Flash. Light, so white it burns, collides with skin. Bang. The hand in his spasms. Above them, slashed in red and blue, the sky splinters. He looks, panicked, down at her face. There is a breathy murmur emptying from her lips. He would kiss them, if it weren't the literal end of the world.
The thought explodes.
Along with everything with else.
/
"Bonnie."
"No way."
"Bonnie."
"No, this can't be happening."
"What's happening!?"
"I don't understand...how?"
"HELLO," Damon tries to push up from whatever he's lying on but gravity has him pinned like he's a dead body on a slab- OH. "Your witchy woo didn't work."
"What an astute observation, Damon."
"Nice to see sarcasm still lands in the afterlife."
"This can't be the afterlife," Bonnie says firmly, a little desperately even.
"Hmm, we're stuck to the floor in pitch-black darkness. It's not looking good."
"It's not pitch-black darkness?"
Damon laughs dryly. "Good prank, Bennett."
"No," she says, her voice suddenly close enough to tickle his ear, "I can see and move. Watch."
The instant her hand makes contact with his arm, murky blue shapes, as if waiting in the wings, begin to enter into the darkness. One of those shapes is Bonnie Bennett.
Her skin possesses an ethereal shimmer - and that's not a flowery compliment, it literally looks ghostly, like she's half here and half somewhere else. Damon lifts his own hand in front of his face and observes the same pallor.
"Where the hell are we then?" He frowns, "You're sure this isn't actually hell?"
"Honestly," Bonnie settles herself in a crouching position, hugging her knees as if cold, "being stuck with you for eternity, that was my first thought."
He ignores her jibe. "Are you seeing these dark spidery things in the sky?"
"Tree branches? Yeah."
Damon pushes down through his hands, tentatively lifting himself up to a sitting position beside her. "Okay so we have trees, glowy light, a vampire and a witch. Sounds like the beginning of a cheap porn movie."
"You're gross."
They're quiet for a moment, or many, he's not sure if time even exists in this realm. Like all the deaths he's experienced (half or full, merely semantics), this was a lightning speed snatch from one breath to the next. He inhaled, tried to keep Bonnie upright as she fought spell with spell, and exhaled on the forest floor. In the space between, them, the world, time, altered.
He flops back onto the ground - closes his eyes. Flash.
"Bonnie."
"Damon, I'm thinking."
"No, Bon. You need to close your eyes."
"Why?"
"Just do it."
He waits, there's a gasp and then-
"Holy shit."
"You saw it too!?"
"I saw..." she struggles to make sense of it, Damon wishes she wouldn't bother, sense is redundant here, "I was sitting at a bench and... you were-"
"Walking towards you. Yup."
He was in a blue suit, expensive, for sure, and carrying a brown brief case. Bonnie was flicking through a text book just metres away from him - evidently his desired target.
"Close your eyes again," he demands now, "Both of us. Let's see if something else happens."
She doesn't protest. Damon sets his head back on the mossy ground and invites the scene into his mind.
/
"I remember you," he says casually, throwing his briefcase onto the table, "You were with your friend. About this tall, long straight brown hair..."
The girl barely glances up from her book. "Let me guess, you want her number."
A smirk pushes at his mouth. "Are you offering?"
"No! You creep."
The outrage amuses him. "Since when has expressing an interest been creepy?"
"You saw us in a coffee shop, then came onto a college campus to ask me for my friend's number," she says icily.
"Ah. That means you saw me too," his smirk tiptoes further up his face, "Are you jealous I'm not asking for yours?
"No!?"
"Really? You're blushing."
She holds the book in front of her face. "You're harassing me. Go away."
"Okay, okay," he swipes his briefcase off the table, "Have a nice day."
She doesn't wish him anything back.
/
"BONNIE."
"What!?"
Damon rolls his head on the floor to gape at her, "Why did you do that?"
"Why did I-!? You were the weirdo hitting on my friend!?"
That stare that she's pinning him with is so much warmer than the behind-closed-eyes Bonnie's protective glare (a catchier nickname is pending...it's Damon, he's great at nicknames). It's accusatory but there's no fear. Why hadn't he noticed how differently she looks at him now that they've established a... friendship? No, that's too strong. A companionship? No, that sounds like they're dried up pensioners-
"Elena, Bonnie, Elena," he snaps, to break the spiralling questions her stare has caused his brain, "The love of my life, the-"
"Okay I get it. You don't need to be so dramatic."
"We are literally trapped in some other dimension. It invites some drama."
Bonnie releases a sigh. "Fine. What do you think is happening?"
"Well let's see. Sexy Suit Damon is trying to find Elena - who is obviously the key to getting us out of here and realigned in the correct timeline, reality, dimension, whatever you want to call it. But SOMEONE," he throws daggers at Bonnie (though she's long since staring at him, having taken fascination with the eerie tree branches), "has just cockblocked us to eternal imprisonment."
"If the fate of our world is dependent on you getting Elena's number, be less fucking creepy about it. Besides, you don't need me for that. Just go and find her as you're destined to and everything will click into place."
Damon rolls onto his side, propping his head up with his elbow. It's like they're sharing a bed (it takes tremendous effort to not say this aloud to Bonnie). "You don't believe me, do you?"
"Do I believe that true loves kiss will get us out of here? No."
"You're underestimating how good of a kisser I am, Bennett."
Her eyeroll is deliberate - in the moonlit underworld, they look like pearls.
Damon grins, "You'll be thanking these lips when they rescue us."
"I doubt that."
"Got any other bright ideas?"
She hesitates then releases a quiet, "No."
"Good so be less cockblocky." He's about to close his eyes when an estranged thought returns to him. "Let's kiss each other first, just make sure."
"What!?"
He was half-joking but the panic in her voice makes him say, "Would that be so bad?"
"It's a stupid idea. You're going to kiss Elena."
"Thought you said that was the stupid idea."
"They're both ridiculous," Bonnie snaps, and the way she rolls onto her side, away from him, gives him the uncannily familiar feeling of a lovers spat in bed. "But it makes much more sense to kiss Elena, considering dream dude Damon wants to.
He threads his hands together and arranges them on his chest. "What about this Damon?"
Bonnie snorts. "Please. You've been pining after her more than ever."
"Pining sounds... a bit pathetic."
"Mhm. Okay, I'm closing my eyes again now."
Damon frowns but does the same, trying to steer his mind off kissing Bonnie Bennett. He's always been a bit of a monomaniac, coupled with always wanting things he can't have: Elena, a 1980s Porsche 911, Elena, again, and now...
Now he's leaning against the counter, dabbing coffee off his blue suit; a young woman, the very same who refused to give him the pretty brunette's number, delivering the most heavily sarcastic apology he's ever heard.
A/N: Hi friends. Life has taken a turn and writing is now very difficult. I put this together on my phone notes page whenever I could and, as short and messy as it is, I am SO pleased I was able to write a chapter for you all. I don't know when I'll be able to update but just know that I miss writing these stories (and just any stories) every single day. Honestly, sometimes I worry that I'll lose my writing ability and like to come back here and read all your kind comments. A thousand thank yous for your support and patience. You've enriched my life more than you'll know.
Wow did not mean to get so gushy hahah. Enjoy the Bamon banter - I can never get enough of them.