PROMPT: "give me a reason to care, just one, I beg of you."
- ADDT NOTES: s7 AU, more Bonnie-centric but still focuses on bamon.
WARNING: MENTION OF SEXUAL CONTENT, READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Vampire Diaries or the characters, I make no money from this.
"How long do we have?"
"A couple minutes at most," Bonnie replies quickly, fear creeping into her voice with every passing second. The light of the magical bomb lying in the underground tunnels of Mystic Falls casts a sickly yellow pallor onto the walls, creating odd shadows and making Bonnie look ghoul-like. She takes a tentative step forward, as if sensing the bomb's energy in the air and winces a little. "It's so toxic, the energy...all I feel is dark magic. This bomb is going to rip the town apart."
"Stefan, Caroline and Matt are out trying to find my mother and the heretics right now to get them to turn off the bomb, we have time, we'll find a way to fix this!" Damon points out hastily, but Bonnie shakes her head hesitantly.
"I don't think we have enough time to wait for them. I can feel it, this thing is going to explode...in only a couple minutes."
"No, no, we'll be fine, we just have to wait! We can hold on a little longer, it'll be o-"
"We can't, not if it means this town and everyone in it will be blown apart!" Bonnie wrings her fingers anxiously, examining the bomb a little too intently. "But I think...if I tried to absorb the magic from the bomb...I could stop it from detonating."
"No," Damon shakes his head adamantly, ready to stop this thought from coming to fruition, "You could die, Bonnie, we'll find another way-"
"Maybe there is, but we can't wait around for that. I have to do this! If I don't, who else will?!" Bonnie's voice trembles a little, but her look is all determination. "This is the only way. You know it's true."
"Then I'm staying with you. If you're going down, I'm going with you-"
"No, there's a chance that I can survive the bomb but I don't know about you-"
"You can't make me leave!"
Bonnie gives him a sad look, and raises a hand. "Yes, I can. Phasmatos vis sera terra malom."
Damon's hooked back by an invisible force, flying through the air, screaming as he travels further and further away from Bonnie, the last detail he sees of her is her mouth open in a soundless scream, dark magic enveloping her.
"How could she be so stupid?" Caroline cries for the tenth time, her face still buried in her hands and Stefan has his arm around her, keeping her close and his face is ashen, as if he still can't believe what Damon told them all.
"Bonnie just had to play the hero," Matt says with a choked-up laugh, wiping his eyes. "Maybe I'll go search for the body...you might've missed somewhere."
"Like I said before, I checked everywhere," Damon replies through clenched teeth, refilling his glass for the fourth time, his grip tight on the bourbon. He's had enough of the questions, everyone doubting him, asking stupid things or posing hypotheticals that aren't true. Bonnie's gone.
The front door suddenly bursts open, the vampires jumping to their feet, expecting to see Lily and the heretics but it's Bonnie, alive and well. For a moment, everyone's too stunned to even move or speak, so Bonnie holds out her hands with a smile. "Aren't you glad to see me? C'mon, I just saved this hick town for the tenth time, and I've never felt better!"
This makes everyone even more hesitant to approach Bonnie, this is in no way a normal reaction. Damon realizes she's wearing different clothes, he last saw her in a yellow top and skinny jeans, but now she's wearing a rumpled flannel shirt and jeans that are way too big on her; even worse, he can smell blood on the collar of her shirt. Her skin has an odd greyish tinge to it, she looks almost sickly but at the same time, there's a glow around her, somehow enhancing the beauty of her appearance. But the thing that really makes Damon nervous is Bonnie's eyes, how deadened and empty they look; the lights are on, but nobody's home.
"Bonnie...?" Caroline whispers finally, her eyes still watery. "How...?"
"I think it's pretty clear that I absorbed the dark magic from that bomb, Care, and god, does it feel good! I don't know what I was so worried about!" Bonnie laughs, but it sounds hollow and almost cruel. "I thought Expression was powerful, but this, this is another level. I feel like I'm seeing, feeling everything for the first time."
"You...you're not Bonnie," Damon finally manages to say, horror dawning on him as Bonnie's words sink in.
"Wrong. I am Bonnie at last, and I gotta say, I'm ready to have some fun!"
"Bonnie...this is dark magic, let us help you, please. You'll be poisoned from the inside-out by this magic, the longer you retain it but there are ways of purging it. Please, let us help you," Stefan explains tentatively, trying to sound convincing but Bonnie just looks mildly amused.
"Oh, you gotta do better than that, Stefan! C'mon, give me a reason to care, just one, I beg of you!" Bonnie giggles a little, giving them a wry grin. "Thanks for the heartwarming reunion, it's been fun. See you guys around."
She turns back around, ready to head out but Damon vamps in front of her, blocking her way. "I'm not letting you go."
"Funny, you said something like that when I decided to take on the bomb," Bonnie smiles, almost pityingly but her eyes are still dead, unchanged by this entire conversation. "It's cute that you still think you can stop me, Damon. I'd love a good fight with you, but maybe another time."
She waves a hand, and everything goes dark.
When Damon finally wakes up, he finds his brother sitting on the couch, holding a still-dead Caroline in his arms, waiting for her to wake up.
"What happened?" Damon asks, sitting up and rubs his neck tentatively.
"Well, after she snapped your neck, she did the same to me and Caroline, then to Matt. Thankfully, he had the Gilbert ring on so he's in the kitchen right now, fixing himself up. He's gonna go look for Bonnie while we wait," Stefan explains wearily.
"What? We're leaving the search to Donovan?!"
"Damon, our rings," Stefan points out, and Damon checks his hands to find they're bare. "Bonnie probably took them while we were unconscious. We have two hours until sunset, but until then, we're stuck in here."
"Shit. We have no idea where she is, she could be heading to an airport right now, getting ready to leave the country for all we know. This is a nightmare!" Damon sends a table flying and it hits the wall, collapsing into pieces.
"Don't worry, we'll find her...but I don't know about after that," Stefan admits heavily, "Bonnie's always been powerful, but with all that dark magic, it's given her a huge boost. If we're gonna help her, it's gonna take a lot of work, especially since it looks like she's gonna put up a fight."
"We'll figure out something, we have to. It's Bonnie."
"I know, Damon, but this is Bonnie who we've always counted on, who's gone through so much, who died twice. She's got a lot of reason to want to wreak havoc, and we don't know what to expect with her. Inhaling dark magic isn't the equivalent of a humanity switch...we don't know what we're dealing with."
"It's Bonnie," Damon repeats stubbornly, and Stefan gives him an incredulous look.
"Exactly. Which is why this isn't going to be easy."
Damon finally tracks down Bonnie to a nightclub near Whitmore College; it's almost midnight, and the place is in full-swing, there's hardly any room to move around, but even among the thick crowds, Damon can spot Bonnie easily. She's right in the middle of the club, dancing to a techno song without a care, now wearing red leather pants and a black top. He wonders if she stole it from someone too.
He also notices she's dancing with a couple guys, switching between them, hands everywhere and a giddy smile on Bonnie's face, it's clear the men are eating up the attention she gives them too. Damon lets out a controlled breath, his hands feeling shaky all of a sudden, but he brushes it off, excusing it as frustration. It's been a long night so far, running around and searching for Bonnie, there's no reason for him to feel anything about the guys around her. He tries to convince himself his reasoning's working too, and distracts himself by sending a quick text to the others, alerting them about Bonnie's location.
The lights in the club dim for a couple seconds, going way too dark for Damon to distinguish Bonnie from the crowd and when it's light enough again, she's gone. Damon takes a couple steps forward, pushing past people to anxiously scan the crowd for some sign of where she went.
"Took you long enough," Damon turns to see Bonnie take a sip of a cocktail, looking a little bored. "You know, I think this dark magic gave me a boost or something, because the booze just doesn't taste the same as it did before. It's a shame, really."
"Maybe it's time to reconsider the magic then, get rid of it so you can have a proper drink."
Bonnie laughs, the crowd magically parting for her as she comes closer to Damon. "Nice try! It's admirable, in a pathetic way. Anyways, where's the rest of the cavalry, hmm? Aren't they coming to tempt my humanity, use the power of friendship and love to save me or whatever? I was so sure somebody would be giving me a speech."
Damon decides to try a different strategy, see how this Bonnie responds. "Talking's a bit overrated, don't you think? Hurting you might work better."
She laughs again, shaking her head in amusement and crosses her arms, meeting Damon's eyes. He can see no emotion in her eyes, this conversation has amounted to nothing so far and it only makes Damon even more disturbed. "You and i both know those are empty words, but go ahead, hurt me. You know you want to. Let's have some fun, you and me."
Damon doesn't respond, a little thrown by how forward Bonnie's being, the way she's leaning toward him suggestively, the secretive smirk that makes Damon feel a little lost, uncertain in what to do. It's surprising, yes, but also a little arousing, which Damon chooses to ignore. Remember, this isn't Bonnie.
"Don't tell me you're choosing now to be a gentleman! C'mon, Damon, don't act like you haven't thought about fucking me," Bonnie says casually, adjusting Damon's collar and he stiffens, unsure of what emotion is brewing inside him. "Remember 1994...six shots of vodka...Nirvana's Nevermind album playing? I remember that night, I know you wanted it. You still want me now, right? Me on my knees, begging for your dick, or let me show you what it's like to be dominated, you can be rough with me. You can taste my cunt...then I'll ride you until I have you begging, pleading for my blood-"
"Stop it!"
Bonnie glances down at Damon's pants, her smile widening when their eyes meet again. "Judging by what your body's telling me, I doubt you want me to stop, but fine, I'll go have my own fun with somebody else. Why don't you go take care of that, hmm? Go pay Elena a visit, I'm sure that'll help."
She laughs delightedly, downing the rest of her drink and walks away, leaving Damon to contemplate what he's so angry about.
"I'm back," Lily Salvatore calls, shutting the front door, "We need to have a family meeting right away, I've just learned something very disturbing, I know why the bomb didn't go off-"
Lily switches on the lights, only to find Bonnie sitting at the top of the staircase, the front of her covered in blood and there's a bloody corpse sprawled on the staircase, just by her feet. The foyer is a wreck, furniture destroyed and there's blood smeared on the walls, an axe lodged in a painting. "Nice place you got, Lily. Perfect location, right outside of Mystic Falls so that bomb can't touch you but you can still inspect the damage done. Too bad it didn't go off. But no worries, your family already knows that."
"What...what did you do?" Lily cries out after a moment of shock, tears in her eyes as she realizes the corpse is Valerie, bruised with her wrists slit.
"Well, the thing is, dark magic demands essence, magical or not, so I thought, why not go for the big fish? A heretic, two powerful creatures combined...that's a lot of power," Bonnie takes out a bloody dagger, licking it thoughtfully and makes a face. "The blood still tastes revolting, but their magical essence...god, it's incredible! Makes it so much more worth the kill, although the ambushing was fun. I plucked them off one by one, and they never knew until the last second. It was idiotic of them to think I couldn't get past their enchantments, or that they could escape this mansion when I made sure to use a sealing spell. Oh, but don't worry, Lily! I have a different plan for you."
"You...you will pay for this. I will use every possible method of torture to punish you for this, you despicable child!" Lily seethes, her eyes red with grief and fury and she uses her vamp speed to try to attack Bonnie, only to fall back in pain and clutches her head with a cry.
"Did you really think you could take me out?" Bonnie laughs, her hand clenched in a fist as she continues to give Lily an aneurysm. "No less after I killed and fed on your heretic family? I see where your sons get their short-sightedness from."
Bonnie snaps Lily's neck, her body crumpling to the floor and Bonnie smiles triumphantly, levitating Lily off the ground and descends the stairs, Lily's body following behind her.
"Time for Lily to go back to feeding on a vein," Bonnie singsongs, heading out into the night.
Another interesting storyline I wanted to explore, we should've gotten a real Dark!Bonnie arc. Missed opportunity there, not exploring the idea of a core character becoming a real villain as a product of the Mystic Falls gang's wrongdoings.
Also wanted to add that I am working on a part 2 for the siren witch (chp5), and I will also continue rock bottom (chp4), so look out for that. This chapter may be continued; comments and kudos are appreciated!