hi guys, we're back! As always, appreciate the reviews and tips are very much appreciated, my ko-fi is linked in my bio. I was excited to get this chapter out, I've been rewatching TVD from the 1st season, (which I rarely ever do) and am almost on season 3 so far. So much to unpack but Damon is sooo heart eyes while simultaneously being a bag of chaos. Katherine is hot and 10,000 times better than Elena. Elena is... sadly dull and severely uninteresting like many writers tend to do with main characters. (I used to read the books back in 2009 and I remember really liking Elena's character. I've been considering rereading.) Stefan is actually way evil than I remembered (there's a Stefonnie one-shot in my head that I just might bring to life,) and Bonnie is such an angel with all of this potential and has been taken advantage of waaay too much which is why I wanted to empower her in this fic. Anyways this chapter is through Damon's perspective again, it started out as being the second part to chapter 4 but eventually it just grew bigger and bigger. happy holidays and happy reading (:
Before Damon opened his eyes, he felt the presence of Bonnie in the room. And when he did open them, he saw she was still in her very minimal sleepwear, observing the town of Mystic Falls and everything it came to be in her absence- which wasn't much.
A little construction there, some landscaping, but overall nothing had really changed.
The palette of the town in the morning was always breathtaking, and him being a bystander to Bonnie's morning viewing made it all the more stunning. The moment held a quiet gentleness- the first yawn in the morning, a baby's hiccup- fondness was in the air.
Her eyes mirrored the sunrise before her, the candy floss pink of the clouds, the punchy orange of a sleepy sun. He noticed she looked pensive like her thoughts were speaking to her in the silence, loud and overwhelming and present. Even her brow was angled in hushed concentration perhaps trying to distinguish any difference in the town since she'd last left for her own benefit, it would've taken that much concentration to discern anyway.
But he knew there were greater things to discuss, things he was, dare he think it, anxious to converse about. All anxiety aside, Damon had a yacht-load of questions that needed answers considering the gorgeous chaos he had been experiencing since her long awaited return.
"I was thinking of how I would tell you. There's so much to say but I don't even know where to begin." Her sight dropped from the window to the sill where her hands lay. She picked at a nail absently, unsure of how she should continue.
Damon cleared his voice from its misuse. "A start is always nice."
"So yeah... I'm a succubus."
"That part wasn't obvious." He said facetiously, though it was lacking in any dry humor; that good ole anxiety was too foreboding. It loomed like a shadow who threatened to materialize and spill his deepest darkest secrets, a shadow that could hang around Bonnie and ask her about those sexy fantasies Damon had, ask her if she knew about the naked shebang in the shower. And then there he was talking to God again, sending a silent plea because he could only imagine the embarrassment he would feel if she were to somehow find out about his one-sided musings and the desperation that was just behind his belly button- the place he ignored the most- waiting to be poked or prodded even accidentally since it only needed a smidge of attention before it jumped out at Bonnie.
She would probably scrunch up her nose in distaste anyway and look at him in that judgey way, the look that said he was beneath her, but he'd be okay. He'd say that he didn't desire her naked and open for him anyway, he just had a knack for wanting things he could never have. Damon would make Bonnie feel as if she was nothing special, nothing he hadn't already seen or felt or tasted before and he'd be lying, yes, but to save his own ass and his stupid, overwhelming feelings. For a few moments, that rejection would sting, maybe even burn but not as much as Katherine telling him she'd never loved him right before they had sex that night. The alcohol in his wounds, because he knew the answer but he wanted to be wrong so bad and he hated himself for that, the trying part. Hoping someone would choose him first and give him the love his brother seemed to flawlessly acquire.
"Let's get to the how and why," he said evenly as if his mind wasn't running rampant with scary possibilities.
"I died again. In New Orleans." If he wasn't already in a mentally fucked up place, his heart plummeted to the sole of his shoe.
"What?"
"Yeah,"
Her voice was strained, the memory obviously not one she wished to discuss despite its fundamentality. And her green orbs were moons that told stories of pain and abandonment, Damon resonated with the look. He resonated with the feeling.
Deep inside of him was a resounding shock, like going deaf after hearing an explosion. Heat waves rolling after the fire, where everything seemed as if it was underwater in slow motion, a cinematic, slow torture. An atmosphere no one ever wished to experience but no one could forget, captured in high definition, every pore, every grain of sand, every ounce of pain unfolding inside of him in real time.
There was Bonnie, the most beautiful damaged thing he'd seen in all his lives and he couldn't even tell her.
It was the gunshot that rattled his bones, shook him, and hurt him harder than Giuseppe's backhand or Lily's negligence.
He was a child again, human, vulnerable, just wanting so bad to not be a failure.
But how could he not be?
Shell-shocked, that's what he was as her words just fell on the floor. Bonnie died. His best friend. And no one was there to save her, not even herself. Not even him.
He had failed.
Again he said, "What-"
"Kai killed me. He made me this."
And if that wasn't the knife that stirred in his gut, twisting like a spoon in a bowl of cereal. Scrambling up his insides like alphabet soup. He could just bleed out right there.
Damon would sit down if he wasn't already on the bed, the handsomest Prima-donna in silk.
"God, Bonnie," he rubbed his forehead and made his hands into fists. Thinking of Kai and Bonnie and his own absence. He wished he could've torn Kai apart limb by limb. He wished he could've protected her. Vulnerability made him angry and he was seething now because there was honestly and truly nothing he could do.
"How?"
She faced him in the silence, a dialogue probably happening in her head before she decided to sit on the bed with him.
"I was lonely. And I have a habit of ignoring my needs." She said, in a tone that wasn't necessarily dedicated to being guilty.
Where was this going?
"I was doing stupid things, really crazy things in New Orleans because I never knew what that felt like. It was fun and wild and so not me that I got lost in it very quickly. I didn't realize how much my moral compass weighed on me before, back in Mystic Falls. Being selfish is so important and everyone had a chance to do that except me. My hero complex really hindered me, it was like I had this duty to fulfill always. Even being separated from you guys, it was hard to shake."
She laced her hands through her hair.
"Bonnie," he said because he could place where she was going with this with such a dramatic prelude but it couldn't have happened. She would never.
"I did this love spell for a client, and it's funny because now I remember Grams always saying to stay away from love spells but I thought I had it all under control. Of course I began to see Kai in my dreams..."
She paused to grab her thoughts, Damon's inquisitive stare was boring into her.
"That was the side effect and it wasn't a figment, it was actually him. Probably somewhere from the depths of hell. Anyways, he would kill me as if we were back in the prison world. I became addicted to that, to the game, to proving to him that I was better, stronger. I didn't even realize that I wasn't taking care of myself, losing the real world to sleep and kill and torture him. I had needs, a business, my body and mind that I abandoned for him because I felt alive."
"Bon Bon,"
"I tried to stop. For a while. But there I was running right back to him. Again and again and my needs just grew louder and-"
"And what?"
"This happened years ago. But, Kai was an incubus, I didn't know. We had sex, I died in my sleep for a few hours. When I woke up, I was still a witch, but also a succubus."
Out of all the things floating around in the murkiness of his mind, he felt that rejection he thought of earlier. There it was, stinging way more than he could've possibly prepared for. Stunning rejection slicing into him, repeatedly saying Bonnie chose Kai over him, over him, over him. That the one person who he thought would always pick him first over any man she could've met after him actually fucked around with the psychopathic, waste of space, demonic entity known as Malachi Parker. Why was jealousy in him as blue as violets and as green as envy?
"Are you out of your fucking mind?" He knew it was out of place but that's what he did, he stepped over lines that never needed to be crossed without a second thought. "You got yourself killed because you wanted to fuck Kai? The psychopath that you supposedly hated?"
"Damon."
"No, Bonnie, I can't ignore what you just said. You wouldn't ever do that. Is this why you never told me what happened in the prison world? Because you were busy screwing him when I left?"
Even to himself he sounded like a jealous boyfriend. Honestly, he had no right but he was so used to Bonnie and stepping over those lines that it was nothing for him to jump through a few hoops as well. Throughout the years he still maintained that feeling of entitlement with her, that no one else was supposed to experience her any further than he had. In his mind, the lights were shut off, the stage was empty, the audience was gone for the act of Bonnie Bennett but Damon Salvatore was the only exclusion. As far as he was concerned, she cut on and off for him.
She looked at him sideways, with an expression taken aback by his audacity but not surprised.
His vampire instincts couldn't prepare him for Bonnie pinning him to the wall with a hand at his throat. The tension from his vocal chords pressing together prevented him from letting the jealousy speak any further.
"Do you think you're better than him? Genuine question." Her voice was composed despite the violent grip she had on his neck but he was going to save face for as long as possible.
Even if he could answer, he wouldn't have.
"That's what I thought." When he found his breath again, it was after she removed her hand from his throat and he nearly coughed up a lung.
"I see you have some new tricks," he barked out. Using his vampire speed, he grabbed both her wrists, pinned them behind her and pressed her back up against his wall. Many a woman he'd placed in this same position against this same wall for various reasons. Stefan would probably tackle him if he walked in now, ask him what on earth he was thinking handling Bonnie like this after he hadn't seen her in eight years but he was angry at her for fucking Kai, for getting herself killed, for leaving him in the first place. He was angry at her for always being his perfect sparring partner, for looking so good and smelling like an absolute delight. So fucking angry that Kai, of all people, witnessed Bonnie the way Damon could only dream of. To top it all off, he was pissed at himself for how much he missed her.
His hold on her wrists slackened enough that she twisted her right wrist free to trace through his scalp and roughly grab a tuft of his hair. Damon's head was bent at an uncomfortable angle so his eyes were all hers.
She stared into him, swept her sight over his face from base to tip searchingly before whispering, "God, you're so pretty." When she tightened her grip in his hair and yanked, his teeth sank deep into his lip to distract from the unadulterated arousal that tumbled around inside of him and clouded his vision. His robe was too thin to have anything floating up and out.
"Were you ever going to tell me about that dream manipulation you did, Damon?"
Poker face ready, he asked. "What dream manipulation?"
"You don't remember? From the prison world. The one where you fucked me like you hoped I would die so no one else would have the chance. Did you think I wouldn't find out about that?"
"Bonnie, I have-"
"No idea what you're talking about." They said in unison.
"Damon, I know, okay. It was like a replay of a scene from a movie where I saw you come in and debate on killing me before sliding into my dreams to persuade me, right before finally deciding to just fuck me silly. What kind of friend are you?"
The one whose equal parts in love and lust with you, the thought just barged into his head, daring him to say it aloud. Was he in love with Bonnie? After all these years did it just sneak in the back door?
She continued, breaking his focus "and don't try to deny it again because being a succubus has its perks."
Figuratively, his arm was twisted.
"Fine, Bon. You caught me red-handed. I popped into your dream to make you tap out on the sofa in the lounge, then the table, the wall, the floor, the bathroom. And after you were damn near delirious from orgasms, I bit you. And guess what, I don't regret it one bit. 'Cause if I hadn't played pretend I probably would've eaten you in real life."
Her brows scrunched together, "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Tell you what? That I was starving? If we even brushed on the topic of how hungry I was, you wouldn't have felt safe around me. I wanted to hunt you down."
"And the sex,"
"You needed it."
"Who told you that I needed it?"
"You did, don't you remember? I'd do something accidentally irresistible. Like look at you a certain way, or my fingertips would graze your thigh. Or we'd be way too close for comfort. You'd get all uncomfortable and needy. Cross your legs once over, a couple of moments later you'd do it again. I knew what that meant. Then you'd go upstairs before I could smell you and return in the morning, glowing. Your poor, exhausted fingers."
She balked.
"Stop me if I'm lying."
Her eyes narrowed.
"Pity dream sex, how sweet." She said after a moment of silence.
"Anything for a friend."
"So the sex had nothing to do with you, though. Right? You didn't need it as well?"
"Nope,"
"Wow, Damon, one altruistic deed in your lifetime. That's some self-improvement."
"Yeah, well. I would've helped you in real life, too, because I'm just that selfless... Could've given those fingers of yours a much needed break. But only if you came groveling on all fours."
"I could say the same for you. Since you were 'starving.'"
"You couldn't have handled me chasing you through that house,"
She gave another rough tug to his hair until his eyes were little swirls of desire. He groaned.
"I would've held my own."
Damon wouldn't be Damon if he didn't step on toes.
"Like you held your own with Kai?"
He saw stars when the whip of her backhand slapped his face. The brief burning didn't make him regret his remark any less. He enjoyed Bonnie more when she was a little spicy, anyway.
"Like I held my own just now. Don't try comparing yourself to Kai because that boy could go the distance with torture. You're too pretty for that." She released the devilish hold she had in his hair and wriggled her way out of his grip. Her back hadn't left the wall for a second before Damon pressed her chest and the side of her face back against that same spot.
"My turn," he chimed, then gave a handful of her hair a hard pull. She winced. "You must've forgotten who I am. I'm Damon, and I've experienced a world of pain that would make your psychopath of a boyfriend shit his diaper. Your little favoritism is disappointing- there is no comparison between me and Kai. There's no comparison between me and anyone. You're so bold now, it's adorable. All this yap like I can't snap your pretty little neck."
She was quiet, letting his speech hit her ears, really hanging on and digesting each word. Maybe she missed this, the tension. Their dance. Maybe he did too. Bonnie was remembering what had her so secretly... what other word could she think of besides absolutely enamored with Damon Salvatore? It was difficult to find a man of her caliber, she'd dealt with too many human men in her near past and they just couldn't compete or even satisfy, for that matter. They were so fragile. But Damon was damage-proof. Charm possessed him so he was compelling naturally, the kind of entity that was hard to stay away from. Someone who was both easy and hard to hate. She could only speak for herself but this contact was remedying her longing to touch him and toy with him all day. Plus it didn't hurt that he was so handsome, it was practically delusion.
"Snap my neck? But Damon, you're my best friend. And I'm pretty sure you love Elena too much to try."
"I'd just lie and say you slipped."
"Slipped and somehow twisted my neck?"
"Yep. That's how fragile life is."
"Poetic. In the afterlife, I'd tell her how devoted you were to keeping me safe. I'd ask her where you got the fantasy of me... polishing your knob so to speak... in the shower, and everything else your creative mind mustered."
God had to be a woman because he had never been let down by a man so much in his life.
"You saw that?"
"And felt it. But you know what's the funny part?"
He held his breath.
"I've been a succubus for years and when men think they're in love, they see me last. First, it's their wives, their girlfriends, those hot girls they see on the streets, it doesn't always start off as me. It's about the allure, the catch, the romanticism of pulling back the veil after they let down every barrier because they thought they could trust their own minds. Imagine my surprise when I saw myself and not Elena. I thought, God, Damon really missed me."
What could he say to that?
"I was so very hungry, you were the perfect bait, all willing and open- practically beckoning me to come forth. You demanded my presence, perhaps that's how you projected outside of yourself... I'm not sure. But you didn't disappoint, I needed you so bad, almost as much as you needed me and I think our history- the unrequited aspect- just made everything extra saucy. It was cute how you tried to fight against it but the harder you tug the current, the more it drowns you."
"You took advantage of me." He snapped.
"You took advantage of me."
Regardless of her being in the compromising position, she held the upper hand.
"I'm not the girl I used to be. After spending some time away, I realized what real friends were, and they never asked me for a damn thing outside of showing up for gigs they booked. Imagine that." She craned her neck though she knew he could hear her loud and clear.
"After all these years, you still have a special place in my heart, Damon. But if I knew now what I knew then, I would've never listened to Elena and just killed you when I had the chance. For my own good."
"My bestie wants to kill me back? That's devastating."
"Isn't it?"
He separated from Bonnie to examine her face.
"Nearly a decade and we're still one in the same, Bon Bon. We should just go at it, see who gives in first,"
"And by go at it, you mean...?"
"Fight. Get your mind out of the gutter, you bad, bad girl."
"My ring begins and ends in the bedroom. I'd make dying the best part of your life."
"So she says."
"So I do."
There was something else in the room with them, invisible and settling silently like snow. Landing on their eyelashes, nesting in their scalp. Falling on every surface it could see. Inescapable.
Damon was thinking Bonnie possessed an appeal that was as devastating as r music- beautiful, dark, and dripping with sex but if he listened hard enough, it became haunting. Lyrics sung so beautifully he could overlook the message if he wasn't careful. He'd find himself humming about love being a losing game.
Maybe it was.
Of course Caroline happened to call at that time, rattling off a list of tasks for them to do to catch up amongst mindless chatter and Damon observed Bonnie snapping back into the person she used to be, like muscle memory. It was something he knew all too well, smiling in front of a person he hated or lying and saying that was the best sex he'd ever had only because it made life a tiny bit easier. He recognized a game he played throughout his life, as he observed his best friend make-believe right in front of him so she didn't raise any eyebrows. It didn't matter that that girl, that old version of her, was probably gone, never to be found again, merely a stepping stool to who she was now. All the damage, heartbreak, seduction, beauty and death that she couldn't stop herself from running into were all paths that lead up and back to Bonnie Bennett.
It was disturbing how easy it was for her to hide it all. Especially the resentment as she babbled away with Caroline sounding so much like the witch he once knew.
He thought of the times when she did answer his calls after the big move, how she sounded just like that, like nothing ever happened to her, like she was just living her life to the fullest. How foolish it was of him to allow her content tone to take away some of the guilt. It helped him sleep better knowing that Bonnie wasn't that messed up from how unfairly they treated her, listen to her, she was having a ball, all occupied and always rushing off the phone before any questions could raise.
In that moment, he ached a little realizing how easy it was for Bonnie Bennett to pretend she was perfectly okay when she wasn't.
And he wondered how many times she slapped on a good face only because she knew it was expected of her.
He was sorry a million times over, but what good would that do her? The damage was already done and it was worse because it was the type of damage that was unseen.
The one where people die and their loved ones talk about how much they adored life, they say they don't know what happened and they believe that lie despite knowing the sadness was always there in front of them, lingering behind eyes that lost their light a long time ago, they just never bothered to look. Or care.
There was no room for him to ask if Bonnie was alright because he could only remember Elena who needed the saving.
Tied down to the train tracks, there was only one damsel in distress and her face remained the same. Brown hair, brown eyes, olive skin.
The little witch could've been tied down too, the train could've been minutes away, but if she fell down alone and no one was there to hear, did she make a sound?
