A place to organize my exploding Bamon feels! Kayla is my name, Bamon-shipping is my game! This is a Bamon-specific blog (I promise I'll stop reblogging bellarke now hahaha) but you can always check out my main multi-fandom *cough* BELLARKE *cough* blog, bellamyblakesrifle!
I know. It’s been a while. A LONG while. So long, in fact, that I sort of forget how to post fics on here, so this might be messy. But here it is.
(read it on ao3 here)
Chapter 2: Found
She can’t sleep without Damon.
The nightmares worsen, growing darker and more believable each day until Bonnie’s almost convinced that her dreams are reality and her freedom from Kai is something her mind has only made up to preserve the last shred of sanity she has left.
She eventually finds herself back at the boarding house, Miss Cuddles tucked under one arm, a pair of pajamas and all her toiletries in the bag hanging from her other wrist. Damon greets her with that eyebrow thing that he loves to do, and she can practically feel the wise cracks forming in his head, but he doesn’t say anything – just steps away from the entrance to give her space to come inside.
“Thank you.” She mumbles softly, the words wooden and tasteless in her mouth. It comes to her as a quiet afterthought that these are the only words she’s spoken today.
He lifts one shoulder in a lazy half-shrug, pushing the wooden door shut behind him.
She takes one of the guest rooms, the one she’d sort of inhabited during their time together on The Other Side. Stefan doesn’t ask any questions, only stops in to remind her that if she needs anything, anything at all, she shouldn’t be afraid to ask.
This has somehow become a place where she feels protected, safer than even her own home. And still, every time she closes her eyes, a world of terror is waiting to greet her.
The third night, instead of holding her while she sobs, waiting for her to cry herself back to sleep, Damon offers her his hand.
“Let’s go,” he says softly, his face hidden in the darkness, impossible to read. His hand hovers in front of her, palm up, waiting.
She doesn’t really have much left to lose, does she?
Taking his hand, Bonnie lets him pull her out of bed.
***
“You know,” Damon begins, facing away from her, head craned back to look up at the night sky. “I’m not exactly a stranger to torture.”
She’s not as flinchy as she’d been only a few days ago, but she can still feel the panic flaring up at just the mention of that word.
Torture.
Something about saying it reminds her of the act itself; the way it twists around in her mouth, contorts to make the right sound.
“And I know you’ve decided to take some kind of lame-o vow of silence,” Damon continues, evidently unaware of her internal struggle, “which would, normally, make me unbelievably happy. But it’s kinda conflicting with the whole ‘I’m fine’ thing you had going earlier.”
He’s trying to rile her up, she knows this. She can hear it in his voice, the false bravado, the ‘could care less’ attitude he’s spent so many years trying – and failing – to perfect. But more than that, she can see it. It’s in the way he holds himself, leaning toward her even when he’s looking away, like he’s afraid she might collapse at any moment. It’s in the way he looks at her – and the way he doesn’t look at her. He thinks he can push her to some kind of breakthrough, but he’s afraid he might push her too far.
She wonders if reading Damon has always been this easy, or if it’s something she’s picked up over the last few months.
“I don’t want to talk about torture.” Bonnie says, finally, the word tasting like hot lava in her mouth. “I don’t want to talk about anything.”
If he’s surprised by her response, he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t even turn around; just keeps walking, hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, perfectly at ease with the world.
“I can do all the talking. I happen to have a lovely voice.” It’s funny, though, that in some odd way he’s right. Hearing Damon’s voice again, Damon, of all people, makes her feel just a tiny bit safer. He reminds her of home, somehow. Maybe because, on the Other Side, he was her home, and that feeling hasn’t quite faded away yet.
But the panic, the fear, the pain – none of that has faded, either. It’s just there, in her head, in her chest, this feeling of helplessness that she can’t find an escape from.
They walk through the forest quietly for a few moments, the soft crunch of dirt and leaves under their feet filling the silence. She still doesn’t know where they’re going. She doesn’t really care.
“Do you know what I hate?” Damon asks, pushing open an old rod-iron fence with one hand and beckoning her through with the other, and then she realizes where they are, and there’s a tightness in her chest that makes it hard to breathe. “I hate when people try to make decisions for me. Drives me insane. Even more insane than normal – I know, hard to believe right?”
He glances at her, smug smile in place, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Even in the darkness, that icy blue stare is impossible to miss.
“Why are we here?” She asks, her voice cracking. She swallows thickly, trying to push down the lump that’s forming in her throat. “I don’t want to be here, Damon.”
She doesn’t want to think about these things. The nightmares are bad enough – being here now will only make things worse.
“Bonnie,” he says softly, watching her with those piercing eyes, careful and hesitant and all of the things she doesn’t expect him to be, “Kai can’t hurt you anymore.”
Just his name is enough to make her stomach heave, her mouth run dry.
“I know I wasn’t there to protect you, and I can’t ever apologize enough for that. But I want you to know that I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Her head is spinning, and it’s taking all of her energy to remind herself to breathe, just breathe. He’s still watching her, making no move to close the distance between them. She focuses on his eyes, bright blue gems glinting in the darkness, full of certainty and the promise of safety and warmth, and suddenly the world isn’t spinning anymore.
“So many bad things happened here,” she whispers into the silence, her eyes still fixed to his. “I can’t be here, Damon. Please.”
He takes a small step forward, then another, until he’s close enough that she can smell him, not just that ridiculous but somehow irresistible cologne, but him. It makes her feel safe, that smell, safe and warm and protected, even here in this place where she’s really none of those things. One of his cool hands slips into hers, tugging, first lightly then more insistently when she doesn’t move.
“Come on,” he mutters, half pulling, half dragging her through the darkness, her stubborn feet dragging miserably behind them. She stumbles and trips a few times, but he never lets her fall. Their hands stay firmly clasped. After what feels like an eternity, they stop, and she takes a hesitant peak around. The mausoleum is a familiar one, as are the headstones littering the area.
Damon pulls her so that she’s standing right next to him, their shoulders brushing. His hand still clutches hers. “Look,” he says, pointing with his free hand, “that’s where I found Miss Cuddles.”
She knows what he’s trying to do, but it’s not going to work. Nothing is going to work.
“Damon –“
“Do you know,” he continues, ignoring her attempted interruption, “I thought about giving up on you. I thought maybe you were dead, that there was no way to bring you back.” He gestures behind them now, the hand clutching hers tightening almost painfully. “I sat on that fucking rock, with a bottle of whatever alcoholic beverage seemed appropriate, and said goodbye to you.” He laughs then, a twisted, broken sound, his face turned away from her. “And then, there she was. That stupid stuffed bear. And just like that, I knew, I knew what a coward I had been. You were fighting or every breath, struggling to come back to us, and I was ready to just fucking let you go.”
Her fingers are starting to go numb, but she doesn’t say anything. She’s seen many different sides to Damon, but this… This is different. She doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do for this Damon.
“Don’t you get it yet?” His voice is low, a rough whisper, and when he turns to face her Bonnie’s shocked to see tears in his eyes. “You never gave up. Not on me, not on any of our friends, not on yourself.” He lets go of her hand, blessedly, the blood stinging her fingers as it rushes through them. His hands instead go to her shoulders, squeezing gently. “So I don’t care how long it takes, or what I have to do. I’m not giving up on you, Bonnie. Not this time. Not ever again.”
They stare at each other, his hands resting firmly on her shoulders, his face damp with tears. His eyes burn into hers, so bright and so blue it makes her heart ache. He’s so full of hope, she thinks, and it hurts to look at him. It hurts to know that hope is so tragically misplaced.
She closes her eyes, shutting him out, shutting it all out.
“I’m broken.” She whispers, her throat raw, the ache in her chest growing with every word. “I’m broken, Damon, and you can’t fix me.”
“So what?”
It’s a response she isn’t expecting. She opens her eyes again, staring at his defiant, incredulous expression.
“We’re all a little cracked, in case you haven’t noticed.” His hands leave her shoulders slowly, skirting softly up her neck until they’re cradling her face. He brushes her cheek lightly with his thumb, his other hand moving to gently brush her hair out of her face. “I’m not trying to fix you, or make you perfect.”
His hand continues to caress her face, soothing circles drawn gently into her skin, the only thing that’s holding her together.
“The things you’ve been through… I can’t even imagine the pain you’ve felt. But you survived them, Bonnie. You’re a fighter. A survivor. Yeah, you came back with some battle scars, some serious fucking issues. But you came back.” Damon closed the little distance left between them, pressing his forehead against hers, his breath blowing against her face in short gasps. “Don’t give up now, not on yourself.”
“I don’t know what to do.” Bonnie says, tears silently streaming down her face, the ache in her chest threatening to burst. “I don’t know how to make this pain go away.” She slaps a hand to her chest, clawing at her shirt, desperate to get it out of her. “I can’t make it stop,” She gasps, and then she’s sobbing again, deep, shaking wails that render her completely useless. Damon pulls her into him, cradling her gently to the ground, letting her scream and cry and until there’s no air left in her lungs, and she pauses to suck in great bouts of air and starts the process all over again.
She feels it pouring out of her, the grief, the pain, the rage. The tightness in her chest bursts, and it’s like a never ending fountain of emotion streaming out of her, and he bears it all.
“It’s okay,” She hears him murmuring softly, one arm rubbing soothing circles into her back as she sobs, “it’s okay. You’re okay.” It only makes her cry harder.
She cries for her Grams.
She cries for her Dad.
She cries for Caroline and Elena, who never asked to be what they are, but managed to embrace what life had chosen to give them.
She cries for Stefan, for his endless crusade to be good.
She cries for Damon.
She cries for herself.
She cries for her lost innocence, for the life she could have had.
She cries for the sacrifices she’s had to make.
She cries for all the times she was beaten and broken and defeated.
She cries for every time she got back up again.
She cries, for a long, long time.
When she’s done, when there are no more tears left inside her to shed, when the pain in her chest dims to a low, dull ache, she looks up at Damon, whose arms have kept her warm and safe and sheltered. She looks up at him, and for the first time in a long time, she smiles.
Not perfect, she thinks, or fixed or beautiful. Just something whole.
Alrighty, as some of you know (because I have been angry-ranting about it on twitter since I first saw the posts last night) a bunch of my poems have been reposted by the blog @littlemusingthings. This one, this one, this one, THIS ONE (these last two are different versions of the first one. Nice, right?)….I got tired of scrolling through their stuff, to be honest. Please, I’m asking that you guys do me three really big favours:
1. if you reblogged the stolen version, PLEASE delete it and reblog the original, which can be found here, or in my poetry tag.
2. if you or someone you know posts poetry on tumblr, have a look to see if your/their work has also been stolen. If it has, report it immediately!
3. PLEASE spread the word! More people have reblogged the repost since I found it last night, and it’s really disheartening to see someone else getting credit for my work.
I’ve reported my stolen work and commented on the post to have it removed (the OP has ask disabled, SHOCKER!) but so far there doesn’t seem to be a way to have the actual blog deactivated. It’s my hope that if enough people are reporting the blog for their stolen work, tumblr will have to deactivate it (although I really don’t know, unfortunately, if this is something they will do.)
Thanks everyone for your support!!! And remember, DO NOT REPOST SOMEONE ELSE’S WORK!
