She can feel the texture of his t-shirt, the hardness of the muscles wrapped around her, smell the scent of his skin, of the dried water, the unexpected warmth radiating from him. She can feel all of him, down to the very energy and power of every single cell in his body. All around her, trapping and anchoring her down.
The sensation goes straight to her head and in a surge of panic she wants to go away, leave Elena's body. Leave him, above all; but Elena holds on to her, sheepishly so, in an anguish that reverberates from the bottom of her soul, making Bonnie's spirit shiver because of it.
She's stuck between life and death, between earth and heaven. Between Elena's sorrow and Damon's need. And while one makes her flinch, the other seems to call at her in a way that makes her fear herself.
The moment he holds her seems to stretch into infinity —the smell of him, and the hard press of his muscles, and his face in the crook of her neck— to the point that she thinks it will follow her into the afterlife. And even when his arms loosen around her and he steps back it's not over. He's still all around her, trapping and anchoring her down. Bonnie swallows the instinct to hide away because, after all, this is all that's left to make her human – so she should feel it all, the warm sensation spreading through her as her heart beats a little faster, the childish panic raising under her skin as she realizes with the most ridiculous naturalness that they're tied together now, and it is irreparable.
Damon looks at her wary, his eyes don't rest on her for long and he stares at the wall when he says "We can't."
She's confused for a second, but he continues on, "Stefan won't let us help him," he explains, his voice barely a whisper, to not disturb the precarious quietness of his sleeping brother in the room on the other side of the wall.
Bonnie follows him down the stairs as he walks to the living room. The ticking of the pendulum clock is louder, thanks to Elena's enhanced hearing, and she cannot avoid feeling the seconds weighing on her, reminding her that her time is coming close to the definitive end. She almost wishes she could get drunk and forget the things she's about to lose, the things she's loosing already in this same instant.
An instinct of rebellion washes over her, she must remind herself to breathe normally or she'll just start hyperventilating, venting it all on Damon's furniture. He would definitely mind, so much that she would never hear the end of it. Still, her rationality snaps when he fills himself a glass of bourbon and gulps it down in one go as she stares at his back.
"Can you explain to me why you are so hell-bent on getting plastered?" she asks, her voice high and annoyed.
"I'm not trying to get plastered!" he replies, turning on his heels to look at her in the eyes. "I want to freaking vomit my heart out!" he burst out, grimacing. Bonnie isn't certain what that really means, she doesn't think she can ever be prepared to see through him so she doesn't try. Yet, it puzzles her the way he looks away from her.
She would think he would try to find comfort in the face she's wearing now, in Elena's doe eyes, but he is keen to avoid them.
"One problem at the time," he reminds himself, pressing the side of the glass against his temple to find some sort of relief, before giving up on it.
"Isn't my little brother the oversensitive type?" he asks, a little too cheerful for her to actually fall for it, "I mean, Elena and I only had sex in various positions while he was buried underwater for three months, why is he so offended?" his bitter irony making it easier to ignore the crudeness of his words.
"He spent three months screaming and begging inside his head," she says quietly, sitting down in the armchair. "You have to be patient, and give him time to realize that the worst is over now."
"Is it?" he asks, stealing a glance her way. She can feel the doubt in his voice. And because very soon, maybe sooner than she knows, she will be gone for good, she almost gives in to the silly idea to reach for him.
She doesn't.
"If I were him I'd be fucking angry," he admits, passing one hand through his thick black hair. "My brother was too relieved, then too distracted to notice I was gone. The love of my life was writing a comparative essay about Salvatore-induced-orgasms to give a crap about what hole had swallowed me."
"Damon," her alarmed tone, the names hissed between Elena's teeth make him turn. "Stop, you're hurting her," she warns him, making him realize Elena is perfectly conscious about what's going on, so that every word he speaks, she will hear it, too.
He doesn't feel particularly guilty about it. In fact, right now Elena's reluctance to face her own shit doesn't even make it to the top five of the things he feels guilty about. A voice in his head argues that groping for Bonnie Bennett while he was holding his girlfriend's body should be higher than second on that list, but really, now is not the moment to split hairs.
"Sorry," he mutters, "I forgot I vowed to never agonize over anything else but Elena's needs."
Bonnie has no heart to reprimand him. What a lucky day, he thinks bitterly as he sits in front of her on the leather sofa. His elbows rest on his knees and he bends his head, driving the heels of both hands against his temples, trying to find a relief that cannot be granted to someone like him.
"I'm sure Stefan is not angry at you," she says, "He's too broken to be anything else, and once he's back to being himself, hating you won't even be an option."
"He should know better," he says, bitterly. If his brother was smart he would be going out of his way to get rid of him.
"He does."
He looks away, his gums itch as his fury tries to boil up in him in the wrong moment, but she just can't help it, can she? Slapping him into reality, just to stand by him five minutes right before deciding she's had enough and she's ready to go and sing in the angels version of The X Factor. She makes him want to kill her for dying, which hits a whole new level of absurd.
And he won't even find her if he looks at her now.
"In the meantime," she continues, "We need someone to do what you and Elena can't," she says, "Someone he will trust without a doubt."
"And who would that be? That's a wild guess," he says sarcastically, finally looking at her. He takes his cellphone from the pocket of his jeans and throws it in her lap. "You call her," he tells her, his face as hard as a stone. If she's so eager to go, she will have to walk over Caroline's dead body now. He's well-aware this will not make her back down from her martyr resolution, but at least it will be hard for her to go away as it's hard for him to let her.
Sometimes he would like to be the better man, accept fate and heaven's punishment with that gracious honor his brother mastered so well. Sometimes, but not now. Now, he wants to hurt her, for she is his punishment, and he was never good at taking those.
Bonnie stares at Elena's white fingers wrapped around his phone, tries to not shake thinking about the shrill and slightly annoyed sound of her best friend's voice answering a call from Damon's private number. She looks at Damon's blue eyes, unblinkingly fixed on her, and back at the phone. She remembers her number by heart, presses the buttons with shaking fingers and when her friend answers her call at the seventh trill she can't help but choke on a teary smile.
"You better have a good excuse for calling me this late, Damon."
"Hi Caro," Bonnie even forgets about Damon sitting in front of her as she laughs weakly. It doesn't matter that she calls her Elena, it's just comforting to hear her assure she's going to be there immediately because she asked her to. This is the Caroline she knows and loves. This is the Caroline she hurt and left. This is the Caroline she will leave again.
And once she has hung up the phone, she cannot hold back the tears.
#
"Don't," he warns her, taking her by the shoulder and turning her so that she will see his hard face as he speaks, "Don't try and clear off now," he says, taking a step and then another, chasing her so that she finds herself walking back and hitting the wall behind. "You did this, and you will face the consequences. I swear."
He looks way too eager to see her bleed out her guilt and regrets, to not get angry herself.
"Are you that petty that you need to take your frustration out on me?" she asks, staring up at his face.
"You're hardly the innocent one, judgy," the familiar nickname makes her forget who's body she's inhabiting, "You wanted to play God, you lifted the veil and brought back every freak from the other side because you decided Elena had lost too much. Well, tell Caroline why her dad wasn't worth being brought back-"
"Stop it," she warns him, but he doesn't even hear her over the sound of his unmerciful voice.
"Tell Matt why Vicky would have been useless anyway-"
"Stop it."
"Alaric and Jenna weren't even that funny, were they?" he presses her.
"I said stop it, Damon."
"Or better, tell your whole family tree why the world can do without the most powerful witches in the country but, oh no, it can't keep on turning without a boy that gets a hard-on every time he sees a ghost!"
"I said stop it!" she screams, pushing him away, with a strength that does not belong to her.
Damon goes flying across the room, impacts against the library and falls to the floor. She's incredulous at herself, unable to keep it in, unable to let it out. Her breathing becomes erratic as her eyes follow Damon's movements and see him rolling on the parquet.
"Alive and kicking, aren't we?" he asks with some effort, "For how long?" irony cutting through both of them.
He's looking up at the ceiling when he sees her. Elena's body bending over him, getting on her knees to sit in his lap and bend over to ask, "You think I want to die?" as her fist wraps around his shirt, and pulls, "You think I don't miss my friends? You think I don't miss my life? You think I don't miss-" she can't say it, not really, that would make it all more real, "my future?"
I've been gone so long
I can barely say
All I know is now I want to stay
She sees tears falling on his face, but can't understand that she is crying. Her breath is labored and he is staring at her with wide blue eyes, the bluest she's ever seen.
He can smell Elena's skin, but it's Bonnie he feels crumbling and burning above himself. He doesn't really want to know who it is that he wants to kiss so badly right now.
"What I did was wrong, okay?" she admits, almost screaming in his face, "Are you happy?" she asks again, "I was wrong and I just want to stay but if I do I'll do worse!"
Has it been too long since I went away?
Cause I'm trying to find the words but I can barely say
"Who cares!" he screams back, feeling so close to having her surrender to his need to have her back that he can't see straight.
"I do! I care!" she protests "There's no way to stay without fucking it all up, and even if I wanted to I wouldn't know where to start-"
"Take a body!" he says, propping himself on his elbows.
"What?" she asks back, stunned.
"You heard me, pick a body and possess-"
"You're crazy," she cuts his words, moving to stand but he's faster than she is. His hand wrap around her wrist and he pulls her back down, as he pulls himself into a sitting position so that he can look straight into her eyes, scratched with green.
"I'm not the one that's giving up his life," he reminds her.
Well I used to be the sun
Waiting silently but they barely noticed me
But I've been talking in my sleep when anybody sees they turn and run from me
"I'm not giving up," she says, "Because I have nothing to give up anymore," and the concept seems to bite at him. He looks at her with dismay, holding up her wrist midair. If she stretched her fingers now she would touch his cheek, in her mind she can almost see the skin under her fingertips.
"Are you gone then?" he asks, his voice so low she's not sure he actually said a thing, "For good?"
He can't figure out how it can be possible, for her to be lost to him while she's sitting in his lap, barely a breath away from his mouth. But then again that's Elena - that's Elena and he forgot entirely about her. He can only see those eyes scratched with green and feel something he can never speak of, in a place where Bonnie does not exist anymore even though she's entangled in the pulse he can feel beating under his fingers.
I want to return but all you will do is turn to leave
If I can find my way home will you take hold of me?
Cause I've been gone so long
I can barely say
Bonnie pulls away when the doorbell startles her. Damon doesn't even look up as he stands on his feet. She's obviously nervous at the thought of actually being able to talk to Caroline and have her talking back. He doesn't even need to read it on her face. She's predictable like that.
"I'll let you do the honors," he says, with no bitterness in his dark voice. He waits for her to walk past him before following her.
When Bonnie opens the front door Caroline raises her eyes from her ankle boots and flinches at seeing the cheeks of her best friend cut by two streams of melted mascara.
"What now? Who died?" she asks wary, before looking over Elena's shoulder to look at Damon's face and asking, "What did you do?"
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he says with no expression, and before Caroline can reply, Bonnie takes a step forward and hugs her tight.
"I missed you so much."
All I know is now I want to stay
Has it been too long since I went away?
Cause I'm trying to find the words but I can barely say
#
Note: The song used in this chapter is "I can barely say" by The Fray.
