A/N: Chapter 3 is finally here! Thank you all for your patience. This is another long one. Thank you so so so so much to everyone who reviewed/commented. And sorry in advance for all the angst in this one. Enjoy! :) XOXO- Ailey

Home With You

Chapter 3

Chapter Rating: M

#

Bonnie wakes up on top of Damon. Again.

Well, I guess this is how it's going to be from now on.

For once she's awake before him, but his arms are tightly wrapped around her,effectively preventing her from going anywhere — and she can't lie, it's nice — so she rests her chin on his bare chest and watches him while he sleeps.

Does the bastard ever wear a shirt?

It's really unfair how beautiful he is; perfectly sculpted face and all. Dark eyelashes and pink, pursed lips. The slightest rosy tint to his cheeks.

He looks so relaxed and peaceful in his slumber and her heart clenches when she realizes she rarely gets to see him like this. Rarely sees him without the furrowed brows, the stiff smirk and clenched jaw, the wide-eyed shadow of pain that never seems to leave his blue eyes.

Though she has noticed that he has been happier these past few days. Lighter. More generous. It looks good on him.

It's too early for savior-esque intrusive thoughts, but her mind produces one anyway, one that calls to him and wants to hold his suffering for him, to take away his pain of being unloved and rejected eternally.

She almost slaps herself in that moment. Stop it Bonnie. This is Damon Salvatore we're talking about.

"Morning Bon Bon," the vampire suddenly mumbles, eyes still shut. "You enjoying the show?"

Of course.

She has to giggle. "How do you always know when I'm awake?"

He releases his grip on her and stretches his hands over his head, groan-yawning before fluttering his lids open and smiling lazily at her.

"Your breathing patterns and heart beat. Dead give away."

"That's creepy."

"Says the woman straddling the creep in his bed, without asking for consent I might add."

She rolls her eyes and rolls off him in one movement so that they're lying side by side. "Shut up, perv."

He chuckles before growing serious, head tilted to the side so he can eye her. "You okay?"

His probing look makes her stomach twist. "Yeah, why?"

"Your heart beat went on a little journey back there. That's what woke me up."

She reddens. "See, this is what I mean. Invasion of privacy. Creepy."

He says nothing, just tilts his head a little further and continues watching her. A strange curiosity in his gaze.

She hates how it flusters her, the heat of those ungodly blue eyes, and she snaps quickly under the pressure. "What is it?"

"Nothing."

"Why do you keep looking at me like that?"

He says nothing again, his gaze intensifying, as the panic rises in her throat and she fights the urge to shove him.

Of all the times this man never shuts the hell up, he chooses now to play the silent game?

"Helloooo! Earth to Damon!"

"You really don't remember?"

"Remember what?"

"Last night."

Her throat goes dry. She racks her brains for what he could possibly be referring to.

"Last night? You mean when my magic—"

"No," he cuts her off. "I'm talking about what went down at four a.m. when you woke up and climbed on top of me."

What. In. The. Fuck.

The statement itself is loaded with innuendo, especially the way he says it, voice dripping with insinuation, and she immediately thinks about the smolder of his gaze and his comment on consent and fears the worst.

Calm down Bonnie, there is no way in hell that you molested Damon Salvatore in your sleep.

She sits up fully in the bed now and turns to him, heart pounding in her chest. "What the fuck are you talking about? I have zero memory of this."

He smirks suddenly, that mischief back, and irritation floods her veins.

"Language, Bon Bon. I was joking when I said you have Alzheimers but we might have to take a little trip to the old folks home. They do say dementia can cause potty mouths so you'll fit right in."

She punches his arm on reflex and has to hold herself back from flinching and grabbing her knuckles because she forgot that he's apparently made of steel.

"Damon, you're freaking me out. You have to tell me what happened."

"I want to tell you, but I don't know how dream Bonnie would feel about it if I betrayed her secrets."

Her jaw locks with a disturbing click. The asshole is messing with her, and it's working, because she can feel her blood pressure rising.

"Dream Bonnie? Have you lost your goddamn mind?"

"Hey now," he drawls, "I liked her. She was a lot nicer than real Bonnie."

"I'm nice to you, asshole."

The look he gives her forces her to backtrack. "Okay, okay, I walked right into that one—"

"I'm just messing with you, Bon Bon. You didn't do anything too incriminating." When her eyes widen and her brow furrows, he sighs. "You weren't making much sense. It was mostly just sleep talk. Typical judgey witch behavior."

Huh. "What did I say?"

"You know, your usual Bennett eccentricities. You just kept saying that this was a dream and that… you could do whatever you wanted."

Do whatever I want? And what is that exactly?

She shifts uncomfortably. "Well, did I… do anything?"

"Not really," he shrugs. "I kept fighting with you the whole time trying to get you to realize it was a dream. But apparently a sleeping witch is just as stubborn as the awake one."

She lets out a huge sigh of relief, and rests her face in her hands for a moment. When she looks back up, the vampire has a strange look on his face. It almost looks like remorse but that wouldn't make much sense, although she can't help but feel that he's hiding something.

"Did I say anything.. else?"

Damon shakes his head before the most devilish smirk spreads across his face.

"Well, there is one thing you said."

Uh oh.

She barrels through all the possible worst case scenarios: anything along the lines of declarations of attraction or desire, and she's moving to Antartica to become an eskimo nun.

Not that she should be worried anyways, because she isn't attracted to Damon Salvatore, right?

Dream Bonnie, you better be on page with the rest of us, girl.

"What is it? What did I say?"

"I don't want to upset you." His pout is one of mock-concern, but there's nothing but that mischief in his eyes and it sends shivers down her spine.

"Tell me or I will aneurysm you!"

"Um, excuse me, but I do not negotiate with terrorists. Or impolite witches."

She hits him again, this time slapping his chest.

"Whoa, calm down, domestic violence-y! I'll tell you, just promise me you won't get upset."

"Damon!" she whines, about to give up and beg, "you're scaring me!"

"Okay, okay. You said that…"

He pauses for dramatic effect, and she freezes in spite of herself, breath hitching—

"You said that I… have…. amazing arms."

She blinks in disbelief, mouth hanging open, and when he starts to cackle, she groans and almost gives him an aneurysm.

"Are you kidding me? You asshole, you nearly gave me a heart attack!" She slaps wildly at his arm, which she immediately realizes is a mistake because he doesn't miss a beat.

"Ooh, you just can't get enough of my arms can you, Bon Bon. Just can't keep your hands off them."

"Ugh, I hate you!" she huffs and pushes him again, dragging her body out of the bed and stomping towards the bathroom.

"No need to be violent, you can caress them any time you like," he calls to her in a godforsaken sing-song voice.

"God! Is there anything more humiliating?" She groans to herself, to god, to the damn universe, but definitely not to him.

Damon answers anyway, shouting across the bedroom so she can hear him. "Nothing humiliating about having eyes, Bon Bon. I think most people with eyes would agree with your astute assessment that only dream you had the courage to admit."

"Shut the fuck up."

"No take backs little bird. Now I know how you really feel."

#

Damon makes them vampcakes for breakfast, with Bonnie watching him, again.

He can tell she's annoyed today, a little hot and jumpy, probably because of the way he teased her this morning.

He tries not to grin thinking about it.

Really she should be thanking him for sparing her the details about the extent of dream Bonnie's touchy and flirtatious sensibilities. He chose not to mention the chest and neck caresses and that tender cheek kiss at the end, mainly because he doesn't want to jeopardize their overly cuddly relationship, and also because well, if she looks grossed out and horrified, he knows how much that will hurt.

He also left out the part about Kai for other selfish reasons; he doesn't want to see that pain in her eyes, and also because she doesn't need to know for now. Not until he has Kai right where he wants him — tortured for a solid week or two in his basement and then utterly dead.

Speaking of which, after he places the pancakes on the table, he whips out his phone to send a text to Alaric.

Your girlfriend seen her psycho twin bro by any chance?

It's super casual, the text, he knows, but Alaric is notoriously cagey. And he has to play his cards right; he doesn't want Kai to elude his grasp and if the little shit gets even a whiff that he's after him, the whole plan will be fucked.

Not that he has a plan really, it just goes like this: kidnap, torture, kill.

Bonnie eyes him as he types away on his phone, pancake in mouth. This time she chews noticeably slower, no doubt because of last night's stomach ache situation.

"Who are you texting?"

So. Nosy.

"Stefan," he lies too easily, but he says nothing else and she somehow seems even more irritated.

She abruptly clangs her fork down against the plate. "Are we just going to sit around the boarding house all day?" Hostility rolling through her words.

He pushes away the thought of how smoking hot she is when she's annoyed, because there is no way that will end up any way but badly for both of them.

He covers up his amusement? arousal? with a smirk. "Jeez louweez judgey, it's not like we have to. But since you're in hiding, I don't think the Mystic Grill is our best bet."

"No, no," she says quickly, but he doesn't miss the flinch. "Ugh, I don't know. I want to be outside. Somewhere private though."

And just like that he knows where to take her. He jumps up and claps.

"Get dressed."

"Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise." He leans forward and musses up her hair playfully with his hand, causing her to thrash away from him violently and swat at him.

"Damon!"

"Just trust me Bon, okay? Get dressed. Wear walking shoes. And something warm."

Half an hour later Damon leads them into the forest behind the boarding house.

He decides to wear a tank top despite colder than average temperatures, much to — he hopes and prays — Bonnie's chagrin. And sure enough, his chest roars with pride when she meets him downstairs and her eyes widen as they linger on his arms for just a second too long, right before she flushes and rolls her eyes.

As they step outside the boarding house he asks, "see something you like, witchy?"

He really can't help himself.

"Really, Damon?"

"What, I'm just giving the people what she wants."

"I'll slap that smirk right off your face, Salvatore."

A gentle breeze envelops them as they head towards the forest, and he gets a whiff of her scent, cinnamon honey and fire and roses and power, and it's delicious.

Fuck. "Is that a promise?"

Yeah he's smelled her tantalizing aroma before, in 1994 and even before that, but she's always been so closed off to him that he never let himself entertain the idea. Now however, now she's so vibrant, even though she's in pain, she's open and alive and always touching him, and in a strange way it feels like he's seeing her for the first time.

Damon, stop.

He makes a mental note that he needs to get laid asap, because it's been way too long, and if he's going to be spending every waking second with a hot young magical thing who smells like pure sex, he needs a contingency plan.

The witch is saying something.

"What?"

"I said, are you going to tell me where we're going?"

"Nope."

She grunts and then juts her chin out towards his backpack, slung over his right shoulder. "What's in the bag?"

"Part of the surprise, nosy."

Once they're among the trees Bonnie stops badgering him to reveal the destination. They start a trek, up and down hills, with Damon trailing a few steps ahead. They hike mostly in silence, but from the deafening sounds of her breathing, Damon can guess that Bonnie's more than a little winded and getting more exhausted by the minute.

He wonders if he should offer to carry her part of the way, but knows she would never accept that. So instead, he says, "You're out of shape, Bon Bon. I feel betrayed that smoking hot bods and bubble butts can be deceiving."

"Fuck you."

"Language, judgey," he teases, but subtly slows down their pace.

It takes about forty five minutes, but when they finally arrive at a wall of trees, the vampire abruptly stops and Bonnie collides into his backside, grumbling.

"This is where you brought me? A dead end?" she huffs.

Damon rolls his eyes before grabbing her hand and dragging her forward, through the tree wall, and they enter a beautiful meadow. The way the sunlight hits the clearing makes the long grass look like a rainbow-colored sea, surrounded by tall green lushy giants. Theres something special about it, there always has been, but today the air feels specially magical.

Bonnie gasps at the sight and squeezes his hand. "Damon…"

He smiles and squeezes back. "I know. You're welcome."

Still holding her hand, he leads them to a patch of grass and whips open his backpack, setting up the picnic blanket, complete with Bonnie's favorite snacks: salt and vinegar chips, tortilla chips and salsa, white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies, dried mango, and watermelon sour patch kids. She giggles and squeals and claps in delight like a child as he waves each snack in front of her face before placing it down, and it's stupid how much he revels in her joy.

They finally sit and relax while Bonnie tears into the food and Damon double fists bourbon and a blood bag.

He watches her with a grin. "You enjoying your surprise, Bon Bon?"

She returns the grin through a mouthful of cookie and candy, before nodding and pecking his cheek chastely.

"Ew, food kisses!" he exclaims but shivers at the memory of dream Bonnie's lips ghosting over the same spot hours before.

They drop into a comfortable silence and Damon lays himself down on his back to stare at the lovely blue and white of the clouds and the sky. And after making her way through a few more handfuls of chips, Bonnie does the same, stretching out beside him.

Damon closes his eyes, listening to the sounds of the breeze rustle through the trees and Bonnie's rhythmic breathing, her occasional yawns, enjoying the warmth of the sun crawling over his skin, her intoxicating scent lingering in his nostrils, and it's nice.

It's been too long in general since he's come to this spot — though he suspects it wouldn't be half as nice without his witchy companion — but it's also been too long since he's felt peaceful, relaxed. Since he's been able to rest.

He suspects that that too has something to do with his little bird next to him.

"Damon?"

His eyes flutter open and take in the sky above. "Hmm?"

"How did you find this place?"

"When I was still a kid," he reminisces, gaze following a particularly fluffy cloud. "When things got to be too much at home I would come here. This was my sanctuary. Still is in a lot of ways."

She hums. "Have you shown this place to anyone else?"

The unsaid name Elena hangs between them.

He reflexively rolls his eyes. "I just said it was my secret special sanctuary. So obviously, no."

"But..you showed me your secret special sanctuary?"

He mock-gasps and whips his head to the side to look at her, his hand jumping up to his mouth. "You're right. What was I thinking? You're going to ruin this place with your judgey-ness." The veins appear beneath his eyes and he bares his fangs. "Prepare to die, Bon Bon."

She scoffs and jabs him in the ribs as his visage returns to normal.

Damon chuckles before turning back to the sky with a shrug. "We shared a prison world together. What's a sanctuary between us?"

There's a few beats of silence before the witch's hand curls around his again. "Thank you Damon," she says softly. "It really is beautiful. If I had known about this place when I was alone…" Her voice catches. "It might have been easier."

He turns to look at her but she's staring up at the sky so he strokes her hand and says, "Bonnie, look at me," and when she meets his eyes he says, "You're the strongest person I know." And he means it, more than he's meant anything in the world, and the tears streaming down her face make his stomach flip and tighten with grief.

When she smiles at him they both turn back to the sky, but Bonnie doesn't move her hand and neither does he.

And in that moment they're just best friends holding hands, and it's sweet and innocent and feels like sandbox love, warm and perfect and easy. Best friends hold hands sometimes, right?

Damon loses track of how much time passes in that comfortable silence, but it shatters with a disturbing clatter when Bonnie's voice fills the air.

"Was it you who opened the garage door?"

He freezes, squeezing his eyes shut in a grimace as his mind catapults to the painful memory.

He's completely somber now because he knows exactly what she's referring to: the heart-wrenching panic he felt when he watched her crack open their designated 'suicide bourbon'; the horror that took over every cell in his body when she sat herself in the car and turned on the exhaust; the desperation with which he tried to get her attention, yell at her to stop, that he's there, that she's not alone; and that final law-of-physics-defying act of pure will that yanked open the garage door, because he knew in that moment that if Bonnie Bennett died, his world would definitively fall apart.

He disentangles his hand from hers because the anguish is rising like bile in his throat and he needs to clench his fist.

"Yes. It was me," he says stiffly.

"Mm. I guessed it was between you and Grams, I couldn't decide who though. I considered maybe Jeremy too."

He stalls an irrational pang of anger at the little Gilbert's name. "Nope. No useless emo child hunters involved. All me and Liv Parker."

Bonnie says nothing, and Damon remains painfully tense, until he eventually spits out, "we should have never made that stupid pact."

It's a moment before she replies, her voice gentle. "Hey, we were desperate at the time remember? The pact wasn't a bad idea."

"Yes it was a bad idea, and it was my bad idea. Maybe my worst idea ever. I wasn't thinking properly. Being stuck in 1994 wasn't even that bad."

As it's leaving his mouth, he realizes how insensitive it is, and just like that he's instantly eating his words because Bonnie's got this incredulous look on her face.

"Are you kidding me, Damon? How can you even say that? You know how horrible it was being stuck there—"

"Not the… not the you being alone part…I mean when it was just us there together," he tries to salvage, hands motioning wildly, but her eyebrows threaten to raise completely off her forehead. "Look, I know we were miserable and lonely and I had a terrible attitude the whole time and blah blah blah, but I don't know, now I feel like I could think of way worse things that us being stuck there… honestly looking back, it wasn't that bad, just you and me…"

He trails off because he's rambling; he knows he's not making sense and he knows he put her through hell in 1994 and she's staring at him in wide-eyed disbelief with her mouth hanging slightly open and everything he says sounds so fucking futile and ridiculous and she can no doubt see right through him.

He closes his eyes, turning away from her, and lets out a long sigh. "It doesn't even matter, Bonnie, the bourbon pact was fucking stupid and… I should have never put that idea into either of our heads. I never wanted….." He trails off again because the guilt threatens to swallow him whole, he feels so small.

"Hey," she says softly, "it wasn't your fault. I had nothing left, Damon, and it was because of the loneliness I felt, not because of the pact."

Her fingers lightly graze against his cheek and Damon blinks stupidly at her touch, in utter disbelief that she's the one comforting him even as they talk about her despair, her hopelessness.

I don't deserve you, he thinks, as he flips onto his side so they're facing each other. His voice dies somewhere under an avalanche of emotion when he sees how pretty she looks, bundled up in her sweater.

"Do you know what got me through all that time by myself?" she asks.

He shakes his head no.

"You," she says, and when he flinches, she adds, "kinda. I would talk to you as if you were still there. You were my imaginary friend for a while, and I would hang out with that version of you." She laughs at what he assumes is the look of horror on his face. "Isn't that sad?"

He does his best to smile, which isn't too hard, because he didn't realize how fucking much he missed the sound of her laughter. "Yeah, that's pretty sad."

She laughs again before it gets swallowed up by a yawn. "You're right, that's pathetic. At least imaginary Damon knew how to make pancakes."

"Take it back."

"Make me," she giggles and yawns again.

"You sleepy?" His voice is unintentionally husky, and he coughs to clear his throat.

"A little."

"You could take a nap if you want, we still have a couple hours of daylight left. I'll keep watch." He winks.

"Mm. Maybe I will." She smiles at him, soft and lazy, and something inside him bursts into flames.

He doesn't know if it's the gentleness of her smile, or the tenderness in her eyes, or being in his sanctuary with her, or the warm breeze that washes them both in the scent of roses and honey, but he suddenly wants to kiss her.

Wants to know what her lips taste like, what her tongue feels like in his mouth, wants to feel the heat of her pants and sighs against his skin.

He curses himself internally, because he's clearly a masochist and that's the only explanation for why he would let himself yearn for Bonnie Bennett, his now best friend, formal frenemy, and without a doubt the purest being he has ever known.

It's not as if it's the first time he's had dirty thoughts about the little witch, but that's just what they were before — dirty thoughts. Like in 1994 when she strutted about in those ridiculous overalls that by some miracle accentuated her thick hips and perky ass, and he would stare off into the distance fantasizing about those creamy thighs wrapped around his neck. Dreaming about bending her over the dining room table and pounding into her. Intrusive thoughts, about how she would taste, begging for him.

But this, this is a whole different itch that courses through his blood and it frightens him, how badly he wants to kiss every inch of her and make her giggle, how he wants to be the reason for her pleasure and joy, wants her in his arms to never let her go, wants to make her his.

Fuck.

The battle raging inside of him must be playing out on his face because she raises an eyebrow. "What's happening?"

He sighs and pushes it down, down, down. Doubles back on that mental note to get laid immediately. "Nothing, Bon Bon. Go to sleep."

"Don't tell me what to do," she says, even as she yawns and her eyes flutter closed.

He snickers. "You'll always fight me, won't you?"

"Till the bitter end," she mumbles and curls further into herself, beginning to drift away, and he regrets wearing only a tank top because he doesn't have a jacket or a sweater to cover her with.

He smirks to himself because he likes the idea of the little bird in his corner for the rest of their lives, calling him out on his shit, as he annoys her to death.

"We're a perfect match," he says out loud before he can stop himself, but she's already asleep.

He shuffles off the picnic blanket to wrap it around her.

#

Bonnie is scared. She's in the forest, alone, but it's dark and in every shadow and rustle there's a threat: either Kai, or no Kai, and both scenarios are equally horrifying.

She runs and runs looking for an end to the trees and the dirt path but there doesn't seem to be one. She doesn't know what hellish nightmare landed her here alone again, but she needs one person and one person only.

"Damon!"

No answer. Panic rises.

The forest starts to rumble, the ground begins to tremor and she knows she'll be swallowed up by the darkness forever if she doesn't find him.

"Damon! Damon!"

She falls to her knees in despair and terror, about to give in to the oblivion — when suddenly she hears her name, in another dimension, calling to her, the voice of home.

She opens her eyes with a gasp and collides with breathtaking blue. He's there; Damon is above her, shaking her shoulders, repeating "Bonnie, wake up," over and over again, concern coloring his features.

"Damon?"

"Thank god," he exhales, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear gingerly, his eyes darting all over her face, "you were screaming… I think you were having a nightma—"

She sits up and throws her arms around his torso in the tightest squeeze she can manage, burrowing her face into his chest and sobbing into him. "I couldn't find you… Other side disintegrating… I couldn't find you.."

"Shh, shh," he soothes, rubbing her back, "it's okay, I'm here. You're not alone. I'm here."

As he calms her, he maneuvers them so they are laid back down on the blanket again, Damon on his side and Bonnie completely curled into him; his chin resting atop her hair as she shakes and shakes.

Some time passes in their embrace, until she whispers against his collarbone, "I can't lose you again."

He pulls back and hooks her chin up to meet his gaze, their faces centimeters apart. "You won't. I promise."

She's not used to receiving this sort of devotional tenderness, from anyone really but especially not him, and something breaks inside of her as she realizes how much she needs it, wants it, craves it, craves him. It's a potent realization but one that seems so obvious and natural that it settles into the moment and scaffolds her, as if it had always been there.

It's too much, him being there and being so close, but somehow not close enough, and her want for him is so much that her lip quivers and she shuts her eyes as the tears continue to spill, relentless.

He holds on to her face, wiping away the tears and whispering "tell me how to make it better, little bird," over and over again, the coolness of his breath soothing the heat in her cheeks with every word he speaks, yet feeding the flames in her core that need him close and belonging solely to her.

When she stops crying, he kisses her forehead and her eyes flutter open with a whimper, only for her breath to catch at the visceral emotion etched into his face.

"Tell me, Bonnie," he groans.

She stares in confusion as his thumb trails along the side of her face, coaxing.

"Tell me how to make you feel good," he croons. "Tell me what you need."

The world abruptly falls away, and the only things in existence are the vastness of his blue oceans and his sexy kissable lips, his muscular body hard and safe against hers, his hands cupping her face, and she does what every cell in her body commands her to do; to lean in and press her lips to his.

He kisses her back immediately, as if he's simply been waiting for her to make the first move, and in seconds she's on her back and he's kissing her senseless, at once rough and gentle, and Bonnie is sure she could die from how good it feels. When she starts to pull away for some air, his little detour to her neck has her moaning embarrassingly loud before she can even catch her breath.

"Damon," she gasps, pulling his hair to yank him off of her because it's all happening too fast and the dull ache between her legs has amplified to a wet, throbbing drum.

"Yes, Bon Bon?" There's nothing but lust and desire in his eyes as he smiles down at her, and it sends a tremor down her spine because she feels utterly naked underneath him.

She's suddenly never been more scared in her life, not of him, but of whatever this is that's happening between them, despite the pounding in her core, begging him to take her.

"No," she hears her voice saying. "No, this is wrong. You don't want me, you want Elena. You love Elena."

"Oh, silly Bon Bon," he chuckles darkly against her lips. He grinds his pelvis into her center and she almost creams herself, moaning and shivering as she feels him graze against the flimsy layer of her yoga pants, hot, hard, big, and desperately wanting, as he purrs into her gasping mouth, "does this feel like I don't want you?"

And with that, Bonnie's eyes fly open as she wakes up with a yelp, jolting into an upright position.

It was all a dream.

As her eyes adjust she realizes she's still in Damon's meadow sanctuary, and not in his arms. It must be getting late because the sun is setting, and the cool breeze of the dwindling afternoon feels heaven sent against her sweat slicked skin. She's disheveled, hot, bothered, and uncomfortably entangled in the picnic blanket, which she assumes Damon must have thrown over her once she dozed off.

Speaking of Damon… the vampire is lounging on the grass a few feet away, mid-swig of bourbon, his eyebrows raised in her direction.

"Bon? You good?"

She thanks the lucky stars they are outside in the fresh air because she is still pulsing, thrumming with need, and the wetness between her legs is trickling down her thighs and if they were in closed quarters, she'd be a goner with that pesky heightened vampire sense of smell.

She swallows, throat painfully dry, trying to will her chest to stop heaving as she gives a small nod to his question. "Just.. a nightmare," she grits out.

He grimaces, and then, to her horror, moves closer to her— to which she reactively clamps her thighs together and bunches up the picnic blanket over her lower half.

She knows she looks a hot ass mess and as he takes in the site of her flushed cheeks and messy damp hair, he misreads her discomfort and presses the back of his palm to her forehead to check her temperature. "You look like you have a fever and you're kinda warm. You feeling okay?"

She does everything she can to not cringe away from his touch. "Yeah, Damon, I'm fine. It was just a bad dream."

Just a dream.

He withdraws his hand and leans away from her — thank god— but eyes her sympathetically. "Shit Bon, I should have been watching you more closely. Or I should have snuggled you, that seems to be the secret ingredient for your best sleeps of all time." He winks and wiggles her eyebrows at her, but she's too flustered to roll her eyes or laugh or respond really, because all she can think about how his lips felt on hers in the dream.

She freezes suddenly. "Did I… sleep talk or do anything weird?"

Damon grins. "You asking me if dream Bonnie made an appearance? Why, were you dreaming about my arms again?"

She glowers and tries to maintain her stony demeanor, even as the heat creeps into her face. "I said it was a nightmare."

"So you admit, my arms are fantasy wet dream material."

She prays he can't hear her heart race, because his joking and teasing is, as of five minutes ago, a little too close to the truth. "Ugh, Damon, be serious please!"

"Sadly no, dream Bonnie never showed her face. But I wish she had, I wore this tank top just for her."

She releases a sigh and drops her head into her hands, unable to make sense of the confusing combination of sadness and relief churning in her belly and her chest.

Just a dream.

Damon knocks at her leg sheepishly. "Hey… do you want to talk about it? Or drink about it?" He shakes the bourbon in her direction.

She raises her head onto her knee and smiles at him, though she's sure it doesn't meet her eyes. "I'm okay, thanks. It was just a Kai dream."

Damon stiffens and gets the strangest look in his eye but it disappears so quickly that she wonders if she imagined it.

"Oh," is all he says, and then a tense thirty seconds later, "it's getting dark. We should head back."

She nods and steps out of the blanket and Damon zips about for a few seconds before everything is cleaned up and in his backpack again, before turning to her. "I didn't bring a flashlight and it's about a 45 minute walk when we can see where we're going. Or I can vamp us back."

Bonnie nods again, relieved that he offered first because she was going to ask him to do piggyback because her whole body is tired.

Before she can say anything he scoops her up, bridal style, cradling her against his torso, his arms strong and secure around her.

"Put your hands around my neck," he instructs and she blushes before obeying. "It'll take around four to five minutes so I need you to burrow your face in my neck or my chest so you don't get motion sickness."

"Perv," she mutters as she nuzzles into his neck.

When he chuckles and says, "let's not pretend like you haven't been dying to feel me up all day," a not so tiny part of her dies inside because the want of the dream is still fresh in her blood and as she presses into his neck he smells so deliciously good like the forest, and masculinity, and home.

And then there's nothing but movement and blur and she shuts her eyes and her senses are full of Damon, Damon, Damon, his scent and his touch and his surprising undead warmth and she loses herself to it, until all too soon she's sitting alone on her bed in the boarding house and he's calling from downstairs, "Shower and get ready for dinner. I'll cook us something."

It's only once she's under the hot water that she lets herself think about the dream. As her fingers drift absentmindedly to her lips, she remembers how real it felt, how her head spun with desire; and her arms wrap around herself in a lonely hug as she mourns how perfect it feels to be in his arms — dream or no dream.

Thoughts no girl should be having about her best friend's boyfriend.

So she pushes it all away. Sigh. I did not sign up for this Inception dream in a dream ass bullshit.

It's only once she's out of the shower and getting dressed does she realize how amazing her body feels. Exhausted and sore, but in a good way. Her magic feels strong, pleasant, power flexing through her muscles, and it's the best she's felt since she got back — hell, the best she's felt in what feels like years — and she knows it's largely from being in nature all day.

She'll have to thank Damon for that again.

Her thoughts are full of him as she pads downstairs towards the mouth watering smell of chicken parmesan, a confusing mix of gratitude, irritation, and reluctant affection, but when she steps foot in the kitchen and he looks up from the cutting board to smirk at her it all melts away into tenderness.

"Hi."

"Hi back. Dinner's ready, just finishing the salad. Put out plates, will ya?"

She maneuvers towards the cabinets behind the vampire, before pausing and hugging him from behind, wrapping her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek and whole body against his back side.

She knows she's playing with fire because of how she smells extra good and the way he stiffens at her touch but she can't bring herself to care.

The knife clatters against the counter as his hands come to rest on top of hers.

"When did you become such a sap Bon Bon? I swear you're a goner for me."

Her heart sinks and knocks against her stomach. "Shut up."

He chuckles, thumbs stroking the back of her palms. "What's this for?"

"I just wanted to say thank you."

"For what?"

"For today. All of today." For being my friend. For showing me your sanctuary. For being you.

There's a pause before he says, "well don't thank me yet, I could still fuck it up. I could have poisoned the food."

They disentangle as he begins to slice a tomato when the metallic steel of the knife glints in Bonnie's peripheral.

Time stops, as her vision narrows in on the knife in his hand, and she's suddenly back there with Kai, being cut up and sliced for days and days on end with the same knife.

She can't move or speak or look away but she can hear herself hyperventilating and then Damon's in her face, shaking her by the shoulders, shouting her name.

"Bonnie! Bonnie! Snap out of it!"

He rubs up and down her arms and that thaws her a little bit, enough for her to blink and choke out, "did Kai put you up to this?"

"Put me up to what? What — the poisoning the food? That was a joke!"

"The knife, Damon!" she thunders, on the brink of panic.

"What are you talking about?" Nothing but confusion in his face, but every cell in her body is repeating and getting louder by the second that it's the same knife, that she's in danger.

The tears are streaming down her face now. "That's the knife h-he, that's the same knife he used on me, Damon!"

Damon looks wildly to the knife resting on the cutting board and back to her a few times. "What? N-no, Bonnie, it's just a kitchen knife, it's been in the boarding house for years."

She hears nothing that he says, all worst possible scenarios attacking her at once. "Kai's here, Damon, he must be following us, he's trying to torment me," she whispers in broken sobs.

"Bonnie, no, please listen to me—"

He reaches to cup her face but she screams, "No! Get away from me!" and the knife flies off the counter to impale Damon squarely in the chest at the same time as there's an explosion of glass and shattering ceramic as all of the plates and glassware in the kitchen break at once.

She feels her cheek tear open from a stray piece of glass, sharp and bloody.

"Aarrgh!" Damon's on the floor, writhing from an aneurysm that she didn't even know she was giving him, as he yanks the knife from his chest and throws it across the room.

"Bonnie, stop! Stop! Please stop!" he begs, gripping his head in agony.

"How do I know you're not working for him?" she cries, unable to shake it even though she cognitively knows it makes no sense, because it's Damon and she trusts him with her life.

"I'm not! Please! Stop!" There's blood now trickling from his nose and ears and eyes and he's dry sobbing from the anguish.

The sounds of his wailing slam the reality of what she's done into her and as she stops, her vision begins to go blurry, fade, and before she knows it she's swallowed up by the blackness.

#

Damon recovers from his brain being fried into a scramble just in time to catch Bonnie from hitting the glass-covered floor when she collapses. He gently lays her down on the couch before vamping to the bar and chugging nearly half a bottle of bourbon.

Fuck, little bird..

He can't even afford to be angry at her, because as fucking irritating it is to get stabbed and have his mind grilled within an inch of his sanity, it hurts him way more to see Bonnie that terrified, that much in pain.

He chugs the second half of the bourbon before turning to the mess in the kitchen.

And as mind bogglingly annoying it is to have his kitchen completely destroyed — he makes a mental note to hire a cleaning crew first thing in the morning and call for a whole new set of dishes and glassware — it's nothing. It pales in comparison to Bonnie losing her mind over a fucking kitchen utensil.

Speaking of that damned thing, he goes and examines it, because as sure he is that Bonnie was having some sort of trauma related flashback, he knows Kai is technically out there still. But the knife looks completely commonplace, no trace of any markings or designs that would indicate otherwise.

As he dampens a hand towel with some hot water, he catches his reflection in the window above the kitchen sink, and there's blood caked all down his cheeks, lips and neck.

Damn. Looking like a straight up murder victim. Meanwhile, Bonnie isn't sporting even a drop of a nosebleed. Well one thing's for sure, a lack of power is not the issue here.

He kneels next to her on the ground, careful not to disturb her besides the warm towel, which he lightly presses around her forehead. Her cheek is sliced open so he bites into his wrist and puts it to her mouth, but it doesn't take because she's still passed out.

He would have been worried if it wasn't for the witch's steady heartbeat pounding in his ears.

So he sits like that and waits for her to wake, even as his knees begin to ache and the compress starts to go cold, eyes never leaving her face. Her full lips.

The most fucked up part of it all? He still wants to kiss her.

When her eyes begin to flutter open, he jerks his hand and the towel away and leans back to give her space.

"Damon?"

She sounds scared and confused and guilty, and he's a sap for her all over again.

"I'm here. How are you feeling?"

As she takes in his bloody and bruised appearance — damn, he should have cleaned up but he wasn't thinking — a gasp of horror bubbles up in her throat as her hands fly up to cover her mouth.

"I promise, it looks worse than it is," he says, reaching for her hands, "I'm healthy as a horse. Well, an immortal horse with magical healing abilities."

"I hurt you," she whimpers and the tears start to spill.

"Bon, I swear it's fine. Nothing you haven't done before." He smirks ruefully.

But she's spiraling, trying to sit up and fling herself off the couch. "No, no, Damon I'm fucked up, I'm all fucked up! I've hurt you twice now and I need to leave you alone before I hurt you anymore!"

He doesn't let go of her hands and uses his weight to keep her reclined on the cushion. "Bonnie, stop. Stop. The last thing you need is to be alone."

"Look at what I did tonight, Damon! I'm broken, okay? It's not your job to fix me! I'm damaged and I refuse to put this all on you! It's not your burden to carry!"

Damon moves onto the couch and gathers her into his arms, effectively cutting off her sobs by crushing her into his chest.

"Is that really what you think? That you're a burden? Oh Bon…"

He strokes her hair for a few minutes till she's calm again, breath rising and falling against his chest.

"Why are you doing this?" she mutters eventually.

"Doing what? Being your friend?"

She looks up to meet his gaze. "I'm serious, Damon. Why? I need to know. I don't want you to stay with me out of a feeling of obligation or guilt because I sacrificed myself to send you home. You will end up resenting me, and I don't want that."

He flinches. "Sometimes it's like you don't know me at all Bonnie. I don't believe in obligation and when I feel guilty, I ignore, avoid, and kill the thing that makes me feel guilty when it shows up in my face."

She looks like she's going to argue, but he cuts her off. "Do I regret leaving you there by yourself? Yes, more than anything in the world. But do you really think that I, Damon Salvatore, would do anything I didn't want to do? That I would stick around for one second if I didn't want to be here with you?"

She's looking at him with a look in her eye he's never seen before, and he sighs. "I don't know why. Maybe it's because you're my best friend, truly, or maybe it's because I promised Emily Bennett a century and half ago I would protect the Bennett line and I'm a bitch to the cosmos. But all I know is that you're my little bird and I'm not going to turn my back on you. Ever."

He growls the last part and the witch has gone completely still and silent in his embrace, her eyes glued to his face.

"Don't panic but I need to feed you my blood because your cheek is cut open and it's going to scar if I don't heal it soon."

She flinches but takes his wrist when he offers it. He grits his teeth when her soft lips suck gently on his flesh and after a couple swallows the soft skin of her face stitches itself back up into the smooth caramel.

"Thanks."

She smiles at him and he knows what he has to do. Lets out a heavy sigh.

"Listen Bonnie, I haven't been completely honest with you. Last night, when you were sleep talking, you told me that Kai hurt you."

She freezes but he doesn't give her time to panic. "You wouldn't tell me what he did to you, but you said he hurt you badly, and from your little episode tonight, I'm guessing dream Bonnie wasn't exaggerating." He sighs again before continuing. "I want to help you, but if you don't want to talk to me about it, I think you should see a professional. A therapist, maybe."

He winces as he says the last part, entirely unsure of how she'll react, but to his relief she only blinks and nods.

"I can help you find a therapist tomorrow. And I can drive you to the appointment and back once it's booked."

She nods somewhat blankly and starts to shift out of his grasp. "I'll find one tonight and leave them a message."

He smiles and says, "that's a good idea," but she's already rushing away from him to the stairs up to her room.

Using his laptop, it only takes Bonnie five minutes to find a therapist and leave a voicemail, since there's only two women psychological professionals in Mystic Falls. Damon tries not to eavesdrop on the call, but his vamp ears pick up bits and pieces like "abuse", "trauma", "symptoms of PTSD", and "out of control".

After that, it feels a little less heavy in the boarding house. They say nothing as they get ready for bed, shuffling past each other to and from the shower in silence, but when they settle in bed together, Bonnie curls up against him and rests her head on his chest and he knows that they're okay.

This night, Damon battles insomnia because of the Bennett flavored pit in his stomach. He's still awake and feeling rather uneasy when the witch stirs around three a.m., and mounts him.

Her eyes flash silver in the dark, and Damon knows he's in the presence of dream Bonnie.

"Hey you," he says lowly. "Did you miss me?"

Her smile is so sad and beautiful that his hand reaches out to cup her cheek of its own accord.

"I'm sorry," dream Bonnie whispers.

"What could you possibly have to be sorry for?"

She's tracing the length of his collarbones with her fingertips.

"For being like this," she breathes. "For needing you."

He grips her wrists, partly to get her attention and partly to stop her ministrations because, fuck, she has to stop touching him. He can't take any more of this semi-innocent dream foreplay without losing his freaking mind — he's only a man after all; well, more like a goddamn virginal teenage boy, apparently.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Bonnie. You hear me? Nothing."

She doesn't respond so he blurts out, "I'm sorry."

Ethereal eyes blink dreamily at him.

"I'm sorry," he repeats, "for not being able to help you."

He lets go of her arms so she can cup his face. "Oh Damon, you have no idea how much you help me. You really have no idea."

She says it with such gentle conviction, with no hint of anything but honest truth, that he almost believes her. Still he mumbles, "I wish I could do more."

She hums. "Can I show you how much you've helped me?" A beautiful smile on her face now.

He grunts. "How?" His mind immediately flits to blood sharing, or some witchy woo mind meld spell. He isn't sure he'll be able to survive either of those without shoving his tongue down her throat and then killing himself.

"Let me thank you, Damon," she coos, "let me show you how much you mean to me."

She moves down his body and lowers herself down to his torso, and Damon guesses that she's going back to sleep, ending their little rendezvous, and he closes his eyes to drift off.

But then the impossible happens: Damon feels Bonnie's lips and tongue close around his nipple.

"Oh fuck!" An involuntary moan rips from his throat as his body jolts, electric hot arousal shooting through every inch of him.

Before he can gather control of his motor function to tear her from him, his body feeling like it's being flayed alive in the most delicious way possible, dream Bonnie starts to kiss down his chest, in soft, wet, tender, toe-curling pleasure.

When his hips buck of their own volition, it slams him back to reality and he grabs her face to jerk it away from his skin, panting and growling, almost feral.

"Bonnie, stop."

"Why?" she murmurs, the seductive mix of desire and innocence shining in her silver eyes making him almost groan.

Fuuuuuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

"You have to stop. We can't do this."

"I want to thank you, Damon. Won't you let me thank you?"

He wants to throw himself over the nearest cliff. "No, Bon, you don't owe me anything. I'm your best friend."

Yikes. It sounds like he's trying to convince himself at this point.

She finally sits up and he lets out a sigh of relief, even as she looks down on him with something unreadable in her gaze.

"I know I don't owe you anything," she says, before her voice drops, sad and longing. "Do you not want me?"

His head is spinning and his blood is pounding; he's about to lose control, can't look at her, can't be around her, needs to get out of there before he kisses her or does something riskier, so he moves her off him, leaving her sitting there limply on the bed, and beelines for the shower. When he thrusts himself under the cold water and the desire begins to freeze away, the unsaid words linger in his throat, heavy and thick and painful, threatening to suffocate him.

If only you knew how badly I want you.

Well, things are heating up in the Bamon front! LOL! What did you guys think? Please please please talk to me in the reviews. I'm so grateful for those of you who leave them. I legitimately re-read them almost daily, that's how impactful they are for me.

Do you guys think Damon is obligated to tell Bonnie that dream Bonnie made some moves? lmfao.

Coming up next chapter: Damon goes to track Kai with Alaric and Jo and Bon Bon goes to her first therapy session. AND THEN, some more juicy Bamon goodness ;)

Till next time, XOXO - Ailey