chapter rating: pg-13
word count: 1,315

i'm not you

"Bonnie… Bonnie, please…" Damon pushed her hair back from her face, but all it did was smear blood across her skin. "This isn't…" His eyes moved over the room, tearful and confused. "This isn't how it ends… We get sixty years… Bonnie… That was the deal!"

Damon buried his face against her neck, blood squelching between them, and started to rock them back and forth. "I can fix it, I can…"He nodded. "I'll fix this."

But the darkness still called. A whisper in the back of his mind, a creature that grew from the shadows to stalk its prey. It slithered up to his back and laid a hand atop his shoulder, clawed fingers biting down through fabric to pierce his skin. "Leave her… Let her go… Add her to the pile and find another…"

It sounded like Elena. If he turned, he knew it would look like her, too. Like a siren calling to a tired sailor, 'come down into the depths and die at the bottom of the sea while I laugh at your misfortune.' But it wasn't Elena. She was safely tucked away in a satin lined box, asleep. Or maybe not. Maybe she was awake now. Now that Bonnie…

He pressed a shaking hand down against her heart, willing it to beat. It remained still and quiet. He let out a shuddering breath and closed his eyes.

"It's okay, Damon. You have me…" The fingers sunk a little deeper into his shoulder. "I'll never leave you, I promise. Just you and me and an endless sea of blood… Don't you want that? Don't you want me? Don't you love me? All you have to do is let go… Let her go and be with me. Let go off all your fear and and let me in… Let me show you a better world, where we can be exactly who we really are!"

Damon opened his eyes and lifted his head. "That's not who I am… Maybe before, but I'm different now. I… I decide who I am." Through greeted teeth, he snarled, "And I'm not you."

"Silly boy…" It wasn't Elena now. The voice was different, lower, sinister and cold. "You think I can't see into your soul? You think I don't know what darkness lays there? Even now, grieving for your little witch, you're overwhelmed with it… All you want to do is kill. Destroy. HURT. Dig your teeth into something soft and tear it open. What would she think of you, hm? What would little Bonnie think of big, bad, Damon."

"She'd believe in me." He swallowed tightly. "She'd have hope."

He pushed up from the floor then, cradling Bonnie in his arms, and turned to face it, the monster that had crawled into his mind and let loose the worst of him. Skeletal with overlong limbs, limp hair the same color as its swampy green skin, and yellow eyes.

"Find a new puppet. No vacancy here."

It bared its teeth and hissed, but crawled backwards, all jutting elbows and knees, to become one with the shadows, disappearing from sight.

Damon breathed a stuttering sigh of relief, swallowed down the pain building in his throat, and turned wet eyes down to Bonnie. "What? No grand revival? If there's a time to pull a come back, now is it…"

Silence answered him.

His face twisted with anger. "Who the hell let you sacrifice yourself anyway? Huh?Whose big idea was it to send you in without reinforcements? What kind of bullshit plan was that?" He shook his head, brow furrowed, and then his rage left him. His shoulders slumped and his face fell. "Damn it, Bonnie… I'm so sorry…"

"For the record… It was my plan. I can only do so much when half the brain trust is on a murderous rampage."

Damon blinked, and looked up. Standing in the doorway of the room was… Bonnie.When he looked down, the body he was cradling fizzled away to nothing. "What…?"

"I caught up to you in Albuquerque. A little vervain and you were down for the count. This is happening in your head… Not the monster thing. That was… Well, let's just say she lives in your psyche and the only way for you to really get her out was to rebel and throw her out. And you did. You're officially monster-free… Not that we don't have a monster to track down still. But I figure you can take a few days off to rest."

Damon stared at her, whole and breathing and so very alive. "Wake me up."

She frowned. "Are you sure? You could probably use the sleep after a mental showdown like that."

"Wake. Me. Up."

With a sigh, she nodded, and then everything went dark. Damon sat up abruptly, sucking in air and looking around wildly to find himself in a musty hotel room. Bonnie stood across the room, arms crossed loosely over her chest, watching him warily.

He shoved off the bed and walked toward her, crossing the room in three short strides to grip her shoulders. Head tipped back, she stared up at him. And then Damon was hugging her, wrapping her up in his arms and lifting her right off the floor.

Bonnie went limp with relief and hugged him back, one hand buried in his hair. She laughed, a little hysterical, and buried her face against his neck. "You're okay… I've got you. I've always got you."

He choked on a strangled noise and pressed his face down against her hair, hand stroking down her neck and across her shoulders. "Don't ever… ever do that again?"

"What? Break into your thoughts and save you from a monster? You're welcome…"

"No…" He leaned back so he could catch her eyes and said, very earnestly, "Die."

"Damon…" She shook her head. "And leave you here all by yourself? Who would save your destructive ass?"

He smiled, faintly, but then pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I'd be a lot more destructive without you around, trust me."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

She hummed.

He blinked and leaned back to catch her eyes. "Question, though… How'd you get in my head? Last I checked, you were as human as they come…."

Bonnie grinned then. "I'm a Bennett. My magic was still there, it was just… dormant. And when someone I love is in danger… It wakes up."

He smirked then, and let out a warm, happy laugh.

Bonnie joined him.

It was a few minutes before he asked, "So, does this mean Enzo is still alive?"

"As far as I know. You two split up and I had to make a choice on who to go after…"

He stared down at her searchingly. "So you chose me?"

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "Shut up."

Damon ignored her; his chest puffed up in pride. "No way. I'm going to ride this high for the next decade."

"When you're done gloating, I need your help. We need to find Enzo and we need to take this monster down, once and for all."

"Sure. Why not? Just a thought though, we could skip Enzo, go straight for the big bad. If he's an unexpected casualty, well, that's the price you pay for heroism. We'll remember him fondly. Or semi-fondly… He will be remembered by someone."

"Damon…"

"There's that judgy voice I missed."

"Uh-huh." She raised an eyebrow.

"Fine." He frowned. "But only because I killed you in my head and I still feel guilty about it."

"Great." She released him and started for the door. Looking back, she tipped her head. "Coming?"

Damon turned to face her. They weren't headed home this time, not just yet, but soon. After one more rodeo. He smiled. "With you? Anywhere."

Bonnie grinned and walked backwards out the door. "Great. I'm driving."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa…" He hurried after her. "I've gotta draw the line somewhere… Bonnie…? Bonnie!"

[end]