A/N: I always feel like if I'm thanking you guys for reading it's like thanking fans or something, but I really mean it. You guys are awesome. I'd drink with all of you.

I mean, if that's your thing.

Chapter Fourteen: Vitality

Damon POV

You've had all the time in the world and you're still just as sad as you were the day you died.

Truth was a weapon. It cut sharper than any blade, sounder louder than any bullet, and ran deeper than any stake. It was something that pierced every level of who you were and planted itself deep into the core of your soul and twisted its way into your mind. To most, the truth was often never found and often very hard to come by.

To Bonnie Bennett, it was as plain as day.

Staring into those hazel green eyes filled with heated defiance and solid morals, I wanted to kill her. I salivated as I thought about sinking my fangs into her jugular and letting the truth bleed out of her. I could strangle her until she loosened up and got off that fucking high horse of hers. I could rip the life out of her and ruin her.

Just like she'd ruined me.

I grabbed her so fast I didn't remember doing it. She needed to get away from me, I needed to get away from her. I sped out of my room and tossed her into the one she was sleeping in. She hit the bed with a loud thump and I slammed the door before I could change my mind. I seethed as I walked, naked, back to my bedroom. I slammed the door as hard as I could, rattling the window on the right side of the room.

Stupid little bitch.

Judgmental prude.

I was enraged. I ran my hands over my hair and stared around my room. I could smell her everywhere, like lavender and honey. She'd touched the classics I kept on the floor beside my bed and paid extra attention to the Dream of The Rood. The air that came from the bathroom carried her scent and replayed her words over and over again in my head. I felt the veins pulse around my eyes as my vision grew sharper. My fangs extended and longed for the kill.

I dressed quickly and left. I felt like a coward for letting a seventeen year old girl run me out of my own house, but I was doing us both a favor. If I stayed there any longer I'd do something I would've regretted later. As much as I wanted to throttle the shit out of her, a part of me knew she shouldn't have to pay for my bad mood.

And they said I had no self control.

I got in my car and sped from the house. I put in my favorite Nine Inch Nails CD and pressed my foot down hard on the gas. Mystic Falls blew by in a blur of boring and small town bullshit, making me realize this town was driving me crazy. I missed the city and the lights. I missed what they could do for a vampire and the anonymity they allowed.

No matter how far I drove, I could still feel Bonnie in the back of my mind like a sense I couldn't use. I could feel a small amount of her feelings and the first one I picked up on was guilt. Did she feel bad for what she'd said to me? Was she pitying me? Her emotions were all over the place flickering like lights in my head, and I found myself speeding away from it as fast as I could.

Three hours later I was in a bar in Richmond drinking my fifth glass of whiskey. The woodsy smell and taste combined with the spice and fire as it burned down my throat was almost enough to calm me down. When I'd first come in here, I could smell that the bartender watered down his liquor in order to make a more money off his customers. A few seconds and a little compulsion and he was giving me top shelf on the house.

As the buzz from the drinks kicked in, I noticed something. Bonnie was getting quieter. Not even quieter per say, it was more like she was being muted. She would fade out like the end of a song and then come back at a lower volume than before.

I snapped out of it. From the furthest left corner of the bar, I could hear a group of women talking. They were older, well older than I looked, and I could hear everything they were talking about. They wondered who I was, obviously I was new. None of them had ever seen me around here before, as if Richmond were so small everyone knew each other.

The blonde kept telling her brunette friend how long it'd been since she'd fucked a college student. I heard her say how energetic the young ones were and how they could fuck you within an inch of your life. Did I really look that young? I'd been twenty two when I was turned, but I always thought I looked older.

I turned to look at them.

The brunette was the prettiest, with long chestnut colored hair and big bark blue eyes. She was also dressed the best in a simple burgundy dress that would rip if I pulled hard enough. Her blonde friend had sex appeal and knew it. Probably the woman Caroline would've grown up to be if Katherine hadn't gotten to her. The other woman, a darker blonder, looked like a clown with all the eye shadow. I played with the thought of which one I'd leave with, if not all of them, then I focused on the brunette.

I winked.

She was over to me in twenty seconds, the first fifteen of which she spent looking back and forth between her friends. "Take the plunge," one of the blondes said. "For once in you goddamn life, take the plunge." She walked over and sat on the stool beside me, pulling out her credit card and ordering two of whatever I was drinking. I smirked. She was bold. I liked it.

"What's your name?" She asked.

I raised an eyebrow. "What do I look like?"

She crossed her legs and looked me over. "Too tall to be a Justin and too serious to be a Jake. Christian? Edward?"

The bartender put down our glasses and I took a swig. "Not an Ashton?"

She shook her head. "Too sexy for an Ashton."

I watched as she took a sip from her glass and peered at me over the rim. I knew what she wanted, I could smell it coming off of her and it wasn't because her friends told her to "take the plunge". I could see it in her eyes that if it hadn't been me, it would've been someone else. She was on a mission. I'd help her out.

"Damon." I said, putting sex and promises in my voice.

Her eyelids lowered, and her own smirk appeared as she leaned towards me. "And what do I look like?"

I turned to face her, grabbing her stool and yanking it closer to me. She jumped a little, but I knew that she liked it from the way she leaned in further. I ran my hand up her leg and stopped on her knee, stroking my thumb over her thigh. I looked into her eyes and pushed at her mind, willing it to open. It did, easily, and she was mine.

"Where's your husband?" I asked.

"I'm divorced."

"Kids?"

"None."

"How old are you?"

"Today's my twenty ninth birthday." She smiled.

Lovely. "Ask me again."

She blinked. "What do I look like?"

I leaned in close, putting my hand on her shoulder and getting close to her ear.

"You look like you want me to fuck you."

She shivered, I was amused.

"Is that what you want?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yes."

"Say it." I commanded.

"I…" She stopped. "I want you to fuck me."

I raised my glass to her and down the rest of the whiskey. In the back of my mind, I felt Bonnie grow quieter and quieter until she wasn't there at all. I wasn't drunk, but I had a pretty good feeling going on, and the space that Bonnie usually occupied was dulled to a low hum. Good. I would take this woman back to her place, fuck her senseless, and forget about Mystic Falls for one damn night.

She said goodbye to her friends and I had somewhere to sleep for the night. Marie, that was her name, stayed in an apartment right in the middle of the city. In the car, neither of us said a word as I sped through the streets and pulled into the parking garage.

Marie grabbed my hand and pulled me towards a black door, tapping her keycard against the reader. When the light turned green, she opened the door and kissed me as she backed inside. I felt her hands lift the front of my shirt and touch the bulge in the front of my jeans.

Against the wall I positioned myself between her legs and grinded my pelvis against hers. She was fumbling with something in her purse and trying to entertain me at the same time, but I was winning. I nipped at her earlobe as she dropped her keys, and squeezed her breasts as she tried to catch her breath.

"Hang on," she groaned as she bent down to pick up her keys. "We're here."

Inside, I didn't bother wasting time. I ripped off her dress and crushed my lips down on hers. She moaned as I parted her lips with my tongue and pushed herself against me. I reached between us and slid my hand down the front of her panties, massaging her already wet folds and slipping one of my fingers inside.

She whimpered into my mouth and spread her legs a little more. I slid another one of my fingers inside of her and trapped her between me and her kitchen counter. I stroked her slowly, matching the rhythm of my tongue as I kissed her. She quaked around my fingers and bit down on my bottom lip, as I swallowed her moans.

I snatched her bra and tore off her panties. With a flick of my fingers, my jeans were around my ankles. Her eyes gleamed with excitement as she looked me over, taking in every detail to probably share with those other bitches she'd been with. She grabbed me at the base of my dick and pulled me towards her opening, I looked down at her.

"You're perfect." She moaned as I slid inside of her, her eyes fluttering closed.

I leaned my head back and let my fangs extend. "And hungry."

"Hmm?" she opened her eyes.

I struck at her neck like a cobra piercing the skin and puncturing the vein. I lapped at her blood and I thrust in and out of her, covering her mouth with my hand and muffling her moans. I snaked my other arm under her back and brought her down every time I moved my hips back and forth. Her eyes were rolling back and her jaw had gone slack. I felt her muscles clench with her orgasm and her legs shake on either side of my waist as I drove into her.

You've had all the time in the world and you're still just as sad as you were the day you died.

I pulled away from her neck and backed away. Marie's head lolled to one side and she stared at me through half closed eyes.

"What happened?" she asked.

I licked the blood off my teeth and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. "Nothing."

She sat up weakly and touched her neck. "Did…did you bite me?"

"Yes, yes I did." I said.

"Fuck that was amazing." She moaned, reaching between her legs and touching herself. "Best birthday ever."

I could still hear Bonnie's voice in my head, I tried to shake it off. "Glad you enjoyed yourself."

"I-" she started.

"Should go to sleep now." I said, pushing my will on hers. She was out instantly.

After I healed the wound on her neck and put her in bed, I helped myself to her shower. Somehow the truth had found me three hours away and it sickened me that Bonnie had been the one to expose it. The quiet little witch who wore too many floral shirts and had a stone to cast at everyone's decision had seen me for who I really was.

And she was absolutely right.

The second I woke up in transition, I hated myself. Stefan was still dead on the ground but I could hear and feel everything, even my body dying. My heart thumped slow and off beat, I could taste blood in my mouth. The wound from where my father shot me stung and itched. I stumbled through the woods and back to town seeing the church I thought Katherine was in go up in flames.

It was all for nothing. Everything was for nothing.

The sadness that overcame me was crippling. It was like all of the meaning and purpose and thirst for life had left me, just like it had four years ago. It seemed like every woman I loved had been taken from me by this town, and I was left with nothing.

I wanted to die.

And then there was Stefan. When he woke up and killed our father…I didn't know how to feel. On one hand I thought it was poetic justice. The perfect son, the golden boy, the one everyone loved had finally become the one thing my father couldn't stand. On the other hand, that last living parent I had was gone and the Salvatore family was in ruins.

When I stepped out of the shower, I took a good long look at myself. It was identical to the morning I left Mystic Falls for the first time. My eyes stared at nothing, my lips were parted, my face was blank. I was done with everything, gone on my life. I didn't know where to go or what to do and I didn't want to.

I chose to sleep on the couch. Marie had huge dark covers on her windows, completely encasing the place in darkness like I liked it. When I closed my eyes, it felt like there was nothing around me and I could fade away. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been to sleep, but I let myself fall.

The next morning, I compelled Marie to forget almost everything about me. My name, too descript features. She had a happy birthday and great sex, that was all she knew.

Warmth exploded in my chest and tingled through my limbs. I heard wind in my ears and felt a breeze on my face and hair. There was the feeling of being light and weightless, suspended in the air and staying there. Considering I was in my car in the parking garage, it could only be one thing.

Bonnie was using magic.

And it felt like the first time I'd felt her use it. Warm with wind and earth. I could smell the pine in the woods and taste the earth on the back of my tongue. I knew she was near the old Lockwood place exactly five feet away from the dungeon down there.

She stopped.

A voice whispered through my head, muffled and low. I felt her block something, or someone, and then there was a sharp tug on my abdomen. Something was off. I called Stefan and got no answer, called Elena same thing. Alaric told me he was a few hours away but would try to get back as quickly as possible. I needed to get back.

I held onto the feeling of Bonnie's magic and used it to guide me. Something was happening to her but I couldn't tell what it was. I could feel that she was scared, angry, confused. No one was answering their phones. Why wasn't anyone answering their goddamn phone?

The Gilbert house was where I found her and everyone else. Everyone looked up when they saw me walk in, but Bonnie didn't move. They were all standing around the living room with grim expressions with Stefan and Jeremy being the only ones talking. Bonnie had straightened her hair since the last time I'd seen her, and she was wearing some ridiculous purple sweatshirt.

It wasn't until I walked over to the fireplace that I really saw what was going on.

Bonnie was out of it, utterly and completely. She was staring into space, but this time she didn't even pretend to look interested in what was going on around her. Whatever she was thinking, wherever she was, I couldn't feel her anymore. Since that first day in the woods, I could always feel her annoying and bouncing in the back of my head. Standing in front of her now, I couldn't feel anything.

Jonas.

She was looking at me, but only because I'd occupied a space in front of the fireplace. I recognized the look all too well. The parted lips and blank stare. The barely breathing and the motionlessness. Bonnie had the same expression I'd had in the mirror.

Bonnie was done.

I stepped in front of her and kneeled. Elena said my name.

"She's not saying anything Damon." Elena said. "She's been like this since she got here."

I looked back at Bonnie. She hadn't blinked.

"Wake up." I told her.

Nothing, there was nothing.

"Wake up." I repeated.

A stir. I felt a stir in the deepest part of my mind.

I remembered the last time I'd touched her, really touched her. It was in the bathroom when I was healing her neck and rubbing my blood into her skin. We'd kissed each other for the second time, bodies moving closer until she couldn't move. I remember how deep the connection went, how I'd gone from feeling her in the back of my head to only feeling her at all.

I put my hand on her knee, thumb finding the hole, and the stirring intensified.

"Bonnie, wake up."

And like that, I could feel her again in the back of my head.

Bonnie blinked and looked around. I knew from the confused glint in her eyes she couldn't remember how she'd gotten here and for a second I wondered if she let Jeremy drive. I killed the thought immediately, she was too by the book. Jeremy was fifteen and without a learner's. He wasn't driving anything.

I felt her thinking again, emotions so fleeting it was almost impossible to keep up. I could feel her going back into that place of being done again, her eyes were starting to blank out again.

I snapped my fingers.

"Sorry." She said.

Back at the Boarding house, I took away the big spell book Alaric had given her and she went upstairs. She'd lied to everyone earlier, I knew it like I knew how to feed. It was like every time she got to a question she didn't fully want to answer, a pause would form in my head and then continue. She was hiding something about Jonas, I knew it.

She got angry. "Do you? I feel like if you did, you wouldn't keep pressing the issue."

She knew better. "Have you met me?"

After she stormed off upstairs she brought up Elena. Always Elena. I could see why she would. Everything happened because of Elena because everything happened to her. It wasn't her fault by any means, but even I could admit she couldn't keep herself out of danger.

"I'm not scared of anything." She spat, throwing her things in her bag. "I'm just tired of everyone looking for some deeper meaning behind what I tell them. I'm sorry if Jonas didn't tell me everything about Elena. The bad guys usually don't."

"I didn't say he said anything about Elena." Damon I folded my arms. "I said the opposite as a matter of fact."

A few seconds later, Bonnie broke down.

"You all treat me like I'm some goddamn know it all! All of you. I've lost everything because of you! My mother, my grandmother, my life! I give all of you everything, I give everything and it's still not enough! You make me feel horrible because I can't do a spell, you make wisecracks because my magic screws up!"

She was right.

"Am I even real to you? Am I even a person? Or am I just means to an end? Not once have you or Stefan ever told me thank you for what I've done. Not once have you or Stefan ever realized the magnitude of what I've gone through. It would be easier if I could at least do something for myself. One thing that's mine. I'm the same age as Elena, why can't anyone strive for my life to be normal?"

We were ingrates of the worst kind and used Bonnie far beyond what was necessary. In trying to keep Elena safe, Stefan and I had completely ruined her best friend. I caught Bonnie before she got all the way to the floor and pulled her against me. She sobbed into my chest as I stroked her. For some reason, I started speaking Italian. My mother had always done it to me and Stefan whenever we were having bad moments, and it always helped.

When I got her to calm down, Bonnie was confessed something. Something I don't think she would have to anyone else.

"I don't want to die."

It was then, staring into her eyes that I saw it. The thing that made her so much different from her friends. Elena had the longing for adventure and passion, while somehow managing to keep her compassion towards others. Elena wanted the same thing as every other teen girl, to be swept away and consumed. Caroline wanted the superficial things that came with life. She had the goals, the ambitions, the drive towards achieving all of the things she thought she should.

But Bonnie? Bonnie had vitality.

I could see it in her eyes as she wiped away her tears and met my own. The life that brimmed from her, the yearning for more. Not adventure, not magazine goals, the real thing. Bonnie wanted to live and she meant it. It shone from within her and sparkled like diamonds in her eyes. She wanted to shine in the excitement of self knowledge and face whatever life had for her head on.A warm feeling spread through my chest. Bonnie wasn't using magic.

That feeling was what led me to agree to help her if she decided to explore the "darkness" as Jonas put it. For some reason, I knew that I would be with Bonnie start to finish on the whole thing, and I knew that she trusted me. I knew that we trusted each other. Outside of everything, Bonnie was probably the most rational out of her friends and it made it easy to respect her.

After the Jonas nightmare and bonnie had fallen asleep, I looked at her. Her smooth caramel honey skin looked warm against the stark white of the pillow, long lashes fluttering slightly as she slept. I found myself caressing her forehead and she sighed, leaning into my touch. I felt peace running through whatever part of her I could feel in my head, and that she liked me touching her. I clenched my jaw.

So did I.

A/N: ANNOUNCEMENT: I Will be working the 20th-28th of this month. I'm working on chapters, but if I'm not updating as frequently as you'd like, you know why. I had a good day today. Let's pray for more of those.

So the chapter was horrible for me, which Idk I kind of think, I trust you guys to let me know. The purpose of this was to answer what happened between Damon leaving and coming back being nicer to Bonnie. And to further express the feelings growing between them. With Damon kind of on an Elena hiatus (see chapter 8) there's room for something to happen. The Damon POV's are usually shorter because they're usually just his side of the story, but I'm not into completely retelling the whole thing. Sorry. Keep in mind, that being true to Damon's character means that he's still very much in love with Elena, but he really can't deny what's happening with Bonnie even if it is gradual. I always feel like I'm not writing the best I could or ugh…idk. Like I said, I trust you guys to call bullshit. Anyway, I also wanted to give you guys a look into what it was like On Damon's end regarding Bonnie's magic. I know sometimes it seems like Damon just has this insight into who bonnie is and all that, well now you know why. I'm working on the next chapter (Back to Bonnie) but I will say this. Depending on how the writing goes, you will DEFINITELY be finding out why Bonnie and Damon can feel each other. It's not even funny how legit it is that you'll be finding out. Read, Review, Review, ReFREAKINGview. It helps me write.