Title: Sacred Geometry
Author: Sky Samuelle
Characters: Bonnie and Damon centric, but Katherine, Jeremy, Elena and Stefan will be nearly as heavily featured. This is probably as close to an ensemble fic as I'll never get.
Pairings: Bonnie/Damon, Stefan/Elena, Jeremy/Anna
Rating: Mature
Timeline: Post 1.22
Summary: Mystic Falls will be never be the same again after Founders Day. Not with Katherine and Jeremy allying to resurrect Anna and Pearl. Not with Stefan and Elena on the receiving end of Katherine's sick games. And Bonnie and Damon? Well, they are struck at the epicenter of everything. Currently on: Bonnie and Damon finally meet on a common ground, and all the UST they brewed so far finally goes somewhere.

AN: Soundtrack for this chapter is 'Gravity' by Sara Bareilles.

CHAPTER 9

Damon walks in the Salvatore's library with a carefully blank expression. "It's done," he says, and the witch nods briefly, hardly looking away from the untouched glass of bourbon he had set in her hands before leaving her there.

"Good."

Her face is crumbled, her eyes red and unnaturally bright, and he can see from how stiff her posture is that her muscles must still be cramping, her body still working to expel the remainders of those dark energies she so recently gathered inside her flesh.

"I told you to drink it," he reprimands her, annoyed, "if alcohol soothes our blood-thirst, it will most likely work to calm your Dark Magic backlash."

"The last thing I need right now is to get drunk" Bonnie answers with a stilted voice without looking at him, "I don't want to risk losing control ever again."

He finds it disturbing, the way she is reacting, and not in a way that would arouse his amusement. The thick awkwardness between them sets his nerves on edge, but he cannot act on his instinct: to be a bigger, crasser bastard than usual, because he has a feeling it wouldn't go over all that well.

He is not cut out to be sensitive, and he is quite certain that she might laugh in his face if he tried or worse (he hates it when she looks stonily straight through his charades like she knows he is only lying his mouth off).

He settles for a reasonable compromise.

"Come on," he sighs with a palpable aggravation, "even you can't that much of a goody-two-shoes to beat yourself over defending your virtue."

This gets Bonnie to stare sightlessly into her swirling glass and finally turn her head to meet his gaze.

"I'm not sorry for them," she spits, like the mere mention of those men makes her sick, "but I'm sorry that I let them take away from me something I can never get back, and I'm sorry that they had families who will be destroyed when they don't come back home."

She sighs dejectedly, her shoulders sinking under an invisible weight as she takes her chin between her hands "How I am supposed to trust myself again after this?"

Damon scratches the back of his head thoughtfully, unable to look away from her petite frame and yet quite bothered by how defeated she appears. He wishes he could say to her that even if she had allowed those assholes to live, he would find out the truth of what they meant to do to her somehow, and do a lot worse than she had, but intentionally so. He would have never allowed anyone to get away with abusing his property: this town is his territory and, somehow, the little witch became part of his 'pack'.

But he doubts hearing anything like that would make her feel better, so he lets it go, focuses on something more practical.

"Controlling supernatural abilities is a trial by error, little witch. Did you really expect to master your power without ever hitting a bump or two along the way? You'll do better next time."

Bonnie shakes her head frantically, narrowing glassy, haunted eyes on him: "There will be no next time - I'm done with Dark Magic."

"Don't pull a Stefan on me, Bennett," he scoffs, aggravated that she is so willing to send to waste all her potential over one meaningless accident. "You can't afford to. With your lineage and the extent of your power, there will always be a Katherine breathing down your neck. It's not pulling punches that'll make you survive."

"Didn't you see what I did tonight? I can't risk-"

"You have to," the vampire cuts her off harshly; "there are no shortcuts available."

"You don't get it do you?" Bonnie jumps to her feet, arms spreading wide, "You enjoy killing and compelling right, left, and center… You love inflicting pain and fear! I didn't until tonight! Tonight I adored it, and I can't stand thinking of it! I don't want to ever get used to it!"

"You won't," Damon hisses, circling around her. "Rest assured, Bonnie, there's still a goddamn abyss of difference between you and me."

The witch blinks, dazed by both his sudden nearness and the offense snaking through his words. He so rarely uses her first name that it's difficult to not take notice when he does.

"I wasn't trying to insult you!" she spits, gritting her teeth. Her temper is flaring, but she's trying to control it. She won't lose it again.

"Well, that's a change!" Damon says, getting even more in her face and enunciating every word, blue eyes blazing a glowing cobalt shade right in her face.

"You are such an egomaniacal asshole. Not everything is about you. I have no idea why I was even trying to explain to you how I feel," Bonnie says, her smile one of disbelief and without humor.

"Well, look around: it's not like you have anybody else to turn to. It's not like you're running to Sweet Elena and Saint Stefan!" he snaps, his voice rising, losing control as he realizes she only turned to him in her moment of shame. "Without me, you'd be waiting for your turn to burn at the stake!"

"Without me, you and your brother would be ashes by now!" How quickly Bonnie forgot to retain her control. She wouldn't just stand there while he yelled in her face. "It's not like you deserved to be saved. You hurt everyone I loved!"

"Well then thank you for being so fucking merciful!"

"And thank you for being nearly decent to me, for once," she says, calming her voice, but she was still glaring up at him and breathing hard.

And although it's nothing short of a screaming match, it's uncomfortably clear that they both mean what they say. A strange vibe sizzles between them, like the heat they always blamed on mutual dislike has suddenly morphed into something altogether different and unknown.

Their physical proximity makes her skin itch in a manner that is not entirely unpleasant, and Bonnie steps back, her anger spent as easily as it had arisen. The fire simmering low in her belly doesn't extinguish though, and she convinces herself that it's just the magic lingering in her system that is altering her senses.

She nervously touches her hair, surprised as a cool hand grabs her wrist, stilling it with a careful strength. Damon closes the distance she had just established between them, following her footsteps, mesmerized by the warmth emanating from her flesh. Her small, tight body is burning hot like a furnace, and he can feel her high temperature scalding the air around her frame. It's just one more reminder of what she just went through, and of why he should be pulling away from her, but Damon had never seen the point in resisting a temptation.

His thumb runs back and forth across the sensitive inside of her wrist, and Bonnie doesn't fight his touch but her expression remains wary, uncertain.

"I bet all it takes to get you back under control is some supervision. You never had a real opponent to practice offensive spells on until today, so you've never learned to measure out your reactions. It will be different if you have a sparring partner."

"Are you volunteering?" she questions with a mix of incredulity and hopefulness.

"Helping you helps me," he justifies to himself as much he does to her.

"All right," Bonnie acquiesces. "Thank you."

"You are welcome," the vampire smirks lightly, feeling quite reluctant to let her wrist go, but doing it nonetheless.

She rubs the sliver of skin his grip has branded absently, her expressive visage reflecting a guarded concern about his motives for being so compliant.

"Am I to expect you saying anything to your brother or Elena before I get the chance to?"

"Maybe," he chuckles, although he is not amused in the slightest, "but isn't it so much more entertaining when the two of us keep secrets?"

Not quite sure if she wants to agree or not, Bonnie stays quiet. The silence doesn't last long, because for some reason it feels important that the words keep flowing between them. He gets her to agree about sending her father away finally, and they craft vague plans about fight training.

He watches her fending off her exhaustion with admirable effort, but he doesn't call her on it. When she crumbles, pretty much passing out on the armchair while he is spouting tactical advice over some subject she can no longer remember, Damon doesn't even bother to try and nudge her awake. He only takes in the weary lines engraved on that young face and then gathers her carefully in his arms to carry her upstairs. He lays her down on his bed, gets her shoes off and tucks her under his sheets with a gentleness that surprises him.

He scowls as his fingers brush a few unruly locks away from her face, and then finds there's nothing else for him to do other than sit on the edge of the mattress and glare at her still form like his tangled feelings are entirely her fault.

Bonnie doesn't sleep long or easily: it's after barely one hour that her eyes flutter open, and she doesn't feel well rested, only vaguely restless, as she quickly realizes where she is and why.

Awakening to find Damon Salvatore staring down at her with a fixed gravity and herself wrapped in purple silk sheets in a strange bed is quite the disorienting endeavor, but it does wonders to bring her back to the fucked up reality, hard and fast.

"For just a moment," she mutters, levering on her elbows to grouch herself up to a sitting position, "I hoped last night was all one senseless nightmare."

"It's not." Damon shrugs, still watching her with that aggravating, unfiltered focus. In the morning's light, his eyes are a silvery azure that colors them much colder, almost unfeeling.

"A shame," she replies, absolutely unable to make sense of anything anymore.

Damon finds himself unsettled by the way the witch refuses to shy away from his gaze. The way she is looking back at him then is a new brand of upsetting. It reminds him of the look he saw Stefan giving to Elena or Lexi a few times across the decades: usually whenever his life was going to shit and he wanted to silently beg them to stop the train-wreck before he lost his mind.

Nobody looks at Damon like that, ever. With good reason too, since Damon is not sensitive or altruistic enough to give a shit about anyone else's messes. He also has a hunch that if the little witch was aware of the weakness she is so carelessly displaying to him now, she would be utterly humiliated.

She doesn't trust him and he doesn't trust her and nothing has changed, so why the fuck does he have this impulse to fix her?

He doesn't know how he is supposed to handle a Bonnie Bennett that is uncertain and breakable and lost instead of scathing and proud and confident. The Bonnie he knows doesn't depend on anyone to get by and she most certainly is not afraid of making unpopular choices or voicing unpopular opinions.

Perhaps he tucks her hair behind her ear only because he wants to break the impasse, to get her to stop looking at him.

Perhaps he leans forward and presses his mouth to hers only because he hopes she will slap him and give him something familiar again.

Even if he is quite certain that on a list of things to do with a girl who's been sexually assaulted less than 48 hours ago, kissing her is at the very bottom.

He is shocked when the slap doesn't come. Bonnie doesn't move at all, just waits it out as his lips move slowly around hers. She doesn't get why he would want to kiss her, really, especially now: he has always wanted Elena or Katherine for as long she can remember and after the night she just had, she can't be all that irresistibly attractive.

Yet, as the pressure of his tongue against her lips grows from tentative to demanding, she discovers she is tired of analyzing. If nothing will make sense anymore, she might as well go with the tide.

Damon is something close to freaked out when her mouth opens against his and Bonnie starts to kiss him back: it's not a rushed kiss but it's a hungry one, and she douses him with a hurried aggression that has him wondering if she is angry with herself or with him, if she really wants it or it's just the easiest way to punish herself.

He should put a stop to it, probably, but there's this feeling of trepidation and anxiety building in the pit of his stomach, and then a sense of juvenile, unreasonable fear that wars against the promise of an elated release.

It is entirely too unexpected, to have her in his arms, warm and compliant, to be cupping her cheek to angle her head so he can kiss her more deeply. He keeps expecting her to push him off any moment now, so he really, really should make the best of it. Even if it's wrong and fucking stupid because there's a fat and sound chance that the witch will be soon yelling at him for taking advantage of her.

He goes with it anyway because it's hot and he's not so hypocritical to deny he has wanted this for a long awhile, badly. He just didn't think it would ever happen.

As he coaxes her down, the strands of her hair silky-soft between his fingers while her arms wrap around his shoulders, he can't pretend he has not imagined it often, how it would feel being the first to make Bonnie Bennett melt and whimper.

In fact, Damon has imagined it so often that it's nearly funny that it's happening for real, and if he stops, maybe it's just to double-check that they are both on the same page and he is not making it all up inside his head.

After all, lately, he has been proved to be a bit too keen on self-delusions for his taste.

Bonnie's shadowed, green eyes look up to him from behind lowered lashes, questioning, her lips parted and swollen, and Damon feels again the strangest mix of terror and excitement gobbling up his throat.

"You started it," she reminds him, feeling more than a little self-conscious, as her nails scrape his nape.

"So?"

"So, finish it, before I change my mind."

"I see," he drawls, his tone a smooth blend of honey and poison, a perfect bait to get a grasp on her thoughts because, damn, he still can't figure her out, and it unnerves him like mad even now. "Am I supposed to be the host of your pity party?"

If his hands weren't raking up and down the contours of her body, molding her to him, she would be tempted to take offense and fling him off her. Possibly to set his pretty hair on fire. But his touch is too distracting, to allow her to pay attention to anything but the unresolved tension they have been building for so long, over the course of many arguments and disagreements, now breaking dam after dam to weave this unreal fog of arousal and relief.

Bonnie heaves a deep sigh and smirks, more roguish than bitter. "Sorry, but pity parties are more of your specialty than mine," she assures, although she is not completely certain she is not lying. Perhaps there's a part of her that hungers for self-destruction today, but all for all, she doesn't think it's why she is doing this. It's more the fact that he sees her –sins and flaws- and she feels him –for better or worse- and when he touches her it feels good and real.

Her hips arch upwards, pressing against his, and Damon feels himself literally shaking, clamming up his mouth so he doesn't do anything embarrassing like moan or growl.

Hefeels her lips accidentally brush his neck and the subsequent spike of anticipation is enough to forget any point he was so set on arguing.

He kisses her again –slow and deliberate whereas before it was clumsy and passionate- intent on exploring the texture of her skin, the taste of her mouth and the spicy flavor of her scent.

Damon wills it to be all about the power play, but the witch is swiftly bringing out of him something different: that urge to dominate keeps getting quelled by an elusive need to keep Bonnie whole and functioning, to be kind to her even while he craves to sate himself with everything about her.

He doesn't understand it, but then that just seems to be his trend with everything today.

Her skin burns higher than normal still, he notices while his palms roam along her legs, bunching up her dress around her hips before lifting it over her head and tossing it on the floor. Her hands slide under his shirt too, a telekinetic force pulling at his buttons until they all skitter around the room: her eagerness designs a smug grin on his lips, which are meshed to hers.

He loves the sensation of her hands on him, skimming slowly from his back to the well-defined planes of his stomach and chest, and he likes it that she is touching him like she is not afraid or ashamed.

He loves the way she moves under him, tentative and yet bold, a testament to both her lack of experience and her ease to go along with her body's responses.

Back to the times he was born and raised, accepting as a life-companion a girl who was anything less than untouched was considered unacceptable. He had thought so little of it, then, preferring the company of harlots and maids to courting what his father would define 'suitable girls'.

Respectable virgins had looked dull and boring when confronted with the alternative of easy, loose, free-mouthed conquests. Now, with Bonnie, for the first time Damon thinks he finally understands that old fixation with only claiming the unmarred.

There's something extremely appealing in his current awareness of being the first to graze Bonnie's bare skin, of being the only one who knows how she tastes and sounds and responds. It makes every caress and moan worth more somehow, and when her cheek nuzzles the hollow of his throat, her limbs stretching and quivering under his weight, the sensation is so intense that it's almost like it's a first for him too.

She nips at his neck, her lips tugging at the skin ever so briefly before closing again in one languid, open-mouthed kiss, and he's wild for her, clenching his eyes shut and stilling every muscle in his body to not attack her.

Taking in one shuddering, frustrated breath, he unclasps her bra with fumbling fingers before discarding it quickly, half-expecting to be mocked any moment for that boy-ish eagerness. Glancing up to his lover, he can find no sign of censure in her features.

If anything, she looks every bit as nervous a wreck, biting on her bottom lip in a very shy, unwillingly sexy pose.

For an instant he nearly wishes he was the kind of man who would know how to speak the right words, the perfect cheesy lines. He's ever been that kind of man, so he returns to what he knows- the art of pleasing a woman through physical contact.

Damon ducks his head and runs his fangs along her skin, from her collarbone to the valley between her breasts, gifting her with lingering kisses along the way. He can feel her hips jerking, the juncture of her thighs instinctively seeking and rubbing against his thigh.

Groaning, he nuzzles his face between her soft breasts before ducking lower, teasing her brown, hard nipples in turns with his sharp teeth. Her fingers tangle and twist in his short hair, pulling as she cries out in both pain and pleasure, her spine arching to push her curves to his mouth.

His tongue slides relentlessly downwards to her stomach and she shivers, it dips into her navel and she gasps.

"Da-mon," she chokes out, and it forces him to stop because although he's supposed to be taking advantage of her, when she throws him with those small, tantalizing details it feels more like it's the other way around.

The vampire coaxes himself out of that drawback, strokes her thighs and her inner legs softly before he tugs her underwear off slowly, caressing and kneading her flesh as he goes.

"I hate you," Bonnie grumbles breathily, her muscles quivering and melting under his caresses.

Damon stops abruptly stroking her calves: "What?"

This is not the usual, natural reaction he gets from women during sex… what the hell is wrong with this one?

"What?" she echoes, dazed with frustrated arousal and impatience. Then she takes in his puzzled, offended expression and recalls what she was apparently thinking out loud a moment ago.

"Do you notice a slight imbalance between us?"she tries to explain, hoping her mortification is not all that evident.

Damon's expression manages to remain both blank and faintly resentful.

"I'm practically naked, and you… are not," Bonnie hisses, fisting the sheet in aggravation while she gestures to Damon's half-hanging shirt and pants. It's not that she didn't attempt to get them off, but he just kept stilling her hands whenever they got in the way of his 'quest'. And she didn't mind all that much but now it is slightly embarrassing to be naked with a very 'clothed' vampire when they are to…

"Oh," he pauses and smirks in that cocky manner that is just begging her to fry him, his eyes glittering with arrogance as he gets out of his clothes with surprisingly elegant rapidity.

"That was fast."

"I am a vampire, cupcake."

"Start with the ridiculous pet names, and I'm out of here," she vetoes, attempting to regain a resemblance of dignity.

Which proves to be particularly difficult, when his mouth is back between her thighs, suckling their inner patch of skin until he parts them further, runs his tongue leisurely and repeatedly along her slit as his thumb presses down hard on her swollen clitoris.

Whole her body jolts and writhes in pleasure and whatever is left of her mind really wishes she could hate him now, because he is entirely too good at this.

He keeps at it until the hungry, throbbing ache in her womb is positively painful and she is working hard to hold in a sob of longing.

His fingers dig in her thighs, stilling her as his teeth come nibbling on her nub and finally the delicious tension inside her uncoils and overflows.

The sound of glass creaking almost covers Damon's self-satisfied chuckle.

"What was that?" she whispers, breathless as he slides up against her, every inch where his skin touches hers tingling.

"I think you just nicked my window, BB," he retorts conspiratorially, bending her wobbly knees higher, "but no worries, you can pay me back."

"You are such an ass-" she exhales, a wave of white-hot fire shuddering through her every nerve-ending as Damon thrusts inside her, stretching her deeply.

He strokes her sides soothingly while she gets used to him, his face hiding in her hair as he inhales her in. "So hot," she hears him utter and for a fleeting, unexpectedly painful instant the witch wonders if he is picturing someone else, imagining that it's Elena's warm body under his.

It's a stupid thought, she recognizes: it's not like she was secretly pining after Damon all this time, and he is as entitled to his feelings as she is to hers. It's still her first time, anyway, and while she holds no romantic delusions over its meaning, it would be nice knowing she is not a fill-in.

Her doubts pretty much disappear when Damon draws back, mouth tight as he begins to move inside and out of her wet warmth. One of his hands goes to frame her visage, tilting it up so he can look into her eyes.

An arcane current of energy stirs and shifts between them, and suddenly she is seeing so clearly: it's like their souls are brushing along each other and maybe, maybe this is exactly what is occurring.

She read about it once- it's not unusual that sex becomes a psychic channel between two adequately powerful supernatural creatures.

Either way, what she sees takes her breath away: there's such a wild darkness hidden inside Damon Salvatore, a voracious, Dionysian appetite for everything and anything, a restless hunger for solace. Power, and confusion, and solitude. Deep down, he is just as weary and lost as she is.

It scares her beyond reason, that he is capable of sensing her the same way, but there's no erecting barriers now.

He sees everything of her too: her affection for her friends and family, so powerful and protective, her pride and her calm strength. He feels her guilt too, her demanding responsibility to live up to what her Grams wanted for her. The black depth of her remorse, because Sheila always had her granddaughter's back and when Bonnie was supposed to return the favor, she chose to have Stefan's back instead.

Damon clutches the witch to him, ecstasy slithering through his senses and defenses until every conscious thought is simply gone and the one thing he remembers is that Bonnie feels so good, so scorching hot around him.

And they come together.