Chapter Text
"You caught me.” Bonnie - or rather, the Huntress wearing her face - entered the clearing where Damon was sipping from a flask, waiting for her. “That a stake in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" She didn't respond, her facial expression vacant, uncaring. "Gotta say, I'm really feeling the Bonnie the Vampire Slayer look. Smokin' hot. All you're missing is the leather-jacket-wearing reformed bad boy vampire sidekick. Oh, wait..." Bonnie threw a stake at him and he barely caught it fast enough. She had a second in her hand before he could even blink. "Hey! Put that thing down, you might hurt someone."
"That's the idea." Her voice was flat and devoid of emotion, and she was looking at him like he was pure poison - not a trace of her usual reluctant affection. It was like a punch in the gut seeing her like that, but he knew she was in there somewhere, and he was determined to reach her.
"Look can we maybe put down the sharp objects and talk for a sec?" Her response was to throw the second stake, which stuck in his chest, missing his heart by a hair. "Guess not."
Bonnie drew a wicked-looking hunter's knife from her belt and started moving towards him. Damon pulled the stake from his chest with a gross, wet sucking sound and a gasp, and backed up a couple of paces. "Okay then. I'll talk, you listen."
"You gonna tell me again how you wish I'd die so you can get Elena back?"
His eyes darkened, and he repeated the words he'd said to his brother an hour ago.
"Sometimes when you love someone you have to go to extremes."
He wasn't talking about Elena.
"Did you think that would hurt me? That I'd care enough about what you think that it would make a difference?"
She stalked closer with the knife, and he continued to back up, only stopping when his back hit the tree behind him.
"Got you to wake up, didn't it?"
Bonnie's response was to lunge forward and swipe at him with the knife. He dodged out of the way and avoided the slash spilling his guts over the forest floor, but it still bit through his shirt and into skin, drawing a hiss from him.
When she made to repeat the motion, slashing higher, he caught her wrist in his hand and struggled against her new supernatural strength as the knife fell to the forest floor.
"Careful, Bon. That tickles, and not in the good way." She aimed a knee at his groin and he deflected it with his leg. "Oof. My safe word is 'vervain', just FYI."
He didn't catch the fist that came flying at his face, smashing into his cheek hard enough to crack bone. She used his momentary surprise to throw him behind her across the clearing, his body crashing with no small amount of force into the tree stump at its centre: One that in another life, marked the grave her friends had made for her.
"You still think this a joke? You think I won't kill you?"
"On the contrary, Bon-Bon." He scrambled to his knees, spitting out a mouthful of blood. "I know you will. That's why I'm here."
"Did you think somehow that offering yourself up would work in your favour? That it would buy time for the others? For your brother?"
"This isn't about them."
"Of course not. Because everything's always about you, isn't it?"
"Actually this time it's about you." He let his eyes meet hers, desperately searching for the Bonnie he knew and coming up empty "I'm here because," he sat back on his haunches. "If I'm gonna die - if this is my last night on earth, I can't think of a single person I'd rather be with than you. And if you're gonna kill everyone who ever cared about you, you'd better start with me. And I think you know why."
Bonnie was unmoved.
"Is that supposed to mean something to-"
Damon interrupted her mid-sentence.
"You recognise this place? This stump you just almost broke my back on?"
He saw the recognition flare in her eyes, but it was cold.
"My grave."
"Yeah. A memorial to one of the many lives of Bonnie Bennett. Last time around, I didn't have much to contribute. You were just Elena's friend - occasionally useful for a spell or when we needed someone to throw herself on a wire, but you didn't mean much to me."
"Not much changed."
"Everything changed, Bonnie." The emotion in his voice contrasted with the emptiness of hers. "We hated each other, then I tolerated you, then we became friends, then lines started to blur in a way that was becoming really problematic for someone whose best friend is supposed to be my endgame. Then I chickened out and desiccated, and you shacked up with the Diet Coke version of me. And trust me when I say that seeing you with him hurt me more than anything you can do with something sharp and pointy." Damon took in a breath. "So let me do what I never got the chance to do before, when I put down that grimoire because I had no connection with you to mourn losing."
He stood and reached into his pocket, prompting Bonnie to aim a crossbow at him, but she lowered it a little when instead of attacking her, he laid down a little metal token that hit the stump with a soft clink.
"This is for Judgy Bonnie." As his hand moved away, she saw it was a little metal shoe, like the one from... "When I cheated at Monopoly, you acted like I'd robbed a real bank, and you never let me forget it. Judgy Bonnie can hold a grudge like nobody's business, especially when someone lets her or her friends down. But she always held me accountable. Made me face up to my failings. Made me a better person."
Next he pulled out a big, plastic peace sign necklace - it was the one she'd worn to the 60s decade dance, the night she'd thought her spell to save Elena from Klaus would kill her. "This is for Loyal Bonnie. Fiercely protective and dedicated to those she cares about. This is the Bonnie that laid down her life countless times for people who didn't deserve it. For the Bonnie that refused to open her eyes last night if it meant she might hurt those she cared about."
"Last but not least." Damon opened his flask and took a swig, before pouring the remainder onto the stump. "This is for a Bonnie only I ever knew - one I shared something dark and hopeless with." He could see the recognition in her eyes when the smell hit her - oaky and rich and uncomfortably familiar: The bourbon from their suicide pact. "A century and a half, and I've never been that raw... that vulnerable with anyone." He laughed, but there was no humour in it. "'Kill the bottle then kill ourselves'. I never told you what it really was - it was the ultimate motivation. Because it tied your life to mine. Kept me going for your sake. Because no matter how bad things got, they'd never be bad enough that I'd give up on you."
"How poetic that the bottle's done now, then." He sought desperately for a hint of something else beneath the cold steel of her voice, but found nothing. "Except you're the only one that's dying tonight."
"See, that's where you're wrong." His voice lacked his usual edge of sarcasm. "Because when you kill me - when you cross that line - that'll kill whatever's left of Bonnie in there. Kinda romantic, dontcha think? Like Romeo and Juliet, if Juliet was a homicidal maniac."
"And if Romeo was a selfish evil prick vampire in love with her best friend."
"Rosaline was Juliet's cousin, not her best friend, but close enough. See? I'm not entirely uncultured." Damon argued back.
Bonnie bent down to pick up the knife, blade still tinged crimson with his blood.
"I think I've listened long enough." She brought herself back to full height. "Get up." She didn't say anything else, but there was something implied in her eyes: A crack in the marble.
'Don't make me kill you on your knees'
It wasn't much, but it was something. And Damon would take any chance he could get.
He rose to his feet.
"You want to put a stake through my heart? Fine, it belongs to you anyway."
Damon took a step towards her, hands in the air in a gesture of surrender.
"Shut up."
He could've sworn he almost heard that crack in her resolve widening.
"Elena was my Rosaline. 'Did my heart ever love til now?'"
"Shut up!"
Crack
"Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh?"
Another step towards her.
"Stop."
Even on that one word, her voice was sharp, angry... No longer emotionless and dull.
"Eyes, look your last."
At his next step towards her, Bonnie took half a step backwards.
"Arms, take your last embrace."
She all but bared her teeth.
C'mon, Bon. Fight it.
"And, lips - o you doors of breath..."
"SHUT UP!"
"Make me."
Seal with a righteous kiss
Damon's lips crashed hard against Bonnie's, his hands moving to her arms and holding her fast as she struggled. It wasn't a sweet kiss - Far from it. It was fierce, almost violent: The lingering metallic taste of blood in his mouth from being thrown across the clearing melding with new as she fought back with her teeth. After a few seconds, she threw him off, and he landed with a grunt back against the stump, knocking the mementos he'd placed to the ground. Before he could stand to prepare for her attack, she was on him, knife biting into his throat...
And lips pressing hard to his.
The force of her slammed him back so hard it knocked the (thankfully unnecessary) breath from his lungs. Only when her he felt the bones of her kneecaps scrape against his hips did he realise she was straddling him.
And yeah, okay, the kiss was supposed to get her to fight back, but not like this. Not-
He flinched back as the blade at his throat dug in deeper, pulling away enough to barely break the kiss as he grabbed at her wrist to get some reprieve from the bite of that wicked knife. Her eyes blazed green, a wash of fury and hatred warring with passion and need... His Bonnie, the real Bonnie, was still in there.
And she was fighting the Huntress.
Hope and dread warred with one another in Damon's chest at the realisation: Chances were he was just delaying the inevitable; that no matter what, Bonnie would lose the fight, and the Huntress would burn her from the inside out until there wasn't a shred of her left; that he would die here in this clearing, killed by the shell of the woman he loved. Even if by some miracle she won, her autonomy restored, there was a better than good chance she was doing so motivated by anger - that she would hate him for this. After everything he'd done, he couldn't blame her if she did. But there were only two motivators strong enough to pull her through this, and if he couldn't have her love, he'd take every scrap of venom and fury she had - anything to keep her just a little longer.
So he kissed her hard; took everything she gave and returned it in kind. One hand was still shaking with the strain of keeping her knife from sinking into his flesh, but the other he slid into her hair, nails pressing into her scalp with bruising promise. Her body slid down, her nipples palpable against his skin even with the layers of clothing between them, until her hips were flush with his, even their combined two layers of denim unable to conceal the searing heat of her from where his burgeoning erection stood painfully constricted in his jeans. When his hips bucked up in response, the sound she made was one of pure unadulterated need, and he hissed as the bite of the knife finally receded from his neck, Bonnie's priorities evidently shifted as she used it to slice open his t-shirt, exposing his bare skin to her hands. Damon mirrored her, ripping her own shirt from collar to waist and slipping his hand inside, exploring the newly bared swathe of soft, supple skin. When she shivered, it wasn't from the cold, gooseflesh trailing in the wake of his hands. When his hand slid into her bra and brushed a thumb over her nipple, she gasped into his mouth, her knife falling forgotten to the forest floor.
It was when her hands ceased their rough mapping of his chest and grappled for his belt buckle that an element of reality broke through the cracks of Damon's lustful haze. He wouldn't deny the shock of pure want that blazed through him at the realisation that she planned to ride him right there - that there was a feral and untamed part of him that revelled in her rough handling. But this wasn't just another faceless body to slake his lust on, this was Bonnie, and she deserved better. It didn't matter if it was gritty hate sex with leaves in her hair and dirt on their skin, he would make it good for her if it killed him.
Summoning as much of his strength as he could he threw her backward and off of his lap with no small amount of force. He surged forward before she could spring to her feet, pinning her beneath him as he kissed his way down the exposed skin of her chest (painstakingly avoiding her neck, knowing no matter how good it would feel to run a firm pass of his tongue over it, the Huntress would have no mercy for a vampire at her jugular). She was shaking with what appeared to be restraint - fighting the part of her that wanted to strike while he was vulnerable. He inwardly cursed modern fashion and, for expediency, ripped her skinny jeans from hip to crotch, before making similar short work of her underwear.
The full onslaught of her arousal hit Damon like a mack truck, the scent of aching want dizzying in its sheer intensity. He knew all too well the thrill of a hunt, how good felt to be the apex predator, and more times than he'd admit he found himself hard and leaking in his jeans when he went in for the kill, so this shouldn't be surprising, but damn. He knew she would have less than no patience for teasing or gentle touches, and any space he gave her to collect her thoughts could only hinder Bonnie's fight to reclaim herself, so he dove into her with a fierce passion. Her cry at the first insistent laving pass of his tongue was a desperate keen that could have split the skies. He was bowled over by how wet she was - juicy and sweet as a peach - and he couldn't contain a sharp whine of his own as strong thighs clamped down around his head, fingers twisting into his hair in a vice-like grip. In response, he threw everything he had into making her scream. Lips and tongue and brief flashes of teeth until he had to hold her down to stop her thrashing against his face. While his ferocity went into devouring her and his strength into restraining her, his sole concession to tenderness was stroking his fingers lightly at her side: A wordless way of conveying affection amidst the carnality.
Something in the gesture railed against the Huntress who was still (he realised with a pang of despondency) very much in the driver's seat. Before he got the chance to taste her climax, her strength rallied and she threw him off. He landed harshly on his back, and she was a blur of motion as she climbed on top of him, pulling his torso upright so she could thoroughly and violently kiss the tang of her own arousal off of his tongue. Her fingers once again dove for his belt, but she wouldn't be distracted this time, and she almost tore his zipper getting it open to release his straining cock from its confines, testing the weight of him in her hand with a firm squeeze that would have been painful were he human. Damon almost lost his last thread of self control when she broke from their bruising kiss to cast a look down at his thick and leaking cock jutting between them and actually licked her lips. Her eyes met his for a brief moment - still brimming with a cold harshness that didn't belong there, and anything else he thought he saw could be chalked up to wishful thinking - before lifting her hips and sinking down, taking him to the hilt in one stroke.
He shivered from head to toe. Fuck. She felt like heaven.
Bonnie gave no quarter, riding him hard from the go, and though the position gave him little leverage, Damon gave as good as he got, hips snapping up sharply. For one second, he let himself forget that this wasn’t real, and instinctually he let his lips slip down to her neck, his hand cradling the other side as he mouthed at her pulse point. He felt her still just as he realised his mistake, and half a second later he was slammed hard back into the ground, the point of a stake pressed between his fourth and fifth ribs, halted there in warning by his quick reflexes. He didn’t so much as breathe as she regarded him with a mix of fury and want and something else that was so familiar it made his heart ache. A few seconds later, he released a tense breath as she reclaimed his lips and started to move again, their fingers still twined on the stake hovering over his chest. He savoured every movement of her hips, every half-moon mark left by her fingernails, in case it was the last, brutal touch he would feel from her. If he couldn't have her heart, he'd have her body until it broke.
Time lost all meaning as she sheathed him over and over, revulsion and ecstasy warring in her countenance allthewhile. Damon had no way of knowing if some part of her wanted this the same way he did, and it killed him to think it might just be her body responding. Still, when he ground hard against her on one upstroke and she shuddered with pleasure, he could’ve sworn he felt her – distinctly his Bonnie – he sought confirmation in her eyes, but bit down his disappointment on finding them squeezed shut. It was then he noticed that in her enjoyment of him, her guard had relaxed somewhat, and she had relaxed her grip on the stake at his chest.
Damon took the opportunity of her distraction to take the reins - Huntress Bonnie had been calling the shots too long. Using the momentum of his hips, he flipped them over so Bonnie was underneath him. He couldn't make love to her the way he wanted - even in her current, blissed-out state, that would have been a step too far - so he settled for a rhythm almost equally as punishing as hers, but made sure to punctuate his harsh thrusts with regular grinds of his public bone against her clit. When she didn't immediately buck him off, fingernails instead reaching behind him to claw deep furrows in his back and mewling with pleasure and desperation, he reached a hand to her thigh, pulling one leg up to hook over his hip. With the new angle she took him deeper, and he relished the arch of her back and her stuttered breaths almost as much as the sensation.
When he felt her walls flutter around him, he gritted his teeth, determined to last out for her. While he managed to stave off his release, what he didn’t account for was the prickle of dark veins flushing under his eyes. It was only by sheer force of will that his fangs remained sheathed, but that was shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted – he knew that any reminder that he wasn’t human would break whatever fragile illusion had let her accept his touch. He watched the resentment and fury blister in her eyes, watched as she realised who (and what) was currently buried inside her…
And watched her push past it.
Watched as it washed out of her gaze and she pulled his lips back to hers, moaning harshly into his mouth as her need for him overruled her instinct to plunge the stake hanging limply from her fingers into his heart. The wooden weapon fell forgotten to the floor as she devoted both hands to the task of pulling him deeper, closer, like she would climb inside him if she could. It was hopeless then – he couldn’t have kept the words on his tongue if he’d tried.
“I love you, Bonnie. Come back to me. Please, Bonnie.” It was more than a plea, it was a prayer. “I love you.”
When her body seized under him, she reclaimed his lips, biting down hard enough to draw blood as her climax rolled over her, and the sharp stab of pain catapulted him hard over the edge, spilling inside her with a cry of her name.
Damon was terrified. In the seconds since their mutual release, she hadn’t thrown him off violently or reached for her stake, which he hoped was a good sign, but he was careful not to let himself hope for too much, one hand cradling her face and his thumb gently stroking her cheek as he cautiously opened his eyes. She was shaking like a leaf under him, but the stark emotionless sheen had disappeared from her gaze, replaced with an apprehensive confusion. Damon felt hope, elation.
“Bonnie? Is it – are you…?”
Her confusion turned to blatant horror.
He was pushed from her with a distinctly human strength as she turned and retched, the acrid stench of bile cleansing the smell of sex from the air.
It was clear that the Huntress was gone, but in its wake, Bonnie reeked of fear, bewilderment and uncertainly coalescing into obvious panic and revulsion. Damon could only look on in horror.
What have I done?
The scene around him dawned in a moment of horrific clarity: Torn clothes, obvious signs of struggle, blood and violence... It didn’t take a genius to connect the dots. Bonnie looked up at him – eyes clear and vibrant and so perceptibly her – as she wiped her mouth, dismay and disbelief taking over her face.
“Damon?”
She was bleeding from a cut on her arm, trying to cover herself with the scraps of her clothing, and there were tears welling in her eyes. God, no.
He shook his head, this wasn’t right – it was never supposed to be like this. Guilt and remorse fell upon him with the force of a falling building, and he couldn’t bear another second of her scrutiny.
“I can’t…” He scrambled to his feet, pulling his jeans up in some desperate attempt to shield himself from the hell he had created. His hands ran through his hair, pulling hard at the roots as he shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
With that, he was gone – speed burning through his body as he sought to put as much distance as he could between himself and the wake of his destruction.
---
Bonnie felt like she’d been hit by a truck. Her head was pounding, her mouth was dry, and her body was sore all over. She was laid on something hard and gritty, with something sharp digging in to her thigh, She was also pinned under an almost-reassuring weight that wasn’t contributing to her discomfort, but was doing little to aid her disorientation, and an undeniably-familiar fullness between her legs. Most concerning of all, she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten here (wherever ‘here’ was). Slowly, she let her eyes flutter open.
She took in a harsh breath at the sight of achingly familiar, concerned blue eyes before her. Damon. At once, everything came rushing back: Rayna, a sense of ‘otherness’ overtaking her, and then the hatred, the insatiable need to hunt, the thoughts of hurting those closest to her, of hurting Damon… She knew he would find her, would tear apart the world to get her back. She didn’t remember how she’d ended up here, but she remembered having a knife to Damon’s throat-
“Bonnie? Is it – are you…?”
The Huntress. She had been the Huntress, and she had tried to kill Damon. Had… She took in the stake lying beside her, the torn shreds of Damon’s shirt (no, not torn, cut – cut with her knife), the bloodied blade, Damon’s bloodied torso and face…
Bonnie threw Damon off her just in time as her stomach violently expelled its contents onto the forest floor, the feeling of wrongness compounded by the sudden emptiness inside her. Damon was looking at her with a mix of trepidation and shock.
What have I done?
Tears started to well in her eyes – she didn’t remember. God, had she forced him? The thought of the Huntress taking the thing she had wanted the most in this world and corrupting it like that… Taken the unreturned feelings she had borne for him and twisted them to taint their power over her.
She would rather it had killed her.
She looked over at Damon, and one look at his eyes confirmed her worst fears. Suddenly very aware of her own nakedness, she tried in vain to pull what was left of her clothes over her in a laughable attempt at modesty.
“Damon?” She pleaded, not even knowing what she was pleading for.
He got to his feet, gathering his clothes around himself and shaking his head disbelievingly.
“I can’t…” Please don’t leave me. Not like this. She pleaded silently. “I’m sorry.”
In a burst of vampire speed, she was alone, tears spilling onto the ground as she felt her world fall apart.