Note: No, I haven't forgotten about this story, I hope you didn't either. I'm publishing because I love writing, I love the fandom and above all right now I hope to give something to motivate all those that like me are under quarantine. If you can buy me a kofi, you'll find the link in my profile. Please leave me a review, it's not only motivating to keep writing, but it's real company right now.
Non so se sono seguita da italiani, abbiamo la vita messa in pausa ed è difficile stare a guardare i numeri che salgono senza poter fare niente o quasi ma #iorestoacasa. Diamo l'esempio, a questo giro ci tocca salvare il mondo. Passerà anche questa, ce la possiamo fare.
Warning for self harm.
#
Elena can see the reflection of her eyes on the dark surface of the warm blood corrected with whiskey that she's holding. The ceramic cup is smooth under her fingers as she grips it slightly harder.
"Have you seen him?" Caroline asks, sitting tiredly at the kitchen table. The house feels so empty without the large presence of their owners, though one is not exactly absent.
"No," she lies, busying her lips with the hot, dense liquid, "I'm not sure I'm ready to see him like that," she adds, turning around to look at her friend and continue the charade. If she told her that she did see him, that they reconnected so easily without other people around to interfere, maybe Caroline would become an hindrance herself, and she doesn't want to risk it, doesn't want to explain herself to someone that can't possibly understand. Oh, Caroline might have been in love alright, but the way Elena and Stefan loved each other? It was something reserved to few chosen ones.
Elena is Stefan's solace now that he's facing such a hard time, and she wants him to bask in it freely, to have her all to himself like a treasure, like a secret. Until the moment he'll break free from this spell that has clouded his mind, yet not enough to not recognize the invisible link between them, that string that makes one follow the other like a shadow, like their own heartbeat.
Caroline has chosen to believe Stefan feels something for Bonnie, that there's a relationship between them – maybe because it's easier to not think her alone and unloved – and it would make her feel at fault to listen to the truth, to admit even just to herself that it was a weakness born out of pain, that it kept going on because Bonnie has put him under a spell, intentionally or otherwise, like a witch of her capabilities could just suffer the magic she so often commands.
Elena is not stupid, and she knows the lengths that a person will go to get the love they want. When this is over, and everyone has made peace with their own feelings, Bonnie will have to come to terms with reality, and she'll try and be there for her, but until then, she is going to help Stefan get through this.
"Maybe it's better this way," Caroline says, resting her forearms on the table. "There's something about him…" she starts, "sometimes I feel like he could just…" She wants to say she feels like he could manipulate her into doing something apparently harmless that results in his escape, but she can't admit it aloud. It would feel like calling it to life, like saying she'd do anything for Stefan, and that would sound awkward.
She holds him to such high regards that even Tyler can't hold a candle to him, but saying that would make it sound like she loves him, and she doesn't. She doesn't, and she wants to support Bonnie, see her happy. Stefan would make anyone happy.
"Uh, whatever. This situation is so frustrating," she admits, closing her eyes for a moment. Elena pulls a chair and sits down in front of her, agreeing, "Yeah."
"At least Damon is keeping Bonnie at bay and away from danger, though I suspect she's making it quite hard for him." Her clear eyes grow large highlighting the point.
Elena observes her carefully, trying to guess what her boyfriend is doing, what is happening with Bonnie. "I know," she says, just so her silence won't make Caroline suspect anything's wrong.
"How does he sound to you?" She asks like she wants to brainstorm and strategize with her. Elena is completely in the dark.
"What do you mean?" The brunette vampire tries to circumvent a direct answer.
"When he calls you…" Caroline says, "because he does call you, right?"
"Of course," Elena confirms immediately. "It's just that we're trying not to talk about anything… unpleasant," she explains.
Damon hasn't called her, hasn't even spoken to her directly since their fight at the motel. He was bitter and jealous, and he's lied to her so that she would feel as hurt as he was. She's still trying to digest his deceitful words, but when he comes back to ask for her forgiveness they'll manage it. Their passion will trample every incomprehension.
"It's our friend we're talking about, Elena, and even if it's unpleasant we have to do what we can to help." Caroline is growing irritated with her blasé attitude and she tries to adapt to quiet her mood.
"I meant to say that he only tells me what I need to know, so that I won't worry, but the distance is hard on him right now, and he just wants to listen to my voice for comfort, you know…" she explains, lowering her eyes. "We had a stupid fight just before things went south with Stefan," she admits sounding saddened, forgetting to mention Bonnie altogether, "so we just… you know."
"I didn't know that," Caroline offers, regretful of her attitude, "But things between you two will work out as usual." It's an empty reassurance on her part. Things between Damon and Elena don't just work, they do not get fixed, they just get ignored, but it's a solution that seems to suit them just fine, so she won't judge their relationship.
"Thanks," Elena nods.
"Right now, we need to hope that Bonnie finds in herself the lucidity to work something out," she sighs, regretting the truth of her own words for she knows they always put too much strain of her. "As usual, she's the only one who can get it done."
"You think she'll want to?" the question escapes her against her better judgment and she watches as Caroline's expression grows instantly sour.
"What are you implying?" she asks, cautiously "Do you really think that our best friend – that our loyal to a fault, sacrificial, best friend – would purposely cast a spell to force someone to love her?" she presses, sounding like it's really that impossible to believe. Elena won't force her if she's not ready to consider the serious chance that that's exactly how things went. "You know she doesn't need that. You know Bonnie. She couldn't even cheat a school test!"
"Yes, you're right, I know her," Elena confirms like she couldn't even fathom the idea of doubting her friend, standing up to go hug her and erase the tension in her. "I just hate to think at how hard it will be for her, that's all."
#
"I was beginning to think you had forgotten about me," he says, as the steps approach, looking at the tiny, barred space over the heavy door of his cell.
He smelled a hint of Elena's scent but it's Caroline that looks at him through the bars. He was so focused on his target that it's escaped him how faint the trace was. Elena has hugged her, clearly, and he cannot help but wonder why. Since she's turned, she's only engaged in things that result in a gain for her.
He wants to ask Caroline what Elena asked of her, what Elena has tried to obtain with her behavior, but that would arouse suspicion. She would not let it rest, and though he doesn't like the idea of Caroline being used in any way, he needs for her to not pay any attention to Elena.
"Do not play the pity card with me, Mister," she admonishes him, with a frown, "You know me better than that," like she's hurt he'd think that of her. He's so used to observing Elena's amateur manipulations, how she plays around with the strings he's carefully pulling, that sometimes he forgets how spontaneous and transparent Caroline can be.
"I do know you better," he concedes, with a smirk.
Oh, Caroline can be cruel, but she can only be like that the way children are – insensibly, unwittingly and with no ability to hold a real grudge even when her life depends on it. She's so clean that the Ripper would find great pleasure in tainting her. But Stefan, the man and the monster, they both want Bonnie. They want her in depraved ways he can't even decide yet.
Bonnie is his to enjoy and possess. Wherever she is, he knows she's guided by him only. He'll help her to make sure he's the only thought she can possibly ever form in that pretty head of hers, the only thing residing in her brain and in her perfect body. He'll slice her open to check for himself if he has to.
They all think they've taken her away from him, but they only started a nice game of hide and seek. He likes games. And he's going to have so. Much. Fun.
#
It felt like being moved by an invisible force, by an electric impulse, an energy that ran through her and made the length of her body glide over the bed like a snake, her breast pushing down against the mattress, her spine arching, her ass going up to meet his cock, to make him fill her. Bonnie's movements were fluid as he kept her pinned down, hands gripping her shoulders as his length was engulfed repeatedly by her avid sex. She was the captive and the tormenter and it made sense.
The cold air made her shiver against the bed, her pussy contracting around nothing as she awakens from her dream. It is almost painful the absence of him, so much so that she can't even muster up the decency to be embarrassed as she watches Damon observe the view as he sits with his whole body on the windowsill on the third floor of the modest motel where they stopped for the night – one foot on the cheap marble of the ledge, the other against the jamb, a closed book forgotten on his lap.
She's aroused and irritated and he'll just shut up if he knows what's good for him, she thinks, dragging herself up to sit with her leg tucked under her.
Damon turns his face towards her. There's something dark in the way he looks at her, maybe something accusatory, but she doesn't care to understand, has no energy to dwell on it. He probably misses Elena and he's thinking about the way she's keeping him from her.
Maybe that will become useful, maybe in a few days he'll just snap and decide that her safety is not his problem, that he just wants to go back, and she can do whatever she pleases. She wishes it so hard for a moment she thinks she can taste it, the flavor of freedom. The flavor of Stefan's skin. Sometimes, when she can't remember why she's so far away from home, why she's so far away from the beloved cage of his arms, Bonnie thinks they are one and the same.
She turns, steps away from the bed to goes to the tiny bathroom to splash cold water on her face. She turns the knob, watches the water hit the white ceramic and looks at her face in the mirror. Her cheeks are red, her pupils are large, and she can feel the lingering feeling of Stefan's length inside her, like he was inside her just one moment ago and they ripped him from her unmercifully.
She turns the water off, undressing with empty, trembling hands. Her fingertips brush against patches of skin whenever she takes one piece of clothing off, the illusion of Stefan's hand awakening her hunger so easily she feels her eyes watering, ready to cry.
Bonnie steps over her clothes and inside the shower stall. The water is initially cold, but it lasts a few seconds only. It becomes a caress, over her shoulder, against her back, and she remembers Stefan's hard body in the shower stall of her private bathroom, when she'd teased him and had him stimulate himself against her round ass, bending against the blue tiles for his eyes and their pleasure. In that moment she had half hoped he would ignore his thoughtfulness and the weariness of her body and had just taken her for the sheer need of it.
Bonnie presses her open palms against the wall, leaning against it and arching her back so that the hot water will give her the illusion of Stefan, but it doesn't. Her own hand searches her sex but her touch does not compare, and his voice is in her ear. Let me do it. Come to me and let me do it. It's so clear, like he's in the room with her, and her heavy lids open to see him, next to her, leaning towards her mouth and watching her intently, like he's studying her.
"Oh, Stefan…"
Her heart skips a beat. She misses him so bad. "I'll take care of it. I'll take care of you," he promises suavely, with those gentlemanly manners that had her a trembling mess from the start.
Bonnie whimpers, the loud way her brain repeats his name over and over produces a dull pain inside her skull, the aching of her body is unbearable making her feel like it's tearing her apart from the inside, her breathing is erratic as she stares into his eyes and feels like dying.
"And wouldn't that be nice?" he asks, tenderly, stopping everything. Suddenly the pain is gone and her brain works with a sort of devilish lucidity. She looks about herself, trying to put together the pieces.
She's got a vampire somehow ready to bleed himself dry for her right in the next room, and though she can't seduce him into giving her his blood she knows how to manipulate a man, awaken their instinct of protection, make herself appear the damsel in distress that is waiting for them to save her.
Damon has a history of offering himself at the altar of women with the habit of dying on him, and he has proved time and time again he's not letting her endanger herself on his watch.
Bonnie smirks at the empty room. Stefan will be so proud of her, will reward her so well, she thinks, before slamming her own head against the glass of the shower stall. The hit is not hard enough to make her bleed, so she tries again, and again until there's a buzz into her ear and a splash of red against the glass.
She lets herself moan in pain as the dizziness envelopes her making her feel cold.
"Everything alright in there?" Damon's voice is hardly audible for her, cushioned by the running water and the blow to the head. "Bon, are you okay?"
Bonnie moans again, sliding down and waiting for him to come, heavy eyelids closing over her blurry sight.
There is a vague notion of her nudity in her clouded brain, but it's the ideal state for him to find her. She knew, the moment before hitting her head, that she would look more vulnerable, needy, and it would have been all to her advantage.
Even the thought of letting Elena's man see her naked didn't shake her off her purpose. Her friend had accused her of manipulating Stefan and she hadn't, because she didn't need to, now she was going to manipulate Damon, because she could. And Elena would be taught a little lesson.
The water stopped and she opened her eyes to see Damon crouching down to look at her. "Bonnie." Her name felt suffocated by the low tone he used. She closed her eyes, leaning her head against the tiles, giving him the freedom and the time to look at her body.
Bonnie is petite and round where he likes it the most. Her hair is sticking to the skin of her delicate shoulders, her dark nipples call to be sucked and teased, her legs bent to the side show the curve of her ass like she is the muse of a painting.
In the air there is still the fragrance of her arousal, and Damon must hold himself back not to drag her on the bed and have her.
For a moment, when he reaches for her and takes her in his arms, he feeds himself a lie, tells himself he will. He will have her and she will want him.
Instead he wraps her in a white towel and carries her to the bed, sitting her on the edge to gently examine the bleeding cut.
"What happened?" he asks her, taking her chin between his fingers to look her in the eyes.
"I slipped," she mews, putting no real effort in keeping the hems of the towel tucked.
His eyes drop to her breast of their own volition, and he reproaches himself, feeling guilty. If he hadn't heard her moan his brother's name he would have kept listening, and maybe they wouldn't be in this situation. Instead he tuned into her again only when his human ear heard a strange thud.
Bonnie's eyes fall closed as she sways, dizzy, bringing a hand to her head.
"Okay, lay down," he instructs her, guiding her down with his hands on her shoulders. Her skin is slippery, soft and warm and his touch lingers. One hand remains wrapped about her, while he brings the other wrist to his mouth so he can tear at his own skin and bleed for her.
Bleeding for her seems so very easy. A constant of his endless days.
He's almost lying on top of her when he presses the cut to her mouth, and contrary to his expectation she grabs at his wrist sucking eagerly. Damon is so entranced by the working of her mouth, by the effect it has on his body, he almost doesn't notice she's taking too much.
It feels intimate and violent, like it has never been, and he must make her stop. "Okay, easy, easy," he says, "That's enough." And still she sucks until he takes his wrist away from her plump lips, skin healed.
"Better?" Damon asks, half lying on top of her, brushing the hair away from her forehead to see unbroken skin and brush them between his fingers to take away the traces of blood.
"Yeah, better," she says, wet and quiet, big eyes open on him. Pupils large and cheeks red.
Bonnie is so enticing he must rip himself away from her, turning to not let his eyes roam over her semi naked form.
"I should get dressed," she says, appearing to come to her senses and standing up slowly.
He nods a "Yeah" and she offers him smile as she walks past him and closes the door behind her. "Try not to kill yourself this time." The sound of the turning key seem to set off something in his brain.
He had tuned away from her for a moment because he didn't want to listen to her as she masturbated to the fantasy of his dear brother, but a thud had made him tune in again. And then he heard it again, the sound of her skull hitting the glass.
How many times could one person slip? He heard more than one blow, he's sure of it. The cut on her forehead was jagged. And since when does Bonnie Bennett smiles at him?
Try not to kill yourself this time.
Maybe he was getting it all wrong and she was going to set him on fire, accusing him of being a sick pervert, but he isn't going to take the chance, he decides, as he forces the door open with a kick of his foot. It doesn't take much effort, the door is barely a board of plywood, all he has to do is hit the base of the door with his foot once, entering the bathroom without not more than a gasp on her part, for she is taking a blade off her shaving razor, rushing to cut her wrist the moment she realizes her plan has been deciphered.
"No, no, please," she begs, but Damon's fingers wrap so hard around her wrists that the blade falls down and he walks into her until she's pressed against the wall at her back, squirming in his hold so much the towel falls away and her breast bounce as she uselessly struggles to get free.
As Bonnie wiggles around she can't help but notice the pull of one muscle under his jaw, the way his hard chest crushes her tender breasts, the smell of him, woodsy and spicy and very male. It is all too intimate and too raw and she hates him for it, for invading her seclusion, for breaking her walls, most of all for shaking off that hazy state that was leading her to Stefan.
"I have to—" she tries to explain, panicking, but he ignores her poor attempt at persuading him.
"I don't like being treated like a fool," he growls against her mouth, fangs threatening to slide down, his vampire face almost showing before disappearing to leave him a man.
"Leave me alone!" she yells at him, trying to pull her wrists free of his hold, but he's got no mercy to spare her.
"So you can kill yourself and take that pleasure off my hands?" he asks, bitterly, "All this time at each other's throats and you pick a miserable razor over me? I'm offended," voice scratching at her skin like an animal trying to keep its natural enemy at bay.
His words make her pull back a moment to look him in the eyes. It's sunk in, maybe, what she was about to do, he thinks, but she bites her lower lip, looks at him as her body goes soft against his and asks, "Would you do it?" in a mellifluous tone made for begging in the bedroom.
"What?" he's dumbfounded and cannot make sense of the words. Damon blinks trying desperately to find the meaning of it. He cannot.
"I saw the way you were staring at me," she starts, making his breath catch. "You like my blood and you want it," she adds. It's not her blood that he wants. She's too wrapped up in her own crazy plan to really understand his gaze or the things he truly wants from her.
"You can have it," she says, her tone honeyed as she breathes in deeply and lets her bosom rise and fall, like she's anticipating the moment he'll cave in and give her what he wants. "You can have it all," she spells, like a true temptress.
Damon remains silent and immobile, lets his eyes travel along her body, along every curve he can see, foretasting every dip he cannot.
"Can I?" he asks gravely.
Bonnie nods slowly, smirking at him, the concupiscent dream of a woman he adores.
Damon grabs her possessively and turns her around, forcing her to lean with her hands above the washbowl, one arm wrapping around her waist, not caring if he'll leave bruises, the other holding her chin up so that she will see herself in the mirror as he towers behind her.
"He'll be flattered," he mutters, mouth half pressed against her ear, electric blue eyes meeting hers in the mirror. "You are ready to kill yourself, let a whole dynasty of witches down and disappoint yourself, just so that you can enjoy my brother's cock," he spits angrily. "He'll be flattered for a whole five minutes and then it will become old news."
Bonnie stubbornly lowers her eyes, refusing to listen, refusing to see reason, his fingers so hard against her mouth she can't make a sound.
"Look at you!" he growls, pulling her up off the floor so that she'll stare directly at her reflection, ignoring her round ass pressed against his confined shaft.
"You'll have him and you'll lose yourself." He urges her to realize, but she thrashes in his arms and he carries her inside the shower stall, turning on the cold water and making her lose her breath in the process, forcing her hands behind her back when she tries to hit him.
"Can't let you go," he says, looking down at her as she's pressed against his clothed chest. She shivers from the freezing water against her hot skin. "You are a witch," he says, and she's not sure if it's a reminder or an accusation.
"What would your Gram think if she saw you now? Huh?" he asks as she desperately hides her face in his chest, trying to burn all the vessels in his brain and only managing to pop a couple.
"What the fuck are you doing? Can't you do any better?" he presses, insulted by the lack of power and concentration she's showing as she tries to kill him. "It's fucking disappointing!" he growls, stopping the blood from flowing in her limbs and dirtying her upper lip with a drop of his own as his brain vessels start healing.
"Are you really going to kill yourself over a man?" he asks, sounding like a wounded animal. "Do you value yourself that little?" And that finally seems to snap something inside of her.
Bonnie stops resisting, her body – her naked, soft, voluptuous body – goes quiet and then she silently sobs against him. Damon can't help himself but kiss the top of her head, her temple, hoping she won't notice, that the breakdown and the cold water won't let her distinguish the touch of his lips, won't give her the chance to be repulsed by him.
He holds her against his chest with one arm, using the free hand to shut off the cold water and soothe her breakdown with caresses along her spine until, long, long minutes later – maybe hours if he's lucky - she's quiet enough for him to carry her to the bed again. The remake of a scene he knows very well, the remake of a scene that will haunt him forever.
Damon tucks her in, covering her beautiful nudity, brushes her hair away using his slow fingers, and lingers in the smell of her clean skin, like he could breathe in her essence, the molecules of her soul. And when the need to touch her becomes stronger he pulls himself away, his back against a wall, and slides down to sit on the floor. Watching her.
