Compassionate Cruelty.
d.
Keeping his feet planted confidently on the floor was becoming harder with each passing moment.
His knees felt like buckling from the overwhelming sorrow. He so desperately wanted to throw in the towel and stand on his precious, snarky soapbox only to announce his complete surrender because god is he tired of loving women who have no choice but to leave him. God is he tired of chasing women so much more powerful than he that there was no chance they could possibly stay for as long as he wanted or they wanted. Eventually, her ever-increasing strength would take him further and further away.
It was always guaranteed she would outgrow him, wasn't it?
All of it was silently killing him, making a punching bag out of his elation and pulverizing his hope for eternity that just over a week ago he regarded with so much certainty.
It just didn't make any sense. It was truly unfathomable. The love of his life was right by his side, just as she was every other day, but today it was a stranger taking space in her body, gazing at him with cold, threatening eyes, making a home out of memories and ties that didn't belong to her. Waking up every day to feel the love that wasn't hers.
Trust she didn't cultivate.
But in the same breath, it was her. It was the same irreverence, the same deftness, and the same softness bundled in one fist, brutality in the other because Bonnie Bennett was a dual-wielder, the same warrior of a witch that wrapped her toes in iron before putting her foot down because she wanted everything she said to be resolute.
The difference is now it was all aimed at him. Every drop of it.
The last time her eyes met his and he felt like his throat was being sliced by the center of a hard glare was when he'd first run into the witch entirely, the day he tried to get closer to manipulate her. It was the first and only time he ever tried to cross her.
That was the first lesson Damon ever learned about Bonnie: she was as merciless as she was compassionate.
She was ready to kill him with not even the blink of an eye, but within her irises, he could see the sympathy she held for the underlying cause of all his endeavors. Yes, that was the day she beat the truth out of him, cried about the audacity and the heartbreak of it all right before him, then told him "Mourning is not an excuse for monstrosity."
Yes, that was a day she gave him a choice: choose change or die where he knelt.
The comet would be coming soon.
If he truly wanted a shot at success and to have Katherine out of that awful prison, then he needed to get his hands on that talisman immediately. At the moment, nothing was going as planned. All the pawns he tried to move up on the board were thwarted quite quickly. It was starting to make him feel dangerously anxious, despite not ever being willing to admit that to anyone, hardly even himself.
His brother had the blonde wrapped around his finger, the sheriff's daughter Caroline who was supposed to be his golden ticket to retrieving the talisman.
He was only trying to get closer to the founding families because somehow, they're always the ones who end up in possession of magical artifacts completely out of their realm of existence or jurisdiction. He didn't anticipate his brother being secretly involved with her. He didn't anticipate Stefan already having filled up her with vervain so every attempt he made to compel her was for naught.
The worst part of it all was how none of it became clear to him until that very moment when he was looking at the little witch in her overpowering eyes.
He recalls the last time someone made him feel genuine fear and it was well before this one's parents were even capable and toddling around. In theory, he shouldn't fear her in the slightest. She's a fledgling witch hiding inside a bubble of arrogance. But in practice? He was shaking in his boots. Damon could feel it radiating off of her, the strength of her magic. She might be a fledgling but she was the absolute furthest from weak.
Damon, of them all, did not necessarily want to step on the Bennett witch's toes. She was an integral part of his plan. He just didn't expect to land on her list of terrorists so soon, but he should have known. He hasn't been making a terrible amount of noise but enough that he knew she was aware of him before he actually even met her. He's made eye contact with her on two separate occasions before now; both times, her gaze was stern and murderous.
"Damon," she says casually as he enters one of the few little but lavish dens of the Lockwood Mansion.
Her eyes aren't even on him but on the amber pendant reflecting the light from the chandeliers. She seems to be very aware of his presence. As soon as he steps fully into the room, the door closes shut behind him with a minor flick of her finger. She stands there, one arm raised with the talisman's chain dangling from her index finger in an almost taunting manner.
"Why are you looking for this?" She asks. "And why are you trying to compel my best friend just to get it?"
Damon's eyes narrow. "What's it to you, Bennett witch?"
"So you do know who I am." She mused to herself. "I've seen you wandering around. I can feel it rolling off of you, you know."
"Feel what rolling off of me exactly, hm? Humor me."
She grimaces then and finally makes eye contact with him, amber eyes peering into azure blue. Then, pain is ebbing through every fragment of his being. He drops to his knees almost instantly, groaning in pain, grasping at his head and digging his nails into his temples to try to claw the pain out. Damon was quickly filled with fear that his mind is only a moment away from combustion under her control.
"All the inner turmoil that you so desperately want to make everyone else's problem. The bloodthirst that you cling to, to hide from your dejection and the shame of your desperation. The weakness shivering behind your vibrato. All of it is so obvious, so loud. Even if I wasn't who I am, I would still be able to read the loneliness spelling itself out clearly in your eyes." She kneels then, talisman clutched in her palm, looking very casually over Damon's writhing body, completely unfazed. "It's already bad enough that I've had to make peace with Stefan wandering around here making a mess of things, and I'm only doing it for Caroline, but now I have to bother with you, too?
Should your brother step a bit too far out of line, understand that I'll take him out without a warning or question. But you, I don't see any reason to leave you alive unless you have one you'd like to offer. Although, I don't trust you to be honest with me about a thing. I could pull it out of you without consent, you know? The way you try to compel others to be an accessory to all of your heinous crimes and disgusting intent, I could do that to you. I don't need to ask you why you're looking for this talisman or what you were planning to do. I could dig around in there and look myself, but it'll hurt like nothing you've ever experienced in your life…and you've died before, so that's truly saying something."
After a moment of her simply observing him squirm in pain, it all stops and he can breathe again. He's gasping for air, actually. He feels dizzy and nauseous, completely overwhelmed by vertigo now. She must see the fear in his eyes because she smirks down at him.
"Now that you know what I'm capable of without even lifting my finger, I hope you'll make room for us to do this consensually. Again I ask, why are you looking for this talisman?"
Angry, embarrassed, and overpowered, he glares at the witch with his jaw clenching. "It belonged to Emily, an old friend of mine."
"My ancestors would hardly consider you a friend. In fact, Emily is the one who let me know this is what you were looking for and that I, under no circumstances, can let you have it. I want to know what you planned to use it for but understand, I can't and won't let you do it."
Of course, Emily would betray him. Of course, she would make him a key and then roll a boulder in front of the lock. And now, this witch stands before him trying to assert power over him, assert dominance, and treat him like he's part of her wicked, little games.
"Why would I tell you?" She sighs at his response and rolls her eyes.
Damon attempts to take the opportunity to lunge at her and pin her to the wall, but before he can even push his feet to make a move, he's flat on the ground and he's suddenly choking on globs of his blood, watching it spill out of his mouth with no warning. Fearfully, he looks up at the witch, her face devoid of all emotion.
"I'm so sick of you and your brother. Why do you both think you're allowed to waltz back into Mystic Falls after over a century only to wreak havoc and think that any of us owe you any substance to your life that should already have ended? I give you grace and you try to take a cheap shot at getting the upper hand? I'll kill you right where you are. Do you want to die?"
"No," he coughs. "I don't. I just…" — blood continues to drip from the corner of his lips — "I just want my Katherine back."
Her eyes narrow. She approaches him with curiosity, kneeling by his side again. "I was going to ask you who she was, but I'm already tired of the back-and-forth."
A soft palm covers his head then and he hears her intake a sharp breath. A white-hot, searing pain starts to burn through his existence then. He couldn't even express the pain in the form of words or reactionary noises. No, his mouth was agape, his entire face contorted into pain, excruciating pain, unable to even vocalize just how awful it was. It truly was worse than dying. It was the pain of death coming but never actually arriving.
He could feel it then, a thin line of coolness tracing through his brain. He could feel her sifting through his memories, through his thoughts, through his entire being. He could feel her crawling around inside his mind to get the answers he wouldn't readily give her. The level of violation he felt was unspeakable. The blood filling his mouth tasted like the depth of a consequence.
When she's done, Damon coughs up the remainder of his blood that's been choking him over and over, becoming worse with every passing moment she spent taking a joy ride through his mental state. He rolls over onto his back, pained, and only lays there, chest rising and falling rapidly, crying eyes on the ceiling. He felt every trauma he had ever faced exhumed and on display right in the forefront of his mind. He kept his eyes open, terrified of the images he would conjure with them closed.
The truth is he had died during this entire process, came back to life to feel its continuation, and died again. When it was over, Damon had only come to one conclusion: Bonnie Bennett was terrifyingly powerful, unlike any witch he'd ever encountered, and he's come across his fair share.
It confused him how a baby witch was capable of undoing him this easily.
Damon knew for certain that he was deathly afraid of her now. He did not want to cross her. He believed her when she said she would kill him where he lay.
The most terrifying thing of all about the witch was the apparent juxtaposition of her heart. Yes, of her heart. She had tortured him, invaded and violated him for answers while he choked on his fluids and even died from the asphyxiation, but when he finally looked over at her body knelt beside him, catching her eyes, all he could see within them was pain and sympathy for him. Apology.
Damon is shaken from his thoughts by the sound of the front door closing and Caroline's voice filling up the whole area. His eyes blink back into focus as he takes in his surroundings and reminds himself of where they are right now. He stands next to the couch where Bonnie sits, waiting. Her back is slightly turned to him and he knows that it's intentional. He swallows down a thick gulp of his yearning and it aches all the way down to his belly. For a moment, he felt himself slide back into time.
She was the first woman to show him compassion despite her initial cruelty. She was the only one that would look at the things he's done and hold it up against the things he's been through just to find the parallels, just to connect the 'why' he did to 'what' he did. She was the first person to give him so many things and he loved her. No, he loves her more than anything that could possibly have the audacity to exist.
As he glances down at her, his thoughts scream his quiet declarations: 'I love you. I love you. I love you. I don't want to mourn you. The grief is already so bitter on my tongue, but I remember the way crinkle your nose. I remember the way you gave your all. I love you. I miss you. Please come back.'
a/n. um, hi? it's been a long, long time. i know i abandoned this one after a while. i had a reason but then that reason just got lost over the years. i refound my love of stringing together words and stories so...after 8 years...lol...here's 7! it's short. only 2.3k words, but i am already working on 8 and i anticipate it'll be a lot longer as it'll finally answer some of the questions in my reviews. speaking of reviews...the fact that for over 8 years i've still continued to receive feedback on this is insane in the most loving way. thank you so much. it honestly pushed me to hop back on this plot and try to pick up where i left off despite already writing the next 4 chapters and losing them. i finally accepted my loss and am willing to rewrite them now. anywho, i hope you like a little glimpse into damon before i go forth back into this. if you're still around & reading, you really the g.o.a.t — foxes.
disclaimer. i don't own yadayada.