title: it's the end of the world (as we know it)
ship: bonnie/damon
chapter rating: pg-13
summary: Mystic Falls has always attracted the strange, but now they're arriving in droves, and the gang is helpless to the chaos that follows. A prophecy tells tale of an apocalypse the likes of which only the truly powerful can stop. Desperate, Caroline and Stefan aim to resurrect The First Witch -the mother of magic herself - and beg her to spare their town and save the world. But raising the dead opens old wounds, and mother might not be as forgiving as they hope. [AU - First Witch!Bonnie Bennett]

i.

"Are you sure you read the translation right?"

Stefan sighed. "As sure as anybody can be when you're asking someone to translate a dead language…"

"I'm just saying, this is the third time we've passed that tree… I didn't pick the right shoes for walking in circles."

"How do you know it's the same tree?"

"Because. It has that wonky looking root sticking up." Caroline pointed. "Plus it's at least twice as big as any other tree around here. Which is weird, right?"

Stefan stopped abruptly, and turned. "Where?"

Caroline turned on her heel and pointed to the ancient tree a good ten feet behind them now.

Walking toward it, Stefan frowned and sniffed at the air. "Do you smell that?"

"Decomposing leaves and rabbit poo?" Her brows hiked. "Hard to miss."

"No…" He stepped toward the tree and, very carefully, touched a sticky substance sliding down the grooves of its bark like a thick sap. When he lifted it to his nose, his teeth throbbed. "It's blood."

"What?" Incredulous, Caroline walked toward him, shaking her head. "It's not. I would have smelled it." Catching him by the wrist, she drew his hand near. She took a sniff, and then another. "I don't smell anything."

But Stefan knew it was blood; there was never a smell more mouthwatering than the one wafting up to him now. Still, Caroline was right. The smell was muted, especially considering how much of it was dripping down the tree from various cracks and grooves. It should have been much stronger. "You don't smell it at all?"

"Nothing." She swiped it off his finger and onto her own. "It has the right consistency though… Did the book say anything about a blood tree?"

He shook his head. "Just that the she was buried where she died. Well, buried is a bit of a simplification. After they killed her, they left the body to rot. But the ground… swallowed her, is the way the professor explained it. It pulled her down into the earth and covered her in a bed of…" He paused, and bent to pluck a black rose from where it was coiling around a root, "roses."

"Weirdly morbid and romantic…"

Caroline took the flower as he held it up to her and raised it to her nose. "Oh, gross! This one smells like decay. Worst flower ever."

Humming, Stefan stood, and pressed a hand to the trunk of the tree, pushing as if he thought it would give or push back or something. He looked upward, to the branches, and eerie little eyes stared back. Crows, one by one, stood above, watching.

Caroline followed his gaze and took a step back. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea…" She tugged at Stefan's sleeve. "We should go."

"Not yet."

"Stefan…"

"We need this." He looked back at her. "You heard what Sheila said. Mystic Falls is a beacon for the supernatural. This town is being swallowed whole by every evil force out there. If it were anywhere else, if I thought we could just pack up and go, I would leave it behind. But your mom isn't going to leave, Matt is following in her footsteps, Jeremy is playing vampire hunter every chance he gets, and no matter how hard we try, every time we take down an enemy, a new one follows. We need to head this thing off, and this is the only thing I can think of."

"You're talking about resurrecting the literal mother of all witches. We barely survived Qetsiyah and she was just an ancestor. Do you get that?" Caroline shook her head. "What did the translation say? To wake the queen, you wake the demon. When things sound that ominous, it means you leave them alone!" She pointed at the crows. "Proof of fact!"

Stefan turned to her, already nodding. He reached for her arms to calm her down. "I know you're scared. I'm scared, too."

She shifted her feet and looked away.

"This is our home. We have friends and family here that matter. And I know that this feels crazy, but we've run out of options. You heard the prophecy. Ric has found it in twelve countries and no matter who he talks to, it's always the same."

"An apocalypse, Stefan, seriously? Of all the places in the world, the apocalypse has to happen here?"

"Unless we stop it." He smiled at her gently, and reached a hand up to cup her face, fingers tangling in her hair. "Every day, this town gets more and more overrun with vampires and werewolves and things we don't even know the name of. And every day we're closer to losing this fight… If this witch can do something to change that. If she can fight this or turn this thing around, then I'm willing to do what it takes to find her and ask for her help. But if you're scared, if you want to turn back–"

"I'm not leaving without you." She stared at him seriously. "I am scared. I'm terrified. But there is no way I'm leaving you out here to do this alone. Okay?"

He smiled slowly, and nodded. "Okay."

Together, they turned back to the tree, ignoring the eerie caw of a crow above.

"So… How do we do this?" Caroline wiped her hands on her jeans. "Do we knock or…"

Stefan reached a finger out to catch a stream of blood slithering down the bark. As he did, he felt the tree thrum. No… He felt… He pressed his hand down against it, his brow furrowed, and he waited. It was like… a thump. It was– "A heartbeat."

"What?" Caroline whispered.

"The tree… It has a heartbeat"

Abruptly, the crows above suddenly dived toward them, screeching and cawing.

Stefan and Caroline both ducked to avoid them, crouched low and, hopefully, out of reach. Stefan's eyes caught on a glint of something, just under the 'wonky,' upturned root. He reached for it, digging through wet leaves and dirt, until finally, he could make out a ring. And it was on a finger.

"Caroline?"

Caroline was brushing herself off, glaring in the general direction that the crows had taken off in. "What?"

"Help me." Stefan started digging, deeper and deeper, until he revealed a wrist and a forearm, an elbow and a shoulder.

"Oh my God…"

Caroline bent to help him, and together they dug and dug, until they had produced a body from the earth. But it wasn't that of a woman, like they'd been expecting. Rather, it was a man. Black hair, pale skin, and deadly still. He was dressed in an old-fashioned tunic, practically in tatters. Dried blood darkened bits of old, white cloth, and beneath it, seemingly still healing, were wounds along the heart and stomach.

"Is he…?" Caroline paused, and then reached a hand out, coiling the very tips of her fingers around the man's limp and dirty wrist. She startled, and dropped the wrist, falling back a step

"What?" Stefan asked.

"I… He's alive." She nodded, staring down at the man with wide eyes. "There was a heartbeat. I felt it. He–"

Suddenly, the body in front of them lurched forward. He sat up and gasped for breath, sucking in air with urgency, clawing at his chest as he struggled to breathe.

Stefan leaped backward, and took Caroline with him. He stood in front of her, an arm back to keep her hidden, safely behind him, as he stared back at the man, still sitting in the dirt.

His head swiveled toward them, and his face went from innocent young human to terrifying monster.

Damon's lungs ached. They screamed for air. What little of it he could catch made his chest feel worse somehow. Like needles driven deep into his flesh. He clawed at his chest and continued to gasp.

Everything around him was overwhelming. The dirt beneath him, he could feel every single grain. The air burned his sensitive skin. The sounds of animals and heartbeats and life moving about the forest made his eardrums ring so tremendously loud that he wanted to cover his ears and bury his head in the ground.

And then, very slowly, his focus narrowed.

Hunger.

Veins crawled across his face, blood filled his eyes, and his teeth lengthened in his mouth. He bared them at the two strangers, staring down at him in shock. But it wasn't them he wanted to feed from. They didn't have what he wanted. They were of his ilk. Their blood would do nothing to sate him. No. He ran past them and grabbed a furry white rabbit from where it sat huddled against a tree in fear. He pressed its shaking body to his mouth and sunk his mouth into its chest, bit a chunk of fur and skin straight off it, spat it out, and then buried his mouth against the hole for easier access. He drained it in seconds. But, before he could go looking for another, the crows returned, and each held a gift.

The animals were small, but they would do.

The strangers, a man and a woman, watched him. He could smell the repugnant stench of their fear, but it was slowly lessening. The longer he fed and showed them no ill will, the more they became sure that he was no threat. Not to them, at least.

They were wrong.

He was a threat to all.

Stefan, seeing that the… thing seemed to be finished eating, decided to try his luck. Whatever the man was, evidence pointed to 'vampire,' he had to be tied to The Witch. The translation led them to him; it had to be for a reason.

The man looked Stefan over from top to bottom, his brow furrowed and blood drying on his chest and spattering his tattered shirt. He opened his mouth to say… something. A string of words left him but it was a language that Stefan was unaware of. Nothing he'd ever heard before and nothing he could guess at.

"I'm sorry. I can't … I can't understand you. I don't know what you're saying."

The man tried again, slower, but still it was nothing Stefan understood.

With a sigh, the man stepped forward, crossing the space between them in a few long strides.

Caroline made a noise and reached for Stefan, grabbing at his elbow to pull him back.

The man stopped, eyeing her in confusion. He looked down at himself, damp with dirt and blood, and then to the hand Caroline had around Stefan's elbow. Finally, he nodded. He held his hands to his chest and then out, in a non-threatening manner.

"He's not going to hurt us," Stefan said.

"You don' know that. It could be a ploy, trying to gain our trust." She tugged at his elbow. "Stefan, he's dangerous. We don't know him or what he is or what he's doing out here. He's not who we came here for!"

"Maybe not, but he might know where she is."

Caroline sighed, long and loud and unconvinced.

"I need to try," he insisted.

The man watched them curiously, his brow furrowed. When he was sure he had Stefan's attention, he raised his arm. The sleeve of his shirt was torn nearly to his shoulder. He pulled the fabric apart and bared his wrist, before raising it to his mouth and sinking his teeth through his skin to produce a dribble of blood. Then he pointed to Stefan, as if to tell him he had to do the same.

Caroline made a noise of disgust. "What is is this, the old fashioned 'spit shake'? Do not share your blood with him. It could be a trap."

"What's it going to do?"

"I don't know and neither do you."

Stefan frowned, but he looked down at his arm and then to the man's and finally came to the conclusion that something needed to happen. They were wasting time. If this is what it took to gain the man's trust then so be it. He lifted his arm and bit into his wrist, producing a pearl of blood.

The man was in front of him abruptly; he took Stefan's wrist in hand and brought it to his mouth. For the first time since going head to head with the Originals, Stefan found himself worryingly weak in comparison. Whatever this man was, he was stronger than the average vampire. Which made it useless when Stefan tried to pull his arm free as the man sunk his teeth through his skin and drank.

It was only a few pulls but it left him dizzy, his knees going soft beneath him. When the man let go, Stefan swayed, and Caroline caught him, arms banded around his waist. "I told you. I told you," she said, but her voice was thick with worry.

"I'm okay." He covered her hand against his stomach. "I'm fine." Still, he found himself a little weak.

The man stood with his head tipped back, drawing in deep gulps of air, his eyes closed and his arms outstretched at his sides. And then– He stopped. He lifted his head and looked straight at Stefan. "You were of Neci's line. I can taste it in your blood."

Stefan stared back at him, his brows raised in surprised. "I… What?"

"Neci, my daughter. I can taste the fire in your veins." He wrinkled his nose. "This language you speak, it's strange. But then, my tongue hasn't touched words in some time…" He cast his gaze around the forest, never quite stopping on any particular thing. "The world has changed a great deal in my absence. You have my sincerest gratitude for you blood, it was most… enlightening."

Stefan blinked. "You learned from by blood?"

"A great deal, in fact." He smiled crookedly. "In some ways, I suppose that could be considered the 'trap' your beloved worried it may be… I admit that the language barrier was a part of it, but I also needed to know what your intentions were. And now I know."

"Beloved?" Caroline squeaked.

Stefan shook his head slowly. "My intentions?"

The man nodded. "It wasn't me you were in search of."

"No. No, it wasn't. I… Sorry, if we disturbed your rest or something. We were looking for someone else. There was this prophecy and this book and a translation and… It's all very complicated, but we were looking for a witch. The witch."

"I know." He tapped his head. "I fear it's far more complicated than you think."

"How's that?"

"'To wake the queen, you wake the demon,'" he quoted. "An apt, if somewhat dishonest translation. Your love, she fears that the witch is the demon. She's wrong… In order to find the witch, you first must wake the demon, that is what the translation truly meant." He spread his arms out then and smirked at them. "I am Damon... The Demon."

tbc

Some things to know:

1. i have 11 chapters to this already written, and it's nearly finished, minus some editing

2. this will be a crossover with teen wolf, because banshee powers, but it's set in mystic falls and bamon are the main pairing, so tvd gang take priority. more specifically, damon is the main focus until bonnie's 'resurrection'

3. damon's speech starts off a little jarring and strange, because he comes from a different time, but as he adapts and uses the knowledge he gained from drinking stefan's blood, his language becomes more modern

4. finally, due to having much of this story already finished, i'm not against updating quicker. usually i need more time in between to get the next chapter ready. that said, the one down side to posting quickly is that reviews are usually pretty low, so please, if you can, try to leave a review!

thank you so much for reading!

- lee | fina