Sacred Geometry - Chapter 7
Title: Sacred Geometry
Author: Sky Samuelle
Characters: Bonnie and Damon-centric, but Katherine, Jeremy, Elena and Stefan will be nearly as heavily featured. This is probably as close to an ensemble fic as I’ll ever get.
Pairings: Bonnie/Damon, Stefan/Elena, Jeremy/Anna
Rating: Mature
Timeline: Post 1.22
Summary: Mystic Falls will never be the same again after Founders’ Day. Not with Katherine and Jeremy allying to resurrect Anna and Pearl. Not with Stefan and Elena on the receiving end of Katherine’s sick games. And Bonnie and Damon? Well, they are stuck at the epicenter of everything. Currently on- Damon and Bonnie discuss their meeting with Katherine.
CHAPTER 7
Bonnie doesn’t enjoy her much awaited dinner with her dad. Which is a shame because he works afterhours often ever since the divorce and they have precious few chances to spend quality time together. Regardless of how proud she is of her mother for ditching her previous teaching post and pursuing her dreams, unfortunately a beginning career as a Jazz musician is not quite the best source of economic stability.
Bonnie is very grateful to her father for never letting the situation weigh on her, and it makes her feel so guilty that she can’t put aside everything else and give him the break he deserves.
The meeting with Katherine has her stomach in knots, and just forcing the food they cooked down her throat takes effort. It doesn’t matter how much she tries to disconnect her brain, Katherine’s threat hovers in between her thoughts.
It makes the guilt worse that her dad eyes the way she picks at her food and looks more subdued, even striving to compliment her goulash before flat-out advising that she stops pretending she is not tired and call it a night.
Bonnie surrenders to his cajoling without a fight and retires to her bedroom somberly, set on consulting her books for appropriate protection spells. She will even get on that CD her mother mailed to her last month- there’s soothing quality about the mournful intensity of the saxophone’s sound that she could truly use right now. Perhaps it’s just that listening to her mother’s music makes her feel like the woman is in the room with her.
It’s a meager comfort that, at least, her mother is someone Katherine won’t be able to get to.
Since no part of her night went how it was supposed to, it should not come as a surprise to her when her senses pick up a familiar presence as soon as she closes her bedroom door.
It’s not the first time she has sensed him hovering around her home. She knows Damon has maintained his ‘promise’ to keep an eye on her, but usually the vibes he sends off are barely an echo of his soul essence: what she senses now is stronger, almost like an imprint lingering in the air, whose source is too easily localized. Maybe it’s her emotions sharpening her intuition, or maybe it’s because of how upset he is now. She always seems to feel him more strongly when his feelings are closer to the surface. Realizing how attuned to Damon she has become startles her, because she can’t say she is able to sense Stefan in the same manner.
Any other day, Bonnie would pretend she doesn’t know she is being spied upon: after all, Damon doesn’t terrify her anymore, and why should she care about how he wastes his time? There’s a minor, resentfully acknowledged figment of her, that is relieved of being under careful watch, even if it was Damon doing the watching, or perhaps exactly because it was him, and not someone with any scruples. The idea of losing control of the entire situation scares her, and it’ been helpful knowing that if the worst ever happened there was someone who would recognize the signs and help her retain that control.
How do you go from being resentful of someone’s very existence to feeling safe with your sanity in his blood-stained hands?
Bonnie doesn’t even pretend to understandable her life’s small ironies, but she still goes to her window, shaking her head in disbelief. The large crow lands on the window’s sill and caws, shameless.
“Quiet,” she mutters, conflicted between her need to truly talk with somebody -anybody, apparently- and the very rational certainty that she’s going to regret it in the morning.
The witch ends up uttering, with a defeated sigh, an incantation to soundproof her walls. A silvery dusted smog shapes a small vortex in her open palm before penetrating the vertical surfaces of her room.
Only then does she open the windows, nearly smiling because the crow is titling his head to regard her in a manner that can only be defined as suspicious.
“Come in.”
The bird jumps on her floor and looks around quickly like he expects some unknown force to materialize and attack him from all directions.
What he doesn’t expect is a flash of pale grey fur rushing madly from under her bed and getting his nasty claws into his feathered body.
Bonnie is too surprised to react, and Damon must to be too, since it takes him a full minute to come back to his human shape.
“Finn! Get off him!” the witch cries out as the cat keeps wrapping around the vampire’s arm. Damon looks down at the small animal, stunned, trying to shake the pest off without killing it.
I should just fling the stupid beast at the wall- he reflects, then he remembers that Bonnie hasn’t always had a pet. Finn was actually Sheila’s cat before the woman passed away, so it wouldn’t be diplomatic to even injure the animal.
Fortunately vampires have a high pain threshold, but having small claws deep in your arms, regardless, is not pleasant.
“Damon if you hurt him, I swear-”
“Are you blind, witch? It is trying to eat me!”
“Well, now you know how your victims felt!”
Despite her stern tone, Bonnie hurries to grab her feline and peel him off the visiting vampire, who cradles his bleeding arm in disbelief. Finn calms down considerably within his mistress’s soothing embrace, although he doesn’t much like to be held, by habit.
“I can’t believe I was ambushed by a fucking cat,” Damon mumbles, indignant, causing the girl by his side to erupt in peals of hysterical laughter.
Finn mewls in protest and slinks out of her arms to hide under the bed again. Damon glares after his retreating back, still unwilling to accept this happened to him, now and here, when it has not happened in a century of successful and dignified shape-shifting.
Bonnie’s continuing giggles soon distract him: admittedly, the situation in itself is rather ironic and funny, but that’s no excuse to appreciate it so freely.
“Sorry,” she says, covering her widely smiling mouth with her fingers, “it must be a nervous reaction.”
He supposes it might well be true: Katherine is not easy on anyone’s nerves.
Yet, when Bonnie manages to get her body’s reactions under control and hold her face straight again, Damon is surprisingly dissatisfied with her neutral expression. She looked brighter and softer just a moment ago - he much preferred it to her usual pinched appearance whenever they were arguing.
Putting aside the random observation and taking out the irritation it has arisen on the hiding cat, he glances back to the spot it disappeared off to, a stubborn scowl expressing all his disapproval.
“Is it even safe to allow that psycho anywhere close to your bed?”
To think of how the little witch allows that miniature monster to sleep curled over her covers has him inwardly shuddering.
Bonnie presses her mouth together and shakes her head like she’s holding in her laughter again, but much to his relief, when she talks to him she manages to keep her composure.
“I let you in,” she reminds him.
Wicked and undeservingly attractive, his answering grin bares white, human teeth in one additional mockery.
“Do you think it was a smart idea?”
“Probably, since my dad has already welcomed your ex and Jeremy to our house.”
However the invitation may have surprised them both, she feels better knowing he will be able to get in as easily as Katherine can should necessity arise.
The mere mention of his ex-lover suffices to erase from Damon’s visage any traces of humor.”I saw the little bitch getting out of here. What does she want with you? Besides recruiting you, as that’s already obvious.”
Bonnie shakes her head, denying his suspicions as she picks up the furry nuisance that is pocking his head out from under her bed to rub his moist nose against her legs, seeking to draw her attention away from their ‘guest’.
“Actually, the one thing she has demanded from me is that I remained neutral.”
“That’s out of character,” Damon observes, narrowing his gaze on her like this could force the truth out of her. Bonnie doesn’t allow his suspicion to shake her, cradling Finn closer to her breast and continuing to stroke his fur in slow, rhythmic strokes that help her to both simulate an air of self-possession in the vampire‘s eyes and to soothe her mood.
“I thought it was strange too,” she concedes, holding her chin high, “have you spoken to her?”
Damon nods, cool-eyed and unflinching. “There was a fair share of ineffective threatening involved, on both sides.”
“No chances of cute, evil reconciliations in sight?” she questions, studying him intently and wondering if she will ever be able to really read him.
“I have not even considered it.”
“Really?”
“She is not what I had made her to be in my mind,” he shrugs, his voice acquiring a pensive quality, “I remembered her like this charmingly unique vixen, but what I saw today was only a disloyal, frigid whore. I wasted enough of my time on her. I want her dead and finished.”
Bonnie is momentarily startled that Damon Salvatore is confiding so openly in her of all people. Then she remembers he doesn’t really have anyone to talk to, after Elena took her distance from him, and hiding his twisted feelings for Katherine has never been his priority anyway.
And although pity is the last feeling she wants to have for him, a tiny, guilty twinge of pity is exactly what she feels. It’s a silent, unwilling betrayal of Grams and Caroline, but she can’t help slightly empathizing with his disappointment. In Katherine, she has felt no room for love, only greed and a hunger to dominate. To try gaining her affection and her trust could only have been like trying to squeeze water out of a rock.
“I guess I will have to take your word on that.”
“If you hadn’t already chosen to trust me, witch, you wouldn’t have invited me in your room.”
“You are the lesser evil,” she admits, nodding.
“Imagine that.” He smiles at her, thinly but genuinely, and for some senseless reason Bonnie’s lips curl upward to mirror the gesture.
All too willing to dispel the unwanted bridge forming between her and her once-attempted-murderer the witch hurries to change subject: “what did you think about Jeremy?”
“Jeremy? He wasn’t around for very long.”
“Have you even tried to talk him?”
“No.”
By the way he says it, it’s quite obvious that Damon hadn’t even spared a single thought for the newborn vampire until Bonnie brought him up. Which doesn’t meet her approval, judging by the annoyed roll of her eyes.
“Did you?” he accuses right back, disturbed by this sudden urge to defend his actions.
“I didn’t have the chance to, but I don’t think it would have made much difference. It’s like Katherine has completely brainwashed him into her personal, unquestioning lapdog. Which is weird, because Jeremy has never been afraid to think with his head, even when this made him hostile or unpopular. ”
“Katherine has that effect on people,” Damon observes dismissively, not particularly eager to focus on that part of the equation.
“So how do we get through to him?”
“We don’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“We kill Katherine and once she is gone, Jeremy will be out of a centre. We can work on containing him then. If he becomes a threat before that, we react accordingly.”
Damon sounds so certain, like Elena’s well-being or reactions are no concerns of his. Bonnie doesn’t pretend to understand whether he is simulating or not, but she certainly wishes it was that simple for her.
“Katherine has more or less promised to not hurt Elena if I don’t do anything to help you or your brother. She has to have something big planned for you two if she is looking for an insurance policy.”
“I wouldn’t put much stock in her promises if I were you. Even if Stefan might advise to go with the tide, delusional little martyr that he is, he’ll be even more glad to the point of sheer stupidity for the slimmest chance to keep his ladylove out of the line of fire.”
“I won’t take Katherine at face value, and I’m not giving her a say on my choices. I only need to figure out a way to protect my dad from her.”
“I hate to break this to you, but dearest Kat was very capable of getting to him even without the added privilege of entering your house.”
“I have Emily’s grimoire, I can spell his wrist-watch to be like Alaric’s ring.”
“So poor Sean can be the next Jonathan Gilbert?”
“Have you anything constructive to say?”
“Get your old man detoxified of all that vervain, and then I can compel him to take a much deserved, long vacation to, let’s say, London or Paris or some other far away cliché. Until further notice,” Damon huffs, looking at her with all the smug pride of someone who is sure of receiving the soundest thank you of all his life.
Bonnie finds, reluctantly, that his idea has a lot of merit. Emily’s ring magic is very complex and not easy to replicate for a newbie. If she could summon Jonathan’s ring back to her and bewitch it to look like a trinket Katherine can’t recognize, it would still be a risk.
“I’ll think about it.”
It’s all that she can afford conceding for now, but it’s still helpful, knowing she has one more option. Although it places her father’s future in Damon’s hands.