A/N: A big thank you to everyone who supports my writing!
Warning: Some spoilers but most of the stuff written here never happened (on the show, at least)
'Better' and ' Worse' are comparative by nature.
Chapter Eight
Damon tells her that he hasn't killed anyone in a long while, and Bonnie is not sure what her response should be.
Andie Starr. Bonnie feels a little guilty that she's forgotten about that woman.
Damon relays the information in a nonchalant manner that makes her want to hit him. Even here, stuck in a place that's quickly becoming claustrophobic, the urge to right all of Damon's wrongs in a violent manner has not gone away. Combined with the feeling is an equally annoying urge to smother his lips with hers.
Bonnie ignores the latter.
Whatever softness between them the night of the sixties dance has dimmed a little. Embarrassment crept in. It replaces tenderness like a winter coat.
Damon tools around, fingering books that he is not going to open, passing his palms along lit candles to prove that he is a big boy who can take all the pain in the world.
Bonnie never realized how fragile he was until now. (More likely, she did not want to know how fragile. A monster doesn't get her sympathy. It's how the whole Good vs. Evil deal works).
Exists is a ticking time bomb that detonates at the mention of Elena.
It's an elephant that sits heavy and massive in the room but Bonnie can't play counselor. She can't tell Damon to go home and make up with the only living relative he is ever going to have. She can't tell Damon that loving Elena is a loss cause, either, because Bonnie is not sure it is.
It is not Bonnie's business, regardless. Klaus is on her mind. And Protecting Elena. And Jeremy.
Not Damon. Never Damon again.
Bonnie sometimes wonders what it would have been like if she hadn't regained her memory. Would she still be in a twisted romance with the Salvatore brother?
No. Surely not. He would have pulled the rug from under her, eventually.
His one true obsession was Katherine. His one true love is Elena. Bonnie was a blimp on his radar.
She is suddenly luckily she didn't end up like Andie Starr.
There is a thump and a moan that tells him Stefan and Elena are home.
Stefan used to be careful. Considerate, even.
Now every sigh is a reminder that Stefan has Elena, and that Damon is alone. Damon can't quite remember being the loser he has somehow turned into.
Fate has played a cruel joke on him. His gifted with charm. He has a face and a body that women can't seem to say no to.
Except every girl he truly wants says no. Every word means no.
REJECT is stamped on his forehead and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to try a scrape it off.
There is some small part of Bonnie that feels bad. The blind (but not death or dumb) devotion that Jeremy bestows upon her warms the parts that never forgot what it means to really care about another human being.
With no strings attached. No 'I love you only if you love me.'
Bonnie wants to give herself to Jeremy. All of herself, not just appropriate pieces.
She can't, though. If it is not her own treacherous thoughts that send her reeling, it's Damon's inopportune visits.
It seems as if he knows the exact time Jeremy's hand is up her shirt. He knows the exact time the button of her jeans is undone, he knows when the zipper is down.
Bonnie has vowed that she will have end of the world sex. It's hard to make that wish come true with Damon Salvatore walking in at the wrong (right) times.
Bonnie figures if he was happy in his own romantic life, he'd stop stepping all over hers.
A gust of sheer frustration comes out of Bonnie one day. She blames the heat and the lack of love-making for her bitchiness.
"I just don't get it. Are you expecting Elena to stop loving Stefan even if she, by some miracle, grows to love you?"
Damon blinks owlishly, slow and deliberate.
It's a valid question, Bonnie thinks. Damon had to have thought about it.
He had to have thought about freaking star-crossed, vampiric Romeo and Juliet entity of Stefan and Elena. There is no way he hasn't thought about it.
The look on his face tells Bonnie he has indeed not thought about it.
Damon is literally too old to be burying his head in the sand.
He pretends hasn't heard her. The momentary surprise replaced by arrogance.
Boys are always better at saving face then girls.
Bonnie should let it go. She know she should.
She can't.
"If Elena were to dump Stefan and decide that she was totally in love with you, how could you ever believe it was real?" Bonnie doesn't know where the question comes from.
Maybe it's her own guilt. It's the fact that she doesn't feel the same things with Jeremy as she does with Damon.
Damon jaw ticks like the one-sided conversation is going to end with Bonnie's head on a platter.
But once Bonnie get's into a zone, she won't let up. A dog with a bone comes to mind. "I mean, if she leaves Stefan, a man she is completely in love with, how could you be sure she wouldn't leave you?"
It's an idiotic question really, since one scenario doesn't guarantee the other.
A look passes over Damon's face and Bonnie is sorry that she ever said anything. Regrettably, her mouth never listens, "I thought you loved that about Elena, her loyalty."
Bonnie knows that Damon is going to argue. She can see it in the wideness of his eyes, in that wild look that says you've pushed too much way too soon.
Damon wants to tell her that he is better than Stefan. He's hotter and smarter, and braver and that is all Elena needs. The thoughts sound false, and while he's never been modest and never afraid of embellishing his own attributes, doubt has settled in the middle of his shoulder blades.
Jeremy enters, then. He cuts through the throbbing tension, presses his front into Bonnie's back and bends to kiss her on the check.
Jeremy Gilbert has perfect timing.
I thought you loved that about Elena, her loyalty.
It's a cliché romance novel, is what it is.
Damon makes as much noise as he possibly can when he comes home. He slams doors. Antique highball glasses land roughly against polished wood.
Damon reasons that all of that dust must have gone to Bonnie's brain. It's the only reason he didn't tear into her like a steak. He let her make her ill-informed observations.
Her thinly veiled plea to not ruin the sanctity of Stefan and Elena.
How could you ever believe it was real?
Bonnie hasn't the first clue. She has no idea what love means. She's a child.
'Elena's a child, though it's she?' His own perfidious thoughts remind him.
"Elena's different," he counters out loud, talking to empty air.
How long to go before Damon loses it completely?
How could you be sure she wouldn't leave you?
"Elena wouldn't do that to me."
"Wouldn't do what to you?"
Damon spins around, bourbon sloshing in his glass.
He didn't hear Elena come in. He couldn't smell her smell, couldn't hear her heartbeat.
"Damon, are you okay?" That bright light of concern, of caring. Elena is not Katherine.
Damon stares at Elena intensely like he is wont to do, and Elena stares back just as intense, like she knows all of his secrets.
"Are you ever going to tell me?" Damon asks, disregarding Elena's previous question.
"Tell you what?" Elena whispers, as if something is happening between them that she doesn't want anyone else to hear.
"Tell me that you love me."
There's a moment that Elena's face is so thoroughly open that is startles Damon. She's never been good at hiding her emotions and he's never seen such sadness.
"I'll take that as a no," Damon responds, a grimace that never quite reaches his heart.
Damon needed a new 'distraction.'
Damon wants to play hero for once.
He'd like to think he was smart and untouchable and sneaky as all get-out.
He saves Caroline.
Saves Matt from himself and his stupid gun. (Really there should be a license for that thing; only people who aren't likely to be rendered unconscious by their own gun should be allowed to handle such a thing).
He saves Tyler because Vampire Barbie wants him to and Damon will admit that he's done so much loathsome shit to her that he'll relent just this once.
Tyler bites him in the forest because he's an animal and controlling baser instincts are not a high priority.
Tyler bites him in the forest because he never forgot about Mason.
Damon is peeved because the bite hurts like hell but being one-upped by Klaus goes against everything he ever believed in.
There is something about finding out that you are going to die that makes one want to put everything in perspective while simultaneously making one want to say to hell with it all.
Stefan prays that a magic cure will fall into their laps and Damon can't bring himself to crush Stefan's spirit no more than he has in the past.
Stefan holds on to his sliver of hope and Damon sets about getting his life in order.
The witches' house still makes him uncomfortable, but he's visited more times than he can count.
Damon wonders why it's still so damn barren, why all he manages to find are books and candles and Bonnie and the Gilbert boy. The lap top continues to stick out like a sore thumb, and occasionally he find something else along those lines that is way too modern for this setting.
Bonnie's head is buried so far in the book that has only brought them more questions than answers.
She doesn't startle easily, not anymore. She keeps reading as if she hadn't heard Damon come in.
"Is something wrong?," Bonnie asks, eyes still scanning pages and pages of information she never wants to use but knows that sooner or later, she'll have no choice.
Damon swallows, throat working in tandem with his racing thoughts.
Earlier in the day, he apologized to Elena. He was greeted with lukewarm reluctance. Out of all the times Elena could have held his feet to the fire, she chooses now not to forgive so readily.
Bonnie will surely be more difficult.
"I wanted to..." Damon begins, suddenly hating how weak he sounded. "I'm...sorry. For everything."
Bonnie closes the book and sighs tiredly, air rushing out of her lungs. "Why now?"
Damon is at once indignant, but equally contrite, "I've apologized before."
Bonnie searches her memory, searches for a time Damon has apologized to her and meant it. "You said you were sorry about my grandmother, " she concedes. "You said you were sorry about not being honest with me when I had amnesia. I never believed you meant it, though. In fact I'm pretty sure you do the same thing all over again."
Bonnie says it without a trace of anger. More matter-of-fact, more resigned to the truth.
Damon squints, smirking inwardly because he knew she would be difficult. He wonders if he should tell her he's dying. What would her forgiveness look like, then?
"I forgive you. You were only doing what you wanted to do. Holding that against you would not make me feel any better."
Damon's eyes widen because he was not expecting Bonnie's response. "Bennett witches hold grudges."
Bonnie smiles at that, looking at her hands, "Bennett witches do alot of things. You love Elena and you'll keep her safe. Even when I won't be able to."
Damon shifts uncomfortably, deciding to tell her the truth of his predicament "About that ―" Damon stops because the footsteps he hears belong to Jeremy Gilbert and the last thing he needs is the kid butting in.
Before Jeremy could say a word, Bonnie interjects, "Damon stopped by for a visit. He didn't want me to die of boredom."
"Oh yeah?," Jeremy responds distractedly.
Damon had to hand to him. Once Jeremy interprets danger, he's always cautious.
"I was just leaving." Damon announces, feet taking him out of the room.
He suddenly stops at the doorway, only to turn back, "You should really fix up the place," grimacing in mock disgust.
"There's something wrong with that guy," Jeremy states, mixture of abhorrence and respect gracing his face as Damon exits.
"He'll grow out of it," Bonnie responds.
Can you wait for him to grow up?
Bonnie shakes the voice out of her head because that witch in St. Stephen, South Carolina is just as crazy as Damon is.
AUTHOR's NOTE/UPDATE INFO:
Real life continues to make mince meat out of me. She Hates Me is still on sporadic update notice.
