Tear the World Down - Chapter 25
Title: Tear the World Down
Author: isisizabel
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries (tv show)
Pairing(s): Bonnie/Damon; Elena/Stefan; Matt/Caroline
Rating: R
Author's Note: Spoilers through 1.22 (Founder's Day); Bonnie and Damon must put aside their differences to stop a greater threat. This fic will definitely have NC-17 chapters later. Please join evening_ground if you'd like to be able to read them as those posts will be Member's Only locked.
Previous Chapters
Tear the World Down
By: IsisIzabel
Chapter 25
Bonnie was still screaming when Damon grabbed her shoulders, trying to shake her awake. The door to their room slammed open with a jarring crash as Stefan and Jeremy rushed through, their eyes wild as they searched the room for an intruder. Elena stumbled into the room seconds later, her hair tangled and her eyes stricken.
“Bonnie!” Damon shouted, shaking her harder. He was on his knees in the bed beside her now, feeling her fear as it screamed through their bond.
Bonnie’s green eyes snapped open and her chest heaved. Her screams left a sharp ringing in the room. Her eyes were unfocused and still panicked.
“What’s wrong?” Stefan demanded, coming around to Bonnie’s side of the bed. He started to move closer, but stopped when Damon’s gaze flickered darkly at him.
Damon’s lips pressed together, his brow furrowing. He loosened his hold on Bonnie, relaxing his fingers so he wouldn’t bruise her. “Bonnie?” he pressed gently.
Her eyes moved to his and the glaze melted away as she recognized him. Her mouth dropped open slightly and then she launched herself up, throwing her arms around his neck as tightly as she could get them.
“Easy,” Damon admonished, circling his arms around her. The relief that was flooding their bond was overwhelming and nearly choked him with its intensity. He met his brother’s eyes over her shoulder and found Stefan was just as baffled as he was.
“Freaky,” Jeremy muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. He shrugged after a second, retreating to the window. He looked out and checked the locks to make sure they were still undisturbed. Still puzzled, he walked back over towards Bonnie. “Everything seems fine.”
“Bonnie, what the hell was that?” Elena asked, finally coming into the room. She came to a stop beside Jeremy at the foot of the bed.
Bonnie let her eyes slide shut, not caring how foolish or crazy she looked. Her hands speared through Damon’s hair and she inhaled his scent. Nothing could shake the vision of Katherine staking him. Killing him. Her chest ached imagining it again. Her head was still pounding from the intensity of the vision. It had been all too real. Her arms tightened even more around Damon’s neck, pressing her chest against his.
“Bonnie?” Elena tried again. She started to move around the bed to her friend, but stopped when Damon leveled her with his gaze.
“Everybody out,” Damon said, his voice leaving little room for negotiating.
Stefan nodded and turned to leave, pausing to take Elena’s hand in his. Jeremy was already gone, presumably heading for his own room.
“Elena,” he murmured, giving her hand a gentle tug. He raised his eyebrows expectantly.
Elena frowned and edged closer to the bed. “Maybe I should stay.”
“Leave,” Damon ordered without looking at her. He shifted in the bed so he was sitting with Bonnie mostly in his lap. He never stopped holding her, his hand smoothing down her back in soothing circles. She was still shaking.
Elena flinched but didn’t argue anymore. She sighed and let Stefan lead her out of the room, closing the door behind them.
“You wanna tell me what the hell just happened?” Damon asked mildly after he heard Stefan and Elena move a safe distance away from the door.
“I …” Still breathing hard, Bonnie loosened her grip slightly, pulling back. Embarrassed, she dropped her gaze. “It was just a nightmare,” she lied.
“A nightmare did all that?” Damon wasn’t convinced. His hands moved to her hips when she tried to get away. He held her against him so she was straddling his lap.
Her gaze lifted slowly to his and she knew he could sense her terror as well as see it now. “A vision.”
He seemed to take it in stride, nodding once. “What did you see?”
“I watched Katherine kill you,” she said finally. She let her eyes close again; the memory of Katherine driving a stake into his chest was branded in her mind. She sighed when she felt his cool forehead press against hers.
“You’re sure it was a vision?” he asked after a minute.
Bonnie looked at him, leaning back. “Yeah. I … I watched her …” She shuddered and started to shake her head. “It wasn’t just a dream. It was too real for that.”
His hand cradled her cheek, his thumb sweeping across the delicate bone. “Tell me everything.”
She told him as much as she remembered. About how Katherine had shown up after Stefan left with Jeremy and Elena. About how the necklace didn’t work since she had the talisman. About how she was faster and stronger than any of them had anticipated; how she knew they would try to use the summer solstice against her. And how Katherine had killed Damon against the wall directly across from them.
She told him everything except how he had asked her to leave Mystic Falls. About how she knew, or suspected, that he loved her. That she couldn’t tell him.
“So she knows our plan,” Damon said when she finished. His jaw tightened. “Can’t say I’m too surprised. But at least now we know she knows. And she doesn’t know that we know that she-”
Bonnie pressed her fingers against his mouth, silencing him. He was making her head hurt. “I get it. But now what?”
“Now we make sure we’re ready when she shows up,” he replied blandly, shrugging. “We still need the Power of the solstice for this to work.”
“Right, but Katherine is ready for us,” she argued. “Katherine knows our plan.”
“And we know hers,” Damon reminded her.
“Damon, she killed you.”
“I’m not worried,” he said dismissively, brushing it off.
Bonnie’s hands framed his face, forcing him to look her in the eye. “I need you to be worried.” The memory of him dying was like a knife twisting in her gut.
His lips curved into a smirk, but something in his blue eyes was deadly serious. “Would you miss me?”
Her back stiffened and her green eyes narrowed dangerously. “Don’t. Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t brush this off like it’s no big deal,” she snapped, her fear for him bringing her anger surging to the surface. She got off the bed in a quick huff, her hands shaking. She tugged at the edge of the shirt she wore-his shirt-and wished she had thrown on a pair on pajama bottoms so she wasn’t half naked.
He got off the bed, too. “Look at the bright side: If she kills me it ends the bond and you’re free.”
Bonnie whirled around fast, her hand cracking against his jaw before either one of them realized what she was doing.
Damon blinked, his eyes wide. He skin didn’t have a mark on it, and they both knew he barely felt the blow, but they both froze as if someone had fired a gun in the room.
Bonnie glanced down at her hand and then back at him before her expression went stormy. The tension strained their bond as her fear and anger poured into it.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Bonnie-”
“Why the hell would you even say that?” she demanded. “Do you think this has all been some game to me? I’m doing everything I can to keep all of us alive-and that includes you!”
“I didn’t-”
“Is that what you think? That I just want to get rid of the bond?” She kept on, her chest heaving. She wanted to scream or throw something. Maybe both.
“Don’t you?” he asked quietly after a second. His gaze moved to a spot on the wall behind her.
She stopped cold, something in his tone making her pause in the middle of her rant. She could feel it as her rage started to melt away; she felt how unsure he was.
He was worried she would reject him, just like in her vision. Whatever feelings were manifesting between them were very real and very much there.
She drew in a steadying breath. “You asked me to leave Mystic Falls with you in my vision.” She finally admitted.
His eyes went to hers immediately and she saw the surprise there. But it wasn’t surprise that he would ask her at all; he was surprised she knew he was going to ask her.
“What did you say?” he asked after a second, not breathing.
She took a few steps closer to him. “I said no,” she answered honestly, hating the way his gaze hardened immediately. She could feel him start to pull away emotionally and something in her chest ached. “But not because I didn’t want to, Damon.”
He started to shake his head, but she was faster and moved to block him before he could turn away from her.
After a second of staring at him, she grabbed for his hand and pressed it against her chest. “Does it feel like I want this to end?” She dropped the walls she had carefully erected to block him out and let him feel through their bond everything she felt. It all came pouring out: her fear that something would happen to him, how angry he made her, how he scared her, how she never felt safer than when she was with him, how she finally found someone who balanced her out.
If it wasn’t love, it was damn near close and she was terrified he would do something reckless and destroy whatever they were building before it was ever finished.
He swallowed visibly. The look in his eyes when they met hers was tortured. “I never meant for this to happen.”
“Neither of us did,” she agreed, remembering the first night weeks back when they had forged the blood bond. “I still don’t understand it, but I need you, Damon. I need you to not do anything stupid, OK?”
Damon nodded slowly, his gaze holding hers. He raised a hand to the back of her neck, sliding his fingers through her hair. “We’re in this together.”
“Promise?” Bonnie pressed, moving closer to him. She leaned her forehead against his and closed her eyes, breathing in his scent and committing it to memory.
His mouth found hers, his lips cool and wet as they moved against her own. He broke the kiss with a groan, wanting more but knowing they both need rest more than anything else.
“I promise,” he breathed before kissing her again.