Who: Bonnie and Damon What: Talking When: Bendy times Where: The prison Warnings: Nope
Bonnie didn’t even know what to say or what to do. Elena was gone and from what Care had told her, it would be hard to get her back. Klaus had tried to turn her humanity back on, which was something that Bonnie didn’t necessarily agree with but it was the only option they had at the time. Either way, it didn’t work and now they were left grasping for straws when it came to Elena. Was it best to just let her do what she wanted? She just didn’t think Elena would want that. Not that Bonnie wanted to take away her free will, but this was all started because Damon told her to turn it off. The sirebond they shared was strong and Elena listened. She turned it off. And now what? They were just supposed to do nothing? It just didn’t seem right.
With everything going on, she was finding comfort in the fact that she was needed. By Veronica. They met nearly every single night and they practiced magic in one of the empty cellblocks. After the initial first few days of her learning, things were shaky but now that Veronica had been practicing, she had gotten better. There was nothing like seeing her face when she did her first spell. Bonnie knew what that felt like. To know that her efforts weren’t for nothing. It wouldn’t be long until Veronica felt comfortable enough to protect her friends like she wanted to.
But helping Veronica still didn’t fill the void of what she felt when it came to her friends. There was just a dark cloud an she supposed there would always be. It was just how they are. Love and loss, death, all of it. That’s what they were and being here, in a zombie filled world wasn’t going to help to change that.
Talking to Damon wasn’t as difficult anymore. Where Bonnie once hated him, she now respected him and she did care about him. Time in the prison world, stuck together would do that and the fact that this was happening with Elena again was one thing, but things were so much more worse than before. He had already spiraled, how could she forget that he actually turned someone? She was afraid that she and the rest of their friends were going to lose him completely. When she went to find him in his cell, he wasn’t there. She wasn’t necessarily surprised. He and Stefan had gone out of town, but they were back now and now that he knew (or she thought he did) that Elena did turn her humanity back on only to shut it back off, it was probably right that Damon was out there being the worst version of himself.
Instead of sticking around and waiting for him, Bonnie walked back to her cell but she changed her mind and instead went outside. It was dark out, it was a little cooler, but not by much. She stood out there for a few minutes and when she turned around and looked up at the building, she saw him. It was like he was looking out into space and she took a breath, not getting his attention then, but when she was on the roof beside him and sitting down over the ledge of it. She didn’t say anything, she just looked out. Everything was crappy at the moment and if he didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t have to. She just wanted to be there for him.
He knew what Stefan had been trying to do by taking him away from the prison. It wasn’t exactly the brotherly bonding session he was looking for considering how the zombies infested everywhere and everything. Still, it was nice to get away, to go somewhere and not have to think about it. It all came back though when they returned and Damon was smacked in the face with reality. He was once again reliving a world where Elena was without her humanity. The two of them were no longer together and it ate at him the way he knew it would after losing her. Damon’s love for Elena was one of the realest things he had ever known and it was gone. All of it was just gone.
Damon didn’t know how to face it. He thought that he could just move on from it but he knew that his personality didn’t allow that to happen so easily. He was the same way with Katherine. Damon’s love for her stayed with him for over a century and he had killed and manipulated everyone in order to get that small, small piece of mind that maybe Katherine loved him.
Long story short? She didn’t. Katherine didn’t. Now Elena didn’t.
The funny thing was that he couldn’t even blame his brother this time around. Stefan was the one who was trying his best to keep Damon from jumping off the cliff. He wanted to, of course. Damon wanted to dive into the unknown and turn off his humanity, too. He wanted to kill everything in sight and revel in it.
But what would that prove? Damon knew it wouldn’t make him feel better. He knew what would happen if he went on his way and his humanity was given back to him. The pain would be worse and Damon knew that death was probably the only solution.
Venturing outside only made things worse. Damon caught Bonnie’s scent the moment that she stepped outside. A part of him wanted to tell her to go back in, to leave him alone because Bonnie was only a reminder of everything he was feeling.
When Bonnie sat down next to Damon, she wasn’t surprised that he didn’t say anything. Comfortable silence it was. But she knew it was going to bother her. They were both going through so much, being here just being one of them but Damon was dealing with the fallout of Elena, someone who he wanted nothing more than to go home to. To see again. He wanted that love again and now the prison world had taken him here when Bonnie was supposed to take him home. This was far from it. Nothing was the same.
Bonnie knew what she was doing when she was sending Damon home. It meant that she would be left behind with Kai. She didn’t know what would happen, but she figured it wasn’t anything good. She used whatever chance for her own happiness, sacrificing it yet again for someone else and that someone had been Damon. What was the point of it all? She felt like she failed him, but more importantly, failed herself. The hope she once had was just gone.
Jeremy was here and she knew how she left things. But at least she knew where she stood with him now. She knew where she stood with Elena and surprisingly, Katherine was the doppelganger of Bonnie’s choice right now but that was because with Katherine, she knew what to expect. Plus, at this moment, Katherine needed her. And Bonnie was receiving blood for those services for her friends. So right now, the relationship was needed.
Everything else, Bonnie was just trying to survive, like everyone else.
“You’re going to make me do all the talking, aren’t you?” She said then, looking at him. Just like Damon might have needed someone, so did Bonnie. She needed her friend.
“You just have to remember this isn’t real. Just like we were brought here, we’ll leave again. Hopefully it’ll be Mystic Falls.” She looked at him. “And things will be back to normal. Or normal for us.” Meaning, he’d have Elena back, Bonnie will have both of her friends. Katherine would be gone and Jeremy would be there.
“Isn’t that what you did when we were stuck together?” Damon asked, his eyes flickering over to the witch for a moment before huffing. He remembered very clearly how the two of them often fought, the latter often ignoring Damon to the point where she would leave him, deciding it was probably better that they stayed away from each other. Of course Bonnie came back to him every single time and Damon let her. He knew that he couldn’t live in a place where he felt so alone.
He was surprised to feel that here, to be in a world surrounded by friends and his brother and yet it still felt like a piece of him was missing. He knew that piece was Elena. Damon’s love for her was spiraling and he didn’t know how to turn away from it. There was a part of him that wanted to go find her, to beg her to come back but at the same time he knew it wasn’t possible. Elena was too far gone and she didn’t want to be that girl who felt what she was supposed to be feeling.
Damon thought about turning it off but he knew what that would do to Stefan and how desperate his brother would be to “fix” him. It was one of the reasons, Damon felt that maybe somewhere Bonnie would do everything she could to make sure that Damon somehow felt everything he was supposed to be feeling, too.
They had gotten close during that time in the prison world and Damon savored as much as he could. He cared for her in a way he never thought possible because the two had hated one another. Damon wanted to kill Bonnie on multiple occasions and the witch had wanted the same, their fights and hatred endless.
“It’s real,” he said, speaking softly as his gaze lowered, his thoughts drifting back to Elena. “I thought that when I got out of that damn prison world I would be able to go back to her. I thought for sure that everything would be alright. I didn’t think I would change one prison for another.”
Bonnie took a breath at just how vulnerable he sounded. As much as she used to hate Damon, now - things were so different. Sometimes she couldn’t believe it herself. And maybe that was Bonnie’s problem. She didn’t think this place was real. She thought that maybe, just maybe the rules didn’t apply. There was no rhyme or reason as to why anyone was here or why they were all from different times and circumstances. Before, there was an obvious explanation when she and Damon were stuck in the prison world, but this - no. There was nothing.
“You know what? I can’t even argue that anymore. Or argue this. It sucks. This place,” she said her head slowly shaking back and forth as if she was trying to rationalize anything else. “And I’m sorry you lost Elena. I’m sorry because I know that is the main person beside your brother that you wanted to go home too and I sent you here instead,” she felt her eyes get wet but she was more angry with herself more than anything. She knew that it wasn’t her fault. She knew that she didn’t do this, how could she have? She didn’t send all of these people here.
Bonnie was a powerful witch, but that was a little beyond her means.
“I hate how time is just so different.” She began to laugh, but she was nowhere near happy. She was more sad than anything. “I broke up with Jeremy by voicemail before the Other Side fell and he’s here and all I want is …” She trailed off there and looked at Damon before looking ahead. It was obvious that Jeremy was from a different time. That somewhere in the future, they didn’t matter anymore to him and she wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
No matter how she looked at it, it hurt. But it was something she had to move on from. She realized what she was doing when she left that message and now she had to stand by it. And let him go.
Damon remembered how he used to be so selfish. Back then when he first arrived to Mystic Falls he had been so hellbent on helping Katherine get out of the church, thinking that she was still trapped there. When Damon found out about Elena he was so confused. He thought that Katherine was just playing some kind of game but he realized quickly that Elena was human and that she somehow existed. He didn’t get it at first. Damon couldn’t wrap his head around why Elena and Katherine looked the same.
None of it seemed to matter. Katherine didn’t want him and Elena didn’t want him either. It wasn’t until later that the two got close but that was at the disappearance of Stefan and then it all changed when Elena died and was turned into a vampire. Her feelings were magnified, not just her feelings for Stefan but the feelings that she had for Damon, too.
Maybe it was it a blessing in disguise. Damon didn’t know how to feel about it but in the end he won. He got the girl. Elena picked him over his brother and for a moment he was happy. He was in love and he never wanted to let go of that feeling.
But Damon had to. Everett wasn’t Mystic Falls and the Elena here seemed lost to him. Damon wanted to turn it off and run free from the world but he had obligations and Damon knew that Stefan would never let him go there again.
“He’s here at least,” he said, reminding Bonnie that it wasn’t too late. “If you want him he’s here. I’m sure he feels like things didn’t end the way you wanted them to. Maybe he’ll understand.”
Bonnie was sure that Jeremy would have said something by now, but he hadn’t. Which only told her that he was from a place where they were good. Where things were settled and they were moving on. She really hated the fact that the time was different for everyone but at least he was happy. Which was more than she could say for her friends. She knew that Damon was miserable, Elena was too, despite the switch and then there was Caroline. None of them were really doing well right now, but that was also to be expected. The bad times usually came and they kept rolling.
“I don’t know, Damon. I think things are better this way. He seems okay, you know? And as much as I might miss him, I think it’s because it’s comfortable. And safe.” She looked over at him. It would have been easy to try and work things out with Jeremy but Bonnie wasn’t someone who could just do easy. She wanted a challenge. But what she wanted was the least on her list. Right now, Bonnie had other things to worry about than a guy.
“Or maybe I’m just crazy,” she shrugged and looked ahead. She bit her lip as she moved, shifting a little and leaned back on her hands.
“I can try, if you want. I can try to flip her switch,” Bonnie said, determined. She felt like she could do it although Klaus failed. “You can be there, when it happens, you’ll be there to comfort her. To tell her that it’s okay.” She eyed him. “If that’s what you want. I’ll do whatever I can to get her to flip it back on.” Magically, which meant it would hurt, but at least she’d be Elena again. And at least Damon would be there this time. She knew that Klaus and Caroline tried and failed, but maybe Bonnie and Damon could get the job done.
“No, I don’t want you to do that.” Damon heard that Caroline was going to try that with Klaus. It was funny that Damon hadn’t heard about the outcome yet. Did Klaus succeed? Damon had high doubts. If Elena was back then she would have came to them. Elena would have jumped into Damon’s arms and the two of them would have reconciled. Damon thought that he could forgive her. He knew that he could push it all aside and welcome Elena but she was still gone and Damon didn’t know how to handle that. He wasn’t sure how to go on with the not knowing.
“She’ll come back when she wants to. If she ever wants to.” And Damon knew that he had to let her make that choice. He was a vampire and so was she. Maybe in a hundred years things would be different but he couldn’t count on time. He couldn’t depend on the what ifs anymore. Everett was his life and he had to accept it all of its flaws.
“For now we should probably focus on how we’re going to survive this place.” Damon wasn’t sure if he would. He had done a real terrible thing and people were going to hang him up on a cross for his sins. While he didn’t break any of the prison rules what he did was still selfish. He was still a monster in the eyes of some people and they were right. Damon was a bad person.
“You want to make a promise?” Damon asked suddenly, thinking about his future and the future of the people he still cared for. While it wasn’t many it was still something and he wanted to make sure that they were all safe. “If something happens to me you have to promise that you’ll look after Stefan for me.”
Bonnie would have tried anything to get Elena to turn her humanity back on. She might even try although Damon was telling her not to. Which was sad. That Damon didn’t even want to try anymore but she could tell how hurt he was by the whole situation. Bonnie was worried for Elena, for her well being. She wondered what she was doing, who she was doing it with. It was just so completely out there that Elena was mingling with Kol Mikaelson of all people.
“I think the only way we survive is by sticking together,” she offered. That was all they could do. Their group from Mystic Falls was getting bigger everyday. If they stuck together they could face this because frankly, they’ve been through worse than zombies. It was actually everything else besides the zombies that was getting to Bonnie. They were just a distraction.
“Don’t -” she said and looked at him. “Don’t talk like something is going to happen to you. Nothing is going to happen to you.” She had already lost Elena, she wasn’t going to lose Caroline too. And she definitely didn’t want to lose Damon by him sacrificing himself because of Elena.
“So, no. I’m not making that promise. Because you’re not going anywhere.” She couldn’t do this without him. At that thought, she frowned, but she didn’t harp on it. Of course she would make sure that Stefan was okay if something should happen, but nothing would happen because Damon would be fine. She had to believe that. Whether ‘something happening to him’ was self inflicted or if it were something else. She refused to lose him.
“Listen,” Damon said, starting anyway because he needed to say this. He made sure he hushed Bonnie, his hands grabbing hold of her shoulders to, for one, keep her steady and to make her relax a bit. He wasn’t going to take up her entire night but he also needed to get his words out now that he had them. It was the only way he was going to be able to end this night as a stable man without having regrets. Damon didn’t want to leave anything unsaid.
“If something happens to me you have to promise me that you’ll look after Stefan.” The only thing that mattered to him was his little brother. Stefan who he had screwed over again by falling in love with the girl of his dreams. Damon couldn’t rectify that. He couldn’t change how he felt about Elena and he knew that he had broken his trust more than a dozen times over their century of being siblings. Somehow none of that seemed to matter.
“He’s stubborn and he can be reckless. He’s a saint and he follows his heart and that’s going to get him into some dramatic shit so I need someone with a level noggin’ to keep him from jumping head first into something. Like, for example, saving me from myself.” Because Damon knew that eventually he was going to do something that he couldn’t come back from. Stefan couldn’t always save him and his friends couldn’t always look after him.
“Just, promise me, okay?” Damon wasn’t going to take another answer from this bitchy witchy. He knew that Bonnie was powerful. She was strong and Damon admired that now. He knew after being trapped with her for six months that there was more to Bon Bon than just her magic. She was someone he cared about and she was the only one he could reply on.
Bonnie didn’t know what to say. For once. Normally, she had something right there at the tip of her tongue but right now, she just felt defeated. This whole place had taken a chunk out of each and every one of them and cut them down to size of who they really were. This place wasn’t supposed to affect them like this but it was. It was breaking them. One by one. She swallowed, feeling the pressure from Damon’s fingers pressing against her skin as he made her promise.
She nodded because what else could she say? “I promise.”
But that didn’t mean that Bonnie would just let something happen to Damon. Over the last six months, they had grown closer and they had a connection. An understanding. Something she never thought she’d have with Damon Salvatore, but there it was. Just because she was promising this, agreeing to whatever he thought he had to do or prove or just have an understanding of what could happen didn’t mean it would. Because no matter what Bonnie would protect him and he knew that Stefan wasn’t going to let anything just happen to him.
“But nothing is going to happen to you. So don’t go looking for trouble.” She looked at him. “Promise me that. If you can promise me you’re not going to act out or look for trouble or look for someone else to pull the trigger, then I promise you, I will look after your brother.” But she couldn’t lose him. And she knew that Elena would be back. Someday and she would be devastated if anything happened to him.
Damon opened his mouth to reply but he knew that he couldn’t. Damon’s lips thinned and he could tell that Bonnie wasn’t going to buy some half assed promise. Out of everyone who saw through his bullshit it was the witch who did it the best. Damon couldn’t lie to her. They had spent days and nights with each other, they each knew things about one another that they never did before being sent to the prison world.
“I promise.” Damon said it genuinely, his head nodding but he knew that somewhere down the line he wasn’t going to be able to keep it. Damon had done too much damage already. There was some slayer he turned and her friends would eventually connect all the dots they needed to. Damon was going to have to meet some type of judgement for what he did. Bonnie couldn’t protect him from that.
Moving away, Damon knew that right now he would welcome the night. Maybe a good feed was all he needed to get his mind back to where it needed to be. The prison wouldn’t live through a Damon Salvatore who didn’t give a shit about whether or not he needed to have his humanity. Every day he felt like he could do it but there were a few things that were keeping him from doing that.
Looking back at Bonnie, Damon offered her a smirk before he disappeared, speeding into the woods without another glance.