[fic] Before the Sun Goes Dark (2/3)
Title: Before the Sun Goes Dark
Author: badboy_fangirl
Pairings: Damon/Bonnie; Damon/Elena (vague Stefan/Elena, Jeremy/Bonnie, Matt/Bonnie)
Word Count: ~4400
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Spoilers: Everything through 3x05; goes AU from 3x06 "Smells Like Teen Spirit," but incorporates ideas/themes/plot points from it.
Summary: Bonnie gets into the thick of things to end Klaus once and for all. As she grows closer to Damon, Elena gets upset.
Author's notes: From loving_emerald's prompt of a Bonnie/Damon/Elena triangle - Stefan is edging out of the picture, Bonnie and Damon are getting closer, and Elena is a jealous green monster. But Damon loves Elena best, of course. Previous chapter: one.
'Cause when it comes to being lucky she's cursed
When it comes to lovin' me she's worst
But when it comes to being loved she's first
~from "The First Cut is the Deepest" by Cat Stevens (and covered by Sheryl Crow)
Elena drives home with Damon's words ringing in her ears. She's angry, for a lot of reasons, most of which start and end with his assumption that she doesn't face reality.
That's all she's done, all summer, is face fucking reality. Her boyfriend, whom she believed to be the kindest person she'd ever met, even though he happened to be a vampire, had gone off the deep end. Had disappeared from her life. Had taken with him some intangible thing she didn't even know she relied on. And on top of that, she was faced, every day, with Damon: her boyfriend's brother, who had rarely been kind, who had always been a vampire right in her face, who had somehow fallen in love with her and crawled inside her heart without her permission and who would, if given the chance, break everything she thought she knew about herself.
To imply that she didn't know the reality of her situation was enough to make her want to turn the car around, go back to his house, and slap his face repeatedly.
But she doesn't; she drives home because to go back to Damon's-to Stefan's-was to face something else entirely that she hadn't built up the nerve to look at quite yet.
(Maybe this is what Damon meant, a corner of her mind offers up kindly.)
She parks her car in front of her house and sits there for a long time, just staring up the tree-lined street. These were the sidewalks she'd played on as a child, running through fall leaves with Matt Donovan, learning to ride a bike with her father following close behind her to steady her, spending Saturday mornings mowing the lawn with Jeremy before they were allowed to go do anything "fun." This was the place where her world began, and in reflection, she realizes it has been the place where it all ended.
Gone were the carefree days of youth, gone were moments of safety, wrapped in her father's arms when she'd lost control and the bike had gone out from under her. Now it was vampires and werewolves and witches and doppelgangers-things she can never close the door on. Pandora's box had opened, and there was no shutting it tight ever again.
She nearly jumps out of her skin when Jeremy does a drumbeat on the roof of her car. She flips him off and he smiles in a way she hasn't seen in a long time. He looks really happy, and the sudden thought pops into her head-she wonders if he and Bonnie had finally done it. She definitely doesn't want to know about it, but despite everything, if someone has some happiness, she's glad it's her brother and her best friend.
"Come on, loser," he yells through the window. "Ric made dinner!"
Elena grabs her bag and gets out of the car. That's the one thing besides Damon that makes her happy: their weird little family. As she climbs the front steps with him, Jeremy slings his arm around her neck and gives her a sideways hug.
It's a small thing in a vast wasteland of tragedy, but she takes it for what it is.
Damon gives Bonnie some time to work on the spell, but it's only a few days later when he's driving through town and he just wonders how it's coming along. He's texted her a couple times and she hasn't replied, which isn't always uncommon, though he did think now that they had a joint project she would be less likely to ignore him.
He's asked Stefan (and Rebekah, who has taken up residence in their house for some odd reason) when they can expect Klaus to return, but neither of them seems to know anything. Perhaps they're just not being forth-coming, although from what Rebekah said, she's pissed at Klaus, so he doesn't think she'd keep everything on the down low at the moment. She honestly doesn't know where he went or what he's doing or when he'll be back.
Which is super annoying.
He knocks on Bonnie's door because if he can't get anything done on his end of things, the least he can do is see how it's coming on her end.
(He can't help it, he's a doer, and not getting anywhere is nearly as aggravating to him as blood on his carpets.)
She opens the door and gasps when she sees him. There is a split second where he registers that there are tears all over her face and then she moves to slam the door shut and he just reacts, wedging himself between the doorjamb and the door, grunting when it slams into his solar plexus. She's a little stronger than he expects her to be. "Hey," he says as she shoves the door harder into him, like it could close shut with him standing there. "What's the matter?" he asks.
He hasn't done anything, not one damn thing that could be construed as bad behavior. He has not even joined in with Stefan in the blood games he's been playing with various sorority girls from the next town over. No one knows about that, because of course he'd never tell Elena what her ex-boyfriend is up to, but all the same, he's kept himself clean as a whistle.
There is absolutely no reason for Bonnie to act like she can't stand the sight of him.
"I don't want to see anyone right now, Damon. I told Elena I wanted to be alone; she shouldn't have sent you over here."
Finally pressing his hands to the door so that she can't keep trying to injure him with it, he pushes on it until she relents and steps back herself. He slides inside the house and closes the door behind him. "Elena didn't send me over here. I was just in the neighborhood so I thought I'd drop in and see how your witchy homework was going. Besides, when would Elena ever think to ask me to help you out? That's just crazy talk." He tries to cajole a smile out of her with his sarcasm, but Bonnie just scrubs at the tears on her cheeks like a small child. Despite what he can see are her best efforts, more keep falling, and Damon starts to feel real concern for her. "What's wrong?"
Her face contorts in agony and then she spins away from him. "Jeremy and I broke up!" she cries. Damon has an odd realization that despite her witchy goodness, Bonnie really is just a teenage girl under all that power, and this? This is not what he signed up for. He's nobody's crying shoulder (okay, so maybe he's Elena's, but that's different), but he's not very good at it either, because good grief, he's lived about ten times longer than Bonnie. Whatever issue she and Jeremy have is going to seem completely stupid to him, of that he's sure.
"What happened?" he asks even though he knows he should just turn around and leave.
Her small frame shakes and he takes another step towards her. Gently putting a hand on her shoulder, he says her name softly. "J-just go, D-damon," she chokes out, and the reality is that's exactly what he wants to do.
But he just can't. (This may be his most shameful moment ever, a time when he cannot play off the fact that he cares about all these people, even the ones who have tried to kill him.)
"Are you sure you don't want me to stay?" he asks, his voice still soft, his intent making him feel a little ill.
This is what he gets for hanging around with too many humans. One day he's telling a girl he loves her even though she's in love with his brother, the next he's sort of apologizing to a guy who thought having his neck snapped 'crossed a line' even though he owns an eternity ring, and now this. Now? He's just trying to be a good friend.
(It fucking sucks, for the record.)
Bonnie inhales a shaky, sharp sob and then she turns back towards him. Her teary eyes meet his and she shrugs pitifully.
This is how bad things are: Damon puts an arm out and she leans into him. It's not just that he offers comfort, it's that she accepts it.
There is a moment when Bonnie's head comes to rest against Damon's chest, and the complete foreignness of the whole situation cures her of tears. She's not a weepy girl, anyway, but the unholy alliance of her and Damon puts things in perspective quickly.
Jeremy, the first boy she's ever truly loved, has been cheating on her with a ghost. It's sort of a hard thing to compete with, but the truth is, Bonnie's not made for that kind of drama. She wouldn't fight for Jeremy in any case where he had kissed another girl-living or dead; as far as she's concerned, he's done an irredeemable thing. Crying over it is just a physical reaction, just something she couldn't stop when she was alone in her house with her thoughts.
The irony is that she's sort of cuddling with the guy-vampire-who was really the culprit of all the craziness that her life had become over the last year.
Sure, she might have had a lot of witch-related problems come up anyway, but because of Damon, his brother, and everything they'd brought to Mystic Falls, she'd had it all on a much bigger scale.
Where she used to get angry, though, she suddenly comes to the answer that she might never have known her true self if not for vampires in her town.
She rubs her face against his shirt and then pulls back. She can't quite meet his eyes, but she feels his fingers slip through her hair as she moves away from him. "Thanks," she mutters.
"I didn't really do anything," he says, and she can hear the smirk in his voice, which makes her even more determined not to look at his face for the time being. But then, instantly, he's softer and his next words make her chest tighten. "You want to talk about it?"
She looks up and catches that moment of vulnerability in his eyes, the expression of empathy, of what it's like to love someone who doesn't feel the same way back. "Guess we're two peas in a pod, aren't we?" she says, going for levity. "Should we start a Pining for Gilberts support group?"
Damon scoffs. "Speak for yourself, Witchy. I'm not pining for nobody."
She gives him an appraising look, thinks about correcting his grammar, and then just shakes her head at him. "Keep telling yourself that," she mocks.
The corner of his mouth turns down and he lifts an eyebrow at her before waving a hand dismissively. "As fascinating as our not-lovelives are, the reason I came by was to see how the spell business was going. Any news?"
Grateful for the distraction, as well as the assurance that he wasn't there on a pity mission, Bonnie runs to grab the grimiore she'd found that had a variation on the spell the Original Witch had given her. "Actually, yes, it's going quite well. But I do think I'm going to need to do a practice run. Like, we need someone to test it on before I attempt to do it to Klaus."
Damon follows her across the room to the dining table where the book is laid out. He inspects it, as though he can read Latin, and then he looks at her. "You want me to find a guinea pig, someone we don't care who dies?"
Bonnie lifts her chin. "Actually, I have an idea myself. It was Caroline's suggestion, but once I thought about it, it really is the perfect test."
She sees the answering glee in Damon's face, and she tries not to focus too much on the anticipation she has at ending the existence of someone who has technically never done anything personally bad to her. He whacks her on the back enthusiastically. "I assume you're talking about Barbie!Klaus, and I am all for that."
Bonnie knew he would be, and she tries not to think about what that means, exactly.
With Caroline's help (and Tyler's, but he doesn't know he's helping), they set up a trap for Rebekah. Because she's been so interested in Caroline's boyfriend, when Damon suggests to Caroline that she and Tyler use a romantic weekend away as bait, Bonnie doesn't even have to add her support of the idea before Caroline is agreeing.
Tyler has been acting so strangely on and off that all Caroline cares about is getting him away from Klaus's sister as well as getting him out from under the loyalty he feels towards Klaus. They don't know for sure that Klaus's death will bring that about, but they are willing to guess it could be nice side effect.
And regardless, Klaus and Rebekah will be dead, and as Damon says, "That's a yay! for everyone." So Bonnie doesn't dwell too long on what they do know for sure about the outcome, only that the outcome has to be dead Original Vampires ASAP.
Bonnie mentions to Damon that they ought to bring Elena up to speed now, but he vetoes the idea. "Let's wait," he says, and for once it doesn't sound like he's bossing her around. "Just until we know if it works. If it works and Rebekah's a goner, then we'll need her help to draw Klaus out anyway. That would be a good time to fill her in."
Bonnie can see it in his face, even though he doesn't say it aloud. If it doesn't work, then only they and Caroline will be the wiser. Less disappointing that way.
They've just finished their planning session at Caroline's house when Liz arrives home from work. As she comes in, so does Elena, who unexpectedly dropped by with some chemistry homework she needed to go over with Caroline. They both look surprised to see Damon there, but Bonnie doesn't miss the way Elena's gaze flits back and forth between her and Damon; the tension in her face isn't exactly anger, but it's some emotion that Bonnie can't quite pinpoint. What she wishes she'd said to Damon prior to their interruption, is that for all his good intentions of not wanting to get Elena's hopes up, she's going to be furious when she realizes they've done all this without letting her in on it.
The one thing Bonnie knows about her best friend is that she doesn't appreciate being shielded from hard truths. Though Damon can't seem to help this softer side of himself with regard to Elena, Bonnie can't help but think it may come back to bite them both in the ass.
"What the hell is going on with you and Bonnie?" Elena demands, disturbing Damon's quiet time when Stefan and Rebekah are off at school.
He looks up from the sofa he's lounging on with his book and sees her, hands on hips, standing angrily in the doorway of the great room. "More importantly, how did you get away from Stefan?" he asks, and he's truly impressed by the fact that she's been there for ten glorious seconds without his brother flying in behind to "protect" her.
"Damon, I'm serious," she says, coming down a step into the room.
"So am I," he deadpans, even though he knows he can't do this kind of thing to her, not really, not anymore. If Stefan wasn't mind fucking her every chance he got, Damon could tease her and mock her like he used to.
(Damn Stefan, he always ruins everything.)
"To answer your question, nothing is going on with me and Bonnie. I'm actually a little confused by the question." He sets his book aside, but stays on the couch. He doesn't want to tell her, but he doesn't want to outright lie either. He likes Elena trusting him, coming to him in moments of need. But, he also knows what she's like, and how headstrong she can be, and he doesn't want to have to navigate that any sooner than necessary.
"I know something's going on. You two are always..." She gestures inarticulately and then brings her hands together like two mouths talking at each other. "Like, I walk in the room and it stops; or Bonnie starts to say something to Caroline about stuff and then stops herself because she remembers I'm there. I'm not stupid, you know."
Damon hesitates a moment and then nods his head. "I do know you're not stupid. But I don't know what Bonnie's problem is. Maybe she just doesn't want to talk to you about what a douche your brother is. Did you consider that?"
Elena pauses, and then she tilts her head, her eyes narrowing aggressively. "What do you know about Jeremy and Bonnie!? See, that just proves my point! If she's talked to you about that, then something most definitely is going on!"
Offended, even though he knows he really shouldn't be, Damon responds, "She hasn't talked my ear off or anything, but I did go by her house one night and caught her in the middle of a crying jag. So shoot for me feeling bad for her!"
Elena moves further into the room, and Damon gets to his feet because he can't very well face-off with her from a sitting position. She opens her mouth to say something, but snaps her jaw shut instead. She groans in frustration and then folds her arms tightly over her chest. "So, don't add to her problems, then, okay? All she needs is you following her around bothering her."
"Excuse me?" he all but shouts. Now, he is offended, and rightly so. "I don't really think it's up to you who I spend time with, and I'm pretty damn sure if Bonnie didn't want me around, she could just brain whammy me, or set me on fire to get rid of me! I know Stefan's taken on the role of protector for you, but Bonnie doesn't need one. She can take care of herself."
He knows how it sounds, because it rings in his own ears for a split second before Elena slaps his face (really, he should have realized it would escalate, they haven't had one of these in a while), and he doesn't mean to imply Elena can't take care of herself (even though, for the most part, she's had pretty poor judgment, far as he can tell). He's not trying to piss her off, but she pissed him off, and he can't exactly snap her neck to prove his point. The other way of ending this...well, he can't go there, either.
It's probably better, sooner rather than later, to show her how far he'll take it, or at least threaten her with how far he'd take it if she encouraged him any little bit. He grabs the wrist of the hand that just smacked his face and drags her close against his body. Then he moves them both across the room in that barely imperceptible vampire way that has her gasping as he pins her to the wall. He breathes in her face, "You've got to learn to stop slapping the shit out of me."
Elena's eyes flash fire, both the angry kind and the sexual kind, because there's no mistaking what is brewing between them when he's using his hips to prevent her escape; she bucks against him anyway, even though he knows she can feel the way his temper has manifest itself. "Or what?" she challenges, and Damon can't help the smile that curves his mouth. If he wasn't so turned on, maybe he'd have a second of consternation over her giving it right back, but it doesn't surprise him that much. She's Elena, after all. (And as they've already established, she's not stupid. At least not all the time.) And right now, she's staring at his mouth hard enough he can already feel her lips under his.
Or what? He'll show her or what.
"Oh, I'm sorry, are you two having a moment?" Stefan's voice interrupts and Damon's eyes jerk to the left, where his brother stands, looking impervious. Damon has a flash, a remembrance of another such moment of intimacy (him sweaty and dying with Elena's lips pressed to his) when, if Stefan had seen them, it would have slayed him. And now, a moment not nearly as innocuous as that one seems to have no effect, other than the amusement that etches Stefan's lips as he smiles at Damon. (Because it does always crack a guy up to realize he's cockblocked another guy.)
Elena gives Damon a hard shove, and he allows it to push him back. She storms out the front door without a word and Stefan calls after her, "Could you make up your mind? It's a bit tedious, having to chase you all over town, you know!?" He flashes another bigger grin at Damon. "Ex-girlfriends," he muses. "Can't please them, no matter what you do."
Damon watches his brother saunter out, hears Elena's wheels spit gravel at the Boarding House, and goes back to his book. It had been a much more exciting morning than he planned on, but at least Elena still didn't know anything about the events scheduled for the next two days.
Elena makes a beeline for Bonnie as soon as she gets to the cafeteria at lunch time. "Tell me the truth," she says when Bonnie drags her laughing eyes away from Matt, who sits in what used to be Jeremy's spot. "What is going on between you and Damon?"
Bonnie blinks, confusion chased by guilt so quickly, Elena wonders if she imagined it. "What?" Bonnie asks quietly, as though she thinks Elena is speaking too loudly.
"Are you confiding in him about Jeremy because you can't talk to me about it?" Elena asks, sliding into a chair opposite her ex-boyfriend, who is watching their exchange with avid interest.
"Am I confiding-in Damon?" Bonnie asks incredulously. "What? No! Are you crazy? It's Damon!"
"He said he found you crying, and I-" Suddenly Elena's mind registers the expression, not just on Bonnie's face, but on Matt's, and she realizes she's being completely irrational. Even if Damon had comforted Bonnie one time, what difference did it make? Why is she so worked up over it anyway?
More importantly, why is she so worked up over him? That moment back at the Boarding House had bordered on crazy, and she'd actually been glad that Stefan had shown up when he did. She knows she's attracted to Damon, but she'd never really been close to acting on it, not like that. Feeling him hard against her belly had created this whole sort of slow-motion fantasy where his hands reached down and grabbed her legs and dragged her upwards so he was pressed in the right place, where it would have done her the most good. And the thought that she would have enjoyed his mouth on hers-that she technically felt disappointed that he hadn't had a chance to kiss her? It was all snowballing into something she'd never let herself consider.
If this is facing reality, she's not interested.
She's had silent arguments with herself over the last few days where she tried convincing herself that she had gone into this with her eyes wide open, that she had understood by the time she committed to Stefan, anyway, just what she was dealing with.
She had accepted that he was a vampire, that he was a creature different from her in an immeasurable way. But she'd really never had to do that, because Stefan had been so careful to never show her all of himself, or the parts of vampirism that he struggled with. He'd been eager to forget his true self, and she had gone right along with it.
Damon, on the other hand, had never hidden anything. And really, that's what's bothering her now. She knows something is going on between him and Bonnie; Elena can see it in the covert way they look at one another when she enters a room, and... "That's it," she whispers and Bonnie's brow creases as she looks at her. Then she reaches out, puts her hand over Elena's and says, "What happened with me and Jeremy isn't changing our friendship, Elena. We've been through too much for me to let something like that ruin anything. I love you, you know that right?"
Elena nods her head and then gets back to her feet, her eyes falling to Matt who is watching Bonnie with something achingly sweet on his face. It shocks her, ricocheting through her body, an answer she didn't even know she needed to find. She all but throws up her hands in surrender, feeling like the biggest jerk in the world. "I have to go," she says, lurching from the table and leaving the cafeteria just as Stefan walks in. He gives her a pained look, like she really is trying his patience with her flitting about, but she takes no real notice of him.
She runs to the bathroom and, finding herself alone, stares at her reflection for a long moment.
"I'm jealous," she says to the empty room. Jealous of Damon and Bonnie.
She lifts her gaze, eyes meeting eyes, and she tries to look at herself honestly in the mirror.
She'd asked Caroline only a week or so ago what kind of person it made her to have Damon under her skin? Well, today, she knows.
She's searching for a reason, for an explanation, for there to be something more there than just the fact that maybe Damon and Bonnie like each other; maybe their antagonism has shifted into something else. And what if it had? It's not like she could stop it if it happened.
She wouldn't want to. "I wouldn't," she says to her reflection. "Damon's free to do whatever he wants."
(She hadn't been able to stop it from happening to her, had she?)
She might feel that thing Caroline says makes her human, but she doesn't have to act on it.
She does have her eyes wide open this time. She knows, and that means she can't. She won't.
But what if Bonnie does?
...chapter three...
Author: badboy_fangirl
Pairings: Damon/Bonnie; Damon/Elena (vague Stefan/Elena, Jeremy/Bonnie, Matt/Bonnie)
Word Count: ~4400
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Spoilers: Everything through 3x05; goes AU from 3x06 "Smells Like Teen Spirit," but incorporates ideas/themes/plot points from it.
Summary: Bonnie gets into the thick of things to end Klaus once and for all. As she grows closer to Damon, Elena gets upset.
Author's notes: From loving_emerald's prompt of a Bonnie/Damon/Elena triangle - Stefan is edging out of the picture, Bonnie and Damon are getting closer, and Elena is a jealous green monster. But Damon loves Elena best, of course. Previous chapter: one.
'Cause when it comes to being lucky she's cursed
When it comes to lovin' me she's worst
But when it comes to being loved she's first
~from "The First Cut is the Deepest" by Cat Stevens (and covered by Sheryl Crow)
Elena drives home with Damon's words ringing in her ears. She's angry, for a lot of reasons, most of which start and end with his assumption that she doesn't face reality.
That's all she's done, all summer, is face fucking reality. Her boyfriend, whom she believed to be the kindest person she'd ever met, even though he happened to be a vampire, had gone off the deep end. Had disappeared from her life. Had taken with him some intangible thing she didn't even know she relied on. And on top of that, she was faced, every day, with Damon: her boyfriend's brother, who had rarely been kind, who had always been a vampire right in her face, who had somehow fallen in love with her and crawled inside her heart without her permission and who would, if given the chance, break everything she thought she knew about herself.
To imply that she didn't know the reality of her situation was enough to make her want to turn the car around, go back to his house, and slap his face repeatedly.
But she doesn't; she drives home because to go back to Damon's-to Stefan's-was to face something else entirely that she hadn't built up the nerve to look at quite yet.
(Maybe this is what Damon meant, a corner of her mind offers up kindly.)
She parks her car in front of her house and sits there for a long time, just staring up the tree-lined street. These were the sidewalks she'd played on as a child, running through fall leaves with Matt Donovan, learning to ride a bike with her father following close behind her to steady her, spending Saturday mornings mowing the lawn with Jeremy before they were allowed to go do anything "fun." This was the place where her world began, and in reflection, she realizes it has been the place where it all ended.
Gone were the carefree days of youth, gone were moments of safety, wrapped in her father's arms when she'd lost control and the bike had gone out from under her. Now it was vampires and werewolves and witches and doppelgangers-things she can never close the door on. Pandora's box had opened, and there was no shutting it tight ever again.
She nearly jumps out of her skin when Jeremy does a drumbeat on the roof of her car. She flips him off and he smiles in a way she hasn't seen in a long time. He looks really happy, and the sudden thought pops into her head-she wonders if he and Bonnie had finally done it. She definitely doesn't want to know about it, but despite everything, if someone has some happiness, she's glad it's her brother and her best friend.
"Come on, loser," he yells through the window. "Ric made dinner!"
Elena grabs her bag and gets out of the car. That's the one thing besides Damon that makes her happy: their weird little family. As she climbs the front steps with him, Jeremy slings his arm around her neck and gives her a sideways hug.
It's a small thing in a vast wasteland of tragedy, but she takes it for what it is.
Damon gives Bonnie some time to work on the spell, but it's only a few days later when he's driving through town and he just wonders how it's coming along. He's texted her a couple times and she hasn't replied, which isn't always uncommon, though he did think now that they had a joint project she would be less likely to ignore him.
He's asked Stefan (and Rebekah, who has taken up residence in their house for some odd reason) when they can expect Klaus to return, but neither of them seems to know anything. Perhaps they're just not being forth-coming, although from what Rebekah said, she's pissed at Klaus, so he doesn't think she'd keep everything on the down low at the moment. She honestly doesn't know where he went or what he's doing or when he'll be back.
Which is super annoying.
He knocks on Bonnie's door because if he can't get anything done on his end of things, the least he can do is see how it's coming on her end.
(He can't help it, he's a doer, and not getting anywhere is nearly as aggravating to him as blood on his carpets.)
She opens the door and gasps when she sees him. There is a split second where he registers that there are tears all over her face and then she moves to slam the door shut and he just reacts, wedging himself between the doorjamb and the door, grunting when it slams into his solar plexus. She's a little stronger than he expects her to be. "Hey," he says as she shoves the door harder into him, like it could close shut with him standing there. "What's the matter?" he asks.
He hasn't done anything, not one damn thing that could be construed as bad behavior. He has not even joined in with Stefan in the blood games he's been playing with various sorority girls from the next town over. No one knows about that, because of course he'd never tell Elena what her ex-boyfriend is up to, but all the same, he's kept himself clean as a whistle.
There is absolutely no reason for Bonnie to act like she can't stand the sight of him.
"I don't want to see anyone right now, Damon. I told Elena I wanted to be alone; she shouldn't have sent you over here."
Finally pressing his hands to the door so that she can't keep trying to injure him with it, he pushes on it until she relents and steps back herself. He slides inside the house and closes the door behind him. "Elena didn't send me over here. I was just in the neighborhood so I thought I'd drop in and see how your witchy homework was going. Besides, when would Elena ever think to ask me to help you out? That's just crazy talk." He tries to cajole a smile out of her with his sarcasm, but Bonnie just scrubs at the tears on her cheeks like a small child. Despite what he can see are her best efforts, more keep falling, and Damon starts to feel real concern for her. "What's wrong?"
Her face contorts in agony and then she spins away from him. "Jeremy and I broke up!" she cries. Damon has an odd realization that despite her witchy goodness, Bonnie really is just a teenage girl under all that power, and this? This is not what he signed up for. He's nobody's crying shoulder (okay, so maybe he's Elena's, but that's different), but he's not very good at it either, because good grief, he's lived about ten times longer than Bonnie. Whatever issue she and Jeremy have is going to seem completely stupid to him, of that he's sure.
"What happened?" he asks even though he knows he should just turn around and leave.
Her small frame shakes and he takes another step towards her. Gently putting a hand on her shoulder, he says her name softly. "J-just go, D-damon," she chokes out, and the reality is that's exactly what he wants to do.
But he just can't. (This may be his most shameful moment ever, a time when he cannot play off the fact that he cares about all these people, even the ones who have tried to kill him.)
"Are you sure you don't want me to stay?" he asks, his voice still soft, his intent making him feel a little ill.
This is what he gets for hanging around with too many humans. One day he's telling a girl he loves her even though she's in love with his brother, the next he's sort of apologizing to a guy who thought having his neck snapped 'crossed a line' even though he owns an eternity ring, and now this. Now? He's just trying to be a good friend.
(It fucking sucks, for the record.)
Bonnie inhales a shaky, sharp sob and then she turns back towards him. Her teary eyes meet his and she shrugs pitifully.
This is how bad things are: Damon puts an arm out and she leans into him. It's not just that he offers comfort, it's that she accepts it.
There is a moment when Bonnie's head comes to rest against Damon's chest, and the complete foreignness of the whole situation cures her of tears. She's not a weepy girl, anyway, but the unholy alliance of her and Damon puts things in perspective quickly.
Jeremy, the first boy she's ever truly loved, has been cheating on her with a ghost. It's sort of a hard thing to compete with, but the truth is, Bonnie's not made for that kind of drama. She wouldn't fight for Jeremy in any case where he had kissed another girl-living or dead; as far as she's concerned, he's done an irredeemable thing. Crying over it is just a physical reaction, just something she couldn't stop when she was alone in her house with her thoughts.
The irony is that she's sort of cuddling with the guy-vampire-who was really the culprit of all the craziness that her life had become over the last year.
Sure, she might have had a lot of witch-related problems come up anyway, but because of Damon, his brother, and everything they'd brought to Mystic Falls, she'd had it all on a much bigger scale.
Where she used to get angry, though, she suddenly comes to the answer that she might never have known her true self if not for vampires in her town.
She rubs her face against his shirt and then pulls back. She can't quite meet his eyes, but she feels his fingers slip through her hair as she moves away from him. "Thanks," she mutters.
"I didn't really do anything," he says, and she can hear the smirk in his voice, which makes her even more determined not to look at his face for the time being. But then, instantly, he's softer and his next words make her chest tighten. "You want to talk about it?"
She looks up and catches that moment of vulnerability in his eyes, the expression of empathy, of what it's like to love someone who doesn't feel the same way back. "Guess we're two peas in a pod, aren't we?" she says, going for levity. "Should we start a Pining for Gilberts support group?"
Damon scoffs. "Speak for yourself, Witchy. I'm not pining for nobody."
She gives him an appraising look, thinks about correcting his grammar, and then just shakes her head at him. "Keep telling yourself that," she mocks.
The corner of his mouth turns down and he lifts an eyebrow at her before waving a hand dismissively. "As fascinating as our not-lovelives are, the reason I came by was to see how the spell business was going. Any news?"
Grateful for the distraction, as well as the assurance that he wasn't there on a pity mission, Bonnie runs to grab the grimiore she'd found that had a variation on the spell the Original Witch had given her. "Actually, yes, it's going quite well. But I do think I'm going to need to do a practice run. Like, we need someone to test it on before I attempt to do it to Klaus."
Damon follows her across the room to the dining table where the book is laid out. He inspects it, as though he can read Latin, and then he looks at her. "You want me to find a guinea pig, someone we don't care who dies?"
Bonnie lifts her chin. "Actually, I have an idea myself. It was Caroline's suggestion, but once I thought about it, it really is the perfect test."
She sees the answering glee in Damon's face, and she tries not to focus too much on the anticipation she has at ending the existence of someone who has technically never done anything personally bad to her. He whacks her on the back enthusiastically. "I assume you're talking about Barbie!Klaus, and I am all for that."
Bonnie knew he would be, and she tries not to think about what that means, exactly.
With Caroline's help (and Tyler's, but he doesn't know he's helping), they set up a trap for Rebekah. Because she's been so interested in Caroline's boyfriend, when Damon suggests to Caroline that she and Tyler use a romantic weekend away as bait, Bonnie doesn't even have to add her support of the idea before Caroline is agreeing.
Tyler has been acting so strangely on and off that all Caroline cares about is getting him away from Klaus's sister as well as getting him out from under the loyalty he feels towards Klaus. They don't know for sure that Klaus's death will bring that about, but they are willing to guess it could be nice side effect.
And regardless, Klaus and Rebekah will be dead, and as Damon says, "That's a yay! for everyone." So Bonnie doesn't dwell too long on what they do know for sure about the outcome, only that the outcome has to be dead Original Vampires ASAP.
Bonnie mentions to Damon that they ought to bring Elena up to speed now, but he vetoes the idea. "Let's wait," he says, and for once it doesn't sound like he's bossing her around. "Just until we know if it works. If it works and Rebekah's a goner, then we'll need her help to draw Klaus out anyway. That would be a good time to fill her in."
Bonnie can see it in his face, even though he doesn't say it aloud. If it doesn't work, then only they and Caroline will be the wiser. Less disappointing that way.
They've just finished their planning session at Caroline's house when Liz arrives home from work. As she comes in, so does Elena, who unexpectedly dropped by with some chemistry homework she needed to go over with Caroline. They both look surprised to see Damon there, but Bonnie doesn't miss the way Elena's gaze flits back and forth between her and Damon; the tension in her face isn't exactly anger, but it's some emotion that Bonnie can't quite pinpoint. What she wishes she'd said to Damon prior to their interruption, is that for all his good intentions of not wanting to get Elena's hopes up, she's going to be furious when she realizes they've done all this without letting her in on it.
The one thing Bonnie knows about her best friend is that she doesn't appreciate being shielded from hard truths. Though Damon can't seem to help this softer side of himself with regard to Elena, Bonnie can't help but think it may come back to bite them both in the ass.
"What the hell is going on with you and Bonnie?" Elena demands, disturbing Damon's quiet time when Stefan and Rebekah are off at school.
He looks up from the sofa he's lounging on with his book and sees her, hands on hips, standing angrily in the doorway of the great room. "More importantly, how did you get away from Stefan?" he asks, and he's truly impressed by the fact that she's been there for ten glorious seconds without his brother flying in behind to "protect" her.
"Damon, I'm serious," she says, coming down a step into the room.
"So am I," he deadpans, even though he knows he can't do this kind of thing to her, not really, not anymore. If Stefan wasn't mind fucking her every chance he got, Damon could tease her and mock her like he used to.
(Damn Stefan, he always ruins everything.)
"To answer your question, nothing is going on with me and Bonnie. I'm actually a little confused by the question." He sets his book aside, but stays on the couch. He doesn't want to tell her, but he doesn't want to outright lie either. He likes Elena trusting him, coming to him in moments of need. But, he also knows what she's like, and how headstrong she can be, and he doesn't want to have to navigate that any sooner than necessary.
"I know something's going on. You two are always..." She gestures inarticulately and then brings her hands together like two mouths talking at each other. "Like, I walk in the room and it stops; or Bonnie starts to say something to Caroline about stuff and then stops herself because she remembers I'm there. I'm not stupid, you know."
Damon hesitates a moment and then nods his head. "I do know you're not stupid. But I don't know what Bonnie's problem is. Maybe she just doesn't want to talk to you about what a douche your brother is. Did you consider that?"
Elena pauses, and then she tilts her head, her eyes narrowing aggressively. "What do you know about Jeremy and Bonnie!? See, that just proves my point! If she's talked to you about that, then something most definitely is going on!"
Offended, even though he knows he really shouldn't be, Damon responds, "She hasn't talked my ear off or anything, but I did go by her house one night and caught her in the middle of a crying jag. So shoot for me feeling bad for her!"
Elena moves further into the room, and Damon gets to his feet because he can't very well face-off with her from a sitting position. She opens her mouth to say something, but snaps her jaw shut instead. She groans in frustration and then folds her arms tightly over her chest. "So, don't add to her problems, then, okay? All she needs is you following her around bothering her."
"Excuse me?" he all but shouts. Now, he is offended, and rightly so. "I don't really think it's up to you who I spend time with, and I'm pretty damn sure if Bonnie didn't want me around, she could just brain whammy me, or set me on fire to get rid of me! I know Stefan's taken on the role of protector for you, but Bonnie doesn't need one. She can take care of herself."
He knows how it sounds, because it rings in his own ears for a split second before Elena slaps his face (really, he should have realized it would escalate, they haven't had one of these in a while), and he doesn't mean to imply Elena can't take care of herself (even though, for the most part, she's had pretty poor judgment, far as he can tell). He's not trying to piss her off, but she pissed him off, and he can't exactly snap her neck to prove his point. The other way of ending this...well, he can't go there, either.
It's probably better, sooner rather than later, to show her how far he'll take it, or at least threaten her with how far he'd take it if she encouraged him any little bit. He grabs the wrist of the hand that just smacked his face and drags her close against his body. Then he moves them both across the room in that barely imperceptible vampire way that has her gasping as he pins her to the wall. He breathes in her face, "You've got to learn to stop slapping the shit out of me."
Elena's eyes flash fire, both the angry kind and the sexual kind, because there's no mistaking what is brewing between them when he's using his hips to prevent her escape; she bucks against him anyway, even though he knows she can feel the way his temper has manifest itself. "Or what?" she challenges, and Damon can't help the smile that curves his mouth. If he wasn't so turned on, maybe he'd have a second of consternation over her giving it right back, but it doesn't surprise him that much. She's Elena, after all. (And as they've already established, she's not stupid. At least not all the time.) And right now, she's staring at his mouth hard enough he can already feel her lips under his.
Or what? He'll show her or what.
"Oh, I'm sorry, are you two having a moment?" Stefan's voice interrupts and Damon's eyes jerk to the left, where his brother stands, looking impervious. Damon has a flash, a remembrance of another such moment of intimacy (him sweaty and dying with Elena's lips pressed to his) when, if Stefan had seen them, it would have slayed him. And now, a moment not nearly as innocuous as that one seems to have no effect, other than the amusement that etches Stefan's lips as he smiles at Damon. (Because it does always crack a guy up to realize he's cockblocked another guy.)
Elena gives Damon a hard shove, and he allows it to push him back. She storms out the front door without a word and Stefan calls after her, "Could you make up your mind? It's a bit tedious, having to chase you all over town, you know!?" He flashes another bigger grin at Damon. "Ex-girlfriends," he muses. "Can't please them, no matter what you do."
Damon watches his brother saunter out, hears Elena's wheels spit gravel at the Boarding House, and goes back to his book. It had been a much more exciting morning than he planned on, but at least Elena still didn't know anything about the events scheduled for the next two days.
Elena makes a beeline for Bonnie as soon as she gets to the cafeteria at lunch time. "Tell me the truth," she says when Bonnie drags her laughing eyes away from Matt, who sits in what used to be Jeremy's spot. "What is going on between you and Damon?"
Bonnie blinks, confusion chased by guilt so quickly, Elena wonders if she imagined it. "What?" Bonnie asks quietly, as though she thinks Elena is speaking too loudly.
"Are you confiding in him about Jeremy because you can't talk to me about it?" Elena asks, sliding into a chair opposite her ex-boyfriend, who is watching their exchange with avid interest.
"Am I confiding-in Damon?" Bonnie asks incredulously. "What? No! Are you crazy? It's Damon!"
"He said he found you crying, and I-" Suddenly Elena's mind registers the expression, not just on Bonnie's face, but on Matt's, and she realizes she's being completely irrational. Even if Damon had comforted Bonnie one time, what difference did it make? Why is she so worked up over it anyway?
More importantly, why is she so worked up over him? That moment back at the Boarding House had bordered on crazy, and she'd actually been glad that Stefan had shown up when he did. She knows she's attracted to Damon, but she'd never really been close to acting on it, not like that. Feeling him hard against her belly had created this whole sort of slow-motion fantasy where his hands reached down and grabbed her legs and dragged her upwards so he was pressed in the right place, where it would have done her the most good. And the thought that she would have enjoyed his mouth on hers-that she technically felt disappointed that he hadn't had a chance to kiss her? It was all snowballing into something she'd never let herself consider.
If this is facing reality, she's not interested.
She's had silent arguments with herself over the last few days where she tried convincing herself that she had gone into this with her eyes wide open, that she had understood by the time she committed to Stefan, anyway, just what she was dealing with.
She had accepted that he was a vampire, that he was a creature different from her in an immeasurable way. But she'd really never had to do that, because Stefan had been so careful to never show her all of himself, or the parts of vampirism that he struggled with. He'd been eager to forget his true self, and she had gone right along with it.
Damon, on the other hand, had never hidden anything. And really, that's what's bothering her now. She knows something is going on between him and Bonnie; Elena can see it in the covert way they look at one another when she enters a room, and... "That's it," she whispers and Bonnie's brow creases as she looks at her. Then she reaches out, puts her hand over Elena's and says, "What happened with me and Jeremy isn't changing our friendship, Elena. We've been through too much for me to let something like that ruin anything. I love you, you know that right?"
Elena nods her head and then gets back to her feet, her eyes falling to Matt who is watching Bonnie with something achingly sweet on his face. It shocks her, ricocheting through her body, an answer she didn't even know she needed to find. She all but throws up her hands in surrender, feeling like the biggest jerk in the world. "I have to go," she says, lurching from the table and leaving the cafeteria just as Stefan walks in. He gives her a pained look, like she really is trying his patience with her flitting about, but she takes no real notice of him.
She runs to the bathroom and, finding herself alone, stares at her reflection for a long moment.
"I'm jealous," she says to the empty room. Jealous of Damon and Bonnie.
She lifts her gaze, eyes meeting eyes, and she tries to look at herself honestly in the mirror.
She'd asked Caroline only a week or so ago what kind of person it made her to have Damon under her skin? Well, today, she knows.
She's searching for a reason, for an explanation, for there to be something more there than just the fact that maybe Damon and Bonnie like each other; maybe their antagonism has shifted into something else. And what if it had? It's not like she could stop it if it happened.
She wouldn't want to. "I wouldn't," she says to her reflection. "Damon's free to do whatever he wants."
(She hadn't been able to stop it from happening to her, had she?)
She might feel that thing Caroline says makes her human, but she doesn't have to act on it.
She does have her eyes wide open this time. She knows, and that means she can't. She won't.
But what if Bonnie does?
...chapter three...