Creatures with their backs against the wall usually responded to a threat in one of two ways: aggression or submission. Humans were much the same. Baring teeth, snarling, posturing, or cowering. She couldn't say that's exactly what the young witch was doing. She was pacing, fliting from one end of the solarium to the other, her heels kicking up dust, brow furrowed to the point it seemed a sinkhole would appear in the middle of her forehead.
Her energy arrived ten minutes before she came barreling through the door all but breathing smoke from her nostrils, interrupting her mentor who had been in the middle of meditating.
Dahlia had thrown on her customary coat Bonnie had never seen her without for the last few weeks, and perched herself on her dais. Within fifteen minutes the young woman had gone from rage to despair, back to rage, to uncertainty.
Dahlia took it in stride as she enjoyed a steaming cup of oolong tea.
Bonnie really couldn't believe she was back here. Not after what happened last night, but she honestly had nowhere else to go. Everyone in her circle were killers and they would understand the blood you couldn't wash off no matter how clean your hands appeared, but what she had done last night was different.
Wasn't it?
Maybe it was a distinction not worth ruminating on when it came to the efficacy of killing. Blood spilled, whether it was a drop or an ocean, still meant the end of a life. And though she hadn't killed, she came worryingly close to it last night. Too close. Right on the edge, close.
"What am I supposed to say to them?" Bonnie demanded. "Alaric's fiancé is laid up in the hospital and why? Because my mentor decided to send an assassin after me as a test? That'll go over well."
Dahlia merely stared.
Bonnie sighed. "How is she?"
Dahlia didn't pretend not to know who the young witch was referring to. "Recovering...How did you find the members of the Gemini coven?"
Bonnie did a double take. The words she was about to spew, she swallowed. "Weak."
Klaus' aunt snorted. She wasn't surprised.
"Not because they lack power," Bonnie went on to explain, "but because none of them wants to take the lead in dealing with Kai. They're scared of him. Scared of him siphoning their power."
"Is that the only reason you believe they're frightened of him? Have you not asked yourself why did they merely banished him to a prison world and not outright kill him? Witches and warlocks of the past have died for far less grievances than what you confided to me that he did to his coven."
"Hell if I know why they didn't gut him the way he gutted his siblings. Like he gutted me. Maybe because his life is tied to Jo's since they're twins."
"A tie that could have been broken," Dahlia sagely interpolated.
"Or maybe something happens to them if they break with tradition. The Gemini coven...One twin has to kill the other and the victor 'ascends'," Bonnie air quoted.
"Ascends to what?"
Bonnie had no fucking idea. She figured Dahlia had already worked out the variable she had been struggling with for months. She tried to think back to the conversations she had with Liv about her coven, but nothing the curly-haired blonde shared with Bonnie had ever made sense. She never understood their practices.
"I don't know," she admitted with a rueful shrug. "My mind doesn't want to solve that equation."
Dahlia signed and drained the rest of her tea. "There are bloodlines in this world created for the sole purpose of carrying out a specific function. There are bloodlines born to cultivate peace, others disruption, or to guard knowledge, so forth and so on. Then there are lines which were never supposed to be. A mishap of nature, a corruption of a gene. A disorder, in a sense."
"So you're saying, the Gemini coven is diseased?"
"Every coven that exists has its own cancer to fight. There are covens which exist to find the perfect sacrifice to feed the cancer. That is why the Gemini's annihilate their kin."
The light bulb finally went off over Bonnie's head. "They sacrifice a twin so they can keep their power."
"Exactly."
"Then I'm no different than they are. What I did last night...I don't ever want to do again."
Bonnie swallowed hard at the memory of what she did to that witch. Goosebumps rippled across her skin like scales, and she barely refrained from flinching. It had been gruesome, but that wasn't exactly what frightened her the most.
No.
It was what she felt after and even now that she was grappling with.
Exhilaration. A high so potent it felt better than desiccating a thousand-year-old vampire, of getting revenge on a two thousand-year-old witch-vampire.
Dahlia tsked reproachfully. She was growing quite tired of this song and dance. "Fact one, you are nothing like that coven. Fact two, you're not afraid to kill when a life that matters to you is at stake, but you're afraid to kill if it means saving your life. Why do you suppose that is, witchling?"
Bonnie mutinously kept her lips sealed. Dahlia figured she would.
"You have taken a life." Dahlia stepped down from her dais, her voice lowering and oozing with censure. "The first night..."
"I-I don't...I don't remember that." Bonnie squirmed, feeling her body blush with mortification.
"Oh, so since you don't remember then it doesn't count, is that it? If you don't want to think of it as murder then think of it as a gift. My acolyte's gift—"
"A gift? Lady, you are sick if you think I'm supposed to accept someone's death as a gift."
"—to you to opening yourself up to your true potential you've always held back," Dahlia finished despite Bonnie's protest. "Potential you didn't develop out of respect for what your grandmother and foremothers taught you. Then again, they didn't teach you much."
"My foremothers were enslaved."
Dahlia nodded. "An unfortunate circumstance...Still they could have guided you. Unless they did and you ignored their guidance."
"Look," Bonnie cut her off sharply feeling her impatience rise. Her body, unbeknownst to her, reacted. Her veins were beginning to glow, and her eyes became as bright as lava. "I just need to know how to stop feeling...wrong."
"You feel wrong?"
"Yes!"
The angrier Bonnie grew the hotter it got. Dahlia spied her flowers wilting, some of the petals and leaves withering to ash. For a second the wizened old witch almost beckoned it to come to her, to engulf her. A delicious spring to quench one's thirst. It was thrilling to see the fruits of her tuition so overtly it brought to mind another witch she had taken under her wing, but had rebuked her lessons at every turn.
She would not have that with Bonnie.
"Feel you've gone over to the dark side?" The question may have been asked with more than a hint of derision.
"I just wanted to become powerful enough to protect myself against the siphoner who hurt me. But each day I feel like I'm twisting into someone I won't be able to control or recognize." Bonnie finally caught on to what was happening with her physically, and stared at herself in horror. She held up her arms for Dahlia to, "See! This is what I'm talking about! I'm glowing like a fucking mutant."
"Oh, witchling...you've never been more beautiful than you are right now. You don't want to lose your humanity. Fine. But what you've failed to understand and perhaps what I've been derelict in teaching you is this." Dahlia's expression turned steely. "Witches were born out of brutality. Out of the fabric of chaos. We are conduits of it, balance it the best we can, but ultimately, we are its tools. How you handle that is entirely up to you, but you can't live in denial about what you truly are. Not anymore."
Bonnie ceased breathing as her mentor invaded her personal space, her big yellow eyes appearing to grow even larger, her hair darker. "What am I?"
"You are..."
—————————————————
"Despite what I said and my actions I never wanted to be the Bonnie Bennett who died young and in place of my friends. Nobility wasn't the reason I made half the decisions I made when I was seventeen.
'At seventeen you think you have the world and all its jaded and beautiful colors figured out. But really the world is an iceberg, and you don't know shit. The curtains are pulled back and you're given a VIP all access backstage pass to one of the greatest lies ever told: That death is final. Death is just a whole new beginning.
'So what do you do with this new information becomes the question. Do you accept what you've seen, experienced, or heard? Do you try to overcome it? Or do you do nothing with it and hope for the best?
'When no one is around to tell you what is best, you have to decide for yourself what your truth is, what your code is, what you stand for, and what you're willing to stand against.
'They never tell you that you could be wrong. That you could make everything worse with one well-intended choice.
'They tell you never to make a choice under duress, because there's a strong chance that if you survive, you'll regret it. They tell you to watch and guard your heart, but I had always been so eager, too eager to give it away. I've learned a lot these last few years, and more in these last few weeks. Still, it doesn't feel like enough."
Pine needles cushioned her head, back, hamstrings, lower legs. The sky expanded beyond what she could see as she gazed at it from the ground. Tremors racked her. She clasped her wrist, squeezed until she felt her pulse beating. An hour ago she had staggered away from Dahlia's haunt and drove with no particular destination in mind, yet she knew exactly where she needed to go.
To the plinth where her tuition with Dahlia began. She also realized she wasn't far from the spot where twelve witches had been duped into thinking she needed her magic cleaned. The area was too significant for Bonnie to ignore. So she came here to make amends.
Hopefully they would accept that. Even if their spirits no longer resided on the other side, which was long gone.
"To keep who I am I have to remember what I've done. I don't know your names, if your lives had been anything like mine, a constant rollercoaster of pain and death. I can only hope you all are at peace now. A peace that gives you comfort." She paused. Inhaled, exhaled. "I'm sorry for what I did to you. I'm so sorry."
Bonnie sat up, pine needles sticking to her. She combed them from her hair and brushed them off her shoulders the best she could as she got to her feet. Picking up her bag she rifled through it looking for the token she had brought.
Bonnie placed a wreath of white tulips, a symbol for apologizing, on the ground and took a step back. Waited. The wind was still, the occasional bird sung, and rushing water from a nearby creek filled the haunting silence. Maybe an arm wouldn't shoot up from the ground, grab her ankle, and drag her below. Maybe she wouldn't hear a voice whispering "I forgive you" or "I'm gonna kill you".
Nothing happened for several minutes.
She would take it as a good sign. Turning to head back to her car she made it all of several steps when she heard a scream.
She whirled, waited. Another scream came, louder in decibel, and sat her teeth on end. Someone was in trouble. Bonnie was running, vaulting over shallow mud puddles, fallen trees, and smacking low hanging branches out of the way.
Bonnie skidded to a stop about five minutes later having caught sight of clothes strewn about on the ground. Carefully she surveyed the area and spotted two white college coeds, partially nude, hunkered together weeping and sniffling. Their dark brown eyes round with fear. It was obvious they had been out here having themselves a good time until things went left. They had contorted themselves to fit inside the hollowed out trunk of a diseased tree that was teeming with termites. The girl screamed and tried to bolt once spotting Bonnie. The guy in particular begged his mama to come get him.
"It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. Calm down!" Bonnie ordered. "What happened?"
"W-e were just out here, you know..." His cheeks blazed red. "When I saw this-this-this thing! I don't know, man. I saw something and it wasn't human."
"What did it look like? Can you tell me?" Bonnie lowered to her haunches.
The guy stared at her searchingly, "Your eyes..." he mumbled while his became vacant. "It looked...it was...hell! Fuck. I don't know. I didn't stay around long enough to get a good look. Grabbed Lara and got the hell away."
Bonnie stared at the girl identified as Lara who was rocking herself consolingly. "Did you see it?"
She shook her head. "I mean I did but I don't want to believe I saw what I did. It wasn't human like Gage said. Nothing like that could be human. Twisted, deformed."
"Were you bitten?" was Bonnie's next question.
"No, I don't think so." The girl frowned at the odd inquiry but checked her person nonetheless whereas Gage wagged his head seemingly frustrated. "We just want to get the hell out of here. I especially want to get the hell out of here."
"If we can get to Willow Creek and cross it we'll be all right," Gage suggested.
Lara tossed her hands up in the air, "That's going to take twice as long."
"But we'll be safe. Evil spirits can't cross bodies of water. At least that's what folklore says. Right?" He looked at Bonnie hoping she would agree.
"Whatever route you guys decide to take you need to take it now. It's not safe. Go," Bonnie instructed.
They didn't need to be told twice and made a run for it. But Lara stumbled to a stop and faced Bonnie. "What about you? I know you're not going to stay out here with that thing..."
"I'll be all right." She pulled out her phone. "I'll call for help."
"You..."
"I'm okay," Bonnie reiterated, steel entering her voice. "Leave."
And she might have pushed the other young woman a tiny bit. Lara blinked, a little bewildered, but she snapped out of it when Gage grabbed her wrist and tugged her behind him.
Once they were a good distance away, Bonnie pocketed her phone.
"I know you can hear me. Smell me. Feel me."
Nothing stirred but she felt a shift in the density of the air.
"You've been trapped here for days. The hunger has to be unbearable, but you're weak. You couldn't kill them. Couldn't feed."
A fetid odor filled her nose and made her dry heave.
"What..."
Before she could finish asking the question, the answer leapt up in front of her.
"Enzo..." Bonnie breathed.
Drool oozed from the side of his mouth and dripped off the bottom of his chin. His twisted body was one long, continuous open, push-filled wound. The arm that was forced to grow from his ribs, dangled like a twig, the skin as leathery as a bat's wing.
"Please," he mumbled pitiably. "End...me."
"I can't." Bonnie apologetically shook her head, her muscles cramped from being up close and personal to the beast Dahlia had turned him into.
The roar he let out at her reply sent birds scattering and Bonnie wincing. It was steel being sharpened against stone, nails on a chalkboard grating.
Whatever shred of humanity he had been holding on to emptied, and he no longer stared at her in recognition but as food.
He lunged.
Bonnie's arm whipped out. A spell ignited from her belly, funneled down her arm, and rippled from the center of her palm. Power. Magic.
Change.
She snapped her eyes closed, and embraced herself for impact as time changed from 12:12:38 to 12:12:39 p.m. The ground beneath her churned, as a force of wind from behind whipped her hair across her face. It stung and the voice she expected to hear earlier, she was hearing it now. Whisper and howling.
menace.
murder.
vengeance.
murder.
blood.
Release.
Count to three.
Slowly Bonnie peeled open her eyes. A thousand orange sulphur butterflies flitted where Enzo once stood.
They migrated to her, flapping their iridescent wings. She held still almost expecting to be attacked by tiny, pin pricks as they found flesh to bite, but they merely danced around her, and were gone on the next strong air current.
The reality of what she had done sunk in. She had changed a vampire into butterflies. Vampires she had once upon a time feared.
She had feared Originals, and hybrids, and ghosts. She had feared her own magic.
Those days were done.
That time was no more.
Confidently, she placed one foot in front of the other as she made the trek back to her car. "All right. That's enough of the forest today."
—————————————————
Day became a balmy night. Denizens left the confines of their homes to sit out on the porch to enjoy the occasional breeze, the song of crickets, play a game of cards, or reminiscence. Children played, running from yard to yard, riding their bikes down the sidewalks, or sneaking off telling their parents they were headed in one direction when really they were going in another.
In the next county a downpour was happening. It was on course to hit Mystic Falls by eleven, no later than midnight, but already the heady perfume of it soaked the air.
Two creatures of the night took advantage.
Laying on her stomach, Bonnie looked behind her catching sight of Damon silhouetted in the sliding door right before he snapped off the light. She froze the picture of him in her mind; his naked, sinewy, muscled form, tousled hair, evidence of a night spent getting laid. His heavy cock swung as he moved across the lawn. She felt herself growing crazed just looking at him.
Christening the outdoor daybed swing had not been a spur of the moment decision, but an absolute necessity. They had writhed together, her legs crossed at the ankles at the base of his spine while he held her ass at the right angle to hit the deepest spot he could. Neither of them had lasted very long, but had gotten fulfilled, nonetheless. Now that sex was a part of their relationship, her body throbbed in all the best ways possible, a throb which grew as she watched him approach.
Wind blew and cooled her damp skin. The bed swayed when Damon climbed on aboard and stretched out on his stomach next to her, passing over a glass of much needed ice water.
"Thank you." Bonnie took a generous sip and passed the rest to Damon.
He drained it and sat the empty glass on the ground.
Despite having a good time, a countdown had begun. A countdown that grew louder and louder that Damon hoped to stave off as long as he could.
When he had gotten home after a day of making arrangements for his imminent departure to become an even more formidable killing machine, Bonnie had been bouncing around in her tiny shorts and cami ensemble while his nose picked up curried goat, rice and peas, and plantains.
"You're in a good mood so soon after last night." Immediately Damon had wanted to stake himself. He shouldn't have brought up last night if Bonnie had processed it and moved on, but she wasn't known for kicking up her heels after an attack and strong use of her powers. Her strength usually freaked her out and she went into hermit mode to sort herself out, or bury what she did deep in a sarcophagus of her own making.
So naturally his antenna went up.
But they had sat down, broke bread together, and had each other...for dessert.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
"I've been having second thoughts about this, Damon. I don't want you to go."
"To be honest I don't want to go either, but I need to."
"You don't need to. You have all the strength you could possibly need."
"I'm not invulnerable to magic."
Bonnie conceded that point yet still argued, "Neither am I at the end of the day. I'm just as vulnerable to it as you are. Even more so considering what Kai is."
Damon angled his head on the pillow to see Bonnie better. He didn't like the way her brows were knitted together and the pensive curve to her lips. "What aren't you saying? I've come to know you well enough to know there's something you're not telling me. What is it?"
Bonnie moistened the seam of her lips, but she didn't speak right away. "Everything comes with a price."
"Are you worried I'm going to be asked to give you up?"
"Well, no but now I am." She smacked his chest. That thought hadn't even crossed her mind but now it was a root planted in freshly tilled ground. "I was more so thinking about your humanity. What if...you lose that in order to become resistant to magic or whatever it is you think you need to go up against Kai?"
"And my mother's adopted family," he added with a grunt. "They're a part of this too even if they never appeared in any of your nightmares. I can feel they are."
Bonnie wouldn't argue against that point. Kai would strike a deal with Lily's family to save his own ass. It's what she would do. Promise them freedom if they helped her reach Nova Scotia to retrieve Qetsiyah's headstone.
"I feel like we're taking an unnecessary risk. What if he's dead?" Bonnie tried for optimism though it seem like dressed up denial.
"Do you remember when we were standing in that classroom, and you sent a desk hurtling at my head after your second nightmare about Kai? If you don't I do. Nearly took my head off. The point I'm trying to make is, would you have had that kind of visceral reaction if you honestly believed he was dead?"
"Fear can keep things alive in our minds far after the thing we feared is gone."
Damon squinted as he let her words sink into his head. "Fair point. Regardless, you've had three dreams, or visions about him, and you're not the only one. A whacky psychiatrists might believe people can experience the same hallucination, but we know what it means. Fate is calling us, Bonnie. And it'll keep calling until we answer. So let's use every tool at our disposal and end it."
Done talking about the subject, Damon slid closer as he rolled Bonnie on her side. Taking possession of her knee, he hiked it up his hip. She arched a brow, a silent question as to what he was doing. A smirk was his reply before he kissed her, and sunk himself inside her once more.
—————————————————
Rain chased them inside, but they had plans to hit the streets. As they maneuvered around each other getting ready for a night out, fighting for counter space and the mirror, Bonnie, while putting on her mascara casually tossed out:
"I might have turned Enzo into butterflies today."
Damon spat out a wad of toothpaste and whipped his head in Bonnie's direction. "You—what?"
"I was in the woods paying my respects to the dead and as I was leaving I hear a scream. So me being me, I went after whoever was in trouble. I found a couple and they told me they came across something in the woods. It was Enzo, or rather the vampire formerly known as Enzo. Remember the deformity hex Dahlia placed on him?"
"Vaguely."
Stefan had snapped his neck and thrown him into a well that night.
"Well, after I sent the couple off, Enzo appeared, and asked me to end him. When I refused he lunged at me, but I struck first."
"By changing him into butterflies?"
"Yeah."
Damon didn't really know the appropriate thing to say to that. Good job. How could you? Nice. He might have never viewed Enzo as the friend and pseudo brother Enzo viewed him as, but he was yet another person Damon had known for a long time to die shortly after being reunited with him.
Then it was the other side of it. Bonnie managing the type of power to transfigure something and not knock herself into a coma or death. Pride hit his chest hard, but concern slapped him even harder.
"You think I shouldn't have done it," Bonnie guessed by his prolonged silence.
"I didn't say that."
"No, but your face is definitely saying you don't approve. Not entirely."
"You said he lunged for you." Damon yanked on the faucet handle and stuck is toothbrush underneath the running water. "If he lunged then he meant to kill you."
"Could have been trying to give me a hug."
"Right because that's what killers do when you tell them no. Why are you trying to argue against what you've done?"
"Because I want to know how you feel about it."
"I told you."
"No, you haven't told me anything. He was your friend."
"That's a stretch."
"He was someone you've known since the fifties. Someone you bonded with."
"Through trauma. You could even call it Stockholm Syndrome in a weird sense. He's tried to murder my brother on multiple occasions. I killed his soul mate. He tried to kill you. He's out of the picture now. Good riddance, one less headache to deal with."
Damon rinsed and wiped his mouth and stomped out of the bathroom.
Bonnie followed at a distance but stopped at the threshold. "What's really bothering you?"
"Nothing." Damon hopped into his jeans and tossed on his shirt.
"Liar."
"That I am but not about this."
"Your heart is telling me something different."
Damon shot her a look. "You can hear my heart beating?"
She nodded.
"Can you see through me too?" he asked facetiously.
Bonnie frowned, "Maybe it'll take another five kills before my x-ray vision kicks in. We'll see."
"Cute one-liner but that used to be my thing. Killing used to be my thing."
"Damon—"
"The women I love...I turn them into killers." After tugging on his shirt, his arms fell to his sides like dead weight.
"The first woman you ever loved was already a killer long before you met her."
"Not at first," he murmured quietly.
It clicked for Bonnie who he meant and what she eventually turned into. She came to him, wrapped her arms around Damon and squeezed.
Her warm skin burned him, but it was a comforting type of burn. Damon snaked his arms around her, brought ever even closer.
"What did you do with her body?" Bonnie murmured quietly.
"She's in the tomb underneath Fell's Church. Seemed appropriate. After all...she was a Fell."
That surprised Bonnie. "She was?"
"Mm-hmm. Lillian Anna-Maria Fell. Her marriage to my dad was arranged by my gold digging grandmother Elisabeth Rochefort who was a southern belle of French descent. But that's ancient history."
Bonnie ran her fingers through Damon's hair. He angled his head, caught her hand, and kissed her palm. "Nothing is ancient history when the pain of the past still lingers." Her gaze darkened then. "When that pain is used to subjugate."
Damon got the sense she wasn't talking about his family, but hers.
Bonnie went silent, scenes from the past snaking through her mind. She indulged it for a moment before shaking it off, and brightening a moment later.
She left his arms and detoured to the closet. He heard her rummaging around and though his inner voice was telling him to let it go, like a dog with a bone, he couldn't. He wanted clarity.
"What did you mean when you said you were paying your respects to the dead?"
"I needed to apologize to the witches who lost their lives because of me."
"Bon...those deaths—"
"Weren't my fault? Is that what you're about to say?"
"Mind reader now?"
Bonnie reentered the bedroom, a pair of heels dangling from her fingers. "No matter what happens to me, no matter how strong, or powerful, or knowledgeable I become, I can't...I can't lose who I am. I don't want to wake up like Dahlia one day. She's the baddest witch I've come to know, but underneath her hard shell, I feel nothing but a gaping hole of emptiness. There's no love there. No happiness. Compassion. Empathy. She feeds her magic, but not her soul. Not her heart. I can't get like that. So I have to remember what I've done and make amends, so I don't lose who I am."
Damon let her words sink into the linear clefts in his skin. "You know that won't happen."
"I don't know that. You don't know that. So let's not pretend we do."
She moved to retreat to the bathroom, but Damon caught her by the arm, and swung her around so fast she tumbled into his chest.
Gently pinching her chin, he jutted her head up. "I do know, Bonnie. You've had so many chances to turn into an unfeeling, murderous bitch, but you never did, and you never will. Why? Not because I won't let you, but because your heart won't. It's never stopped beating or burning for those you care about. Not when they betrayed you. Or let you down, or broke a promise. Not at your angriest, or your saddest. It's always burned away the bad. You are inherently good. Incorruptible. It's one of the reasons why I love you so damn much. Remember that."
Bonnie was speechless. She released a sigh, and bit the center of her bottom lip. Shyly, she smiled. "Nice speech."
"One of my best," Damon grinned.
"I love you." Bonnie dropped her shoes, arched on her toes, and slanted her mouth against Damon's.
It took them another hour to leave the house.
—————————————————
De-transitioning into mortal form hadn't been as excruciating as transitioning into an immortal. The pain had not been as physical but more mental. The dulling of her senses, the reduction of speed, the elimination of blood from her diet passed without incident. However, her balance suffered, and she couldn't stand up and not ram into something her body would have automatically avoided without thought. What surprised her the most was the ravenous hunger for human food, but also being repulsed by it. After seventy-three hours of shivers, sweats, and nausea, she hit a plateau and felt settled enough to leave the house.
Not without a lot of pep talks. She felt vulnerable, exposed, and fearful of what would be waiting for her on the other side of the door. Nothing, Elena Gilbert would discover as she poked her head out of the lake house. She went for long walks to clear her head, to soothe the rage of what happened to her and her own impotence to reverse what was done to her, to reverse what was taken from her.
Her immortality.
Her safety net.
Her relationship.
Stripped from her with no care to how it would affect her for the rest of her life.
The rest of her life? Elena had no clue what that was now. What it would look like and mean.
So she would have to write the script herself.
A daunting undertaking under the absence of the support system she always figured would be there. Her parents were gone. Jeremy was gone. Jenna, Stefan, Damon.
Bonnie.
Her nostrils flared whenever she thought about Bonnie. About Damon, Stefan.
There was Caroline, Matt, and Alaric. Caroline had been a bitch for the last few months and though her humanity was back, the insults and barbs the blonde launched her way still stung, and Elena was far from ready to bury the hatchet and begin anew. Matt wanted no supporting role in the life of the paranormal despite being thrown into it on occasion. And Alaric...he had his own problems with a fiancé and a baby on the way. He couldn't be there in the capacity that she needed.
Going at it alone for real for the first time, she wasn't ready, but it was time to say goodbye to the vampire chapter of her life.
So Elena Gilbert did something no one would ever expect Elena Gilbert to do.
She went and sliced off her hair.
Not all of it. She wasn't rocking a Sinead O'Connor or even a flapper's pixie cut, but she charged into the first salon she could find and the first stylist willing to see her without an appointment and said to make her look young, fresh, and hot. A wash, condition, cut, color, and three hours later she emerged having done the second most drastic thing she'd ever done to switch up her look. Elena didn't spend too much time thinking about those horrid dark pink highlights she got senior year. Now her hair kissed her shoulders, and she looked like a spunky stockbroker looking to stuff dollar bills down the G-string of a cabana boy.
Skull Bar, her second stop on the path of new discovery was decently packed for a Thursday night, which Thursday was the official start to the weekend anyways in college. She drew stares as she slid off her jacket revealing her tight sleeveless tank. Her bouncing and pushed up tits garnered catcalls, offers for drinks or a finger session in the bathroom. Ordinarily that would disgust her, but today she laughed it off.
Elena hauled herself on the stool and ordered a jack and coke. As the bartender whipped up her alcoholic concoction, she surveyed the bar. The sea of faces were the same, the music loud, the sound of pool balls crashing added to the cacophony of uproarious laughter and conversation.
Instinct made her look up.
Damon.
Her reaction to him...that hadn't withered. Her heart still leapt. Her fingers still tingled with the need to run them over every inch she could get her hands on. Her body still wanted to be near him. Human Elena was still as weak for him as Vampire Elena had been. Her chin quivered but she dug her nails into her palm and hardened her jaw.
Nevertheless, she observed him. He was upstairs with Tyler? Hmm. She accepted her drink with a mumbled thanks and swiveled in her chair to study them, almost willing Damon to take a peek downstairs.
Her field of vision was blocked by a broad chest draped in a Henley shirt. Sluggishly she dragged her gaze up the column of his throat, pausing momentarily on that square chin, the tip of a blade sharp nose. Laughing bluish-gray orbs crinkled at the corners.
"Well I see someone has ditched the poodle skirts to become a full-fledged Pink Lady. What's good Sandra Dee?"
Brow creased Elena was lost to the reference until it clicked. She rolled her brown eyes and turned back around to glare at the bottles stacked behind the bar.
Stefan settled on the stool next to her, elbows braced on the bar top. He tapped two fingers immediately summoning the barkeep he compelled some weeks ago who made his drink, and also added a deposit of her succulent and rare Rh Positive.
Elena stared a little aghast but shrugged and sipped her drink.
"How is life again as a human?"
"Hopefully it'll be better the second time around than the first."
Stefan laughed jovially. "I'll say you're off to a much better start. But if you honestly want things to be better the second time around, maybe you should refrain from fraternizing with vampires."
"Maybe I'll take your advice and date werewolves this time."
Whoa, someone's a spitfire, Stefan thought and licked his chops actually enjoying himself. Desperate for his brother's attention Elena was a lot more fun and cooler than my parents just died Elena.
"Well before you dive headfirst into the world of bestiality, why don't you try necrophilia one last time? Hmm."
Elena scowled and felt her flesh crawl.
"Here to spy on my brother?" Stefan pulled his lips back against his teeth after sampling his beverage.
"Here to be an obnoxious prick who's too scared to turn on his emotions?"
"Oh, you can do better than that to try to emasculate and shame me, Elena. Then again I don't think anything can top you running off with my brother. No hard feelings though."
"You know you've brought that up. A lot. Since you've been this way. Clearly it still bothers you."
Stefan ignored that. "I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to get his attention by pretending you don't want his attention." He shook his head. "That's not going to work."
"I don't want Damon back." She intentionally said that loud enough hoping he'd hear.
"And I have a three inch dick. Come on, let's not tell lies. There's only but one way to have him sniffing around your Vicky S again."
"I said..."
She didn't get to finish because Stefan leaned across the small amount of space separating them and kissed her.
It was at that time Damon just happened to look down to the main level of the bar, and immediately zeroed in on his brother sucking face with Elena. Shock made his eyes bulge. His hand tightened around the pool stick but didn't snap it in half while a hot, searing pain burned his stomach.
"Is that making you jealous?"
Spindles of heat that eerily felt like fingers curled around his chin, jerked his head away from the scene down below, and gripped him by the collar of his shirt. He felt a pull, a tug, and his legs moved of their own volition. He dropped the pool stick.
Damon wandered along the top floor bypassing dancing or talking couples who were lost in their own world of make believe. Only he seemed to be able to hear a soporific voice calling his name, leading him deeper into the bar.
Rounding a corner he stopped, arrested at the sight before him. Two minutes ago no longer mattered. What he had been feeling evaporated like water sizzling on a hot pan.
Damon wouldn't say he was having a sense of déjà vu, but it was damn near close. He had seen her from the back in that dress and those fuchsia stockings at a frat party. Tonight, he was viewing her from the side, the silhouette of her body doing wicked things to his blood. He wanted to bite that juicy ass, cup those perky tits, wrap those dancer's legs around his waist. He wanted to simply slip inside her and live there forever.
Love her forever.
Smell her skin, breathe in her breath. Forever.
A pair of twin suns slid in his direction. Her red painted lips smiled at him.
Every hair on his body lifted. A current through a conductor between two points was directly proportional to the voltage across the two points according to Ohm's Law; and Damon was feeling that current now as his long legs ate up the distance between himself and Bonnie.
He touched her with blatant possession, felt his lips buzz when he kissed her.
Bonnie curled her fingers into his hair, the move as equally possessive as her mouth took what it wanted, what it craved. Each kiss melted into the next and became sweeter than the last. Having her fill for the moment, she pulled away and stared deeply into the nexus of who Damon was, and she wondered if he was doing the same. Did he see? Did he see what she was?
"You want to know what you are, witchling? You are lightning in a bottle...Shatter the bottle."