A/N: GUYS. I have SO MANY one-shot ideas bouncing around my head ahh. I just want to write and write (but also should probably work a bit more on my novel?).
Anyway, this is part deux of 'Almost.'
Bonnie gapes into their distance - the step she made to release him. Damon's expression is hung between shock and something more electric, something she can't analyse right now. She pulls a hand across her eyes and says, "I shouldn't have done that" just he says, "What took you so long?"
"What?"
"What?"
If the whole situation wasn't so strained, if she didn't have to be so delicate, she might have laughed… both of them might have.
"I just mean…" Bonnie stalls under his stare; it's so damn intense and that kiss was so damn good and he looks so damn sad. "Now it will be weird, won't it? We've… we've never done that before."
Damon blinks slowly, processing, then his eyes storm over, shutting her out. "So why did you?"
It feels like an accusation and Bonnie can't understand why when he kissed her back – like, a lot, fact, it was so much, she pulled away because she was scared of falling into him. Drowning in someone like Damon Salvatore is a death sentence and she already loves him too much.
"I could see you trying to fight it. You wouldn't talk to me. I- I don't know, I just did. I wasn't thinking."
The vampire folds his arms across his chest. "And now you've thought, you're disgusted."
His face morphed back when their lips made contact but Bonnie could still taste the terror, an intensity (and she'd be lying if she said it didn't thrill her). Even now, in the swell of evening light, there's the remnants of a red temper dusting his eyes. "Of course, I wasn't disgusted. Why would you think that?"
Damon's lips loosen in a disbelieving laugh, "Oh, I don't know. Maybe because you jolted away like you'd been stung? Maybe because, as you said, we've never done that before?"
Bonnie tenses. "I'm sorry, I didn't know I was obligated to kiss you. I didn't realise that was a requirement to being your friend," she snaps, matching his sarcasm.
"That's not what I'm saying, and you know it."
"No, I don't know, Damon! One minute, we're on the couch and the next you're shaking and your eyes are turning black. I was scared for you." She waits for his response, a flicker of understanding, something that she can understand.
But it's Damon and he's obstinate. "Right, so when you're scared for Stefan, you kiss him? Or Caroline or-"
"Why are you being such a child!?"
"Because I need you to know!"
Massaging her temple, she groans, the itching of a Damon sized headache forming. "This is exactly why I shouldn't have done it. You're being neurotic."
His eyes bulge at her words, "Neurotic!? I'm just trying to figure out why the fuck my best friend decides to kiss me."
An eyebrow curves above the sharp and blue accusatory glare. And Bonnie's thoroughly irritated now. "You kissed me back!"
"Of course, I did!"
She's pushing her mouth into a retort when it makes sense, all of it. The realisation slams into her chest.
Damon's mouth has assumed a strange sort of twitching, like he wants to protest what is clicking into place but doesn't know where to begin. That, and the red flush creeping up his neck, confirm the ridiculousness that Damon Salvatore, enemy turned best friend, star-struck lover of Elena Gilbert, is, somehow, in love with her.
Well, shit.
Bonnie sits down on the couch. "When did this happen?"
His reply is rapid. "When did what happen?"
"You're…" she knits absent words with her hands, "feelings for me?"
Surprise flashes, but defeat settles. "Oh, that." He joins her on the couch, the safe distance of a single cushion between them. "I'd like to say sometime these past few months but," he weaves fingers through his hair, "it's probably been much longer than that."
She studies him. "How much longer?"
"I don't know, Bon, when you came back from the Prison World, in the Prison World, the first day you witchy jujued my head?"
"You're kidding."
Damon gives a wry smile. "I didn't know, really know, until recently. And I didn't really, really, know until just…" he swings a hand towards the fireplace, where they kissed, and Bonnie cringes, "then."
He continues over her silence, "It's hardly surprising is it? A) I'm cursed with a lifetime of unrequited love and B) it's you. It would have to be you," she observes how his mouth kicks up, affectionate in a way that makes her stomach swoop, "the most irritating, judgemental, little smart-ass I know."
"Speak for yourself," she says quietly, "I'm surprised because it's you."
Damon straightens. "Explain."
"Elena, Damon, Elena." Bonnie sighs at his confused brow. "You know, in the Prison World? At first, I wanted to kill you but… then I just didn't anymore. It kinda freaked me out… liking your company. It freaked me out even more when I realised, I liked you, quite a lot."
It's the most attentive she's ever seen the vampire, listening, very still, and the memories continue to fall upon her mind. "Do you remember that evening when it was my turn to cook dinner and I couldn't remember the ratio of cheese to milk in the lasagne my dad used to make and then it just hit me how alone we were and I just started to cry?"
Damon nods.
"And then you found me out on the porch and brought a blanket and two bowls and you said that you finished the lasagne and that it probably wasn't as good how my dad makes it but you tried anyway?"
"I do."
Bonnie feels the smile in her words, "It was the most caring I'd ever seen you be. You didn't want anything from me – I had nothing to give. We were just trapped alone in another dimension and you made the lasagne with those shitty value pasta sheets from the store."
"And…?" He speaks like he's scared of the answer.
"And then we came back and it was just Elena," she replies, and deflates a little.
"Bonnie," Damon begins, eyes wide and searching, "You know how much I missed you… how much I wanted you back."
"No, I know, but… not like how I secretly hoped you missed me," Bonnie swallows, "You went from being my person to Elena's and that… that was just something I had to come to terms with. And I did."
"Enzo?"
She nods in answer. "It felt so good to be chosen," she admits, something she isn't sure she's ever really admitted to herself.
The silence folds, then Damon says, very quietly, barely there. "What are you saying, Bonnie?"
I don't know. "I don't know," she winces, tilting her head to look at him, "Is that okay?"
And softly her best friend says, "That's okay." There's a pause and then the corner of his mouth lifts, "Gilmore girls?"
It's absurd – all of it – but she agrees and Damon fumbles for the remote. The opening montage bursts to life; Bonnie stretches her legs and her toes flinch against Damon's thigh. She thinks about curling up but his warmth is nice, it really is, and if he's noticed, he hasn't objected.
"Bon?"
She picks her head up from the cushions. "Yeah?"
"Will you go on a date with me?"
The question flips about in her mind for a little bit (not unpleasantly, definitely not). "Okay."
Bonnie's watching the screen but she knows he's grinning when he says, "Yeah?"
"Yeah." And her socked feet work their way up Damon's thigh and into his lap.
A/N: This may not have been the ending you were expecting but I quite like that there wasn't a big declaration of love from Bonnie's side. Feelings are complicated and as she's trying to figure out how she feels about Damon's confession, I think a simple date is a good (and kinda adorable) place to start.
Review please! Stay tuned for the next one shot coming VERY soon. I'm so excited.
P.S To those that have bought me coffees, I am so beyond grateful.
