Over the last one hundred and eighty something years, Damon's learned many things: how to ride a horse, how to drive a car, how to stop killing people, how to make pancakes and not burn them, how to make pancakes and burn them on purpose to annoy Bonnie, how to flirt with Bonnie, how to annoy Bonnie, how to fall in love with Bonnie (though that didn't really take much learning).
So why the fuck can't he express himself when the woman he loves has literally just confessed to him?
The silence wasn't long but it was long enough.
"I really shouldn't have said that. I- Bye, Damon." And she hung up the phone.
He called her back: straight to voicemail. He tried again: it didn't even ring.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" he scolds himself. Of course, his mind hits back with a tirade of misdeeds (most of which involve draining the blood of innocent men and women) but somehow Bonnie always remains his biggest regret.
It's a mess – his life, his mind, his inability to use the English language when he most desperately needs to – and he's speeding down the highway towards Mystic Falls, Virginia because he's finally admitted that his younger brother is wiser than him.
In the few hours it takes for him to pull into the drive of the Salvatore Boarding House, Damon has recounted every second of their conversation about a million times, in multiple directions. He lingers longest on her laugh.
He yanks the key out of his jeans pocket and strides on inside, following the sound of chatter into the kitchen where Stefan and Caroline are staring at him, mouth ajar.
"No time for reunion hugs," Damon announces, slumping down in a chair, "I need help."
"Don't tell me one of the Originals is back," Caroline says, just about recovering from his sudden intrusion.
"Worse."
"Worse!?" the two vampires say at the same time.
It's been a few months since he's been back home and it's nice to see his brother and Blondie still as cosy as ever. Simple.
Damon's not sure he was born for simple.
"Once again, I have fallen in love with someone I shouldn't."
"Damon."
"Don't Damon me, Stefan. I've been Damoning myself the whole damned journey over here!" He presses his forehead on the table, "I've been Damoning myself for the past year."
"Am I missing something here?" Caroline begins, "I thought the love of your life was El-"
"He's talking about Bonnie," Stefan interrupts.
"BONNIE!" Blondie seems to forget that they all have super hearing and that her random shrieks cause physical pain. "Sorry," she lowers her voice, "but how can it be Bonnie when Elena- Oh. OH!"
"You're shouting again," Damon groans on the table. He's decided he won't lift his head until his problems have miraculously solved themselves (aka Stefan and Caroline have told him what to do).
"A few nights before she left, we went out drinking. Bonnie felt really tired so we agreed to go back to mine but she said, 'No, I want to go to Damon's.' I laughed because she was really drunk but Bon kept insisting."
If he still had a pulse, it would be speeding around his whole body.
"She said she had a secret that she wanted to tell you but she shouldn't."
Damon looks up now, "Okay? What happened?"
"Oh, um," Blondie wrinkles her nose, "Then she threw up over her shoes."
Classic, Bon-bon.
"Right."
"Obliviously the secret was that she loves you but she couldn't say anything because of Elena. Wow. Everything makes sense now."
"That's nice for you, Caroline," Damon says dryly and flops back down onto the table.
His brother snorts. "You're being an idiot, you know that."
"Noted."
"I've told you a thousand times you just need to talk to her."
Damon tilts his head to stare up at the two vampires from his resting position on the wood. "I did. That's why I'm stuck."
Blondie's eyes widen. "You told Bonnie that you love her!?"
"No, I listened to her confess to me and didn't say anything."
Stefan folds his arms. "You're joking."
"Look at me brother. I'm pathetic." Something sharp pokes him under the table. "Ouch."
"Damon," Caroline says sharply, "Bonnie Bennett is my best friend and I'm sure the last thing she wanted to do was fall in love with you, no offence, but she has and it's probably been eating her up inside –"
"How is this supposed to help?"
She kicks him again, "Shut up and listen. You need to man, or, vampire, up and tell her that you feel the same way. Yes, I know, but what about Elena, what about hurting her, what about hurting Bonnie, but for fucks sake Damon, my best friend deserves, more than anyone, to be happy."
Damon stares at her, feeling a surreal urge to clap after her speech and a more surreal urge to cry. "It sounds so…easy," he says after a while.
"Because it is."
No, it never is. Not for him. He has a way of touching anything special and burning it; he can't stay in love with Elena without dragging someone else into his fire.
"She won't pick up my calls," he says limply.
"Don't call her!" Caroline has shot up from her seat, exasperated, "Go and find her. Go to Detroit right now and sweep her off her feet."
"This isn't a rom-com," Damon snaps. He isn't sure why he's suddenly angry but anger is simpler than hurting or guilt. "There's a reason why I've never told her before because I'll do what I always do."
"And what's that? Be a coward?" Caroline snaps back.
"No. I'll give her everything I have until I can't anymore."
The blonde is silenced; Damon too. They sit in the pause and he's sure, if his ache had a sound, they'd all be wincing.
"Damon," Stefan says softly, "It's okay to let Elena go."
"No," he says, head shaking, "Of course it isn't. She's waiting for me. She'll wake up when, when Bonnie, Bonnie –"
He doesn't want to talk anymore.
"I know you love Elena, you've always loved her, but maybe it's different?" Stefan says carefully. "Maybe Bonnie's a different kind of love to how you loved and love Elena? I'm not sure it's a one love-fits-all scenario."
He's right: it's never been the same. Elena was a whirlwind – Bonnie was patchwork of laughs and eyerolls and silence. He learned a lot about her, about him, in their silence.
"I'd be really annoyed at you for being wise if it weren't helping," Damon grumbles and Caroline chuckles, reaching for the hand squashed under his elbow.
"I want you to be happy too, Damon," she tells him.
It seems impossible to achieve – like one of those adverts to a beautiful private island you see on billboards but it's photoshopped. Happiness with Bonnie is something he's dreamed about privately, fighting through doubt and reality: how could someone like Bonnie love him? How could he possibly be who Bonnie deserves to be loved by? How can he love Bonnie when he loves Elena? Why didn't he just kiss her that time on the couch, instead of watching her walk away?
Happiness, like this, this happy, probably doesn't exist for Damon Salvatore but he'll try.
"The next flight leaves for Detroit in two hours," Caroline announces.
"What!?"
"Uh huh, that means you need to get up, hop in the shower and go."
"The shower part is a bit mean," Damon says.
She gives him a look. "You've been sweating in your car for months. Bonnie deserves a fresh Damon."
"I do shower," he protests as the blonde pushes him out the room. "Stefan, control her please."
His brother just lifts his hands. "I'm not getting involved."
He rolls his eyes and hurries up the stairs to his untouched bedroom, tries to be excited as he unpeels his (fine, slightly sweaty) t-shirt, but
What Bonnie deserves.
Caroline kept using that word. Deserves.
Nothing about who Damon is should be worthy of Bonnie Bennett and, as much as it gives them a chance at that elusive Billboard happiness, he almost hates that she loves him.
She said it herself: "But why do I love you anyway?"
Damon is still standing in his bathroom, staring at the jet of water gushing out the shower head when Stefan knocks on his door.
"Damon?"
"Not ready."
"No, Damon, you need to come downstairs."
"I haven't showered yet."
"Damon, seriously. Come down."
"I'll be there soon."
"Damon," Stefan's voice is sharp, "You need to."
/
She thought it would feel strange: buying the ticket, waiting at the gate, sitting in her seat on the plane, but Virginia rolled under the window in comforting familiarity. The Bonnie Bennett that took a taxi from the airport to the city, then a bus to Mystic Falls is free now.
Knocking on the Boarding House door, she wasn't sure what to expect. She hadn't told Caroline she was heading home, probably because she wasn't even sure she'd make it to the airport. The call ended and she booked a flight – it was what she needed, let him go, welcome herself home.
When her best friend opened the door she, first, screamed in her face, then, launched at her, squeezing until Bonnie yelped, "Okay, okay, this hurts."
"Bonnie this is INSANE! I missed you so much, obliviously, but WHAT!" The blonde was jumping up and down. "Damon said that it wasn't a rom-com but like, explain this."
She felt suddenly sick. "Damon what?"
"He said- STEFAN! Go and get him!"
"What?" She started to shake. "Damon's here?"
"Yes!" Caroline had eyes like a Disney Princess. "He just appeared out of nowhere like you did. This is too epic."
"No, Caroline, you don't understand, I can't see him-"
But the blonde had grabbed her hand and pulled her into the house, directing her to the living room where she waits now, barely able to listen to her best friend's gabbling over the literal pounding of her heart.
"You look so cute, by the way," Caroline says, fiddling with Bonnie's jacket. When Bonnie doesn't respond she peers at her, "You okay?"
I'm going to throw up.
"I just realised this is probably kind of a shock, right? Seeing him again but trust me, it's going to be amaz-"
"Bonnie."
Nothing about him has changed: grey t-shirt, black jeans, dark choppy hair that flicks at his ears where he's let it grow too long.
Nothing about him has changed but for the way he says 'Bonnie', like he's trying her name out for the first time.
She manages to stand and he drops to the bottom step; the distance between them, from the staircase to the couch, is a year.
"I was," he presses his hand on the back of his neck and it's so familiar she thinks she might just hug him, despite making a love out of the darkness, despite the silence when she offered it to him. "I was just coming to find you."
Her voice barely makes it across to him. "Where?"
Damon's mouth twitches. "Detroit."
"Care," Stefan says suddenly, "let's give them some space?"
"Right, yes. Of course. We'll be in the kitchen, when you're ready." She squeezes Bonnie's hand, winks at her like all of this is the simplest thing in the world.
The kitchen door closes and it's just Bonnie and Damon, trying to remember how to breathe around each other.
"Why…" Bonnie closes her eyes, finding centre, "Why would you come to Detroit?"
"Because I'm an idiot."
"Okay?"
"I mean, because I let you go in the first place."
"Damon, just talk."
"It's not that…easy," he says and she wants to close the year, erase it, so she can lean her head on his shoulder, make it simple like he wants.
"Just try."
"Fuck, I," he scrambles in his jean pockets and pulls out his phone, "Hold on."
She watches as he taps and taps on the screen then, ping, ping, ping – "Damon, what?"
"Check your phone," he says.
"Is this a game?" Her throat is thick, "Because if it is, I can't-"
"No!" And he rushes towards her, stopping just before her feet. "Bon," he reaches for her hand, she lets him take it, like a fool, she gives him her broken heart. "Check your phone," he says again, softly now, like a prayer.
There are 48 New Messages from D:
You've been gone for a day and I'm already missing you.
Bonnie, bonnie, bonnie. Sometimes I say your name out-loud like a creep because I miss you that much.
Remember that red dress you wore to Stefan's birthday party? It was soooooo sexy. I never told you.
I need to stop drunk drafting texts in case I accidentally send them.
You're kind of my favourite person in the universe and it's really fucked up I can't tell you that.
Wild idea: why don't we just avoid each other but…together?
Damon Salvatore is an idiot. Pass it on.
She's reading the last message when another, New Message from D, pops up on the screen.
In case it wasn't obvious: I love you. Honestly, nothing about however I've loved before has been simple. Happiness doesn't seem simple for me and maybe it isn't for us but loving you has always been easy, Bon. It's probably the easiest thing I've ever done.
Bonnie doesn't have time to re-read the message, make a poem out of the man in front of her because he's taken the phone of her hand, thrown it on the couch and pulled her into his chest.
"Permission to do something I've always wanted to," he says into her ear. He smells like she remembers, when she used to inhale his scent like a secret.
"Yes," she breathes - his mouth has condensed the year until a single second - "permission granted."
He kisses her like they've just met, like they've been waiting a life time, like he's kissed her a thousand times, like it's the last they'll ever have.
Like it's impossible.
/
One Week Later
"Your turn," Damon says into her hair.
"I can't move with you holding me," Bonnie laughs. "Move, you lump."
He spins so that he's flopped over her lap, grinning up at her. "Moved," he says sweetly.
"Stop staring at me. You're throwing off my dice."
"That doesn't even make sense."
"Just stop." She presses a hand over his eyes and throws the dice across the Monopoly board.
"I like staring at you. I'm making up for a years' worth of not."
"You sound like a stalker," Bonnie quips but she's smiling, she hasn't stopped smiling.
He'd been wrong about him not being what she deserves. It didn't matter. He'd spent years trying to mould himself into a man worthy of Elena Gilbert's love but with Bonnie, he never had to try.
Stefan is right: it's different.
He left her a voicemail the first night she came home, when she was sleeping in the spare bedroom because, as much as he didn't want to, he knew they needed to be careful with this.
"Hi Bon-bon," he said, leaning against the side of the boarding house, "It's my turn to leave a mess of a voicemail. I'm completely sober, promise, just drunk on youuu."
He laughed, "I can see your eye-roll perfectly. But, really, I've missed you and kissing you like that was… fucking amazing. I was going to say that we were stupid for not doing it earlier but I think you needed to go to Detroit. I can see it on you: you're confident again, like the Bonnie I first met, before witchy woo and Mystic Falls bad guys. You're great at saving our asses and killing them, sure, but you're better at being Bonnie Bennett, the bad ass. You're also like really, really, beautiful. Seriously. I'm the hot one, stop taking my job."
Damon chuckled again then cleared his throat, "There were times when I loved you so much I didn't know what to do around you. Especially when I knew I wasn't supposed to. I'm probably going to fuck it up sometimes but I want you to know that, whatever happens, I'll never regret being the Damon I am with you. I really like him, actually.
Okay, I'm done now. I'll kiss you again tomorrow. Goodnight, Bon-bon."
A/N: I wrote this whole chapter without stopping (and you can probably tell from the quality oops) but damn, Bamon get me in the feels. Let me know your thoughts (aka cry with me).
I'm stuck on the Bamon train again. I'll be back soon - prompt ideas are welcomed.
