv unbuckles her seatbelt with shaking hands.
He frowns. "You should stay here. It isn't safe."
She glares at him. "Which one of us is a witch with the actual ability to do something in this fight?"
He blinks. "Point taken."
She sighs, and turns in her seat to look back at Luke. Biting her lip, she shakes her head. "Kai is my brother, too. I forget that sometimes. It's just…" She turns back around and looks ahead to the field. "It's hard to think of him as family when he destroyed so much of ours."
Tyler nods. He wants to say that he gets it, but does he? Can he? His father was far from a saint, but the situation was different.
"I need to do this," Liv says. "For me. For my family. And for Bonnie, too. We might not always get along, but… She doesn't deserve this."
"Okay." Just as Tyler reaches for his door and Liv pushes her own open, a blindingly bright light shoots down from the sky and straight into Bonnie.
Wide eyed, he turns to Liv, who stares back at him, just as shocked.
Simultaneously, they jump out of the SUV and start up the hill.
The wind grows stronger the closer they get to the epicenter of it all. If Tyler squints, he can just make her out, somehow still standing. Kai lays at her feet, nearly eclipsed by the glow.
"What's she doing?" Tyler has to yell to be heard over the whistling wind.
Liv shakes her head, her hair whipping around her face violently. "I don't know!"
He pushes ahead, rain water pouring down from above, soaking him through to the bone. It's freezing. Even though the rain has put out a few fires, lightening keeps making new ones, leaving the air thick with smoke. It burns his throat with each inhale.
Liv cries out when the wind becomes so strong it starts pushing her back. Tyler grabs for her, catches her hand, and pulls her to his side. Their fingers fold together, painfully tight. She puts an arm up to try and shield her face and looks up at him, dripping wet and shivering. "What do we do?"
As if in answer, Damon appears from the woods, speeding forward to stand just a few feet from them.
( "I don't give a crap about Bonnie Bennett..."
He was lying then; to Shane and to himself.
Upon reflection, he cares a lot. Then and now.
Almost too much.
Bonnie told him once that he was desperate for commitment; that he devotes himself to those he loves. She was right. He doesn't know how to do half-measures.
She probably had no idea that one day all of that commitment and devotion would be for her.
But she's going to find out. )
Damon is out of breath, his expression twisted and stricken. Bonnie is in the middle of what might as well be a cyclone, wind and debris rushing all around her, sparks of fire or electricity woven throughout, like a magical barbed wire to keep anyone from getting to her. He grits his teeth and searches for a chink in the armor, a loophole, a break in it all that he can sneak through in a blink.
He's not sure how long he stares, contemplates, debates, before he hears—
"Damon!"
Stefan and Caroline are there, soaked through, struggling to get to him through the rushing wind, feet slipping on wet, soft earth.
"What is she doing?" Caroline yells, looking from him to Tyler and Liv.
Liv shakes her head and lifts her shoulders. "Best guess? Trying to destroy him."
Damon frowns. "By forced drowning?" The rain is turning the ground to sludge, and it shows no signs of letting up.
Liv purses her lips in a frown, and then pushes herself closer to him, so he can hear her better. Caroline follows, unwilling to be left out.
"Kai siphons power, right? So, what if she's trying to use it against him? What if the only way to kill him it to give him so much that he can't take it?" Liv tilts her head up to look at the light beam. "Coven leaders can channel the power of their coven, and vice versa. It makes everyone stronger. But Kai, he takes power. If Bonnie can channel her coven, every Bennett witch, alive or dead, she can overload Kai with more than he can survive. It's like… Like a merge. Only one survives."
Damon's cheek ticks with agitation.
Stefan frowns. "What if it's not enough? What if he survives? Then he's got the power of every Bennett witch."
Caroline looks worried. "He can take on the whole world."
"Screw that. If he survives, Bonnie dies." Damon shakes his head. "No. Not this time." He pushes forward, only to get pulled back.
Stefan stares at him, his brow furrowed. "If you go in there, you could die."
He smirks, even as he feels a lead weight fill his stomach. "Have a little faith, Brother."
"Damon, don't do this…" Stefan grips the soggy shoulder of Damon's shirt tightly. "I just got you back!"
Damon stares at him a long beat. "I'm not gonna lose her again…" The wind howls around them. "Not like this."
"What are you going to do?" Stefan points toward the chaos ahead. "You can't get through that. And you can't stop her."
"I can sure as hell try."
"Damon, please… Think about this."
"I am." He grins then, and pivots, placing his own hand on Stefan's shoulder and squeezing. "I'm sorry!"
Stefan's brow scrunches. "For what?"
"For everything. For Lexi, for Katherine, for blaming you all these years… For Elena." He turns his head, looks at Caroline with uncharacteristic seriousness. "I'm sorry I used you. I should've said it sooner. You didn't deserve it." He turns back to Stefan. "I can give you a laundry list of everything I've done wrong, but I'm short on time here. So, consider this my blanket apology for every screwed up thing I've ever done. It's long overdue."
Stefan swallows tightly. "This is suicide."
Damon gives Stefan's shoulder one last shake, and then he pushes him back, away, so he tumbles into Caroline, out of reach. "This is hope," he says, and then he's gone, right into the eye of the storm.
tbc
author's note: while i'd written this chapter already, a part of me wasn't sure if i should continue it. i did like the open ending to it all. but a few people wanted damon's view of things, so i hope it meets expectation. there is a third part with a resolution to everything still coming. depending on how editing goes, it may have to be split into two. we'll see.
thanks so much for reading! if you can, please try to leave a review!
- Lee | Fina