Note: About four months? Heck
This is unedited, as I published it right after writing it up, listening to Ben Khan in my office. I'm seeing M.I.A live tonight - no biggie. Dedicated to anyone who gets sad, and then mad that the word sad just doesn't do 'sad' any justice.
Better Than Forever
"What could be better than forever, I wonder? Surely nothing is better than the idea of everything? The chance at having it all? Oh, but I'll tell you one thing that usurps the throne of eternity...It is here and now."
Bonnie Bennett was a lot smarter than she looked. And she looked like she could smell bullshit a mile out in her sleep, something Damon Salvatore learned the hard way through years of underestimation on his part. Eventually, he learned that using her powers in combination with his knack for chaos went really well together. And while he fawned over the 'unlikely' success of their friendship - best, friendship - Bonnie was keeping tabs on something a little more... concerning.
It all started back in Kai's Prison World.
They must have been about halfway through their stay, unknowingly of course, when Damon rattled her tiny body awake with a loud sigh.
"Jesus, Damon, fucking-what" Bonnie gasped awake from where she'd been sleeping not a moment ago.
"I see the swearing is sticking around," Damon noted, sitting calmly down next to her as if he'd done nothing wrong, "Not that I mind. I just think, if you're never going to stop talking, you should at least have to listen to the sound of my voice, too." She wiped tiredly at her eyes. "You know, like a conversation."
"What the hell are you even talking about?" Bonnie huffed, pulling the blanket tighter around her body, to keep her hands from throttling his neck in vain.
"I'm talking about you," Damon poked her shoulder none too gently, "talking in your damn sleep." He growled the last bit.
"So you woke me up?" Bonnie seethed, smacking the side of his arm as hard as she could in her somnolent state. When he chuckled at her attempts, something inside of her snapped at she launched at him. Arms flailing, hardly finding purchase on his body; his laughter only grew louder as she grew angrier and angrier. "Stop, laughing, at, me!" She demanded as she continued to wail on him. "It's rude. Ruder than waking me up because you're fucking lonely. Rude, Damon," Bonnie threw the blanket off of her and gripped him by the neck, reasoning inwardly that this seemed to be the only language Damon spoke on a good day, "You're so goddamn rude." She hissed into his face and threw his body back and climbed off of him. Walking over to the bar and bourbon, Bonnie found herself pressed up against a wall an instant later.
"Now," Damon had his hands on either side of her head and a sneer to close to a smirk on his face as his spoke, "There's no way you'd know this, but I have a thing for a little light choking, and I doubt you and Elena share that kind of everything-"
"Oh we do, I just don't give a shit about what you like in bed-" Bonnie spat in return, un-bothered at how his body pressed up against hers so closely. She caught the glimmer in his eye that meant she threw him and smiled up at him cheekily.
"Irregardless-"
"Re-gardless-"
"Irregardless of that," Damon continued, dipping his head to lock eyes with her, "Let's re-establish some boundaries shall we?"
"Are we going to start with not pinning the only other person on this plane against a wall? Because I think we should." Bonnie sassed, finally feeling awake as she registered the heat thrumming off of her body, her skin prickling against the cool touch emanating from his.
"I think we'll start with how I feed, actually." Damon said, throwing her a little with his thought process. "I want it in a mug."
"Vampire of the year mug, or?"
"You know I like the black, chipped one." Damon said reflexively. Bonnie shrugged.
"Also, why are you assuming I'll still be giving you my blood after this?" The witch asked. Damon's jaw clenched and her eyes lit up. "You should have let me sleep."
"I don't want to spend the rare few hours I have free of direct eye contact with you, listening to you..." he stopped himself short.
"Listening to me...what? What, Damon?" Bonnie pressed.
"Have dreams!" He burst. "Good ones," his eyes flickered to her mouth and back up again as he thought of how to phrase what he wanted to say. "Long ones."
"Uh," Bonnie's blushing followed quickly after that. "Are you-?"
"I'm nothing," Damon pulled away, "Scratch that, actually," he threw an arm out at her as he walked away, putting some much needed distance between them,"I'm annoyed as fuck."
"I don't think you're annoyed." Bonnie mused.
"You don't know what I'm feeling." Damon seethed, gesturing grandly outward from his chest as he went on, "you don't know anything Bonnie, but I'll tell you what you should know, you know - so you actually know it - I don't want you sleeping in the room next to me anymore. Move. Sleep outside, or in that cave you like so much." Bonnie watched Damon walk away, movements pinched and exaggerated as he left and couldn't help but chuckle under her breath. The laughter faded quickly when she moved her thoughts from horny-Damon, to lonely Damon, to herself, to her own loneliness, and her own horniness and sighed at length.
"We need to get the fuck out of here." Bonnie said to herself. "Now."
Later, when they were back home, Damon was completely the opposite of what he'd been in the maelstrom of their short little life together inside of the Prison World. Well, sort of. He was still mad all the time, just never at her anymore. He fretted constantly over the probability of his happily-ever-after, but now, he was cramming her into his bigger picture; bringing her familiar face into focus as he decided what he was willing to go to battle for. Bonnie saw and took note of all of it.
A large part of her could only feel relief. She needed every bit of what Damon was giving her. She needed the concern, the caution, the love. She needed the quiet talks in the woods when he decided that she still needed time acclimating after being alone for so long. The cups of steaming coffee, black and sugarless (much to his dismay at its flavourlessness) on her nightstand when he was going to ask her how she was really feeling that day. All the Polaroids he'd taken of her and the house, and her and Lily, and Sarah and their small moments - and given to her. She'd stuck them on the wall, feeling more and more tethered back to her life, or at least the parts she still sought to keep for her own. She felt like she was becoming something real again, someone tangible.
Damon knew without saying, somehow, that Bonnie only wanted to exist again. She wanted the photographs littered across her bedroom wall in her room in the Boarding House. That she wanted her life back, not her old one, god, not the dying one, but just her life. A life. And Bonnie knew that Damon very much wanted to be a part of that; she just didn't know if he knew exactly which part he was after. She couldn't tell at first, either.
Damon had about as much experience outside of loving Elena and everything she came with that Bonnie did. Neither of them really knew the logistics of a life, of a love, outside of her. It explained the fumbling into and over one another. It explained the arguments, the anger, the camaraderie. It explained the namelessness they'd first marvelled at (and it's newness), but now took comfort in that same namelessness, as it seemed to absolve them of any consequences. Giving it a name meant giving it to everyone to call them by, and they'd both done their utmost avoiding just that.
Bonnie knew, she'd known for some time now in fact, that Damon loved her. It had happened so slowly. From the nicknaming, the incessant arguing which he insisted only brought them closer, the proximity he used as a weapon to try and thwart her logic, like he was precisely away of his presence and what it could garner him. Bonnie watched him, memorised his habits almost habitually herself. His tone and what it meant of his mood, the curl of his shoulders as he prowled in agitation, the very smell of him became something Bonnie understood well.
This is how she knew before the day he kissed her that he was in love with her. She knew before Sarah had found her alone and told her she loved Damon. She knew before she met Lily, before she came home, before she sent home. She could admit to herself, that that was one of the reasons she sent him in the first place. She was also sure that the only reason Elena had come at her about sleeping with Damon is because she was right next to Bonnie, front row, watching him fall out of love with the girl he swore he'd love until his true dying day. Bonnie wanted to be surprised, but the more she thought about it, the more tiring it seemed - loving someone for so long and with so much...Damon never stood a chance.
Bonnie, on the other hand, had kept her thoughts on Damon on the back burner. Truthfully, she was ready to love and be loved by someone who had nothing to do with Jeremy or the girl she was when she was with Jeremy. But Bonnie had noticed something concerning about herself as well as Damon. Bonnie had noticed that her emotions had flattened out; grown grey and listless regardless of what they were called. Anger became a small sigh, exhaustion bottomed out to a simple shrug and her depression presented itself neatly underneath her eyes each morning.
So much had been happening, couldn't seem to stop happening to her, and she was still trapped in that hollowness that had found her in the Prison World without Damon. Bonnie had asked herself all kinds of questions then; was this really her Grams' idea of saving her? Was Kai really insane, or was that kind of madness inevitable in a world like theirs? Yes, theirs? Because Bonnie had led a path so far removed from a life like his, and yet, there she was, trapped all the same. That had to mean something, because the only thing worse than ending up in an alternate universe with a murderous sociopath, was leading a life so meaningless and inconsequential that fate had nothing left to do with you but throw you away for all of eternity.
Bonnie thought all of this. Ceaselessly. Drifting between bouts of hysteria and Kai's tyranny and then a loneliness, so sudden, and so solid that it seemed to inhale her and keep her suspended in solitude.
She had dreams after Damon left. Horrid ones. Ones she wished he'd come back just to wake her from. But he never did.
Dreams about her father's death, her mother's, Grams'. She dreamt about the empty houses she and her dead family had left behind. Bonnie dreamt about drowning herself at the Gilbert Lake House. Hanging herself in the den. First she staved off the thoughts with the flimsy reasoning of who'd bury her. She wanted to be next to Sheila. She had to be put next to Sheila. She didn't want a fucking tree stump, she wanted a funeral and flowers and cool marble marked with her name so that she'd have proof; that she'd been there, she'd tried, god she'd died trying - but that at the very least she'd have something to show for it.
She spent her days walking around. Just for something to do. Her body grew frail. She walked all over Mystic Falls. Visited every place she could think of, and discovered parts she'd never have thought to seek out before then. Once she'd grown tired of that she found herself sitting in the den. A tumbler of bourbon and it's near empty bottle to her left, Damon's notes and books scattered all over the carpeted floors. Here is where she decided to go to Qetsiyah's cave, to get her blood. It was here destiny fated her to find the other cure.
When she got home, after her blip with Lily, the first thing she thought of was Damon.
And Damon meant pancakes that were rubbery in the middle, dripping with syrup and decorated with blueberries neither of them were particularly fond of.
She wanted blueberries, and syrup and half-cooked batter and her best friend.
Because then, she could finally let it all go.
When Bonnie waited in the kitchen for Damon, she had a simple plan - she was going to give him the cure, let him choose what to do with it, and then see herself out of his life, this town, and maybe find some peace in the almighty elsewhere. She could stomach that - only because it would finally be on her terms.
That all went out of the window the minute Damon Salvatore stepped into the kitchen in the Boarding House
Bonnie pressed her eyes shut and felt herself spread out like a shimmering something; moving her arms, her mouth, as she kissed and was kissed by Damon Salvatore. His hands moved gently, but hurriedly, like she was turning to mist between his fingers. Maybe she was, maybe he finally felt it as strongly as she did.
"Please don't leave me." Damon breathed against her mouth. His voice was shaking through it's own whispering.
"Stop asking me to stay." Bonnie said, punctuating their kissing with a shuddering sigh as she pulled away to look him in the eye. "I can't stay, not like this."
"How will you stay?" Damon asked, pulling her into his arms as he sat back down on the floor beside his bed, letting her straddle his lap. "I'll do anything."
"Then do the one thing I want." Bonnie said, cupping his face again, eyes shining with sincerity, "Let me die."
"I," A tear slipped out of his eye, "I can't, I won't do that." Damon said, wiping frustratedly at his face with the back of his hand, "I mean, I never understood the desperation Stefan felt when he asked me to turn, begged me to turn, to be with him." Damon swallowed heavily. "But, I do now."
Bonnie blinked slowly back at him.
"Stefan thought he was asking me for forever," Damon said slowly, flexing his fingers and marvelling at the fact that he had Bonnie held between his hands, "He thought he was asking me to love him, to be his brother, forever - even after Katherine." Damon nodded, smiling sadly, "He had that kind of faith in me, in the two of us." He looked down for a moment before lifting his bright eyes to lock with hers. "Bonnie, I'm not asking you for forever, I'm not even asking you for sixty years, I'm just asking you to stay for however long your life is meant to be...with me."
"You want to be human?" Bonnie whispered after a long while of just looking at him and feeling his words.
"With you, with my mother. Stefan. Yes." He said.
"It's awful." Bonnie said. "Especially when you're broken." Damon lifted his hand to wipe at the tear she didn't even feel sliding down her cheek.
"It's only awful when you think you've been broken all along," Damon said, "And trust me when I say this Bonnie, life has done nothing but chip away at you - I've seen it with my own two eyes, fuck, I've been responsible for it enough times as well, but here you are."
"Yes," Bonnie nodded, relaxing into the position they were in. "...Broken."
"So you're broken," Damon says, shrugging, "let's get you through it, let's get you to a better place, let's figure out what that even means," a self-deprecating laugh, "together."
"Damon, I'm tired. I'm tired of fixing things."
"Then let me," Damon said seriously, "I have years of endurance on my records. I know all about the long haul."
"I'm not the girl someone spends centuries on," Bonnie shakes her head, "I could never be that cruel."
"You don't have to be cruel to be worthy of a love like that." Damon argued. "And if I was ever going to put myself through that kind of time, and pain and effort ever again - I would do it for you."
"Elena-"
"Is not a part of this conversation," Damon interrupted, "Not this one. We can talk about her when I ask you to be my girlfriend. But we're not making your depression about her."
"I'm not depressed." Bonnie said in a knee-jerk reaction. She'd yet to even say it out loud herself.
"Okay. It's still not about Elena."
"Then stop saying her name."
"Stop thinking it," Damon countered. "I'm surprised you didn't fight me on the girlfriend thing."
"Pointless until you actually ask me," Bonnie decided, quirking her mouth to the side as she took a deep, steadying breath, "It's not a part of this conversation, remember?"
"Do you feel better?" Damon asked after a beat.
"A little."
"Do you think I could help you feel better over a longer period of time than this moment while we're trapped in Kai's psycho brain?"
"...Yes."
"Then kiss me one more time and let's go put an end to this."
"We're doing this?" Bonnie asked as she closed some more space between them.
"Oh, we're doing all of this." Damon assured her, pulling her mouth to his. As she smiled into the kiss, Damon's body went limp and fell to the floor with a hard thud.
"D-"
Kai made a loud buzzer noise at the back of his throat as he stood at the threshold with a sly grin.
"Now that we've concluded our tour of option A, I think it's time you and I chat a bit about option B." Bonnie stammered as he made his way to her. "Get up, he's fine." Kai ordered. "I can kill him if you'd prefer. I want your undivided attention." Fresh tears smarted her eyes as she stood to her feet, her heart dropping as she stepped over Damon's unconscious body.
"He's okay?" Bonnie turned to Kai. Her eyes were shining and her face was still flushed from being so close to her vampire. Kai held her gaze for a long moment; taking it all in. Bonnie watched the corner of his eyes soften and he swallowed as he began to nod.
"Yeah, Bon, he's fine." He cleared his throat loudly and waved toward the doorway. "Come on, after you."
Bonnie looked over her shoulder at Damon one more time, before leaving the room.
"No, no, no, no, fuck," there was a loud crash as Damon threw something against the far wall of the cell. "Fuck you!" He screamed at Kai's sleeping face. Bonnie's body had dropped to the floor beside the warlock, and Damon couldn't stand the small smile curling the Parker boy's lips. "Mother-fuck-ing, fuck!"
"Calm down, Jesus," Caroline groaned from her cell, noting Elena's silence. "It can't be that bad." A second later Damon was in front of the blonde with her hand wrapped tightly around Caroline's neck and he was using everything in him to stop his fingers from ripping her head clean off of her shoulders.
"She's trapped," Damon spat, "your best friend, Bonnie? Remember her? Sleepovers and secrets and all that bullshit you swore by when you were the far less annoying version of your useless self." Damon squeezed a little tighter and watched her eyes roll. Remembering a conversation with Bonnie he leapt off of the blonde with a twisted frown. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that." Caroline shrugged. "No, I'm serious. I've hurt you, a lot, and I never - I mean, Bonnie said it wasn't too late to-"
"Maybe save the apology for raping me when I'm myself?" Caroline suggested with a quirk of her brows.
"Fucking hell." Damon pressed his palms over his face. "I need her back." Damon gagged. "I'm going to be sick."
"And I'm getting the hell out of here." Caroline grinned, a short lived cackle turning into a hiss as Lucy slammed her back against the wall with a powerful swing of magic.
"Oh my god, Bonnie!" Lily gasped in the next cell, clutching the witch desperately to her chest, "her heart beat is so weak!" The mother cried as she cradled Bonnie.
"It's fine," Lucy said, even as Damon's vision swam and he sank slowly to the floor, "we're gonna fix this."
"Bonnie?" Lily called, cradling the Bennett girl's cheek and she rocked their bodies to and fro, "Oh god, how do I fix this? Please let me fix this. Please."
A/N: A longer-ish update just for ya'll. I covered a lot of ground, I know.
I also don't know how I'm going to handle Damon/Caroline, but I will.
Also, Lily and Lucy are about to make one helluva team, I'll say that much.
Reviews feed my muse.
Stay excellent
XO