Bonnie bangs her fist on the hand-crafted door of the Salvatore Boardinghouse. She's sleep-deprived and starving and panicking because no one is responding to a phone call or a text and she's disappointed with herself because she wasn't capable of loving anyone with a 12-foot pole no matter how much her life would be better off if she learned to do so, she's just not made up that way, she's an all or nothing kind of girl, and because she didn't know how to put distance between herself and her emotions, she walked out of class in a rush to the Gilbert's place only to find no one was home which meant she'd have to come to this stupid boardinghouse where no one seems to be in a hurry to answer the damn door which makes her bang on the door harder.
The door flings wide open and her small fist glides through the air as she lurches over the door step, knees buckling for a crash into the metal frame, when she is caught from her fall into the strong hands of a half-dressed Salvatore.
The side of her face smushes against Damon's bare chest, her chin sliding over taut muscle and icy skin, and she's ambushed by the crisp scent of soap and water, making her think of the word, 'pure', an adjective that has been said by no one ever in regards to Damon Salvatore. She angles her head up to see his eye brow cocked and his lip curled with satisfaction and her blood boils with agitation over having been saved by him. She yanks her hands from his and steadies herself on her own two feet, "You couldn't button your shirt before answering the door?" She scowls, judging him with a once over from head to toe as she whisks to the living room where she suspects everyone has chosen to convene and avoid her.
Damon slams the door shut and in his head says, 'you're welcome'. His heavy boots follow behind the little witch. "Thought I'd throw you a bone," he says to Bonnie, who is bent over the coffee table, spouting off titles as she wildly flipped over the many books he was researching before she came like a tornado into his home.
She huffs loudly, straightens her back and asks, "Where are they?"
Damon considers Bonnie in her usual uniform of high-top converses and dark-wash jeans painted over curves and an ill fitted sweater hiding fresh skin, and he knows anyone who saw her today missed the nuanced change in her demeanor. They thoughtlessly might have assumed she was the same sweet and spunky girl from yesterday. But he notices. Even if the rest of the world has yet to catch on, that there is something different about Bonnie Bennett.
And it makes him want to ask this person what they've done with his witch.
He wrinkles his forehead while buttoning the bottom three buttons of his black shirt and makes his way to the bar because she's in a mood and whatever had her riled up would require for him to have a drink. He plays with danger and ignores her question, "I wasn't expecting you until later," He states, skipping the ice and pouring bourbon straight into crystal, "Did your school let you out early?" Damon feels like a douchebag every time he has to ask someone around him about high school.
Bonnie's heart is pounding in her throat and her nerves are jumping like she drank ten cups of coffee. No one she was looking for is at the boardinghouse except Damon who is all calm, collected and closed off from her. She stares at him, really takes a look at the man standing across from her and wants to spill she knows secrets about him, things he hasn't shared with anyone, not even Elena, things she knows like how he cried so much when his mother died that his father locked him in his room for two days, and that there was a huge piece of land off the coast of Santa Barbara that belonged to the Salvatore Family because he bought it hoping he would move Stefan and him out west, and that it's not right for her to be eighteen, walking out of her history class because she couldn't take the lesson since it's one thing to crack open a history book and see images of sullen faces and broken bodies and read about battle sites and dates, and it's another to have those bodies breathe and open their mouths and speak and have the mental scars of those battles.
She was sure if she cracked his face with that truth he wouldn't act like he didn't hear her question.
Bonnie asks about her friend's whereabouts again and is answered with a bored shrug.
Agitated; she kicks the books off the table and they land haphazardly on the Persian rug, "What's going on that has you reading about mythology?" She demands with her arms crossed like a sore sport.
Damon is amused as he picks up one of the books which had fallen on its crumpled pages. He settles in on the couch with drink and book in hand, "I'm thinking about taking up bird watching," He says, smiling at the fuming witch.
She doesn't ask how the two are related instead she thinks about stomping through the house, screaming the names of her friends until one of them comes out to tell her everything is okay so that she could stop having the gut wrenching fear that the worst has come. She drops her bag from her shoulder onto the fine rug and walks over to the floor to ceiling windows. She pulls back one of the burgundy velvet curtains and looks to see if any cars had pulled up while she was there.
She feels eyes on her and she looks back quickly to see Damon's face buried in his book.
"Where's Elena?"
Bonnie is a broken record.
"I don't know."
"Where's Jeremy?"
"Why?"
Bonnie stomps over to the couch, "Answer me."
He licks his finger and flips a page, "I need your help on something, give me your word you'll help and I'll show you where Van Helsing is," He says with his eyes still locked on the words of his book.
And she was supposed to tell this psychopath she was bonded to him and have him care enough to help her?
She takes the book from his hands and throws it across the room and Damon imagines it was him who she wanted to throw.
"Deal. Where's Jeremy?"
He stands to his full height, towering over her, and taps her nose like she's a pet, "You're cute when you're being aggressive?"
BBBBBBBBBB
When she realizes he is leading her to the basement stairs; she has an uncontrollable urge to knock Damon aside and rush past him to see what has happened to Jeremy. But the vampire seems to sense her urgency and walks at the pace of molasses while tugging on that thread she's barely hanging from by editorializing what happened last night at the Gilbert House.
"Elena sleeps in this little skimpy…" or "Baby Gilbert didn't know what hit him…"
She doesn't listen to his words and concentrates on the glee that is emanating from him; and she wonders what has made him so damn happy because he certainly wasn't doing cartwheels or anything demonstrative of the warmth she was feeling from the bond.
They reach the bottom of the staircase and Damon's head brushes the tip of the exposed hanging bulb and the light swings over them.
Damon yells at a rusted door with a small eye-level grate, "Gilbert? Bennett's here; she wants to make sure her Romeo is alive and kicking, "He says, leaning against the door and smirking at Bonnie who is in shock.
There is a scuffle of movement, feet and hands slapping against concrete behind the door and then the voice of her former flame precedes his tender face with brown locks falling in his eyes, "Bonnie…Bonnie, Elena needs your help," he says for the millionth time it since his sister met a Salvatore.
She inhales and exhales for a full minute before she slides her slender hand through the grate to touch Jeremy's cheek, "Let him out," She orders not looking away from Jeremy. Jeremy is frenetic, she can see it in his eyes and she's trying to calm him down with her touch and a mental spell but his mind is static, she's having trouble reaching him.
"Can't," Damon smiles before continuing, "Stefan went a little gung-ho in his cure search and covered all his bases. Before finding the cure spell he listened to some quack named Shane who said if Gilbert here," He nods to Jeremy, "Killed twelve vampires then it would activate some tribal tattoo that would lead us to a cure, well twelve deaths later, no tattoo and we got ourselves a crazed attempted sister killing Gilbert. Turns out you weren't cut out for greatness like you might have thought there buddy, "He relays like if he were talking about the weather before leaning in closer to Bonnie who hasn't stopped touching Jeremy to his repulsion, "Speaking of tattoos, when you're done here, I have something to show you."
Bonnie pinches the bridge of her nose and closes her eyes, "Damon. By the time I count to three, this door better be open and you better be out of my sight."
"Or else what?"
Jeremy and Bonnie both throw him a look and he becomes aware and slightly jealous that they are the real team as the three of them debate over what to do outside the cellar door.
He grimaces and starts to ascend the stairs without her, "Listen Bennett, it wasn't my idea to lock Baby Gilbert in here." He looks back to see she has no intention of leaving her precious Jeremy," You can take your grievances up with Ele…"
"What?! Elena would never allow her own brother to be locked away in this…this, "she shouts even though she believes Damon when he says it wasn't his idea because she can feel his recognition of knowing what it feels like to be locked away by someone you loved which makes her all the more upset because he didn't show compassion to Jeremy. Her eyes water, "You have him locked away in this dungeon."
Damon stops climbing the stairs, rolls his eyes and turns around to the witch, "Dungeon? Really?"
Bonnie narrows her eyes and screams obscenities at him; shocking Jeremy who steps back from his prison door; amusing Damon who agrees with some of the expletives she hurls at him and when the basement door flies open; alarming the hell out of Elena and Stefan standing at the entrance of the tight doorway.
Elena squints her eyes, "Bonnie?" She asks like she's unsure if that is really her life-long friend calling her other friend such horrible things she would never repeat. She gives Stefan a pained look and then looks to Damon who has pressed his back against the wall because he can feel how thick the air just got with Bonnie and Elena in the same vicinity.
Elena takes a few steps down into the basement, "What are you doing here?" she asks, tucking a chocolate strand behind her ear.
Bonnie glares at Damon and he thinks she might as well have stuck her tongue out at him.
"Thank God you're here, Damon won't let Jeremy out so I can help him," She spits out in one breath, waiting for Elena to order Damon to open the door.
Elena is confused and glances back at Stefan before turning back to Bonnie. "Yeah," she nods, "That's because I asked him to; it's too dangerous for everyone for Jeremy to be out…"
Bonnie cocks her neck back and her mouth sours, "So you wanted your brother locked up like an animal?" She pays no attention to Damon's scoffs and questions of where was her concern when Stefan threw him in there a few months back.
Elena sighs and in that throaty voice of hers says, "It was only temporary until we could do the spell to cure him."
Bonnie believes she and Elena have stepped into another universe and she was given the hard journey of finding the route for them to get back. Bonnie wonders when they were going to call her if her brother's imprisonment was temporary. Her eyes search into Elena's and there is so much confusion there that Bonnie forgets who she is. She turns away and says, "Okay, let Jeremy out and I'll run and go get my grimoire and we'll take care of this," she bargains, determined to free Jeremy.
She watches Elena and Stefan silently discuss what to do when she sees Caroline's blonde head and a strange woman peek down the staircase.
"Who's that?" Damon asks for both he and Bonnie's curiosity.
Stefan doesn't answer them and instead asks for everyone to gather in the living room for a civil discussion.
Damon and Bonnie share concerned expressions as he waits for her on the stairs to finish up with Boy Wonder. He watches her reach for Jeremy's cheek again and he listens to her softly say, "Don't worry, I'll take care of this," with such hubris that Damon is moved by her unfaltering loyalty, even if it was a loyalty that wasn't bestowed to him.
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"What did you do to Bonnie?"
Damon is not impressed that Stefan saw a difference in the witch. He's actually kind of disappointed; he thought he had the corner market on knowing Bonnie was a bit off until she blew up at him with more curse words than a Chris Rock stand-up and checked her best friend for locking up her brother so he wouldn't attack her. But, Damon is honored that Stefan thinks he had something to do with Bonnie's change and he brushes his knuckles against his collar and his mouth shrugs as if to say, 'wouldn't you like to know' as he starts to walk out the kitchen and join the gang waiting in the living room when Stefan blocks his exit.
"Save the games for Elena, Damon. What's wrong with Bonnie?" Stefan questions but Damon can hear the threat.
Stefan's mouth is in a straight line, forehead crinkled and feet apart, playing the part of protective father over Bonnie and the faucet is gushing and Stefan is whispering and Damon thinks it's hilarious that Stefan believes the other vampires in the house can't hear them.
Damon is all of sudden ravenous and he bypasses Stefan's block to grab a blood bag from the freezer to pop in the microwave. He clicks the 'popcorn' button because after numerous tries he's discovered it's just the right amount of time to reach the 98.6 degreed temperature he loves and he stretches his hands across the kitchen island and exhales for added drama instead of need and says, "Define wrong?"
Stefan folds his arms and tightens his jaw.
He inwardly smiles because he enjoys annoying his self-righteous brother especially when he gives him a tone like he cares more about Bonnie than him, "If you are referring to her fuss over Baby Gilbert? Then I would agree, I thought she was over him too," He kids, while sweeping up invisible crumbs on the marble island with his hand; it was meant to be a joke of course but Damon can't help how his mind knows there is some truth in his retort. He doesn't understand how the boy was able to still get her loyalty after hurting her.
His brother corners him on the opposite side of the counter, "She seems wound up."
Damon snorts, "She's always wound up."
"More so than usual."
The microwave dings and Damon tastes blood and Stefan blocks him yet one more time to test Damon's patience and taps Damon on his shoulder, "She smells like you, Damon."
Damon stares down at Stefan's finger and reminds him of how he feels about being touched. Stefan sidesteps his brother while Damon runs his hand under the running water and finally turns the faucet off, "Stop pretending you don't want her to hear this," He states, tilting his head towards the living room to acknowledge Elena is the real reason why Stefan is upset.
Stefan frowns, "She asked you not to go to Bonnie for help; you do it anyway. She's under so much stress with learning to be a vampire and dealing with her brother and you go and do who knows what with Bonnie."
Damon's upper lip lifts into a slight smile at Stefan's words of doing who knows what with Bonnie. He wags a finger at Stefan and winks, "Whose fault is Jeremy, dear brother?" He retrieves his warm bag from the microwave and juggles it from hand to hand.
"Was Bonnie hurt? Is that why she smells like you?"
Damon acts like he's searching for a mug as he considers Stefan's question with his back turned going from cabinet to cabinet to hide he was distracted by the memory of her voice saying she needed his blood. And he's overwhelmed by the thrill that it was him that was able to give her what she needed. It makes him foolishly want to puff out his chest and conjures up passages of some Arthurian tale about knights slaying dragons for their ladies.
Even though Judgy hadn't pledged any allegiance to him, he wanted to be loyal to her. There was a reason she hadn't told them she had exhausted her power and he wasn't going to tell them without her consent. Besides, leaving out the real reason of how they came to exchange blood left him to devise a story based on his own wicked imagination, "I'm not one to kiss and tell, but look at me? How could she resist?" He smirks.
Stefan slaps his hand over his face and shakes his head.
Damon twists the top to his warm blood bag and pours it into a yellow mug with a happy face painted on the front, "Oh!" he bumps his palm to his forehead like he just remembered something very important, "In case you had big plans to turn my room into storage for all your diaries, you can think again. Elena and I talked last night," His brows do a little dance along with his hips, "And I've decided to stay," He informs a disturbed Stefan before strutting out the kitchen.
BBBBBBBBBB
Bonnie and Elena are locked in a staring contest and Caroline is blabbering, filling up the painful silence between her friends.
"We missed you, Bonnie," Caroline finally blurts after she's run out of polite conversation; a practice she learned in Pageantry training and never thought she'd have to use between two people she's known since kindergarten.
Bonnie offers Caroline a weak smile that doesn't reach her eyes and stares back at Elena whose voice is barely above a whisper when she asks her long she's been there.
"Not long," Bonnie says to the brunette as she mentally counts the minutes it is taking her to explain the other witch seated behind her.
When they had walked into the living room, Caroline had remarked on how dark it was and the row of curtains along the wall swiped open. Elena and Caroline beamed at Bonnie whose forehead crinkled. Daphne with her dyed-black bob and rock–a-billy bangs and too much eyeliner cleared her throat and tossed a smug smile to Bonnie before taking a seat behind her.
Elena 's hair swings when she turns to Caroline; seated in an armchair across from her, "Can you take Jeremy some bottled water and I think there are some pop tarts in there you can give him."
Caroline looks from girl to girl and wonders if she should leave them alone but rises in her riding boots and formfitting sweater dress. "Okay seriously, when I come back, I expect to see you both back to finishing each other sentences." She waves her hand to Bonnie and to Elena, "Because this is just weird," Caroline smiles brightly as she walks out of the living room because she believes the bond between the three of them is unbreakable and that after today she'll have her best friends back and not these girls who she can't pick out of a crowd.
Caroline leaves and Elena can't take the pressure of Bonnie's stare anymore as she rubs her palms over her jeans like she's trying to start a fire, "Bonnie I'm sorry."
Bonnie hears Elena's apology but when she looks at her she only sees hoop dresses, petticoats and flirty smiles.
"Get over it, Stefan!" Damon yells as the guys continue their bickering into the living room
Damon takes a seat on the same couch as Bonnie, and Elena looks lost, until Stefan comes over to kiss her forehead and give her courage by standing beside her and intertwining his hand with hers.
Damon takes a sip of his blood and props his feet on the coffee table, "We're all here Stefan; now tell us who the Goth chick is?" Damon asks, as he glances over at Bonnie, expecting her to be making a face at him for being disrespectful as usual, but her attention is front and center as if he wasn't there, and he stretches one long arm across the length of the couch, fingertips barely out of reach of Bonnie.
Stefan pulls a chair next to Elena, who didn't want to let go of his hand when he had to remove it to grab the chair. He leans over; hands clasped together, "Daphne is a witch. She's here to help us with Jeremy."
Damon is stunned and his body reacts as such, shoulders jerking forward, feet searching for the stability of the floor and almost spitting up the blood in his mug. But to no one's surprise he's able to keep the blood down.
"Little Ms. Marilyn Manson back there is a witch?"
A fire combusts in the hearth and the three vampires throw their attention to Daphne.
"No offense," he says with a smirk over his shoulder to Daphne.
Daphne comments, "If I were you, I'd watch what I say, I'm only here on a loan from Klaus."
"Wait a minute, Klaus? You work for Klaus? What the fuck, Stefan?" Damon stands, ready for a fight at the mention of his name like the hybrid had stepped into the room. "What would make you do something as idiotic as going to Klaus?"
"It was Elena's choice."
Damon frowns, "What did you have to promise Klaus in exchange for Daphne's help, Elena?"
Stefan is Elena's mouthpiece, "In exchange for her help, Elena will share the cure with him."
"What does the hybrid want with the cure? Have you guys thought that maybe he wants Elena back human so he can go back to making his army?
"If it were up to me, Damon, I wouldn't have reached out to Klaus for an ally, but it wasn't up to me." Stefan responds, clearly not thrilled by his beloved's decision.
"Bonnie and I had a shot at turning you back human, you didn't have to go to Klaus," He declares to Elena with so much disappointment in his voice that tears fill her eyes. "Bonnie knows what to do already, she even was coming over here to talk to us about it because but the cure requires a couple of things, isn't that right, Bonnie?"
Bonnie mumbles about a knife and a new moon and Damon is worried.
Bonnie is running her nails over the brass bulleting on the couch, half-moon crests puncturing the front of the leather armrest. She hates the Salvatore living room. The ancient furniture, dark cloth and dust. Whenever she was in it she felt like she was in a museum, surrounded by dead things. But she's always liked the red couch. She even remembers when it was purchased, 1937, Manhattan, along with a baby grand that's in the sitting room on the second floor.
Elena cries, "You promised me."
"She's your best friend, Elena," Damon yells back.
Or was it 1938? Bonnie thinks, no, it was 1937 and it was from a shop owned by those snotty sisters, one of them she dated. Sisters. They fought all the time. Snotty, fighting sisters. But, sisters fight. She bets right now at this moment, there are sisters fighting all over the world, some over toys, or over who belonged with who on a TV show, or how to better take care of an aging mother or father.
The three vampires are arguing and Bonnie thinks about a time she swam in an ocean she's never been in. Was it Indian or Pacific? Hotel lights illuminated the coastline and made the ripples her hands caused from each stroke look like she was swimming through black glass. Can a vampire drown? She thought, limbs pushing her under until there were no more thoughts.
"There is no other witch but Bonnie," Damon shouts, running his hand through his hair and needing a drink badly. He's distracted; the witch is too quiet, letting them discuss her without giving them a piece of her mind, and he doesn't like it, and he doesn't understand the nagging knock he hears when he looks over at her sitting there like a vegetable, and it's getting louder and louder and louder to where he keeps wondering if it isn't in his head and there really is someone at the front door.
Caroline zips to stand on the coffee table, hands up, like she's ready to blow a whistle and yell for both teams to go cool off, "Stop fighting!"
The room is silent but for Bonnie who finally pulls herself together to realize she's a fighter. She fought for the people she loved and the life she knew. And it was all about to leave if she didn't fight again, and she won't let that happened because she wants it back more than anything in the world. Her heart-shaped face turns up to Elena, "You told Damon to look for another witch," She comments and they all look at each other in concern.
"She did", Stefan answers.
"And you went to Klaus, our sworn enemy for help." Bonnie stands from the couch, "Who are you?" She asks, squinting at Elena like maybe it was Katherine across from her.
No one answers.
Elena tucks hair behind ears and focuses her eyes on anything but Bonnie, "We needed a witch."
Bonnie feels like she took a bullet, but she straightens her spine and quietly says, "This isn't you Elena. I don't know who you are trying to be, but it's not Elena."
Elena's mouth trembles from fresh tears and dread, she's never seen this Bonnie and it makes her scared, "I don't know who you are either. You hurt me and ignore me at school and my calls and thought I would go to you for help?
Bonnie narrows her eyes and steps forward, the only thing separating the girls is the coffee table Caroline is standing on, "If I wouldn't have stopped you then we'd be missing Matt right now."
Elena hands fly to meet her chest, "Matt knows how sorry I am! I can't change what I did or who I am now. What do you want from me, Bonnie?"
"I want my sister back," Bonnie answers without a thought, like kids respond to whether they want broccoli or ice cream.
Elena nods, her fear morphing into anger, "You know what I want? I want my brother to stop trying to kill me," Elena's voice rises as she paces back and forth like a feline predator trapped in a cage, "Let me see what else do I want," She mocks Bonnie as she lists," I want to stop thinking about drinking my best friend's blood and obsessing over why she smells like Damon and even the fact that her blood makes me hungry is something I can't wrap my head around, and it's so hard, she doesn't know how hard it's been to do this without her."
"You shouldn't need me to make the right choices for you, Elena."
Elena affects her face like she's been slapped, "Excuse me, but what about your choices, Bonnie? Why don't you just come out and say how me being a vampire makes you sad, and Caroline too, or how Stefan but apparently not Damon disgusts you!"
Bonnie's green eyes glare at Damon and a heat rolls through him, a feeling of embarrassment, like a secret of his was revealed and he's blinded by flashes of pictures, pictures from a car window; they are all of him, he's drunk outside a bar with a blonde stuck to him; his eyes a cold blue fire peering down with his voice drunk and wounded, "You're a punk kid witch. What are you gonna do?"
His eyes widen at the witch who is no longer looking at him.
Stefan tries to calm Elena with a hand on her shoulder; but she flashes in front of Bonnie, leaving him gripping air. Elena's boots meet the rubber tips of Bonnie's converse, "So, Let's talk about it." The doppelganger insists.
Bonnie has to look up to Elena, but she's had to do that her entire life, so Elena hovering over her has no effect, "No, what disgusts me is your inability to speak for yourself, the Elena I knew wouldn't need a Salvatore to talk for her."
"Sorry to tell you this Bonnie, but she's dead and you couldn't save her."
Damon is the only one who notices Bonnie flinch as every single window pane on the west side of the boarding house shatters, one after another, like cymbals clanging in Beethoven's 9th, a cacophony of glass crashing into hardwood.
Bonnie scurries around the couch to grab her bag from the floor while everyone is frozen in shock. She runs for the front door and hears every voice but Elena's beg her to stop and stay.
"Bonnie, stop!"
She makes it to the gravel driveway, her legs pumping up and down, heart hammering in her chest and her vision is blurring from hot tears. She blinks to clear her eyes and smacks into Damon.
"I said stop." He growls, his hands wrapped around Bonnie's arms.
She's skittish and she can't stop her mouth from quivering, "Let me go," she stammers, trying to wriggle free from his grasp.
He looks at her like it's his first time ever seeing her and he smiles and Bonnie thinks Damon would smile when she's hurt. He loosens his grip but doesn't let her go and Bonnie thinks there will be fingerprints where his hands were on her later.
Damon snorts, "I can't; I wanna talk to you before you run off to a life of kicking puppies and blotting out rainbows."
She realizes she ran too far; her car is behind her. Where was she running to?
"I don't wanna talk to you," She says, hands wrapped around herself as she looks back to the front of the house and all of its blown out windows, "I can fix it, Damon," she says like she can erase all what happened in that living room. She turns to march back to the house but Damon pulls her back.
They are face to face and her hand is in his and he squeezes it gently, "Just stop."
Her eyes are big and watery and a shade of green that can only be found in Spring and Damon can't help threading his fingers into her curls, "You didn't do anything I wouldn't have done," He comments with his brow furrowed and his voice strong and low, "You're not fixing anything, Stefan will clean it up or better yet, they can get their witch to superglue it all back together," He smirks, "You are coming with me."
He tilts his head and she follows to see they are standing next to his Camaro.
"I should go home," she whispers.
"You can go home later, "He opens the driver's side door for her to hop into the car. Her brow crinkles and she catches her crooked mouth between her teeth and she looks at the boardinghouse then at Damon and he can see how broken and tired she is, and he doesn't want her to go home. He wants her to sit and just be with him, until she feels better and thinks of how to turn it all around, and unlike last night he doesn't allow her reservations about him make him give her an out. He pats the metal door, "Get in the car Bennett, we need to talk."
BBBBBBBBBB
Hank Williams is playing on the juke box and Damon is holding his pointer finger to his temple as he cocks his thumb trigger. He and Bonnie were hiding out from the world in a corner booth of a dive bar about forty miles outside of Mystic Falls, in one of those towns where there was only one of everything; one stop light, one gas station, one idiot and so on…
Hear that lonesome whipperwill
He sounds too blue to fly
"What'll be you two?" says a helmet-haired woman in blue jeans and a long-sleeved Harley-Davidson tee. The waitress has deep, sagging putty wrinkles and a no nonsense demeanor about her but she smiles at Damon and Bonnie, recognizing this pitiful duo needs a smile.
Damon considers the appearance of his under-age companion and wonders if Grandma' will let him order a drink for him and his weeping side-kick. He could always compel her but with Bonnie's current state she wouldn't see the humor. He would merely end up writhing on the floor.
"Can I get two shots of Elijah Craig and a Shirley temple for the lady?"
If Bonnie is insulted by Damon choosing a drink for her, she doesn't show it, she is busy trying to hide the tears seeping out the slits of her eyes, wiping each trail with the cuff of her sweater.
Grandma's smile fades when Bonnie sniffles, "You sure you don't wanna get something stronger for her?"
Damon leans over the edge of the table, motioning for the old lady to come closer and join him on a conspiratorial conversation, "What's your name?" He whispers.
"Alice."
"Alice, my friend here had a rough day, so let's spike her drink and instead of two shots, make that four."
"K, darlin'."
Alice slides her feet across the dirty floor to the bar and gives their order to a man Damon thinks should be called Bubba and if he isn't then someone should remedy that. Bubba is round and sweating and has a camouflage trucker hat on and suspenders over a dirty white undershirt; he glances over at a sad Bonnie and bobs his head like he agrees with Alice telling him to bend the rules for this kid.
"One of those shots is mine," Bonnie chokes between tears.
Damon wants to smile, he was worried she wouldn't talk at all and this entire trip was going to be a waste. She was quiet the entire car ride even though he had kept the music off, something he never does in case she wanted to vent. But she was clammed up and silently stared out the car window; her body angled away from him and pressed against the door as if she was ready to jump out the car at any moment.
Alice sets their drinks on the table and he pushes Bonnie's tumbler to her and swallows two of his shots. Bonnie is still blinking back the waterworks and he doesn't know what to do with himself; he's never seen Bonnie cry and it makes him concerned for the world because Bonnie is like atlas, holding up their world up in skinny jeans with a crooked smile, and if Atlas is in a bar crying then the world is doomed.
He reaches across the table and swipes a tear from her chin, "You can't cry in a bar, Bennett. It's too fucking depressing and you're getting tears in your Shirley Temple."
Bonnie agrees with Damon; it is depressing and she sniffs back the next wave of tears from pouring out.
She takes a deep breath and sips her drink, thankful for the alcohol mixed in.
Damon approves of Bonnie sucking down her beverage because his plan was to get her liquored up so she could forget her problems for a little while. Except this was Bonnie he is thinking about, so even with her knocking back her drink at record speed, he expects her to start barking orders at any minute on how they were going to rescue Jeremy from hunterism and scheduling the most inconvenient time for them to go on a MacGuffin chase for the knife she incoherently babbled about back at the boardinghouse.
Damon can count on his hand how many times he's asked anyone these words, and he stumbles over them when he asks, "How do you feel?"
But she dismisses his reaching out and folds her arms and states, "You knew Elena was going to be upset that you went to me for the cure."
Damon welcomes the burning sensation of another shot before responding, "She wanted the cure and you're the only one who can give it to her."
Bonnie wants to know what makes him so sure of her prowess when her friends obviously thought she was replaceable. She can't figure him out and it leaves her exasperated, "But now she's upset with you."
"She won't be pissed for long."
He was right; Elena could never stay mad at him.
She threads her fingers into her hair and Damon's eyes follow their journey until they return to the table and she says, "She's right you know."
He is taken aback and reaches for the fourth shot despite her calling dibs, "What are you talking about?"
"I couldn't save her."
"Bennett, no one could've saved her," He lies because he would have left Matt to drown and grabbed the girl first but he understands he needs to tread lightly with this subject, "Elena is a vampire now and the sooner everyone accepts that, the better."
She rests her forehead into her palms and shakes her head, "You're only saying that because you want her to be like you."
Damon lets out a vicious laugh; throwing out his previous decision to be gentle with her, "Everyone wants to fix her; even you, like she's some broken toy. And me?" He points to himself, "I just want her to be happy whether that's being a vampire or going back to being a real girl."
"It was all for nothing."
She's referring to their blood hook-up and Damon scoffs, "Not nothing; we got your ju-ju back and Daphne", he says like allegedly that's the witch's name, "Is not going to be able to perform the cure and me thinks," He taps his temple, "She won't be able to help her with her brother hunter situation either."
"You really think Daphne won't be able to do it?"
Bonnie's green eyes are so full of hope about being useful to the Scooby Gang that it makes Damon want to recoil away from the witch and take off because her desire to matter is relatable and reminds him of his century stint pining for Katherine.
"Yep, but before you run off to fall on your sword, we need to address some things."
"Like?"
"Like how you blew out all of the windows in the front of my home."
She shrinks back from the table and he continues, "Why are you in such a hurry to go back and act like nothing happened?"
Bonnie squints at Damon and takes a breath like she can't believe she has to explain this to him, "I'm disappointed, but there is still work to be done and if I don't do it then I will lose my friends and I can't lose them, they are all I have."
"Maybe you should take a break from your friends for a while, "He says gaining him a glare. He grabs her straw from her tumbler and chomps down onto the plastic before saying, "Now don't run off making matching bracelets or anything, but in the meantime, if you need a friend, I can act like I care while you complain as long as there is alcohol involved."
She snorts, "Thanks, Damon, but we are not compatible."
His mouth stretches into a close-lipped smile because whether she liked it or not, the truth was he was destined to be in her life before he even knew a kinder version of his bitch of an ex-girlfriend existed. She was a Bennett and he was the protector of their line. On her 18th birthday he would have popped up like he did all the others, told her who he was, what Emily had done and to not call on him unless it was some serious shit. He wasn't big on witch-sitting, he had his own miserable life to attend to, but if she needed him, he would be there, so regardless if she had circled the day he arrived to Mystic Falls on her calendar as "The Day Her Life Ended", she was tied to him from birthright and would be until her death.
Damon refrains from telling her this and plays along, "Why don't you teach me?"
"Because I don't want your friendship," She says between clenched teeth.
He curls his upper lip at her, "K, next question.
"What?"
"What was that back to the future moment where I got to see your memory of my mini breakdown after Alaric; you know when you followed me for that month?" He doesn't want to go into detail; he's not one who likes to relive the past.
Bonnie takes a deep sigh, "It's the Bond," She states like she's tired of talking about it even though it's the first time he's hearing of such a thing.
"Bond?"
She bobs her head, "When we drank each other blood it created a bond…"
Bonnie keeps explaining but Damon is still stuck ruminating over the definition of 'bond' and its beautiful ambiguous meaning to bind.
"We're bonded?"
"Yes," She repeats.
"How does it work?"
"I really have no clue," She states earning a horrified look from Damon, "It wasn't supposed to be a bond," She spits out quickly, "Because the spell was intended for me to just drink your blood but true to form you had to get something out of it."
"What is up with you casting spells you don't know anything about? You're a Bennett witch. Bennett witches know their shit," He whispers like he doesn't want the rest of the bar to hear she's not living up to her family name.
"Hey!" She sticks her finger in his face, "I was trying to get my powers back as soon as possible to help Ele..." She stops short of saying the doppelgangers' name."
Damon shrugs off his jacket, "Do you get to see glimpses from my life?"
She affirms with a nod and wishes she had more liquor, "I also feel your emotions along with your memories."
"What does that do to you?"
Bonnie wrings her hands on the table, "It makes me react how you would I guess or at least empathize with it."
Damon thinks back to how she bogarted her way in his house and threw books around like she owned the place and cursed him out for locking up Baby Hunter and it dawns on him their blood sharing has changed her. And as he glances over at Bonnie, he even sees the difference in her face. Not that the angles and planes of her face had suddenly shifted like a Picasso painting, but there was fervor in her eyes that wasn't there before.
He could depend on Judgy's eyes giving her away.
Damon brandishes a smile at his sullen bonded, "My blood is making you crazy," He teases.
"Excuse me?"
"I see why you blew the windows out now; you wanna be the only one like me. Scared Elena might be stiff competition?" He quips with a raised brow.
"Don't ever say that again. I am drowning here; I have all of your stupid memories and feelings and I don't want them," She spits with her hands centered to her chest.
Damon controls his facial expression. "Flattery will get you nowhere Judgy." His blue eyes darken to cobalt as the ceiling lights flick off and their only light is from glowing neons and old Christmas lights tacked along the perimeter of the bar, "Let me get this straight. This bond gives you a front row seat to my life? You have an all-access pass to my darkest," she nods emphatically, "Depraved", she waves for Alice's attention, "Lustful moments", he exaggerates and she rolls her eyes.
"I know where you're going with this and of course I tell you I'm losing my mind and all you care about is that I know how you like to fuck."
Alice interrupts their conversation and Damon requests for her to bring the whole damn bottle of Elijah Craig to the table.
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Bonnie is twirling a lock of hair around her finger and finishing off her third glass of bourbon. She grins over at Damon who lifts a concerned eyebrow as she sits up on her knees in the booth to read the drink specials on the black board behind the bar, "What is Goldschlager?" She asks with an excitement that should never be for cinnamon-flavored schnapps.
Damon shakes his head and fills his glass to the brim, "Stick with bourbon."
She concedes and shakes her empty glass for him to refill.
Damon can't believe he is doing this but he pulls the glass from Bonnie and she yelps like a little kid who has had their candy taken from them, "You've had enough."
"But you won't let me try the Goldschlager though.."
They had spent the last hour going back and forth like this, detouring their conversation away from the bond because he observed the more she discussed their bond the more unfocused she became; like she was lost to where or who she was. She even accidentally referenced Elena as Katherine until he corrected her. He kept refilling her glass, believing she was nervous and as she began to finish off each drink, she became more relaxed and even made him laugh when she recounted her visit with Ms. Stewart and how she now needed a lobotomy.
"You don't need to," He informs, snatching the bottle of bourbon from her grasp, "Come on, judgy, gimme some tips here on how to be someone's friend. I'm only asking so I'll know how when the time comes for me to be one."
She sits up straighter, ready to give him advice, "Well, first, you have to let them order Goldschlager when they ask for it," She starts and he tries to mask the smile on his lips because she's an adorable drunk. Her eyes are hazel and glazed over in the glow of the Budlight neon over them and her hair is mussed from her constantly playing in it because she doesn't know what to do with her hands and her bottom lip is swollen from her sucking it in between her teeth. She continues, "And you have to be there for them, and want their happiness above all, and if they have to throw up you have to hold their hair," She concludes; serious as a heart attack.
Damon grimaces and her stony face crumbles into laughter.
"That's the most important of them all; every girl knows if her friend has to upchuck she has to hold her hair," She reiterates with a tipsy smile.
He's wants to keep the conversation light because they deserve a break but he's burning up with questions over the bond "Bonnie," He says her first name, getting her attention because he rarely uses it, "How much have you seen?"
"Ughh," she groans, her head falling back with her mouth open like she's suddenly bored before bringing her head back to front and center without the smile she had before," Enough," She answers, "But, I'm gonna stick it out for the month, I'm learning my lesson," She states, "Your memories are a lot to carry and I understand why you get plastered all the time, " She laughs, " Because right now I can't see or feel a thing," She closes her drunken eyelids.
Damon frowns at the thought of Bonnie having to bear his past but offers his assistance with an ordeal he wants no part of, "Do you need my help with this?"
She shrugs, "Lucy said if I told you I'd feel better, but she didn't say if I needed to say another spell or anything. She said once I told you, you could unblock yourself to me and then I had to press pause on her because she used words like emotional baggage and sharing…"
He smirks, "Did we need to hold hands while you told me about the bond or something? Sing Kumbaya?"
Her shoulders slump forward, "I think we gotta talk about your memories."
He rubs his forehead, "Is this what you need?" He asks hoping she will say no, because Bonnie was correct; this was the specific reason why he stayed plastered all the time.
She responds with a sigh and he grasps she does need his help.
Taking a swig from his bottle, he gets up from the booth to wriggle his body around, loosening his jaw like he's getting ready for a fight and slides back into the booth and points a finger to Bonnie, "Shoot."
"Um," Bonnie feels weird discussing his life with him, "Well there is one with Talbot and you are..."
Damon didn't anticipate her saying that name and abruptly gestures 'time out'.
She huffs, "You said shoot."
"I know what I said witch," He spits more harshly then how he actually felt, "I wasn't expecting you to bring him up that's all."
Damon hasn't thought about Talbot in seventy years. He was one of those painful memories that he interred so deep inside of him that he had forgotten the man had ever played a part in his life.
"Let's start with another one," He suggests not wanting to unearth Talbot because he can now smell gunpowder and death.
Bonnie is hesitant to go on, "Okay; there is one with a woman with hair like yours," Bonnie knows she's describing his mother and as that sentence registers across Damon's face she realizes he knows it too, but she can't seem to say her relation to him; she feels it will hurt too much, "She's in a cream colored gown in an overstuffed bed and I think its Stefan who is under her arm and you are reading from a book.."
"Go to another memory, Bennett."
She throws her hands up, "We are getting nowhere with this; you can't even try?"
He wants to; especially when he gets a wave over him like he did at the boardinghouse, this time instead of embarrassment it's of fear; she's scared she's going to have to tackle this bond alone.
Damon runs his hand through his hair finally comprehending the magnitude of what's required from him and reaches for her glass and fills it to the top, "Drink up."
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Damon yanks the seat belt from between the seat and brushes his body over Bonnie, strapping the belt over her lap. Bonnie lost all motor skills from that last drink, "Why do you want to be my friend so badly?" She whispers into the shell of his ear, making his body respond in a way that's more than friendly.
He angles his head; blue eyes burning into green, "What makes you think I'm hard up for your friendship?" He asks back with the click of the belt assuring she is safe.
She licks her lips and Damon can taste her cherry chap stick, "The blood. Your blood is making me crazy, remember?"
He runs his eyes over her before settling in his seat to drive her to her house. They had already discussed he would pick her up before school tomorrow to retrieve her car.
She flips the visor down and looks herself in the mirror and shakes her head, "Why didn't I ask Stefan or Caroline for their blood?" She asks herself.
And Damon can't resist slicing into her, "Because they were too busy wheeling and dealing with Klaus for a witch." He retorts, knowing he hit her heart but she started it with so easily dismissing him.
Wasn't he the one here with her?
Bonnie immediately opens the car door and slams it in his face.
He blinks in front of her, "Get back in the car," He demands with his dark eyes taking on their distinct maniacal twitch.
"No," She tries to walk around him but he keeps flashing in her way. She stops short of taking another step because he's making her dizzy, "Leave me here, Damon. I'll call a cab or have my dad come pick me up, but I'm not going anywhere with you," She informs.
Damon doesn't have patience; he wants her in the car and he wants her to do it now. He squeezes her arm and jerks her petite frame to him, "You have ten seconds to get your ass back in the car," He growls, stretching his mouth into a cruel smile.
Bonnie pictures herself pressing a grape between her fingers until the skin breaks and the insides gush out over her nails and Damon buckles; falling to the ground, hands to his head, screaming for her to stop.
She releases the visual because giving Damon aneurysms is making her nauseous; her stomach is clearly unhappy with the copious amount of alcohol sloshing around in her.
Damon is walking back to his car without Bonnie; if she wanted to stay then fuck it, she wouldn't be his problem anymore. He shouts to her as he opens the driver seat door, "You and your holier than thou bullshit, Bonnie. You are gonna catch a nosebleed way up there," He says before asking her what he's afraid to know the answer to, "Is having my blood so horrible?"
His question stuns her. Bonnie sways on her two feet, trying to keep her balance as she catches his want for her to say it wasn't but she can't soothe him, not when he won't even try to help her. She's about to tell him he can 'Go to Hell" when she feels a gurgling burn at the back of her throat. She abruptly bends over, aiming her face to the asphalt and she vomits, splattering bourbon and bile all over her shoes and the bottoms of her jeans. But as she convulses again, she becomes aware that she doesn't have to worry about getting any vomit in her hair because Damon is holding her curls firmly in his hand.
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Damon parks his car in Bonnie's driveway; her father isn't home so he takes up his spot. Her house is dark, not even a porch light on and it upsets him, more than he can fathom. Bonnie is knocked out next to him; inebriated from the alcohol and exhausted from fighting all day.
He didn't want to argue with her today; not when she had a huge fight with her best friend and got a slap in the face for all her effort by them bringing another witch into the gang. But it was inevitable; he and Bonnie were incapable of being in the same room without getting under each other's skin. It was their special thing; their shared talent of being able to twist the knife into those sore spots.
He opens the passenger door and slides his hands around her waist to throw her limp body over his shoulder. She weighs nothing. Her thighs are warm and her jeans are rubbing his face; her lifeless arms and her hair are hanging over his back as he carries her feeling like a caveman carting his possession with a grunt of 'mine'. He skims his hand over her ass to get her house keys from her back pocket and she doesn't make a sound.
The house is the same temperature as outside and he walks around in the dark with her saddled on his shoulder until he finds the thermostat and turns on the heat for her comfort. He doesn't need heat; he doesn't need anything humans need to survive.
Damon cracks Bonnie's bedroom door and lays the girl over her bed; unlacing her tennis shoes and peeling off her vomit smelling jeans to reveal toned legs and cotton panties with little flowers and lace. He reminds himself he will use this against her at a later date and he smiles as he folds the bedspread to cover her up and she finally shows life as she rolls over on to her side; giving Damon her back.
The bed dips with his weight as he sits on the edge and he thinks about how funny the world is; it was only last night he was outside her house wishing for her friendship again and here was his chance, here was his chance to show he was worthy.
And that's when he gets another memory that isn't his, it's one that involves a play set made entirely of yellow plastic and a slide in the shape of a tube.
Caroline has a ponytail of coiffed spirals and bosses, "Don't be a baby, Bonnie."
Elena with her forever parted curtain of hair responds, "Don't call her a baby; come on Bonnie."
And Bonnie's soft whimper of a no is a chant; it's the background music to the memory. But Caroline pushes her and she goes down the tube. Her loose chocolate curls frames her face and her eyes are the brightest he has ever seen when she lights up the world with her smile because she makes it to the other end of the slide.
Damon grabs her desk chair and places it at her bedside. He sits with his legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles and clears his throat; "That memory, Bonnie," he starts, "The one with Stefan, and the lady, and me. That's my mother you saw and, um, she liked for me to read to her and Stefan at the end of the day," He stops because he gathers the similarities of pulling up to his mother's bedside to tell her a story as he is doing presently with Bonnie.
Bonnie's heart is a slow drum and her eyes are closed but she can hear him and Damon knows she's no longer asleep, merely pretending and he's okay with that because he doesn't want to lose the guts to finish doing this for her.
"She loved the Count of Monte Cristo," Damon says thinking of how they never got to finish it because she died and he never wanted to pick it up after, "It was shipped to us by one of my father's friends and she would have me read to her every night because she was too sick to…"He falters.
Bonnie feels like one feels when their fever breaks; the flood of his emotions draining out so she can breathe, but she grasps he can't continue and that's fine because they were sharing the pain of it together as if he came upon her and lifted some of the weight from her back.
"Thank you," She whispers; her voice small and light, with her back still turned.
He stands, ready to get home and finish off another bottle and numb himself from this evening, "Don't mention it," He says, swiftly bending over the drunken witch, pressing his lips against her forehead.
And he turns off the light.