A/N: Hi! It's been a while. I've turned 21 (terrifying) and am pretty snowed under with deadlines (which seems to be the narrative of my final year of undergrad) but have missed this community (and Bamon, of course).

Today I had a spontaneous urge to watch a random Vampire Diaries episode (make that three) and considering my love for the suited and booted Elijah Mikaelson watched that epic one where he comes to Mystic Falls like a total badass. And, obviously, it made me want to write a Bamon piece set after/around S2 Episode 8. I haven't explored pre bestie Bamon very much at all so this was fun to write! Definitely a very different style to my last instalment.

vii. Little Witch

"If you're just going to stand there, I have more…pleasurable things to attend to."

Bonnie kicks her features into a scowl. "I told you, I was looking for Elena."

"Well," the vampire's eyes bulge, "She's not here so run along."

Dick. He has a way of making her feel like a child when he doesn't need her and Mystic Falls' freaking saviour when he does. All for his own gain, of course. Unless Elena's involved – a Titanic sized love flashes across his annoyingly blue eyes whenever the brunette is in the room.

And, because everything Damon does sets her teeth on edge, he has to look like that topless.

"Well," Bonnie snaps back (she's not sure communication between them is possible without some kind of venom), "if you see her, tell her I need her."

This makes his brow curve. "No offense, Bonnie, but she's a little preoccupied with staying alive right now."

Right, the Klaus thing. "But the other vampire… Elijah? He's dead?"

"So?"

Damon leans against the staircase and the stare that regards her is so uninterested her magic pulses with the need to make him care. What about, she has no idea. Definitely not her.

"So, how can Klaus know where Elena is?"

The vampire blinks. "Seriously?" He sighs into her silence, eyes pushing up to the ceiling like she's literally the most annoying thing to ever stand in his living room. "Klaus is an Original. Think Voldemort with no horcruxes… And a nose."

"Did you just make a joke?" A smile poked her mouth at his comment; unnerving because a) this is the guy after her best friend and b) Damon doesn't say things that produce that reaction. Ever.

It's only when his face pushes back into indifference that she realises he was almost smiling too. "Why don't you just call her?"

"Elena?"

"Obviously."

Bonnie toes the edge of the rug, face heating. "Erm, it's probably a conversation better had in person."

"Ah. Girl stuff."

"Okay, this just got weird."

Damon laughs. And it's not sarcastic. A grin cracks across his face and the vein in his neck, that Bonnie regrets noticing, tenses with the release.

"I've never seen you look more uncomfortable, little witch."

Little witch. It's… endearing. But it's Damon so why the fuck did it make her stomach flutter?

"It's Jeremy," she says stupidly.

Damon folds his (rudely muscly) arms across his chest. "You and Jeremy, huh?"

"No! No… well, not yet, or… Why am I talking about this to you?"

"Hmm, notice it didn't take any coercion. You just blurted that baby right out," the vampire frowns in thought, "Do you have… feelings for him?"

The question, any question about her, is so unfamiliar from the vampire that the stretching pause is more from surprise than figuring out how to answer (because I don't know is fairly straight forward). Damon's interactions with Bonnie consist of imperatives, eye rolls and, more often than not, her emphatic NO.

"You like just standing there gormlessly, don't you little –"

The emergence of a woman at the top of the staircase cuts his witticism short (and the nickname his tongue has apparently adopted into his language). Bonnie recognises the woman, vampire, as Rose, wrapped in a silky night gown, bare feet gracefully descending to Damon's side. The touch she smooths over his exposed shoulder is intimate. Pleasurable things to attend to. Got it.

"You're the witch, right?" She says by way of introduction, voice cold.

"I am."

"A Bennett?"

Bonnie inclines her chin, a quiet pride thrumming through her words. "That's me."

"She's cute," Rose says to Damon. The vampire shrugs, and just like that, is back to being the Damon she wants to avoid.

"I'll leave you guys to it," she says lamely, turning from the stairs and Damon's falsely sweet bye, come again soon.

She throws the front door open with magic: resumed irritation, humiliation, confusion, unbalancing her control. Outside, the autumn leaves storm in circles like Luka had shown her. Luka, Jeremy… Damon. Bonnie flexes her fingers and the wind thrusts towards her outstretched arms. Only then, in the power, does she breathe.

/

"Let me get this straight. Elijah isn't dead and Stefan is in the tomb with Katherine?"

"Yes."

Jeremy places a cup of peppermint tea under her nose, as if hot drinks can cure the shit show that is their life. "Thanks," she says anyway and he smiles, shy and inconvenient because she needs to save the world.

Bonnie addresses her question to Elena: "And… what do you need me to do?"

"Use the moonstone and break the barrier spell. Got it? Fabulous, witch away."

"Damon," Elena warns and the vampire lifts his palms in insincere apology.

"And you have the moonstone," Bonnie says, again to Elena, purposefully ignoring the infuriating figure by the window.

"No, I do," Damon preens, waving the translucent rock in the air. "Looks like you'll have to acknowledge me now, smart ass."

"You are pathetic," she grumbles but pushes back the kitchen chair and retrieves the stone from his outstretched palm anyway.

"Charmed as always, Bonnie. Pleasure doing business with you."

"Do you think you can break it?" Elena probes.

"Don't do anything that could hurt you, Bonnie," Jeremy hurries.

"Whatever you do, just do it fast," Damon snaps.

And it's all so fucking much she holds back a scream.

"I need time," she says instead, turning the soap-sized thing in her palm.

Elena reaches for her arm; a light squeeze as she says, "I believe in you."

"I'll need to take it home," Bonnie tells them, avoiding Elena's hopeful eyes pinning too much on her.

Damon animates from the window, vamp-speeding to her side. "Like hell you're walking home with our only chance of rescuing Stefan."

"I can't do it without my spell books," she retorts, pocketing the stone, pushing up from the table.

Damon's hand slams on hers. She snatches it away. "Then I'm taking you."

"I don't need an escort."

"This isn't the time for some feminist bullshit. I'm taking you home and waiting until you get it done."

Outraged, she swivels to the Gilberts, expecting Jeremy at least to jump to her defence.

"Damon's right, Bon," he says quietly, "it's not safe for you to have it alone."

"Seriously?"

"Come on," the vampire announces, "We're going."

"I'm not a dog," Bonnie hisses but pulls her denim jacket around her frame, angered magic in her finger tips as she threads the buttons through the holes.

She's pulled into Elena's chest as Damon taps his foot impatiently. "Promise you'll call me or Jeremy if anything happens?

"I'll try not to kill him," Bonnie says dryly, to which Damon snorts in disbelief.

"You have ten seconds, then we're vamp-speeding."

Jeremy glares at the vampire; Elena just smiles apologetically.

"Relax, I'm coming."

"Got the moonstone?"

"Yes."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Good. Let's go, little witch."

And her stomach twitches again, a lone butterfly wing that scratches away at just a bit of her anger.

/

It isn't exactly surprising that she didn't invite him inside but still, sitting on her Gram's front porch, he can't help but feel a little rejected. Definitely the more humbling consequence of vampirism.

Tick-tock, Bennet.

"Hello, Damon."

He launches off the step in a beat, palms curled in fists, stare darting around the front yard for a weapon; yet in the moment calculating how quickly he can wrench the wooden fence post out of the flower bed, Elijah is in front of him, pupils dilating.

"Tell Bonnie she needs to come outside with the moonstone," he instructs, "But don't tell her I'm here." He lifts a ringed finger to his lips and breaks contact, abandoning Damon to the will of compulsion.

That's the worst thing about this new vamp on vamp compelling development: you know you're being compelled and there's fuck all you can do about it. He knocks twice on the door, calls her name. Shouts it.

"I'm not letting you in!" Is the call from inside.

"I know, which is why I need you to come out. It's important."

"I thought breaking the spell was important!"

The supernatural pushes words forward: "This is about the spell. Please."

There's a shuffle as she unlocks the door, her face just visible in the crack. "I didn't know you knew that word."

He tenses against the force, tries with everything to resist, shake his head as he says, "Come outside with the moonstone. Just on the front step. I've remembered something."

Bonnie eyes him curiously. Come on, Bonnie. See through it. "Fine. I'll come out," she sighs and dread bites at the compulsion's numbing.

The witch slips from the warmth of the house and out onto to the front porch, closing the door behind her. She barely has time to form a question when Elijah has gripped her arm. Bonnie screams, her power leaping, shocking the Original, making him stumble.

Command delivered, Damon is free to grab the fence post he eyed before, the panel splintering in his hand. Elijah straightens his tie, toys with the cufflinks on his shirt, and smiles. The bastard.

"It's admirable, really, Damon, you putting up a fight, but me and the young lady both know you only care about the moonstone."

"Bonnie, get back inside!" Damon yells, fence post held in the air like a sword.

She pivots to push on the front door but Elijah is faster – much – and barricades the door with a disappointed sigh. "I'm afraid, this isn't how tonight's going to go." He nods his head at Damon, "Thank you for your help," grabs Bonnie and blurs away, leaving him panting, near stupefied, waving a garden fence around his head.

"Damn you, Elijah!" He shouts at the night, piercing the fence, upside down, in to the soil. That's when he notices something gleaming, catching the moonlight, throwing it across the lawn.

You surprise me, Bonnie.

The moonstone was in her hand; she must have dropped it as she was being taken. Clever little witch. He doesn't feel completely victorious though. Even with the stone, smooth in his palm, anxiety, unease, fear? Something claws at his buried conscience.

Elena will never speak to me again if I don't get her back. The rescue is for Elena. That's all. Elijah's right, he doesn't care about her. Bonnie's arrogant, irritating, judegy, only a semi-competent witch and yet… he wants to get her back. Needs to.

If anyone's going to kill Bonnie Bennett, it will be me.

A/N: Part two? Reviews are very much encouraged. Thank you for reading.