A/N: I've been ill in bed for the last couple of days and have quite literally done nothing but read Bamon fanfiction. It seems once again I have fallen hopelessly in love with the non-canon ship. Ugh. Anyway, here's my first Bamon ramble. Do let me know if you'd like me to continue.

"You're such an ass," Bonnie groans.

Damon rolls his eyes. "You always say that when I win."

"Who even has the time to get this good at monopoly anyway? Oh, wait, someone with unlimited time."

She pokes him in the ribs and he catches her finger, curling around it with feigned malice. "Don't aggravate a vampire, Bon-bon."

"Too late," she says sweetly and wriggles out of his grip.

Damon is about to demand another game when Elena walks into the room. "You two have been aggravating each other from the moment you met." She speaks easily but Damon's jaw clenches with the reminder. There aren't enough board games in the world to make up for how he used to treat the witch.

Bonnie smiles up at her friend. "I'll leave you guys to it. It's getting kinda late."

Damon tilts his head. It has been the second time this week Bonnie has cut their game nights short after Elena's appearance. His girlfriend jumps up from the sofa to throw her arms around the smaller woman's neck. "See you soon, okay?"

Bonnie nods against her sleeve but Damon shakes his head. "The roads are icy out there, Bon."

"I know how to drive, Damon," she sighs and he squints quizzically.

"There's knowing how to drive and driving well." They fall into this banter like breathing – its their comfort, one that Damon has happily accepted and excels at. "Look, I'll drive you."

The witch opens her mouth to protest but he shakes his head, defiant. "No buts, we can't have you dying." Smirking he adds, "Again."

And with a quick kiss on his girlfriend's head, Damon follows Bonnie to her ridiculous car.

"I'm surprised you want to be seen driving this," she says dryly as he pulls the little thing into gear.

"I'm attractive enough to do the work for all of us."

He enjoys Bonnie's reactions to his facetious comments a little too much and glances at her expectantly in the overhead mirror. Her gaze, however, has drifted to the window.

"You okay, Bon?"

She speaks to the window. "Yeah, just thinking."

In all his years, Damon has learned to pay close attention to a woman's 'just thinking'. "Anything in particular?" he says, playing off nonchalance.

Bonnie exhales. "I know it's been over a month but being back here… it still feels so strange."

Ah. Damon shifts his stare from the road to the passenger seat. The woman next to him has her head against the window, her eyes sleepily reflecting the darkened world outside. "Are you okay living on your own?"

Bonnie looks at him briefly before settling back to the window. "I'm not ready to go back to school yet."

She sounds tired and the words tumble quickly out his mouth. "I know, of course not. I just meant… after being alone for so long there…" And Bonnie looks so damn sad in that moment that a sudden rage scratches against his chest. Damon grips the steering wheel.

"It's okay," Bonnie says.

But it's not okay. None of what happened to her was okay and he hates it.

"I could always compel you a boyfriend," he says, interrupting the silence with what he – they – know best.

Bonnie rolls her eyes. "Good one."

His mouth twitches. "Oh, come on, Bonnie," he sings, "They'd probably thank me. Nice house, kickass friends, pretty girl…" It startles him, that last comment. How easily it fell and how awkward it hangs.

"Was that a compliment, Damon Salvatore?"

Damon relaxes. "Correction: not bad-looking."

She narrows her green eyes, a devilish grin drawn beneath them. "No, no, you said pretty." The grin widens as she sing-songs, "Damon thinks I'm pretttyyyyyy."

He rolls his eyes and Bonnie claps her hands together. "You're blushing! You're actually blushing."

Impossible. I don't blush. But he can feel that stupid red hue burning his pale cheeks. "Pretty annoying," he hisses. Bonnie laughs and Damon can't possibly be irritated because she's not sad anymore. That, and Bonnie Bennett laughing is one of his favourite sounds in the world.

He'd heard it properly back in the prison world. They'd been arguing in the local supermarket over what butter to get – a bicker that had escalated into near shouting – when Damon had walked backwards into a stand of tacky sunglasses. It collapsed, naturally, and for a moment they just stared at each other: Bonnie, hands on hips, Damon, from the floor. Then she laughed. Cackled. It was such a ridiculous sound that Damon's laugh erupted on reflex.

"I've never heard you laugh like that," he'd said later, butter decided upon.

Bonnie crinkled her nose. "I've never seen you fall over."

"Wow, teasing you never gets old," the witch says now, letting her eyes flutter close, a smile still in her words.

Damon clears his throat. "You know, Bon, if you wanted, you could always stay at mine."

At this, her eyes fly open in a frown. "Don't you think that's a bit much?"

"Stefan won't mind," he says quickly, flitting his gaze from Bonnie to the road, unsure what to make of her expression.

"And Elena?"

There it was again, the tentativeness regarding his girlfriend. He thinks about it for a moment. Bonnie at breakfast had become a routine in the prison world but Bonnie at breakfast with Elena? He tries to slot her into the scene. It looks wrong.

"We could make it work," he says finally.

Just as he pulls into her Gram's road, Bonnie laughs again. Damon whips his head to look at hers, shaking. "We're such idiots," she sighs.

"Why?"

Bonnie looks up at him, disbelieving. "You drove my car here."

"Yes, Bonnie, I did."

The witch rolls her eyes, "So how exactly were you planning to get home?"

We're such idiots. Damon shrugs, "I never claimed to be a well-thought out planner, Bon-Bon."

And that's how, two hours later, he's lying in Bonnie's very pink childhood bedroom. It's an image that the witch had found especially amusing and insisted on taking lots of pictures to haunt him later when he's 'trying to be the big bad vampire again.' Bet baby Bonnie didn't expect a monster to be sleeping in her bed.

They'd spent an hour or so watching TV downstairs before she'd yawned for the fifteenth time and Damon agreed to go to bed. Bonnie smiled at him from beneath a pillow, all curled up and cosy, and he suddenly felt very grateful for their idiocy because it meant she didn't have to be alone.

"Are you thirsty?" she asked as she unfolded herself from the couch.

It had been a while since his last blood bag but he'd been distracting himself with some cheap wine Bonnie had left-over in the fridge. He gave his glass a shake but Bonnie shook her head. "You know what I mean."

His confusion must have shown because she practically ran to the kitchen, banged about a bit, then came back with a blood bag and a triumphant grin.

"Bonnie Bennet, are you a heretic?"

"Nope, but all my best friends are vampires so I try to be a good host."

It was only after they'd said goodnight that Damon remembers to message Elena. Three missed calls and messages from her and Stefan.

When are you back?

You okay?

Damon?

Guilt begins its dance as he scrolls through the anxious texts. He debated calling her but it was almost 1am and he didn't feel like having an argument.

So sorry. Drove Bon's car so couldn't drive back. See you tomorrow morning.

He sends and almost immediately, his phone buzzes.

I know. She told me an hour ago.

Damon sighs, stretching out in the tiny Princess bed, the glow from the phone screen tilting his eyes closed.

I didn't check my phone. V sorry.

He's asleep before her next message delivers.

It's okay. Just glad you're safe.

/

Downstairs, Damon Salvatore is making pancakes. And singing. Bonnie grins at him in the doorway, the familiarity of it all stretching in warmth across her chest.

"How did you sleep?" she asks, stepping into the kitchen.

Damon looks up from the hob and winks. "Hey there, witchy."

"Witchy?"

The vampire shakes the pan in his hand. "You're a witch, aren't you?"

"Last time I checked." He's in the same clothes as yesterday, hair pointing in all sorts of directions. It's the least put together she's ever seen him and Bonnie can't help but smile. "You didn't answer my question."

Damon flips the pancake onto a plate then opens the fridge. He speaks with his head buried in it, rummaging through the shelves. "I slept like…a…little… wait, where's the squirty cream!?"

She imagines his disgusted expression and rolls her eyes. "It was always you that sneaked the can into the trolley."

Damon pulls his head out, indignant. "Because it's a vital component in the art of pancakes!"

"You, Damon Salvatore, are a child. A one-hundred-and-sixty-something year old child."

Said child, quite accurately, sticks his tongue out at her. Bonnie tries to master her best unamused face but it slips too often into laughter with Damon so she grabs the plate of pancakes and swivels to the kitchen table. "What did you sleep like? A little?" she prompts, squeezing an obscene amount of honey on top of the stack.

"Hey! Save some for me," Damon scolds, reaching for the bottle which Bonnie expertly moves out of his reach. But, being a vampire, of course he darts his hand and grabs it with a triumphant smirk. "Like a little princess," he finishes, pulling out a chair opposite her.

Bonnie quirks an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Really. I was extremely obnoxious. Very fluffy pink dress."

"Blue." Damon's forehead creases in bemusement and Bonnie shrugs. "It was my favourite colour."

"Tell that to your room!"

Bonnie cuts another mouthful of pancake. "I get bored easily," she says, before inhaling the forkful.

Damon's eyes are strangely widened, as if this revelation has changed her somehow, and Bonnie looks away, suddenly regretting putting so much pancake in her mouth. "Got enough in there, Bon-bon," he says after a moment and she flips him off, on instinct. "So ladylike," he drawls.

They eat the rest of their breakfast in companionable silence; like so many mornings shared in the prison world, Damon reading, Bonnie puzzling over a crossword. Bonnie stands to take their empty plates to the sink but the vampire shakes his head, only a gentleman when he wants to be.

"Did you… want to have a shower or anything?" She asks.

Damon turns from the sink, his eyes mischievous and blue. "Careful, it sounds like you want me to move in."

"Don't flatter yourself," she says, a little too quickly. In the beginning, living with Damon felt impossible and then… it just felt natural. And she'd be lying if she denied missing him being there. "There's a spare towel in the cupboard on the left."

After helping the incompetent vampire with the shower ("sorry it's not as luxury as the one at the manor" "it's not and you should be" "dick" "you love it"), Elena rings.

"Hey," Bonnie says lightly.

"Hey, is Damon still there?"

"He's singing pretty loudly in the shower, if you can hear that," she replies, expecting Elena to laugh.

She doesn't. Bonnie clears her throat, "Is everything okay?"

Elena pauses. "Yes… sorry… I just, I know this sounds stupid but I miss him."

Of course. She and Damon were dead for months for all everyone knew, of course Elena would feel his absence. Anyone would. "No, I get it," she says softly, "I'll speak to you later."

"What do you get?"

"Damon!" Bonnie scolds, hanging up the phone to glare at the – half-naked – vampire. "Don't scare me like that," she glances at the towel wrapped loosely around his bottom half, "And put some clothes on."

Obviously, this is exactly the reaction he wants as his face contorts into a very classic Damon smirk. "I am I making you uncomfortable, Bon-bon?"

"Yes," she snaps, pivoting to face the opposite wall.

"Fineeeee," Damon sighs and walks back into the bathroom. Bonnie relaxes. She'd seen him half-naked several times before, but that particular towel was very small and-

"Who were you on the phone to?" Damon asks from the bathroom.

"Just Elena."

There's a pause before he speaks. "Is she demanding my presence?"

"Something like that," she replies, alarmed at how flat it sounds. She tries again, "Shall I… drive you back then?"

He steps out of the bathroom, fully dressed in his old clothes, hair dark and silken from the shower. "That sounds dangerous."

"Ass."

The corner of Damon's mouth lifts, "My pleasure."

A/N: Okay this turned out to be incredibly fun to write and now I don't want to stop oops. There will be some Delena in this story but this is simply because I LOVE slow-burn and these two characters make for such wonderful (angsty) slow-burn. Reviews are very much encouraged. P.S. Yes, the title is a reference to Beauty and the Beast.