Bonnie wishes her mouth didn't have a mind of its own when it comes to Damon Salvatore. He doesn't seem to mind.

Bonnie walks into yet another crisis meeting, wondering why they bother. Elena will do what she deems best. Damon will pout, Stefan will brood, Caroline is perpetually optimistic, Tyler will do whatever they (Caroline) tell him to do, Jeremy will balk at the danger and Matt will lose something else (not that he has much more to lose, mind you). She, she'll just follow whatever plan they come up with and hope that her power is enough. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

Sometimes she wants to leave; other times she wants to burn this town to the ground. There are even moments when she wonders how death tastes and if it carries the same compelling power she gets from the Earth. Not that she'd tell, of course. They would get ideas about her and how the magic is changing her, well everyone except... him. She glances up at the man in question and wishes she hadn't.

Damon Salvatore is staring at her again.

She leans forward, closer to Matt causing her hair to fall, a silken curtain blocking her face. There's something peculiar about the way that he stares, as if he's looking for an answer to some question only he knows. Then there's his behavior lately, the being nice to her and teasing bits that seem almost playful. If she wasn't careful she'd let him get to her, although, he's already started with how he's taken to staring at her during meetings. She doesn't look in his direction from then on.

The meeting ends with doom. It must be a Tuesday.

Bonnie steals off to one of the many rooms in the Salvatore Boarding House in order to go through a grimoire, hoping to find a spell that will help with their never-ending fight against Klaus. Instead she finds Damon sitting on a red velvet couch, smirking as he pats the seat next to him. She's unsure as whether to find another room or to humour the elder Salvatore. They pushed and pulled at each other so much in the past but now he's helpful and she's compliant. It's the only reason she use for her not leaving.

As she settles into the cushions, he salutes her with his drink, blood red if she's not mistaken. "Relax Bon. We'll save the girl and get the bad guy. All will be safe as long as the stalwart and brave are here to save the day". And it's not what he says but the way he says it, in that condescending tone that grates at her. Bonnie's whole life is wrapped up in vampires and dopplegangers, is it too difficult to understand why she'd want to save others from that same fate?

"We won't defeat Klaus or others like him by drinking or simple will. This town will never be safe until all vampires are dead and gone" she says it quietly but with enough conviction that he shouldn't doubt that she means all vampires.

He leans in, invading her space, and she swears he says I wouldn't expect anything else before stretching his arms on the back of the couch and resuming his afternoon snack. There are these times when she breathes him in, when his touch brushes against her body, where she just stops and her whole being is just stuck in the moment. She prays he doesn't notice but she's so sure that he'd use it against her somehow if he did. How could he not know what he does to me?

Moving to the edge of the couch, she opens her grimoire, curling her body away from Damon and starts to read.

It's easier to shove these thoughts into a little box than deal with it.

Usually she spends hours alone in her house, her father's never there and everyone else is too busy with their own lives. The silence gnaws at her as she tries to convince herself that it's better to be alone. You have less to lose. Plus whenever she researched with Jeremy, the simplest noises would distract her. It got to the point where she'd end up counting his heartbeats, it became this reminder that she wasn't alone. That she couldn't be completely her in the way she wanted. There are just parts of herself that she can't let anyone see.

It's different with Damon being here with her. There's no heartbeat to distract her. There is instead the smell of whisky, cologne and death. It's intoxication pulls at a part of her in ways she can't dissect.

One cold finger tugs at a curl, for some odd reason it comforts her.

They sit in silence.

Her mother is dead.

Well Abbey, the woman who gave birth to her before abandoning her, died. Bonnie is sad but there's also an acute sense of relief at still being alive. She could have easily been the one facing the choice to transition.

Then there are other thoughts eating at her. She always thought Elena was the one with the touch of death yet the amount of dead witches on her conscious can no longer be ignored. She wonders if this is natures will. The death of witches, the annihilation of the wolves, the option to end original vampires… is this how they die?

The doorbell rings jolting out of her morbid thoughts. She runs a hand through her hair to reassure herself after such morbid thoughts. Nature is her governing force but it wouldn't kill those who serves her will.

She opens the door without checking to see who it is and finds no one on the other side. Instead there's a dish of food on her doorstep.

Later she'll read a simple note that says sorry while eating the most delicious lasagna she's ever tasted.

Well that wasn't exactly what she had in mind.

Channeling Klaus into Tyler was never in her plans but she needed to keep Klaus alive to prevent the people she cared about from dying.

Bonnie walks around at night these days, to clear her head, to try and figure out what her next step with Klaus is concerned. She's sure that no one is suspicious of Tyler's newfound sense of humour or her propensity to flinch whenever he kisses Caroline. Well no one besides...

"Well, well look at that. I found a witch"

She flushes slightly, eyes down and she prays that he can't tell that she was thinking about him. She slowly raises her head and tilts it to the right as she drinks him in. He looks like shit. She tells him so. He shrugs and falls into step with her. She won't ask about Elena, he doesn't seem to want to bring her up either so they end up walking side by side in silence.

Around the five minute mark, they find a vampire feeding on an old man. Wordlessly, she freezes the vamp's body then Damon quickly runs a stake through it. Bonnie wonders when they became so in tuned with each other.

"We work well together" he mentions idly after he tosses the body into a trash compactor.

Searching his face, Bonnie tries to determine if he's being serious. She shrugs, undecided, and looks away, "We know what needs to be done".

He steps closer, invading her space (always invading her space), she keeps her head down so her hair blankets her face. There's the scent again, the intoxicating sense of everything that he chooses to be. Lifting her chin he commands her focus, as if he's looking for something that can only be found this close with no way to escape. She forgets to breathe.

That is why she kisses him.

It's not gentle or chaste, such is the place for first kisses between lovers. There is no love here. She bites at his lower lip, his fingers bruise the skin on her lower back. Her hands yank at his hair, pulling him closer as his mouth invades hers. As his being consumes her. She cannot get enough of his touch, his taste, his feel.

Heat builds slowly inside her even as his cold hands decrease her body temperature. There's a sigh (that's her) as he pulls her body closer, legs wrapped around his waist, her body exactly where it needs to be. His head bangs against the brick wall, her mouth plotting a path down his neck. Licking and leaving tiny bite marks as if she doesn't want him to forget that she was here. His hand snakes towards her covered breast-

As soon as it starts, it's over.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Bonnie's hands go straight to her hair, reassuring that she's still herself, that he hasn't taken anything from her that she was unwilling to give. She can't look at him, she's not ashamed but she is embarrassed. She never loses control and to think she lost it in front of him?

She runs after the aneurysm knocks him out.

It's much later when she's at home alone, that she places a finger on her bruised lip, tracing the soft fullness as she remembers. Her skin tingles, her heartbeat quickens and there's this unfulfilled feeling that's new to her. She doesn't even like Damon Salvatore.

But somewhere along the way hate turned into dislike which turned into a steady reliance that he would help make this better. It's the reason she calls and texts him in times of emergencies. It was there, slowly building on her side. Somehow, Damon became the only person she could rely on.

The doorbell rings and instead of food, there's a Salvatore waiting. One hand tangles in her curls and she tries not to reach for him.

"That hurt"

"Should I make you lasagna?"

He laughs and steps inside, invading her senses

She thinks then, that this doesn't have to mean anything to either of them. You grow up and you understand the world differently. Somehow the person you hate becomes the only person you can depend on. The actions you despise are the ones you now choose. And blue eyes without a heartbeat fill the silence just right.

This time, he's the one who initiates the kiss.

Later, she'll remind herself to breathe.