A/N: So many of you have asked for an update on this little family… I'm a couple of years late but I really hope this gives us all the hug we've been needing.
For the first time in my Bamon writer life, this is literally just pure fluff. No heartbreak, just happiness. (Okay, maybe like a sentence of angst).
Amaryllis: Happily Ever After
Damon's not sure the last time he felt this much pressure. Bonnie had woken him up this morning with a black coffee and the 'simple' task of buying decorations for Relly's birthday party, nothing too major just make it pink and pretty, because she's turning six tomorrow, remember?
No, he hadn't remembered. He can barely remember how to get dressed in the morning he's been so tired, and happy, but tired, caring for mini-Bonnie the almost six-year-old, whilst her Mommy heads into the city to work. Now he's standing in Party City staring at the sparkling aisle of pink streamers, having a panic over which shade of pink will look best with purple balloons.
Are purple balloons even included in the pink and pretty requirement?
"Do you need any help, Sir?" A smiley worker wearing Tiger ears asks him.
"Yes! Please."
She laughs. "Let me guess, planning a birthday party for your daughter?"
"You got it." He doesn't correct the 'daughter' part, the same way he didn't correct Relly when she called him Daddy the other week, fighting through giggles during a lethal tickle fight.
"How old is she turning?"
"Six," he says proudly because he's missed so many birthdays, all of them, but number six, he's here for. And seven and eight and nine and ten and – Tiger Ears is thrusting a unicorn helium balloon in his face.
"This is our Glitter Pink Unicorn in size XL. We do also have Super XL out back if you want?"
"Oh," Damon adjusts his eyes to the neon monstrosity, "Do you have any pink dinosaur balloons? She really loves dinosaurs."
"Dinosaurs?" She looks surprised, "We have some glow in the dark dino stickers and," she reaches behind the pack of paper plates, "Here. Rainbow dinosaur banners."
"I'll take them," he says instantly. There was a time when his impulsivity looked like sinking his fangs into a slender neck, or pushing a stake through a vampire's heart. Party shopping is surprisingly more fulfilling.
Forty minutes later, Damon Salvatore is pushing a trolley full of glittering pink and rainbow decorations. It's like the campest dinosaur ever to exist has thrown up in here, he thinks with a smile.
Relly's at the park with Caroline and her twins; he'll swing by to pick her up after hiding the goodies. Before anything though, he needs to boast about his party shop victory.
"Bon-bon," he announces into his phone, "I am officially on party planning duty forever."
"Hmm. What about when she's thirteen and wants an Instagram style party?"
He loves how easily they talk about their future: even if they've never really discussed what they are and he's only kissed her once, softly in the garden at moonlight, and thought about the smile that whispered on her lips every night since. It's okay though, he understands that Bonnie doesn't want to rush and the last seven months of her life have been about relocating back home, finding a job and sharing her daughter with someone who will wait forever to kiss her again.
"Okay well a) Instagram won't be a thing then and b) if it is, she's not having it."
"Good luck with that, Damon. She's not even six years old and already has you wrapped her around her little finger."
"Not fair! I only give her squirty cream once a week now," he protests, grinning like a mad-man in the Party City parking lot.
It's the simple joy of his life now: tiny things like dinosaur slippers strewn across his bedroom floor, how Bonnie squeezes his shoulder on the couch when coming back from work, dance parties in the kitchen when they're all too tired to move but Relly holds their hands and they find the energy to jump about anyway.
Damon Salvatore, you're the luckiest bastard in the world.
"Really? I'm impressed. But seriously, thank you. How much did it all come to?"
He'd marry her tomorrow, no hesitation, but Bonnie's careful with her heart now. She gives him all she's able to and saves the rest as a safety net.
"I know that I love you," she told him once, a week or so after they missed their flight back to Atlanta all those months ago. "But I can't just… I can't open myself up like that so fast. There's so much we need to talk about and with Relly… I just…"
"I know," he said, holding her hands under his chin, "I know."
"You don't mind? It's not forever, I can't," she smiled then, "I can't wait forever."
There's something immortal about being human that he never had when he was a vampire: his words. That's why when he said, "I'll wait forever anyway," he meant it.
"Bon, don't be silly."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Well, thank you. Ah! I've got to get back to work now. I'll see you later at home. Give her a kiss from me."
"She doesn't like my kisses," Damon chuckles, "She says my stubble is scratchy."
"Maybe it's time you shaved then…"
"Why? Do you want to kiss me, Bon-bon."
And she hangs up, making him laugh out loud to the parking lot.
…
"Guess what?"
"What?"
"It's my birthday tomorrow."
"What!?"
"Shhh. They'll hear us."
"Okay, okay, being quiet." Damon cups his hands around his mouth and whispers, "What!?" again.
"Mommy says she has a special surprise for me," Relly whispers back. Her breath on his face smells like raspberry lollipops.
"Not fair. I want a special surprise."
"It's not your birthday."
Damon pokes her side and Relly squeals. "Shhh," Damon hisses, "We need to stay quiet."
They're curled up inside the yellow tube that runs under the slide, hiding from Caroline's twins. He hadn't intended on playing at the park but Relly looked so happy giggling with her cousins, that he left his phone and keys with Auntie Blondie on the bench and joined in with the kid's game.
"Do you know how old I'll be?" Relly asks, tracing stars on the plastic ceiling.
"189," Damon says easily. It's his own age – one he's started counting now.
"Damon," Relly says with an eye roll and it really is like watching his Bonnie Bennett only shrunk down and cuter (just).
"Of course, I know," he whispers, "You're going to be six." Relly's smile is brighter than whatever wobbly stars she'd imagined on the tunnel; then it dies and Damon panics. "What?"
"Will you still want to play with me?"
Damon reaches for her hair – an action he's seen Bonnie do so many times, he's adopted it into his own reflexes. "I'm always going to want to play with you."
"Even when I'm a hundred?"
"Yes! I'm never going to get bored of hide and seek, even if-"
"Found you!" Two giggling heads stick into the tunnel, bursting their moment but Damon doesn't mind, Relly is smiling again. That's his prerogative now.
They walk hand in hand back home, the kid quieter than usual. When he bends down to look at her, he can hear a gentle, happy hum.
"What are you humming?"
Her mouth twitches like Bonnie's does when she's hiding something. "Nothing."
"Relly, Relly, Relly."
She hums again, louder this time, then stops abruptly when he looks at her. This a game now, huh.
"That's funny," Damon says to the sky, "It sounds like the clouds are humming Let it Go."
She giggles then bursts out, "It was me, Damon, me!"
He doesn't understand how her mind works most of the time but it never stops being beautiful. He pockets it as something to tell her later, in a few years, when she'll really believe him, maybe even call her Daddy for real, not just in tickle fights or as she's falling asleep.
"What are we cooking tonight?" she asks him, bending under his elbow as he works the key in the lock. She's become his mini chef assistant, washing vegetables and shouting way too loudly when the pot starts to boil.
"This is your last night being five years old. You decide."
Relly bites on her lip, possibilities running around her little mind. "Mmmm pancakes," she decides eventually, then looks at him naughtily, "With lots and lots and LOTS of squirty cream."
She follows him into the kitchen, waiting for his answer. She knows it will be a yes, even if he says Relly, that's not dinner food, she'll stick her lip out and he'll be flipping pancakes listening to the Frozen soundtrack for the 80th time that week.
Relly's favourite song is the duet: she makes Damon sing all the male parts and corrects him when he gets the words wrong (the one-time Damon corrected her, she stomped off to sit on the couch with her arms crossed. Also, adorable).
He's learning everyday how to be the best he can be for her and sure, maybe, sometimes he does give in too easily but it's her birthday and he loves how much she loves his pancakes. It reminds him of a certain witch back in the prison world.
…
When Bonnie comes home that evening, Relly is a hyperactive dino-fairy. Her words, not Damon's – he just added hyperactive.
"Did you give her sugar or something?" Bonnie asks and at his stall she rolls her eyes, "Damon Salvatore, you are the biggest push over."
"It's her last night of being five, Bon! She wanted pancakes!"
Relly charges down the hallway shouting about fairy dust and claws. "What the hell did you make the pancakes out of? Smarties?"
"Don't give her any ideas," he whispers, coming up next to her because although he can't exactly touch her how he wants to, he can stand close enough to make their hands graze.
Bonnie tucks a finger into his palm. "Hi," she says softly, "thanks again for getting all the party stuff."
"I'm not joking when I say this is a career change for me."
"Oh yeah," she says, leaning against him and making his heart buzz, "reformed vampire turned human party planner. What a story arc."
I love you, he thinks, but they don't say things like that, not yet. They say I love you in how their hands brush against each other, how they dance with Relly and put her to bed, kissing either side of her cheeks at once. Damon says I love you now by promising to start decorating as soon as the dino-fairy has settled her wings.
"I'll come down and help as soon as she's asleep," is how Bonnie says it back.
/
Bonnie doesn't have time to be surprised by the soft sight of the ex-vampire hanging up dinosaur balloons because-
"Fuck, stupid tying fuck things," Damon grunts, struggling with the string.
"Need some help there, big guy?"
He turns on the step ladder, almost wobbling off it. "Fuck," Damon hisses again.
"You've done a great job," Bonnie reassures him, gesturing around the chaotic living room. There are pink, glittery streamers and dinosaur heads and an inflatable unicorn with party hats stuck all the way along its back like a stegosaurus. She feels suddenly emotional looking at the ugly unicorn-dino hybrid – at how much this man loves, really loves, her daughter. More often than not she thinks 'our'.
"Did Relly get off to sleep okay?" Damon asks, brow a deep crease as he battles the string again.
"I had to read her two stories but yes, eventually."
"That's good – FUCK." The balloon falls to the bottom of the ladder, joining the little collection of fallen soldiers below his feet.
"Damon, it's okay. I can do it."
"I just want it to be perfect, Bon. There," he rubs his face, "She's not going to have that many people there."
"Damon-"
"I just can't help thinking of everyone that should be here. Like your mom, your dad, your Grams, fuck." Bonnie's not sure if he's frustrated at the balloons or their reality. "Relly would have actual family if it weren't for-"
"Damon. Don't you dare." He looks up at her, for the first time since she'd walked in the room. "We've all lost people to our crazy lives, Damon, and I miss them every single day, Stefan too, but don't you dare feel unworthy of being at her birthday party. Not when we've both never been happier."
The man stares at her, then hops down off the step ladder. "Okay."
"Just okay?"
He crosses over the rug she'd made him buy, big and fluffy like a cloud. She wants him to kiss her as he takes her face in his hands, like he'd done in the garden, when he'd set off a firework in her chest, terrifying in its explosion and – he kisses her forehead. "I need you to do the balloons."
…
"Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!"
Her bed is shaking.
"Mommy, wake upppppp! You have to come see!"
Now there's a lump on her chest, tiny fingers peeling at her eyelids: "Okay, okay, birthday girl, I'm awake."
And there she is, her beautiful six-year-old, smiling like she's at Disney World. "Mommy, you need to come see!"
"First," Bonnie says, reaching for her, "I need cuddles. Six cuddles for my big, birthday girl."
"Onetwothreefourfivesix," Relly races, struggling out of her mama's arms. "Done! Let's gooooo."
She pretends to be shocked at the decorated living room and gasps at all the details Relly points out to her, Look at the dinosaurs! This is pink and so so so sparkly! Mommy, look at this balloon!
"You came downstairs, very early, baby," she says, pushing for another snuggle but Relly won't stay still.
"Damon woke me up!"
"Guilty," the man says from the door way. She hadn't heard him come downstairs but he's still in his pyjamas (aka boxers and a dressing gown not working hard enough to cover his chest). "I was too excited."
Bonnie has to fight hard the urge to rush over there and kiss him against the door, but she has morning breath and her daughter is here and she promised herself that she'd wait because this happiness is too precious to be reckless with.
"When can I open presents!" Relly shouts, whirling around the room.
"Who said anything about presents, missy?"
"Damon!"
"Guilty again," the man says, walking into the living room and standing just close enough for her hand to brush against his knuckle. "It's just a little something."
"Can I have it now Mommy, please, please, pleaaaaseee."
And this her daughter's Disney World: pink, glitter, dinosaurs… and Damon. "Fine. Go and sit on the couch, okay?"
"Hold your hands out," Damon instructs, kneeling in front of. Her little girl is shaking with excitement, eyes squeezed tightly as if battling with herself not to peek. "Keep those eyes closed."
"I am, I am."
But when Damon leans forward, he doesn't put anything in her hands. Instead, he reaches for her hair, tucks a wild curl behind her ear and slides a bright pink flower clip in place.
Relly's eyes go wide as she feels for what Damon has fastened in her hair. "What is it?"
"It's a very, very special flower," Damon says softly, Relly gazing at him like he's the answer to every question she's ever had, "Do you know why?"
She shakes her head.
"It's an Amaryllis flower."
The tears were probably forming before Relly breathed, Oh, and threw herself around Damon's neck, hugging and hugging him, but they wet her cheeks like fresh rain as Damon rubs her daughter's back and tells her she is as beautiful as the flower in her hair.
A/N: Writing about this family is like giving myself free therapy. Now that I've entered back into Relly and Damon world, I don't want to leave.
I was going to finish this chapter with the party and some more Bamon moments but I'm impatient and just want to get it uploaded now lol. Stay tuned for the next one!
I'll be back very soon, friends. Thank you for supporting me and my stories. It's a privilege to write for you all.
