Here For The Echoes | Part One

by Waltzmatildah

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You tell me that everything is fine here, and you can handle it...

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It starts as a dull pounding behind his left eye. A pulsing ache that beats with a staccato tempo he thinks would probably mirror his heartbeat. If he still had one. If he still remembered what it felt like to have one.

It's oddly disconcerting

He tilts his head to the side, as though the angle might disperse the sensation, and is not entirely surprised when does no such thing.

He blames it on the scotch. On the pint of o-neg he had for supper. On Stefan.

He blames everything on Stefan.

(He blames everything on himself.)

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The house is quiet. The house is always quiet.

The shutters on a window upstairs rattle out a vigorous protest against the prevailing winds as he pushes up from the leather couch. The abrupt change in altitude whites out his vision for an instant as his hands fly out in front of his face. Immediately on the offensive. The glass in his fist drops soundlessly to the rug at his feet. Bounces and rolls.

Out of sight, out of mind.

(As utterly forgettable as he has always been.)

He presses fingertips to his eyelids. Pushes as everything moves back into slow focus. The pounding headache intensifies a notch and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't at least a little curious as to the cause.

Afterall, the last real headache he remembers having was sometime in March. Eighteen sixty four.

Rounding the arm of the couch, he flips a second glass to upright. Fills it to half way and figures, if it is the scotch, then he might as well keep on drinking.

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Candlelight refracts through the crystal cut tumbler as the smooth liquid waves against inertia when he picks it up.

Drains it.

Thunder rolls around inside his skull. Matched only in intensity by the flash of lightening that forks, tree-like, across the horizon. The french doors behind him burst open and he's met with a black wall of rainwater and debris.

"Well, well, well, isn't this an interesting turn of events..."

The poised figure remains a tableaued silhouette against the endless night. She doesn't appear even remotely wary of his presence and if he could get everything into some kind of order in his head then he thinks this fact would be a lot more troublesome than it currently is.

"Damon." Her voice is like fingernails down a chalkboard. Tangles in nerve endings that dance along the length of his spine.

"Bonnie. Lovely weather we're having."

Hair haloes out behind her as the wind continues its impromptu solo. She ignores him. Steps across the threshold and into the relative calm of the grand room, presses the doors closed behind her and leans lightly against them.

"I was just getting a drink, can I interest you in something...spicy?" His euphamistic attempt at unconcerned nonchalance fools neither of them as he uses the counter top to right his increasingly unsteady balance.

"This isn't a social call, Damon."

He pours as he speaks, doesn't bother to turn and look at her while he does so, "How very disappointing."

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"Damon."

"I think we've covered that part already." He spins to look at her and the room spins with him, never quite manages to right itself again. His face contorts into a practised smirk as he notices she's getting frustrated with him. It's spelled out in the crease of her brow. Curled into the way she's standing, still pressed up against the glass.

"I've come to warn you." She's resigned, tired. "I don't know why I bothered-" Her boots sound against the hardwood as she turns back to doors she'd only just pressed to closed. Makes a move to open them again. Fingers poised above the handle.

"Warn me?" She's motionless, waiting for him to go on. He does, incredulous. "What could you possibly have to warn me about?"

She sighs, the sound is sandpaper arcoss his eyelids. "I've been... out of town. Visiting family. I went to-" She cuts herself off. Deliberately bites her tongue, presses her lips into a thin line before shrugging it out. "Actually, you know what? It doesn't matter. Where I've been, it doesn't matter..."

"S'there a point to all this?" The pounding in his skull ramps up a notch or seven as the words trip off the tip of his tongue. He thinks if she can just get to the point already he can feed or drink or slam the back of his own head into the heavy wooden mantle.

Anything to shake it clear.

"If they find out I came there'll be trouble for me, you should know that. I'm risking a lot by being here..."

He grins. Cocks his head a little to the left. Raises an eyebrow to match. "That sounds positively... ominous..."

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"They have plans for you." She drops the words at his feet. Even lowers her gaze there to watch as he struggles to pick them up; to gather them into something that might start to make some sense.

Fails. "Excuse me?"

Her words fill him. Inside to out. A bubbling form of panic that is almost as incomprehensible as it is foreign. The heels of his hands clamp desperately against his temples for a second and the white noise drops by degrees.

"Are you-"

"No." She cuts him off emphatically, shakes her head. "No, not me. They, the... the others. They have plans. For you." She's less sure of herself now. The fading scent of adrenalin, of power, slips steadily through the gaps between her fingers.

"Who are they?"

"It doesn't matter who they are. I just thought, well... I just thought you should know." She's backtracking. Knows beyond doubt that she's already said too much.

"Bonnie... who are they?"

"I can't tell you that. But I can tell you that they're powerful. So incredibly powerful. And they have plans to..." She brings her eyes up to meet his. It's the first time she's done this by choice, "...reduce your effectiveness."

Like it needs air quotes.

"Reduce my effectiveness?" He only just manages to clamp down on a laugh that threatens to bubble out; to betray him. "What is that even supposed to mean?"

"They know what you did. The part you played in Grams' death. You've made them-"

"That was not my fault." He can feel his eyes slide around inside his head. Side to side to side to side. Wild. "That was not-. No. You can't-"

"Don't you get it?" She steps in front of him. Dares to raise her palms to his shoulders; to press him back a step, "It was all your fault. All of it. And that's not even the point. They think it was your fault. That's all that matters to them." Her mouth moves. Opens. Shuts. He loses her and then he gets her back...

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"They can't kill me."

"They can." She is sure of this. Her tone is adamant. Knowing. He shakes his head in protest. Defiant 'til the very end.

"No." The words are thick in his throat, he swallows around them as they fight for release. "They can't. There's a pact. We don't kill you, you don't kill us-"

"Damon, I said they can, which is true. But they know about the pact, and they have every intention of honouring it."

"Then, I'm afraid your little story has lost me..." He shifts backwards, inches and feet until he's pressed against the back of the leather couch. Allows the high back to take some of his weight as he swirls the liquid amber in his glass.

(The indifference is feigned.)

"Listen to me." He doesn't remember stopping. "They have plans for you. To reduce your effectiveness. They're not going to kill you but, if my guess is correct, then they're not going to make it all that pleasant for you either..."

"Why are you telling me this?" The words tumble out on an exhale. His confusion is genuine. He can see that it shocks her as much as it shocks him in the way she stiffens at his tone.

"Honestly? I have no idea."

"What are they planning?" Insistent. Desperate.

"I have no idea about that either. They're very secretive."

"Then maybe you should get an idea before I rip your pretty little head off-" He lurches to his feet. Scrambled. Disjointed. Only just manages to remain upright.

"But I am sure things like that will only make it worse. Or faster. Or bigger... To be honest, I really don't care."

Ah, the Bonnie that he recognises. Fire and ice and everything in between.

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"So," Numb fingertips drag across his forehead, an attempt to regain some semblance of focus, "When is operation Lets Get Revenge scheduled to begin?"

She smiles at him knowingly, like they're entangled within an intricate game but only she has been given the rules of how to play. She's in front of him suddenly, rocking as she drags a manicured nail down the side of his face in a gesture that could be suggestive but absolutely is not.

"I think we both know the answer to that one, don't we, Damon?"

He can't see her then. The pressure of her palm as it cups his face is real enough but she might as well be miles and oceans and moutain ranges away. He morphs in an instant. Doesn't bother to bite back the desire to rip her throat out, leave her empty and emptying on the storm sodden ground.

He collides with something solid. Concrete. Stone, perhaps. Can't quite focus enough to join all the dots.

He is the one that is empty.

(This is nothing new.)

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"God." His head lowers as his arms come up to cover it. To hold in what is surely about to explode. "What have you done to me?"

She laughs at his ineptitude; mocking, "I'm going now. Please don't tell anyone I came. Oh," She pauses then and he can hear her tapping one finger against the glass, "you should probably call Stefan-"

"Stefan? Why? What have they done to him?" His fingers scrabble for purchase against the rug beneath his knees. Nails torn, tearing. "Stefan!"

The sound of his plea echoes. Pathetic. He hates himself for it even as he can't bring himself to stop it.

"Hey, relax. Stefan is fine." Relief burns a path through his insides. Lights them up in a flash of bright white. "As far as I know, you're the only one they're interested in. For now. Just... call Stefan. He should be here."

"Bonnie! Bonnie, wait!"

The doors open again, hang limply in the still night air.

The storm is over.

(He can't help but to think it's only just begun).

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To be continued...