A/N: In which Bonnie and Damon draft that clause. Thank you guys for the reviews. Enjoy.
The Universe Cares.
No one was home, as usual. The dead quiet pronounced her thoughts and amplified her loneliness. Bonnie inspected the overgrown yard. A blanket of dead leaves covered even the smallest patch of evergreen. She raked and mowed and air blew until the early afternoon. It felt good to work in the cold air. The sun hid behind gray clouds. The rain would come later, forcing her indoors.
Bonnie just stowed the lawn tools in the shed when the clouds broke. She ran to the front door but a sense of melancholy stilled her hand on the knob. She looked through the paneled glass of the door frame. The foyer and hall leading to the kitchen were neat. One pair of snow boots stood at the foot of the stairs. A scarf and a coat hung on the hook. Bonnie stepped back. It was a stranger's house.
She sank onto the cushioned porch swing. The rain fell in gray strands. A brown leaf drifted across the floor. Bonnie continued its movement until it landed in her palm. She turned it over and over and over. Underneath the faded brown were shades of gold and and red. The stem retained some flexibility. Its green life lay hidden. Bonnie drew it out, syllable by syllable. The regeneration of a living thing was a meticulous and painstaking process. Even for something as small as a leaf. Her grandmother's lesson sounded in her ears: A witch must respect the boundaries of nature. Do not transform. Heal. Replenish. Follow the symmetry of the lines. Let go of what you think it should be and let it become what it is, what it once was, what it wants to be again.
A smooth, waxy green leaf rested in her palm. She bent the supple stem. Moments like this, with the leaf, made her grateful for her gift. It made her miss Grams even more. The loneliness sharpened. She blew on the leaf and it traveled out into the rain. She sent it to find someone who needed a bit of green in their life.
The phone rang. No one called except for the last resort spell. Bonnie almost left the swing, but sank back. This was her time.
The light grew dim. The rain fell at a heavier slant. Her mind turned to school, then college, then to friends. She thought of Elena at the the manor, playing her games. They hadn't spoken in a week. Bonnie took to heart the accusations Elena launched at her, and she meant the comparison she hurled back. It wasn't fair, none of it. Bonnie never imagined, after the deaths and the transformations, that the one thing tearing them apart would be an asshole named Damon.
But that was the problem. Somehow, without Bonnie even noticing, Damon became less of an asshole and more of a complication. She looked forward to seeing him. To talking to him. To doing stupid things like defense training and going to the Rocky Horror Picture Show and breaking into carnivals after hours with him. Maybe she should have shared those experiences with her best friend. Maybe she should have treated it less like a secret. Maybe she shouldn't care so fucking much. But she did care. She wasn't willing to exchange Elena, however batshit crazy she became, for Damon. She also didn't see how that could be a possibility, and why Elena turned into a jealous monster with raging denial issues.
Elena had nothing to worry about. All of Bonnie's relationships revolved around her. Whatever existed between Damon and Bonnie was due to Elena. Not mutual attraction or affection. None of that. Never. That could never be.
Bonnie suddenly missed the leaf. It was her bit of green and she had to think of someone else.
A crack of lightning illuminated the oncoming night. Shuddering thunder followed. Bonnie sighed. She got up and stretched, her eyes unfocused on the street. She stopped and stared.
A familiar blue Camaro parked in front of the house. Damon got out, paused when he saw her, then jogged up the sidewalk to the porch steps. Bonnie met him at the top. His hair hung in wet strands, rain dripped off the tip of his nose. He scowled at her, blue eyes like bits of glass.
"Why aren't you answering your phone?"
"I was away from it. What's going on? Vampire hunter stuff?"
"Yes," Damon shook his head, "No. I need to talk to you."
Bonnie rolled her eyes. "If this is about-"
"It's not about Elena or about vampires or witches or the rest of the supernatural pantheon. I need to talk to you because," Damon looked at her. He ran a hand over his face.
"I need to know if this is a mutual thing. Because it just occurred to me that it might not be. Your generation is adept at lying just to get through it. So I need to know if that's what you're doing."
Her mouth went dry. There was rain and a guy on her doorstep, asking...Bonnie wasn't sure what he was asking. This evasive questioning was unlike him. She decided to save him.
"If you're asking me if I like you, I do. We've become friends."
"Don't do that. It's such an Elena-ism, it makes me nauseous. We're not fucking friends. Not now, anyway."
"Well I don't know what you want me to say."
"Tell me you're attracted to me. Tell me all those moments mean something. Tell me so I can stop wondering and do something."
His voice got soft and warm and earnest. Bonnie tried to be appalled, or at least confused, but it tired her out. The universal determination to make her life miserable had come to a head. She might as well give in and avoid more damage.
Bonnie gestured towards him. "I wanted to kiss you in the funhouse. But I didn't. Because it's weird. You have to see how weird this is," she said.
Damon nodded. He took a step forward. "It is weird. It is strange and potentially disastrous, but I wanted to kiss you in that storage closet. And when we got high. And in the funhouse, And every time you look at me. So we're going to have to find a way to deal with this weirdness."
Damon stood close enough to fall into. If she did this, it meant letting the water into her lungs and sinking into depths murky and unknown. It meant closing her eyes and letting the air out, slow.
Bonnie inhaled and leaned up to his lips. Damon caught her mouth, not bothering to wait. She didn't drown it wasn't that kind of kiss. Instead, heat blistered her lips and tongue, licked her spine, hollowed out her stomach. She breathed in fire.