Where There Is Smoke
She doesn’t know who she is anymore.
(“Bonnie what are you doing?”)
And no one sees her falling.
(And she has these dreams where she leaves him to burn and-)
This isn’t her.
(She’s looked into his eyes and watched him burn in the same hellfire that roasts her alive each day she wakes up and Grams is still dead.)
She turns around.
“Damon!”
And now everything burns.
(She barely feels the difference as the flames lick the wood around her and scorch her skin.)
“Damon!”
He is gasping and choking, clinging to the floor in the basement where she left him.
“Come to watch it end, Little Witch?” he spits. He just stares; he won’t struggle to stand now.
She steps forward, Grams’ words echoing in her head.
(“Don’t do this child. Don’t make his monster your own.”)
“No,” she replies, standing over him, “I’ve come to end it.”
Before Damon has a chance to react, Bonnie is struggling to lift him. With his arm over her shoulders she stumbles and drags him to the staircase. She pauses to catch her breath and his eyes are on hers; clear and lucid despite the raging mess around them. She chants in a foreign tongue and the flames blocking their path are momentarily tamed.
“What are you doing?” he asks, and for a moment she detects resignation in his voice, acceptance of the end;
(and she envies him that peace)
And she knows he is referring to anything but her spell but she is anything but ready to have this conversation with the homicidal vampire.
“I’m not Katherine and I’m not Emily.” is her simple reply. And it means nothing and everything.
(I won’t leave you to die no matter how bad you want me to.)
He is weak but his voice is strong. “That bitch is not getting my town.”
She assumes he means it to sound callous and cold but she is not fooled.
His words drip with the fire that can only be instilled by that very special kind of betrayal-and even Damon Salvatore can’t quite pull off ‘unfeeling’ while simultaneously pledging protection.
Bonnie struggles to her feet and he tries to help her as they climb the stairs.
“Your town?” Bonnie challenges, rolling her eyes. His mouth never stops.
(“I was here before you were even born, Brumhilda.”
“So you’re just telling me you’re really, really old.”)
He could be, should be
(is)
dead and someone is screaming and the town has gone from zero to completely apeshit in the span of one fireworks display.
And it might feel like someone is scalding her from the inside out but she can’t pretend her entire being isn’t provoked by the constant drum in her body that seems to beat to Damon’s rhythm.
(It’s a striking match, a tank of gas combination.)
Her element is fire; it protects, it defends. It is anger and arousal and pain and ecstasy.
And it is getting more and more difficult to define, isolate, focus on the fury.
Lines are blurring and her mind is screaming hatred and revenge but her body hisses ‘use him’ like it demands water or food.
And she doesn’t understand it, but she can’t ignore it.
She remembers the night he tried to kill her; still feels his mouth on her neck, his teeth in her flesh, and she can’t figure out when blood and death became foreplay.
So she warns Stefan, threatens Damon’s life, and waits.
(“If Damon spills so much as one drop of innocent blood, I’ll take him down.”)
Her skin is crawling and her palms are itching and her fingers flex restlessly.
She wants him to do it, she realizes.
Every molecule in her body needs him to do it.
She thinks it so hard sometimes she swears she is starting to hear him taunt her in her own head.
(“Spill it Damon, just a drop; what could it hurt?”
“You’d like that wouldn’t you, Little Witch.”)
And she’s still having these dreams
(and sometimes they’re fighting but they’re always fucking and there is always fire)
and she can’t remember anymore if she wants to kill him or just get her hands on him.
(his neck, down his chest, drag a nail across his inner thigh)
And she doesn’t understand it, but she can’t ignore it.
And she is riled and her body is coiled like a tight spring and she spends afternoons pouring over dusty volumes, searching for reason and praying for relief. She has considered eliminating the source; staking him through the heart and moving on.
But she can’t do it.
She saw the twenty-two year old little boy in Damon’s eyes.
Regardless, the 169-year-old bastard has been infuriatingly, unfailingly well-behaved.
Not for the first time, she curses being one of the ‘good guys’.
She knows Damon would’ve ended her already and stopped for a snack along the way. (except now she isn’t even sure of that)
And she thinks, not for the first time, that she’s living an episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’.
But she’ll get to the bottom of whatever supernatural hiccup she seems to be caught in now; she’ll find an explanation, a perpetrator, the deeper meaning she is sure lies behind this smoke screen of blood and sex
(and Damon)
If her Grandmother taught her one thing, it is where there is smoke, there is fire.
(where there’s you, there’s desire)
(“Bonnie what are you doing?”)
And no one sees her falling.
(And she has these dreams where she leaves him to burn and-)
This isn’t her.
(She’s looked into his eyes and watched him burn in the same hellfire that roasts her alive each day she wakes up and Grams is still dead.)
She turns around.
“Damon!”
And now everything burns.
(She barely feels the difference as the flames lick the wood around her and scorch her skin.)
“Damon!”
He is gasping and choking, clinging to the floor in the basement where she left him.
“Come to watch it end, Little Witch?” he spits. He just stares; he won’t struggle to stand now.
She steps forward, Grams’ words echoing in her head.
(“Don’t do this child. Don’t make his monster your own.”)
“No,” she replies, standing over him, “I’ve come to end it.”
Before Damon has a chance to react, Bonnie is struggling to lift him. With his arm over her shoulders she stumbles and drags him to the staircase. She pauses to catch her breath and his eyes are on hers; clear and lucid despite the raging mess around them. She chants in a foreign tongue and the flames blocking their path are momentarily tamed.
“What are you doing?” he asks, and for a moment she detects resignation in his voice, acceptance of the end;
(and she envies him that peace)
And she knows he is referring to anything but her spell but she is anything but ready to have this conversation with the homicidal vampire.
“I’m not Katherine and I’m not Emily.” is her simple reply. And it means nothing and everything.
(I won’t leave you to die no matter how bad you want me to.)
He is weak but his voice is strong. “That bitch is not getting my town.”
She assumes he means it to sound callous and cold but she is not fooled.
His words drip with the fire that can only be instilled by that very special kind of betrayal-and even Damon Salvatore can’t quite pull off ‘unfeeling’ while simultaneously pledging protection.
Bonnie struggles to her feet and he tries to help her as they climb the stairs.
“Your town?” Bonnie challenges, rolling her eyes. His mouth never stops.
(“I was here before you were even born, Brumhilda.”
“So you’re just telling me you’re really, really old.”)
He could be, should be
(is)
dead and someone is screaming and the town has gone from zero to completely apeshit in the span of one fireworks display.
And it might feel like someone is scalding her from the inside out but she can’t pretend her entire being isn’t provoked by the constant drum in her body that seems to beat to Damon’s rhythm.
(It’s a striking match, a tank of gas combination.)
Her element is fire; it protects, it defends. It is anger and arousal and pain and ecstasy.
And it is getting more and more difficult to define, isolate, focus on the fury.
Lines are blurring and her mind is screaming hatred and revenge but her body hisses ‘use him’ like it demands water or food.
And she doesn’t understand it, but she can’t ignore it.
She remembers the night he tried to kill her; still feels his mouth on her neck, his teeth in her flesh, and she can’t figure out when blood and death became foreplay.
So she warns Stefan, threatens Damon’s life, and waits.
(“If Damon spills so much as one drop of innocent blood, I’ll take him down.”)
Her skin is crawling and her palms are itching and her fingers flex restlessly.
She wants him to do it, she realizes.
Every molecule in her body needs him to do it.
She thinks it so hard sometimes she swears she is starting to hear him taunt her in her own head.
(“Spill it Damon, just a drop; what could it hurt?”
“You’d like that wouldn’t you, Little Witch.”)
And she’s still having these dreams
(and sometimes they’re fighting but they’re always fucking and there is always fire)
and she can’t remember anymore if she wants to kill him or just get her hands on him.
(his neck, down his chest, drag a nail across his inner thigh)
And she doesn’t understand it, but she can’t ignore it.
And she is riled and her body is coiled like a tight spring and she spends afternoons pouring over dusty volumes, searching for reason and praying for relief. She has considered eliminating the source; staking him through the heart and moving on.
But she can’t do it.
She saw the twenty-two year old little boy in Damon’s eyes.
Regardless, the 169-year-old bastard has been infuriatingly, unfailingly well-behaved.
Not for the first time, she curses being one of the ‘good guys’.
She knows Damon would’ve ended her already and stopped for a snack along the way. (except now she isn’t even sure of that)
And she thinks, not for the first time, that she’s living an episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’.
But she’ll get to the bottom of whatever supernatural hiccup she seems to be caught in now; she’ll find an explanation, a perpetrator, the deeper meaning she is sure lies behind this smoke screen of blood and sex
(and Damon)
If her Grandmother taught her one thing, it is where there is smoke, there is fire.
(where there’s you, there’s desire)