Damon moves very slowly, even slower than the first time. The longer he takes to reach his bedroom the longer he will have her in his arms. Alive in his arms, unlike the last time. Her skin is warm against his hands, her breath is regular at the base of his throat. He can inhale her honey scent and assure himself that she is there again.
When he lays Bonnie down between the sheets of his bed, brushing away her hair from her forehead, he gets down on his heels and grips the edge of the bed, so that his hands will not touch her on their own volition. It's strange what draws his attention: the seam of her long eyelashes which are naturally curvy, her hairline shaped into a heart adorning her forehead, and her practical short nails.
He feels both triumphant and restless, crushed with the need to touch her, to reassure himself that she's there with him, that she's not going away, ever again.
When his cellphone rings Damon answers in a rush so that Bonnie won't wake up, leaving her side to not disturb her sleep. Even being a few steps away from her is a painful task right now.
"What?" he asks. Right now he has a little hope. Maybe he's wrong about this; there was no call the first time it happened. Maybe Bonnie's just confused after coming back from the other side, and yet he should not be home because he was at the witches' house just a few minutes ago.
"Did you notice?" Stefan asks, and Damon grimaces looking at the girl on his bed.
"What? That lately the price of petrol has raised or that we are fucking back in time?" he asks, passing a hand in his hair.
"Oh, so you noticed about the petrol's price," the other one says trying to lighten up the moment, "Listen, I'm coming home, okay? And we'll find a way to put things right and keep Bonnie safe,"
"She's here right now," Damon says, and even if circumstances are not the best he can't help but curve his mouth into the ghost of a smile. She's here now, and for a little bit, everything is right in the world.
"That's good, that's good," Stefan say, encouragingly, "We'll fix this."
"Yeah. One way or another," Damon replies, hanging up.
This time he doesn't need to feed himself an excuse to stay in the room with her; if he gets rid of a glass filled with blood and lights the fire under the fireplace, it's only so that she'll be more comfortable. Bonnie deserves some good treatment as a reward for not being dead, he thinks with a grin.
Part of him can't wait for her to wake up and speak again; for her to be angry at him, for whatever reason, so that all of her passion will be focused on him; for her to have those beautiful eyes open and alive. The other part needs to enjoy this moment of quiet, to absorb slowly the fact that she is there, that he's got another chance at this. That she hates his guts once again.
When Stefan arrives Damon doesn't move from his chair; he listens to his rushed steps up the stairs and his abrupt stop at his door. His little brother knows, or at least can imagine, how much he needs this time with her and Damon can hear him walk back to the floor below without intruding.
Damon's eyes never blink, as they fix themselves on her, like he's still scared that she could disappear any moment. He watches intently her chest rising and falling with each breath, her mouth slightly open but not enough to guess the white of her teeth. The scent of her and her steady heartbeat call out to him. The temptation is overwelming and needs to get closer to her, even if just a little bit, so Damon lays down on the other side of the bed and let his fingertips brush the fabric of her sweater at her elbow, feeling the warmth of her body through it.
He remembers when Bonnie told him she felt alone and left behind as everyone else went on with their life without her, and he thinks she should know that there's nothing after her; that he went nowhere, he just went crazy. Damon remembers her screaming that she never matters, he remembers himself thinking so many times that only Elena did, and it's so unsettling and so natural to know that Bonnie does matter, more than anything; that compared to her nothing else ever mattered before and nothing will exist after her.
"I know that's a first for you, Judgy," he whispers, "But you were wrong, you know," he adds with a melancholic light in his eyes, "I'm gonna keep you forever."
#
When he hears the slight change in her breathing rhythm he realizes she's about to wake up and he closes his eyes faking to be asleep himself. He can see her movements in his head as she turns in the last vestiges of her sleep, breathing in with a low, lazy moan. The sharp, sudden breath she takes signals him that she just realized where she is, and who's lying beside her, and he resists the urge to grin.
The pressure on the mattress as Bonnie moves carefully to avoid the walk of shame is so very light that she could have succeeded; In another moment, with another man. But there will be no other man for her, so she better getting used to the fact that she cannot avoid this.
When Damon opens his eyes her back is turned to him, as she places her bare feet on the floor.
"What?" he asks, making her jump, "Sneaking away like this after all that happened between us? You wound me," he says as she turns to him, with eyes open wide and a scowl appearing upon her face as she meets his grin.
"I suggest you to not give me any idea about actually wounding you," she replies, flat.
"Oh, kinky," he grins, "I don't have chains but maybe I can find ropes somewhere if that's what works for you."
Damon remembers perfectly what works for her; Bonnie has very sensitive nipples and every time their chests brushed together during their mating her intake of air became sharper. She also likes it when he holds her close so that her soft breasts are crushed against his hard muscles. Not to mention, the deep, slow strokes drive her to madness and she looks so triumphant when she's riding on top of him.
God, he really needs to stop now before she notices any solid evidence of this remembrance of his.
"Can you be any more disgusting?" she asks, grimacing.
"If that's the way you like it, of course I can" Damon answers with a gleam, knowing way too well that that was not what Bonnie meant to say, "I'm a real master in the dirty talk department," he assures her as she massages her temples with both her hands.
"What a surprise," she mutters.
"I know I have the hard stallion kind of image, which I'll let you know it's quite deserved, but very, very, very deep inside I'm a sensitive guy too, and I like to cuddle after," well, he never did, but he's not against the idea now. Besides, he just really wants to find a way to stretch this moment as much as he can so he'll say anything that passes into his brain, hoping he will have some luck for once.
Bonnie makes a disgusted sound as she replies, "Please, spare me the details."
"You're really heartless, you know?" he protests as she looks at him like she wants to murder him, "After all we shared, you know, the steamy passion and all that, you go and ignore my feelings." His tone is light, like he's joking around and yet he is not. Damon is happy that she's back, even like this, but there's a little, greedy, petty side of him that can't wait for Bonnie to be the girl she was before; or more exactly, the girl she will be. And he has no way to tell her that if not by joking.
I'm hunting shadows in the dark
In steaming jungles of the world
Either to kill or to be killed
By creatures never named or heard
But it's not her fault if she can't remember what never happened, right? And he had said himself that it was fine with him, hadn't he?
("You rocked my world. Believe me, this will be such a precious memory for me.", "It seems like you didn't rock mine if you consider that I don't remember a thing, so I wouldn't spread the news.", "That's good for me, it means next time it will be like the first time all over again. I am a romantic, you see.")
"All I'm trying to ignore is you," she answers. Which, let's admit it - she thinks to herself, sighing - he makes it an impossible task.
"Good luck with that," he says.
When Bonnie stands and circles the bed to walk to the door he puts himself in front of it.
"My patience is getting thin," she says, "Move aside."
"I'm sorry," he bursts out. He pulled the string as much as he could and he knows it's about to break it, so he must push this conversation in another direction.
She looks surprised and wary. That word, despite its meaning, has a strange - maybe even dangerous - sound coming out of Damon's mouth.
I'm lifting wishes to the stars
The gleaming satellites of time
Orbiting circles overhead
To futures when your love is mine
"About pretty much... everything. But, staying on the latest subject, I wasn't that happy with the idea of you with a broken neck," he admits, "so I went for the lesser of evils."
"And you know something about evil, don't you?" Bonnie asks, the sarcasm clear in her voice.
Fuck. Maybe Damon's just being pessimistic here but he thinks he had done a better job the first time around.
"Can we skip the obvious?" he asks back, "I'll admit I may have made a few questionable choices-"
"A questionable choice would be using margarine instead of butter to bake a cake!" she replies, with growing irritation, "And turning my mother into a vampire should not fall under that category, but after all, what can I expect? Anything that doesn't directly affect you or Elena is not more than a blimp on the radar, isn't it?"
"Stop putting words in my mouth. That's not what I meant," he tries to defend himself.
He just wants to fix this. He just wants to find whatever words that will do the trick and make her stop hating him, and yet he's doing just the opposite. Bonnie looks at him like she's surprised she's even bearing the fact to be in the same room as him.
"Of course not!" she says, ironic.
But you were always pretty reckless with your love
Come with the sun and get it restless when it's gone
And when you go you'll leave me breathless and alone
"I'm trying to apologize here, why the hell won't you let me?" Damon's cool is gone, and his hands are open in frustration as he yells to her face.
"Because that's not you!" she yells back, and she's tempted to tell him to stop looking at her like he actually gives a damn about what she thinks because she knows better. That's what bothers her more than anything, she realizes. That's what makes Bonnie feel on the edge.
Maybe she's just imagining things but there's something very different about him, some kind of nakedness in his eyes and it eats at her. Maybe she's getting involved or maybe he's trying to fool her - like she is some stupid girl that can easily be manipulated - but in both cases she cannot allow it.
Damon just stares at her, trying to regain his composure and think fast about what to do next. Because she's not ready to jump from reluctant allies to what he needs them to be.
"It's not like I'm asking you to sign a contract with your blood or something," he says, shrugging with some sort of quiet indifference, "I'm just trying to call a truce, since you helped me with the Rebekah situation."
"I wonder why I even bothered," she says, trying her best to look like she regrets it. Her posture relaxes a bit and he grins bitterly. Bonnie can be in the same room as him, but she's so very distant. It had been so easy to get used to having her in his personal space, to have her at the receiving end of his playful, flirty looks. To have her, period.
"Such a sweet mouth, you're going to kill someone with all that poison," he says.
"That's a good perspective. Wanna try?" she asks, too set on showing her disdain for him to pay any real attention to what she actually just said.
Damon bends slightly towards her and she doesn't move because that would be like admitting she can be somehow affected by his proximity. Yet, her body is stiff and she holds her breath, ready to burst his brain into flames at the first move. But all Damon does is fix his blue eyes into her and Bonnie can't decide if his words sound more like a threat or a promise, "You should know better than to ask for something you might just get."
"You won't be that stupid," she says, doing her best to not show any weakness.
"Oh, thanks for the vote of confidence but, who knows, I could decide that it's just a way like another to shut your pretty, judgmental mouth," he says; and his voice is not hard enough, or maybe it's his tone that's way too low. Bonnie can't tell. All that she knows is that she needs to get out of the room, because the air is so heavy with tension that it feels like trying to breathe through concrete.
Before she can tell Damon to go to hell or something equally endearing, he moves aside and shows her the door with an elegant gesture of his hand; Bonnie marches out of the room with her head held high, slamming the door behind her.
You leave me breathless, when you close the door
It feels just like you took the air out of the room with you
"Fuck!" he breaks out. That's the shortest, most accurate explanation ever.
#
Note: This must be my shortest update, I know, but I supposed it was better then nothing at all, right? The song I used in this chapter is "Breathless" by Dan Wilson.