A beam of yellow sunrise was coming through the window transforming her room into one big shimmer. Her eyes opened cautiously, her hands treaded slowly… I'm asleep in my bed…
"Pancakes in five," her father called up. As per usual.
Okay…
Had she or hadn't she just been in a forest, chanting out a spell?
Had she or hadn't she been slumming it for months in some magical witch dimension?
The Witching Side…
The Aventine…
"Bacon?" her father called again, "Or you want some of the chicken from last night?"
She didn't remember the chicken from last night but whatever… "Chicken's cool. And the bacon. Both?"
Her father grunted something.
Okay…
She climbed to the edge of the bed gingerly and swung her legs over. Ah! Pins and needles! The joints locked up.
A dream?
A very twisted sort of dream, not exactly a nightmare, but no fantasy either… Damon had ripped her grandmother's throat out. And then there'd been a crazy blood-drinking witch with red hair… and Klaus had killed Damon… and she'd turned Greta to dust… Elijah and a sword… naked in a restaurant…
Not a dream?
She was in some weird cotton gown that was revealing enough to be considered lingerie. Diamond necklace around her neck, not humming with energy and power, just plain old sparkle.
Her reflection in the mirror on her wall caught her attention. She was Bonnie. Still.
And Damon, in some world or the other, in some reality or the other, had kissed her. Everything was blurry, Klaus, Elijah, Geraldine, Magwyr… all of it was a mush of confusion. Except that Damon had kissed her.
More than kissed her.
The gown came over her head, and she stood, examining herself in the mirror.
She remembered him biting her, but there weren't any marks… Her fingers traced over her lips, up her nose, around her eyes… as if she were a blind person trying to recognise herself. Her hands went back to her mouth.
She did not kiss Damon. Make a move on a guy already swearing his heart and soul over to Elena? Her mouth knew better than to do something stupid like that. She remembered crushing his throat and scooping the blood out with her tongue, but all of that had to be part of the dream. Right?
Damon did not kiss her.
They'd known each other over more than a year, and he'd never shown any indication of wanting to get that much closer to her. They'd danced at that sixty's thing, and that had been something. And he'd trailed his fingers down her face that time he'd wanted the stone to open the tomb. He'd mauled her a couple hours after that… and there was that time down in the old witchhouse, when he'd started to brush a cobweb off her face and ended up cupping her cheek… Had that happened? She remembered how she'd involuntary pushed her cheek into the touch, and how his face had... twisted… and the tip of his tongue had flickered over his lips… The entire thing had lasted picoseconds, if so long…
Dream!
She'd ended up having a massive Damon dream, hadn't she? Is that something that happens? Too much exposure to Damon fumes and Damon eyes and Damon smiles? Damon induced unconsciousness, Damon induced hallucinations. Damon induced psychosis?
Was she still with Jeremy? She wondered. If everything that happened over the last couple of weeks was all in her mind, then she supposed so.
If not… Then…
Hmm. Her eyes took in her own naked form and she tried to imagine what some hot dude, say Damon, would think. Decent breasts. She'd give them a six out of ten. No, you know what? She'd give them an eight. Eight. Good perkiness. Nice areola to skin colour contrast. Decent size. Decent amount of bounce. Neck… Very biteable. What kind of vampire would say no to a neck like that? No pendulous jowls of fat. Not doubling chin. Nice muscle… Her stomach was booming… A work of art - it couldn't get any flatter. Plus the faint edging of a six pack? That was hot, right? She turned looking at her back and ass. Top notch. She made a full circle then struck a pose.
I have magic. Magic is hot. I am hot.
So what if she didn't have Halle Berry's facial symmetry? Who did? She was still hot. Totally hot. Jeremy would be lucky with a girlfriend half as hot as she was. Which other senior out there was going to put their name down for his emotional bag of ex-stoner issues? Damon… He could do better though… He could get the Russian swimsuit model. He could get the chick tall enough to qualify to be an air hostess, with legs that went up, and up and up…
Love is friendship on fire.
He'd said that to her, but the thing was, they weren't really friends. They never hung out. He killed her grandmother. He was perpetually in love with Elena and was on a mission to inject himself into every facet of the girl's life. He practically lived at Elena's.
Sometimes she wondered if he even knew her name. What with all the 'Witchy, Judgey' appellations. They had nods, the occasional 'thank you', he'd grabbed her that time they were torturing Mason, they had a mutual willingness to die for Elena, they had mutual friends Alaric and Stefan, they had irregular glances that were about 3% eye sex only because, by default, Damon could probably impregnate a woman by eye sex alone. His eyes were just that hot and their lowest eye-sex output setting was 3%. He turned off his sexy when he dealt with her. Know who he put in on for? Elena.
Bonnie sighed as she palmed her ass. A little more ass, and about three or four inches in the height department, and she might have had him. A Bulgarian ancestor might have helped too. Why could she not have had some ancient doppelgänger too? Would the universe fall to pieces if for once, if in their own little Milky Way system, Planet Earth took a day off from revolving around Elena Gilbert?
Ecosystems that dependantrarely thrived.
If she had to pick a theme song, she'd want it to be that "Only Girl in the World" thing Rihanna did. Currently her theme song would be… probably the song from Baywatch. I'll be there… Whenever you need me. She'd be Hasselhoff, running to the rescue, galloping through the waves like a jackass. Elena'd be the flailing body underwater… she'd pull the girl to rescue, drag her back to shore… then all the paramedic people would crowd her out and forget about her existence… Then all the beach guys would have a competition or something to see who got to give mouth-to-mouth…
The first time it had happened… so long, long ago… the first Elenafication she'd ever witnessed… Matt. He'd been very blond back then. Less poor. More happy. Less brooding. More carefree. And the three of them had been hanging out at the pools. She and Elena had been taken turns at teaching him to back-paddle… He'd been the first boy she'd ever crushed on. Then Elena's hair had got caught in a crack and they'd had to issue a nationwide State of Emergency – locked down the pool – and Matt rode with her in the ambulance… And that was that.
What does Elena look like naked?
How much better than me?
I know for a fact that I have better legs.
She needed a guy to make her feel a little revolved around too. Caroline had the wolf-boy/cool football jock/rich guy boyfriend thing going. Elena had the "two brothers battling for her heart" thing down solid. Why should she be stuck with rehab boy? No offense to the Jere-bear, he was cute and all, but really? He was a living cauldron of angst. Not a feel-good guy, at all. People like Jere needed upbeat, ra-ra girlfriends… like who she used to be when she was a cheerleader, before she got all serious and turned witch-martyr for hire.
Shit… So she'd have to move. Staying in Mystic Falls to pine over Damon and have fantasy make out sessions wasn't going to cut it. Really, it wasn't. She'd had just about enough with being the friendly neighbourhood witch too. Nobody appreciates witches. They end up used and abused like ten dollar whores…
She could take up with Klaus maybe. He was hot. Totally hotter than Damon… maybe. And there was that accent. If Damon was an eyefucker, then Klaus was a voice fucker. Ultra hot. She couldn't even imagine what he'd sound like in a bedroom. He didn't look like a groaner, or dirty-talker. Honestly, she kind of had the feeling he'd be the submissive type under all that hoopla. She could totally see him in handcuffs paying some woman in leather to piss in his mouth and flay his skin with a razor wire whip. Totally eew, but something about his eyes seemed to scream, "Do whatever you want with me. Make it hurt or I won't feel it."
Which was super hot. She'd whip him or whatever shit he was in to if it meant come Prom she could show up with him in tow and be all 'In your face, motherfuckers.'
He'd probably bite her though. He looked like a biter. And he looked like one of those "I'll so totally brainwash you" type of guys, too. She already had to muck through her Damon fever, no point in jazzing herself up for another big bad vamp. She was supposed to hate them, after all.
Her fingers went down between her thighs and lingered. Had Damon been there? Really? Or was it still virgin territory? She remembered his tongue plundering through her, making her feel like… like… like the Big Bang was happening all over again a couple inches up her vagina. She remembered him pounding into her on a forest floor, stabbing in to her against a panel of glass overlooking a Canadian highway.
Real?
Not real?
She didn't know which way to wish. To have actually in real life done the nasty with the nastiest guy she knew would be totally… completely awesomely epic. Ground shaking, epic. Scream it from the mountaintops, epic. Tattoo it across her ass, epic. Print it out on a t-shirt, epic. She caught herself on the verge of giggling, one giant shit-eating grin across her face.
For a brief while, when she'd been dreaming, or whatever, she'd been Damon's girl and it had been… boombastic, if that was a word. Near Damon her heart had been all Boom, Boom, Boom. She'd say something sultry and he'd have this reaction, this "Only Girl in the World" reaction… She remembered how his nose felt trailing down her neck, how his lips had felt around her nipples, how his hands had felt when he'd held her, and moved inside her, and climaxed inside her. All of that Boom, Boom, Boom. Right up to where he'd killed her grandmother, again…
Couldn't he have left a mark or something? A nice little note in a felt tip pen 'Damon's been here'. If people could take the time to write up a bus seat, couldn't he have made a little effort? Hell, even a set of teeth marks would have been fine. She'd have seen it, or felt it when she'd gotten up, and thought 'oh right, I'm Damon's girl now. Sweet.' Then she'd have gone back to sleep like a baby. She wouldn't have all this, 'he loves me, he loves me not' doubt…
"Give me a sign," she willed the heavens.
A piece of paper fluttered on her dressing table.
Huh.
Not a comet, but it'll do. It was a card. Hand drawn picture of a dove on the front. Calligraphy on the inside. "Bonnie Bennett," it started, "I'm glad you are back to your original condition. I owe you tremendously for accomplishing a task I have long held impossible – the vanquishing of Magwyr. You'll be coming into an inheritance of witching power soon that may prove to be uncontrollable at this point. I offer my services toward your supernatural education. Zero ulterior motive. No unwanted sexual advances will be made." Skip line. "Yours gratefully and sincerely," and he skipped a whole lot of space to make room for the massive cursive 'e'. "Elijah."
And a phone number.
Huh.
No unwanted sexual advances will be made.
Huh. She crumpled the paper. Who'd want an advance from him? It's not like she had a vampire fetish. Damon first, Klaus second, Stefan third. That was it. And she did not want another power upgrade. She wasn't trying to get some god complex. I'm a normal girl. Her dad was reheating chicken downstairs and flipping pancakes.
She unfolded the note.
No unwanted sexual advances will be made. What would this oddly asexual man consider a wanted sexual advance? How would he differentiate? Or was he that much of an expert on all things sexually oriented? What would his hangups be? What would the reaction be like showing up anywhere with him? Oddly, she could see Elijah and her dad getting along. Her dad hated Jeremy, for one thing – 'stoner kid' was the nickname. Her dad was unaware of either Salvatore brother's existence… Elijah and he'd have coffee on the patio, talk about Abba concerts and black and white movies. Quintessentially the perfect guy to show off to a parent. The he'd give her a corsage, rent a limo and take her to prom… where he'd look more like a chaperone than a date… and he wouldn't know how to dance… he'd just stand sexily in a corner and ignore everyone else in the room. Cue "Only Girl in the World" theme song…
If she had to have a vampire boyfriend, she could do worse than Elijah.
Ben for instance, had been worse.
Anyway, she riffled her hair and tried to strike another wild pose, she wasn't Elijah's type. Not in a long shot. Elijah liked them dangerous, he liked them blood-sucking. Her little deal with Magwyr had proven to be more two-way than expected… She had a nice little chunk of brain cells devoted to Magwyr and all her black magic shit. Elijah's type was… a weird mix of 'naïve' and 'hooker'.
Actually… She pulled her hair up, bit her lip slightly and widened her eyes all childlike… Actually, she could pull that off if she tried, probably. She memorised the look. Filed it under, "For Elijah."
Klaus wanted the "I'm a slave for you" version. She did a little bit of the Britney dance… as much as she remembered anyway.
Stefan was all about the innocence and the crying damsel in distress shtick… She could fall (jump) down a well, maybe, but she'd never get the panic right enough to convince him. Not like she'd be crying and freaking out like that time, and with Stefan, it'd have to be dramatic. He had to watch your parents die in a car crash, and all that. She'd never be able to out-damsel Elena. Come to think of it, she was probably behind Caroline even in that line up. Even with super vampire powers, Caroline still managed to play the ultra-cute bubbly damsel card.
Damon. What did Damon want?
A strong resemblance to Katherine would be an advantage. She could cross that off, all she had was Emily the 'handmaid'. Big whoop. Why couldn't Emily have had some immortal lover come back to Mystic Falls? Shit just wasn't fair.
He'd said something about her hair… curls or straight… She ran her hands through the tangles. Straight. Definitely.
Be wanton… what was that supposed to translate into? No underwear? She'd go panty-less in a skirt. Done. Bra? To bra or not to bra?
He had said something else to her… what?
Right, her eyes… Nothing to do about that…
What did Damon like? Besides everything about Elena and Katherine…
Shit. A couple strands of hair came out in her hands. If there was any sliver of a hint of a suggestion of something between she and Damon, then that meant she had something that Elena didn't have. Either something extra or something different. Like magic, she'd have thought except Damon hated all things witchy, probably just as much as all things witchy hated Damon.
By the way, he killed her grandmother. Twice.
But all that was the bad ending of the dream, right? All dreams got nightmarish coming round to the end. The good part had been excellent.
Being with Damon, not even connected to him, just in the same room was like being at the top of a Ferris Wheel. Or on a high-speed Merry-go-Round. She'd watched a couple episodes of The Wire. Maybe kissing Damon was like shooting up heroin. Being kissed by Damon was like back to back Christmas mornings. Damon inside her? Indescribable. Not that she had anything at all to compare it to, but she really couldn't imagine it getting any better.
No wonder he'd had Caroline all wrapped around his finger. She'd been a little judgy there. Now a year later, what the fuck did she have to say for herself? She wasn't even compelled. She'd been bedazzled by the… by the Damon.
She'd call him.
No phone.
He'd smashed it that day he'd left for England… to do Magwyr's spell to resurrect the so-called demon slayer.
And big fuck… Magwyr was real.
She couldn't have any doubts about that. Reality was starting to crystallize out of the murky dream vapours.
She'd been naked in a restaurant.
She'd been three quarters naked in Elijah's house.
And they'd tried to kill Klaus. And failed. Epically. And she'd snatched up Damon's soul and pulled him into the witchy afterlife… where he trespassed in the Garden and killed a shitload of witches, some of whom he'd already killed in the real world, like that woman Esme...
And they'd had sex, repeatedly. Wall sex, missionary in the witch forest, oral, also in the witch forest, and then… she didn't know the name for that last one where she'd been in his lap, him pumping up into her…
Klaus is still alive. Another big fuck.
And that whole confession scene where he'd said that he loved her… that happened. And she'd been crying… because… because she'd thought that he'd go back on everything he said as soon as he was back in range of Elena's gravity.
Bonnie gasped. While she'd been hopping around like some giddy schoolgirl, his orbit had been realigning. His axis was re-tilting. He was resetting his equinox and solstice, his seasons, his sunrise and sunset. He was synchronizing his watch to Elena Worship Time.
Her knees gave way under her. Back to square one.
Back to being the witch he called when he needed to find somebody or do some chanting.
Back to being the wallflower.
Back to being called 'Witch'.
Back to the sneering.
Back to the dying for Elena.
No more 'I love you'.
"Hey," her father rapped on the other side of the door, "Everything okay in there?" He jiggled the handle.
"Go away!" she screamed back, but she was half crying.
"You pregnant?"
"No!"
"Well, it's not so bad then," he jiggled the door knob again, "As long as it's not that, we can talk about it. Is it the stoner? The bartender boy? He wants you to do drugs? The police? He's making you lie to the police for him? If you're pregnant, just tell me he's not the father–"
"I'm still a fucking virgin!" she screamed through the door, ignoring the 'No Obscene Language' policy of the Bennett house.
She heard a plate clink on the ground. "Fine. Some one of your teachers keeps calling, Saltman or something. Had to take the phone off the hook, I think he does drugs too." He groaned, "Well, we've got some mice, so… if you plan to eat this, ya might want to grab it up. I'm heading out to work. Be back either tonight or early tomorrow. You cool with that? Spend the day with Forbes or somebody decent. Not that Gilbert kid." His footsteps trudged away.
She waited the half hour until she heard the front door lock, before venturing out for the plate. She'd be totally dependant on her dad, she realised. He'd have to home-school her the rest of the year, because no way was she showing her face in public again. Nowhere she'd bump into Damon. She'd never be able to go to the Grille again. She'd never be able to come within ten feet of Stefan again. How the fuck had there been so many witnesses?
Elena? She'd never be able to look the girl in the eye again. Ever.
Sorry Queen Elena, I tried to steal one of your devotees.
It's all right my child. I forgive you.
From now on, I'll be content with you little brother. After all, once you go Gilbert…
Oh, dear Jeremy. He can use a friend.
And Stefan. She'd burned down the boarding house. She'd teased him, then she'd hurt him, then she'd burnt his house down. She could remember how he'd been that day, all nervous modesty taking two glances if so much at her…
She been in Damon's bed, buck naked, in a frenzied haze of masturbation… a three day haze…
Fuck.
She pulled on the baggiest, muskiest, least sexy sweater in her wardrobe, pulled on a pair of granny panties with loose elastic in the waist and a My Little Pony print, sweatpants, socks, another layer of socks because her feet were cold… then she crawled into the darkness under her bed. She'd hibernate. Go into a nice little cocoon and come back out when everyone else was old and amnesic…or when Damon and Stefan moved out of Mystic Falls… or when Klaus came to kill her.