The CW owns The Vampire Diaries. I, regrettably, do not. If I did, there would be a whole lot of people out of a job.
A Vampires Warmth
Chapter 6
He woke up before she did, he wanted to see her, sleeping peacefully in his arms. Scanning the curve of her hips, he traced the line of her frame delicately, almost as if he were discovering her for the first time.
They had spent a long time here together in this Anti-World, and he loved her. That's what he kept telling himself. I mean, surely, he did love her, he just wondered what made him.
The Other other side wasn't exactly full of other choices, not that he needed one of course, but still. It wasn't like he and Bonnie had much to choose from.
Damon loved Bonnie, even before all this mess, he loved her, but he never would have chosen her if it wasn't for all this time together. Right?
Wrong.
Thoughts like these had been creeping up on him lately, and it angered him strongly. Not just because they kept popping into his head every time he thought about the possibility of getting out of this prison world (Kai's words not his) but because he knew they were foolish.
Bonnie and Damon had fought long and hard for the peace they had, they had come around to each other even after all the hatred that had grown between them. Just because they had spent a long time in a world of two people didn't mean that they were bound to love each other. They had hated each other at first, if there wasn't any love there they would have continued to hate each other until they died (if indeed they could die on this plane of existence). After she had broken down and he held her in his arms, he understood what it meant to love someone.
It wasn't the throw caution to the wind and run headlong into danger feeling he had for Elena, not in the least bit. In fact, most times it wasn't even a feeling. Mostly he wanted Bonnie to be happy, and if that meant helping her plant a garden, fixing up an old car for her, cooking for her or even spending 8 hours a day in the gym for her, he would do it.
He wanted her to feel special in whatever capacity he could, because he had made his choice long ago, Bonnie was the One for him.
To say the Bonnie had broken down his walls was an understatement.
Bonnie had laid waste to his walls, built a siege ramp and entered his city, took all his officials hostage and put a ransom on his heart. Bonnie had destroyed him completely, and he quite enjoyed the prospects of Stockholm syndrome.
Turning over in his arms his wife looked up at him, silently considering the features of his face. She kissed him then, deeply so, and he reveled in their early morning sport. He didn't know it then, but she was saying goodbye.
In all the time they had spent together, he should have known his wife better. He should've been able to see what she was planning to do. He should have known that she would never let Kai out, not even over her dead body.
Gritting his teeth, he threw the bottle he was drinking from into the fire, watching it explode and staring as the flames leaped higher. He wanted to kill himself. He was ready to die now.
She had sent tricked him. Looking softly into his eyes as he held her hands tenderly, she had said that he was going to get through this. He thought she was just being cute with him, but when Kai came, everything changed.
It was like she knew, like she knew he was coming and she wouldn't live to see him again.
"I love you Damon," she looked at him with tears in her eyes and she said the phrase in Latin that he knew was somehow meant to dissolve the marriage vow they had made. He didn't understand it then, but now he did.
Bonnie was always sacrificing herself for someone, he had promised himself that it would never be him, but it was.
He should have known she would do something like that when he looked into her eyes that morning. He was so ready to come back here, to test out what they had on the world, ready to see her smiling with her friends, ready to see what they all had become in the four years since they had left, but he would never get that chance.
It hadn't been four years in Mystic Falls, only four months.
The time he had spent with his beloved wife had been magical, to say the least. Somehow time in that prison had slowed and every month became a year.
He had hoped to show Bonnie off to them, gloat over the fact that she had chosen him, that she (the most righteous of them all) had seen him as worthy. He had hoped his brother Stephan would be proud, that he and Caroline had somehow made it official, and that Elena had moved on, maybe finished her degree and was about to settle down with some nice human boy who would let himself be turned for her.
Instead, he came right back to where he started.
Only Stephen knew that he had been with Bonnie, but even to him he wouldn't tell every detail. He kept it in his heart that they had been married, kept his mouth shut when the pain threatened to kill him, he raged in silence when they all moved on like she was just some…
He couldn't explain his distaste for everyone and everything in Mystic Falls, in this way overpopulated world. He couldn't explain it because it made his heart sick, and the only remedy was gone.
If Stephen knew that anything was wrong with his brother, he chopped it up for experience ad shrugged it off. After all, he was gone for a long time, he deserved to have a little PTSD. He didn't get involved, didn't dig deeper, and didn't lend a hand. It was something he would come to regret.
So Damon did what Damon did best. He buried it. He shrugged his shoulders, knocked back a bottle like it was human blood and never let his pain surface. He went back to Elena, played the game like he was supposed to, and stole Bonnie's stuff from her dorm room whenever he could get in.
Every now and then, when he was alone, he would let the emotions wash over him. He would put away the bottle, turn off all the lights and sit in his chair, letting the visions come.
He was lonely. He was so lonely without her.
Every day was a passing blur to him, haunted as he was by the past he could share with no one. He kept her hair tie on his wrist and her headband on his pillow while he slept. In the mornings, he would take the headband in his hands and gently, almost reverently place it back in its tiny ziplock bag, that way it could keep her smell longer.
He would put it deep into the dresser drawer of the guest room he kept at Ric's place, and take out the bottle of perfume he had had special ordered. Spraying it once on the stretch of skin that kept his thumb connected to his hand he would wait a few moments before recapping the precious bottle and going about his morning business.
It was little things like this he did that were inconspicuous and helped him to mourn her privately. He couldn't tell anyone that he special ordered 90 boxes of a brand of women's perfume that was sold in 1994 and sprayed it every morning on his left hand because he often held his alcohol bottles in his left hand, so now whenever he lifted the bottle to his lips he would smell her perfume. He couldn't tell anyone that he woke up in the morning feeling so lost because he went to bed without hearing her voice or touching her skin or holding her in his arms even one time. He couldn't reveal any of that because her friends thought that they owned Bonnie.
"She hated you"
That's what everyone would tell him. They didn't know the truth.
He thought of this as he went down the stairs, jogging a little to get the blood pumping. He chuckled to himself, reminiscing on just how wrong they were.
While he was gone Stephan had been working on restoring his car and had finally finished it, giving it to Damon as a welcome back present. Sweet baby brother that he was, Stephen had been so emotional when he handed him the keys to his baby. Damon stroked the paint lovingly, thinking of how many times he had driven Bonnie around in this car. He was about to go deeper into despair, piling on as he was the many memories he had of her and this car, but his phone buzzed in his back pocket.
Glancing at the screen he resisted the urge to crank his arm back and hurl his phone into the side of Ric's building. Instead he patiently swiped the little green button that stood for picking up the call, and put the phone to his ear.
"Hey Damon, I have a few hours to kill before my next class, do you want to maybe hang out for a bit?"
He sighed, surprisingly, picking up his old habit of being at her beck and call was a tough routine to get back into.
"Sure Elena, I'll meet you in twenty." He could practically hear the smile in her voice, this girl is used to getting exactly what she wants, whenever she wants. He thought bitterly. He didn't like being her slave, but at the moment, his thoughts were too dark and at the very least he needed to just be something, even if it was a worst punishment then death.
His brother had scolded him for spending too much time indoors (that's why God invented daylight rings) and suggested he go out some more, he hated him for that suggestion.
"Great, see you then" he heard her perky voice lift as she said a quick goodbye.
He had been hounding her to spend more time with him, a part of his dual (or should I say dueling) nature.
Here in this time period, it was if nothing was wrong, life went on as normal. All their friends continued with life as if there were no limits, as if they were finished grieving Bonnie as soon as they saw Damon.
Only little Caroline showed any remorse, she had spent the entire four months looking for a way to bring down the anti-magic barrier that the Travelers had erected with their chants, and looking for a way to bring the two of them back. This way 'We can all go back home together' she would pipe merrily when asked about completing her task. When she saw Damon, her eyes were filled with hope, from her especially he found it hard to keep the truth.
"Where's Bonnie?" she asked, eyes darting around and voice rising. He could feel the bile rising in his throat, ready and waiting to spew the story he and his brother had come up with.
"She wasn't there," he said. He had perfected his mask of indifference long ago, it hadn't been used in a while, but now was as good a time as any to dust it off.
"She wasn't there?" Caroline repeated, a little dumbfounded.
"No, she found peace." He watched as her sweet, sad little face crumpled and she fought to hold back the tears.
When he had told Elena she seemed sad at first, but as usual she found a way to get past things that didn't directly involve her.
"Were you with her?" She asked, blue eyes shining with unshod tears.
He wasn't prepared for this part. Everyone else had swallowed his myths like a vampire gulping blood, but seeing her staring at him like this, like her eyes could somehow pierce through his soul and discover the truth, threatened to bring the whole façade crashing down.
"No," he said easily. He was this close to flipping the switch on her right now.
He waited, for the falter in her voice, there wasn't much left now. If she called him out on his tale he would convict himself where he stood, bring the stake, ready the noose.
But she didn't she stared at him for a final moment, then taking her eyes from him she gulped once, twice and then a third time before she stood up straight and shook her head a couple of times.
"Okay then, okay." She glanced at him once more and made to walk away, before she did she turned back around and held him with her eyes.
The power of her gaze was strong, and if she didn't believe him before, she made herself believe him now. He saw it there on her face, she loved Bonnie. Not as much as he ever could, but she did, truly, and more than anyone else in their little group. It made him respect her now, the love she had for his wife. He wouldn't think of her now, standing in that cave with an arrow through her body, ready to sacrifice herself for him.
He wouldn't think of how she was always so ready to throw her life away, he wouldn't think of how cold the floor of the cave must have been as her blood seeped out of her wounds and warmed the earth. He wouldn't think of his Bonnie laying on the cave floor with her eyes open and staring but seeing nothing. He should've been giving her his blood, he should've…
All of his thoughts passed through his mind unseen as Caroline stood there thanking him for some unknown reason. But he was thankful for her.
Elena on the other hand was busy making things about her, as she always did.
Clearing his head as he went driving down the streets he had driven so many times with Bonnie (they had often stopped at the college to bring home some books or grimoire's) he thought of her smile, and the pressure in his lungs caused him to slam on the breaks unexpectedly.
He had nearly rammed the car in front of him.
As he pulled into the college parking lot, smiling at the coeds, he sincerely felt the loss of his better half. Bonnie was everything that was good in him, and without her he was only loneliness, misery and greed. He smiled at the young women (children really he only ever knew one other woman besides Bonnie –and that was his mother) but his smile didn't reach his eyes.
He was here out of routine, because he needed the things that were familiar to him in order to remind himself to hang on. He took a glance at his sealed glove compartment box. There was an ornately carved stake in that box, and if it ever got to be too much without her, he would look at it and remember the suicide pact they had made together.
They didn't need it then, but he might surely need it now, living in this world without her, this was Hades, and it was all his.