an: guys thank you SO much for the bday wishes, they mean everything! i love waking up and seeing new reviews for Play!! (if you haven't already and you need a Bamon fix, check it out) turning 22 today, on the 13th, and ugh just more life to me and everyone of you. when i say i love you guys, i mean it deeply!!! tips are always welcome, link in my bio and i hope you guys enjoy another chapter. im enjoying writing this because i get to play around with Bamon dialogue more. i hope you guys have an amazing May and (May) all your seeds harvest.

Damon was her friend, her BFFL to be exact, but she couldn't ignore the sense of dread that came with inviting him in. He wasn't drenched in cherry punch for Christ's sake- they often called each other partners in crime but Bonnie thought of it as a figure of speech, however the truth was knocking on her doorstep tonight.

It was bordering beyond intrusive.

"C'mon Bon Bon, invite me in. Please. I need your help."

She didn't think it was possible but in the dark of the night, splattered in blood and harsh outdoor lighting, his eyes were giving her the blues. Damn Damon, damn Damon Salvatore to hell.

"What happened to you?"

"Let me in and I'll tell you all about." He bargained. But did she really want to know? His tone held shadows and unreliability which was new for her, she hadn't ever felt like she couldn't trust Damon but tonight was just full of inconvenient little surprises.

What would Little Red Riding Hood do if the Big Bad Wolf asked for permission to enter? Let him eat her? The events of the night led her to believe that something subtly catastrophic happened to him, especially since she couldn't shake the notion of impending doom in the air surrounding her best friend. He probably wasn't himself, perhaps there was something else holding him hostage, speaking for him, attempting to persuade her to welcome him and it was sinister, unsettling, and, well, scary.

Going against her better judgement was a regular occurrence so she felt zero shock when her mouth spoke before she could entirely process the situation at hand. There she found herself almost granting him access when all of the nerve endings in the most intuitively sensitive parts of her body- her brain and her gut- willed her to say no.

Damon wasted maybe a second before he started to step over the threshold.

"Wait! Name a crazy fact about me," it wasn't the most brilliant of plans but she would for sure know if this Damon that made the hair on her neck raise was the same one that she knew and loved for years. And if he answered correctly, she could sleep in peace.

"You've got a birth mark, right in the center of y-"

"Okay, okay! Come in."

...

Damon was probably a terrible person.

Before, he believed he had done some unspeakably horrible things but wasn't it damn near up there with murder- falling for his best friend?

Either way he had done both, but the murder, that was very unintentional.

Something about those girls from the band, the lead singer was wicked, but he thought she'd be so in a sexy and fun way. Not in a twisted and actually evil way. In fact, he had already predicted a night full of women tearing his clothes apart to have a piece of Damon Salvatore – that's what his life consisted of 70% of the time, he didn't expect anything different.

So, yes, he was floored, afraid, and basically wanting his mommy when those bewitchingly gorgeous women with the ghost-like melodies began chanting, yes, chanting like witches in a coven.

He had select memory of being thrown into a bottomless pit of the lake, but when he awoke, he felt a hunger that wasn't normal– or even satiable, at least not with real food anyway. The realization came to him shortly after his awakening that he had been a human sacrifice for that girl group to achieve God knows what, but his guess was fame, fortune, and a fountain of youth and Damon had to touch hell for them to receive it.

"It's where you belong," the drummer had said, his body thrummed with a pretty little pain when she unbound his wrists. What did that even mean? His mind hadn't fathomed anything other than her being a misandrist before she pushed him over the edge of the cliff down, down, down.

And there he fell.

When he rose, he had new skin that laced right back up when he cut himself on the rocky bed of the lake. He felt everything, he heard everything and it hurt, like he had risen from the dead. Baptized in a waterfall with hell a mile away, he was a new him.

Voila, the world's most gorgeous human sacrifice.

Perhaps he'd laugh at this in a few years, the way he kept finding himself in unintentional circumstances. Mic in hand, crowd anticipating, he could imagine himself saying something like Haha, see there was this one time where my favorite underground girl band sent me to hell! You had to be there!

He'd dodge a few tomatoes, then tell the story of how he killed the girl that sat behind him in his physics course that same night, drained Emily of her blood like a ravenous animal and didn't even feel slightly remorseful. Wore her blood like a brand new jacket to his best friend's house because the absence of Bonnie was making his body feel cold.

But there was nothing comical about it, the falling in love with his best friend part. See, that was complicated.

He could lie and say it caught him by surprise but even in their adolescence it was apparent to Damon that Bonnie was "different." She didn't do things for attention or attempt to inflate her importance in life, she possessed this silent confidence that was enigmatic to him.

Damon had always laid his cards out on the table, no poker face unless it was his mission to be sneaky, but only the closest people around Bonnie could at least guess what her cards consisted of. She was always quiet and calm, cool and under the radar and he was drawn to that because no one could get close enough to her but him, she had hand-picked him early on.

And how quickly Damon wanted to be her world just like he was effortlessly everyone else's, the topic of everyone's conversations, planted in everyone's thoughts; Damon had worked hard to make his name a household product wherever he went because he lived for the attention, in fact, he could think of no one else who deserved it as much as he did.

But Bonnie, she didn't care, never was concerned to live in other people's minds, didn't hold value in being forgotten or remembered which was confusing for someone like him. She never had many friends, or excessive people around so he cherished every moment she allowed him to witness, since having Bonnie's attention was no common ordeal.

Nothing could compare to watching her let her hair down, because in his lagoon blue eyes, Bonnie Bennett was an experience only he was rewarded. Any guy that attempted to get close to her would never be in the picture for too long – not on his watch.

She didn't have to know that, though, her knowing was never apart of the plan. Besides, it was always easier to succeed in a sneak attack if the opponent was never aware; that was how he became a vampire after all.

Or at least that's what he figured he was; what he would call himself. Damon, the vampire.

Considering everything he went through, the idea was pretty badass.

He felt compelled to share this new version of himself. He needed a witness to this as if there was a silver lining in being a sacrifice. Hell, maybe there was; he was alive and well and according to the movies, sacrifices were destined to die.

Damon Salvatore was a miracle, and it was only right to rub that in his best friend's face.

(And that's how he ended up at Bonnie's.)

Once she opened the door, he couldn't prevent the feelings from bombarding him- the ones he typically had no problem of bottling up and burying back into his box of dirty little secrets.

There, in the earth of her eyes, he lost the mind that told him to reign all of his messy emotions in. He had no choice but to feel and it felt as if he could think clearer in her presence, breathe a little easier, the sound of her breath, her scent, she was heaven and just like that, it was easy to forget that he was covered in blood from head to toe. Bonnie mattered more.

It didn't register immediately that she was his best friend, his brain was alerting him to make her yield just like he'd done to the girls in the past. The only problem was, every other girl before and after Bonnie Bennett actually liked him back.

Not that he liked those other girls outside of a quick fuck, but with Bonnie, he'd want so much more. She deserved so much more, and he'd give her everything under the sun if that would make her smile wider. Then, he was reminding himself not to even go there mentally. It was unrequited. He was pining. Perhaps it was psychological since she was the one thing he wasn't allowed to want.

Perhaps she put a spell on him.

"Woah," he mumbled to himself, unaccustomed to the assault of emotions surfing through him. Uncomfortably, he shuffled the heel of his boot against the cement of her entryway, feeling exposed in a different type of naked he wasn't prepared for. It took him only a few seconds to recover.

She seemed hesitant to not let him through until he gave her the answer to her trivia question followed by The Look: puppy-dog eyes and charm, with a glint in his gaze that said pretty pleaaaseeee.

Then her resolve started to melt away like it always did. Bonnie's stony exterior become pliant in the passing moment as what he assumed was guilt began to gnaw at her.

Yeah, he thought, you did this to me.

Before he could walk in, she outstretched her hand with an open palm against the cotton on his chest to prevent him from stepping any further.

"You're not coming in here like that," if she didn't say blood, it was punch or an obscene amount of ketchup. She didn't need either one staining her floors.

"You want me to strip? Out here?"

"If I'm not asking anymore questions, you should follow suit." She dropped her hand back to her side, the faintest imprint of red on her fingertips.

"Kinky,"

Damon put on a show removing his shoes and peeling out of his cotton shirt, enjoying the sound of her stuttering heartbeat, though to his dismay, Bonnie rolled her eyes and retreated upstairs once he started unbuttoning his pants.

"C'mon, Bon, you can't leave me out here all naked and afraid. I'm vulnerable right now," he called after her, stepping out of his pants and through the doorway shamelessly and tossing his soiled clothes behind him. She didn't bother to respond or pay him any mind, the pitter patter of her footsteps stopped at the bathroom.

He heard her draw water from upstairs along with excessive shuffling, that intensified as he ascended the stairway. "No need to hide your toys, if that's what you're doing."

She scoffed.

Damon made a pitstop at the linen closet to wrap a towel loosely around his waist. Though he didn't mind being in his birthday suit, he was sure she wouldn't talk to him, much less look at him if his crown jewels were exposed.

Stubborn little Bon Bon, never any fun.

"Aww, you made me a bubble bath." He smiled wide, testing the heat of the water with his fingertips. "Someone feeling guilty for handing her bestie off to she-devils?"

"Damon, please," she brushed him off dismissively, whirling around when he started to undo the knotted towel at his waist. It frustrated her in more ways than one, his lack of modesty and humility. How he pranced around cavalierly like the words he spoke and the ground he trotted on was extraordinary. He had a tiring amount of audacity, so it was up to her to bring him back down to earth; to remind him that he wasn't a special little snowflake and only minimally different from the person next to him. Yes, he might've been "the hottest in Devil's Kettle," but the world was much bigger than Minnesota.

She waited until she heard the frothy foam of the bubble bath swallow him up until she faced him again.

"Oh, I wish I were joking, Bon. They tied me up and sacrificed me to that little river everyone's so intrigued with, the one that's damn near bottomless."

"You're lying,"

"I'm not."

In the white interior of her bathroom, Damon's eyes held an honesty, she supposed, but she was contemplating whether or not to take him literally. Sacrifice? She-Devils? It was all sounding like a rejected Brother's Grimm tale and Damon wasn't a stranger to telling outlandish stories for attention. Her arms folded across her chest as if the gesture would help her repel lies.

"So the blood... yours?"

"Yes." A tiny white lie couldn't hurt him now.

"All of that blood? You would've fainted." She shook her head dismissively.

"Wow, and now you don't believe me," he examined her distance, the weary look in her eyes before prompting her to come closer. "Fine, I'll just show you."

"Show me what?"

"What they did to me. You need proof right? Give me a razor."

"I don't own a razor."

"So how is it that you don't have one tiny hair under your armpit?"

"Waxing is an invention."

"You wax?" His eyebrows shot up in surprise. They were on a tangent at this point but Damon's mind wanted to linger on his best friend still making hair removal appointments despite being very single and very celibate at the moment. "For who?"

"Myself." She narrowed her eyes at him as he rolled his.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He muttered, rapidly losing interest on where the new track was aligning. She could save her breath on the feminist self-care spiel. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours," he possessed a devilish smirk before feigning to stand up, bracing his hands on either side of the tub. Bonnie hurled a bottle of lotion at him which would've hit his chest had he not caught it in the second it took her to blink.

"How did you-"

"Exhibit A."

Now it was her turn to roll her eyes, "Exhibit A: luck. What exactly is that supposed to reveal?"

"Tough crowd. Guess that means it's on to the fun stuff. Give me your wrist."

"For what?"

"Ah, ah, the magician's assistants never ask any questions, now do they, Bon Bon?"

"Ugh." She groaned before walking closer and extending her wrist.

Bonnie examined Damon as he leaned back against the tub to give her this strange look, like he was at war with something in his head. His hands swiped at his brows before he took her wrist cautiously like delicate paper that could tear at any moment.

An odd feeling, one she'd never admit to herself in the recesses of her mind, surged through her when he dragged his nose against her skin and inhaled deeply as if she were something savory, by now her vision was the mass of his dark hair and lashes, his body having fully crouched over her wrist. He mumbled something she couldn't hear over the sound of a deafening want, her pulse quickened and heart drummed. His eyes snapped up at her when his sclera turned black and veins branched to the top of his cheeks, "did you hear me? I said don't be scared, okay?"

She didn't even respond.

Bonnie could remember him saying that when they were younger, trudging through the woods at night to climb up the twisted tree to his "House in the Sky." How she scraped her leg and arm on scraggly branches but he patched her up with his first-aid kid, an alcohol pad and a cartoon bandaid. She remembered how much she trusted him to take care of her and he did, innately he always possessed that quality but now there was so much fluff to dig through.

"What are y-"

She winced when her skin was pierced and a lazy trail of red escaped from her wrist but Damon sucked it up before it could curve around. Her eyes widened.

"Oh my god, Bon-" tumbled out of him, loud and desperate. He sipped until his mouth and incisors dirtied with red. Bonnie stood stock still.

There was a silence like a cat stretching between them, wrapping its tail around her leg than dashing off to do the same to Damon.

She hated him for this, for making it difficult to look the other way, bath water still hot, his skin so cold, with blood rushing to the surface of his cheeks. His legs were sprawled out and every pull of oxygen he took left all the muscles in his abdomen flexing and relaxing. She wanted to help him, do anything he asked of her as long as he looked so open, so explicit, all for her. He was drinking her blood and truly, she felt scared but for herself- how much she wanted him to take more.

Through all the boys she crushed on, the Luke's and Chris's and Jacob's, Abigail told her it was Damon she needed to watch out for because he would be the one to sneak up on her.

Her mother told her that Damon would be the one she would never see coming since Bonnie was so adamant on telling him, her and everyone else that he was just her friend. Bonnie would say that she was different, not like the other girls, not predictable and vapid and clueless. It took a lot more than dark hair, bright eyes, and charm for her, she insisted. It took a lot more than a Damon Salvatore.

Her mother and grandmother would look at her as if she was in over her head and now, almost a decade later, she understood why.

Desire was running rampant through her, so much so that she bent at the waist to submit to it unfurling in the pit of her stomach. It felt like a Jaguar was surging through her insides to chase away her years of denial. Damon wasn't even aware, too consumed in his high to think straight.

She was struggling to regain composure but when he mumbled, "Why do you taste so fucking good?" Bonnie panted sharply.

His eyes snapped open to look straight into hers and with the power of heaven and hell, he unlatched his teeth from her wrist. The bloodlust didn't waver, not in the slightest, and it was very apparent that the taste of her blood was jarringly different from Emily's.

Emily's was pretty good, but Bonnie's blood was magic.

Audibly he licked his teeth clean, the thumping of his best friend's heart the only thing breaking dead silence.

"So, yeah.. call me Dracula," he said.

Bonnie screamed.