Nightsong

Another Night

"It's just for one night; couldn't you manage that, my redbird?"

Bonnie nodded, but her shoulders were slumped, the corners of her lips turned down. She hated that dingy brown room, though of course, she reasoned, it was a heaven compared to what she had been through. And staying with Damon, it wouldn't be so bad...

As if he had read her thoughts, he said, "I'll be there. You wouldn't be all alone, like last time."

"Yeah" Bonnie forced a smile.

The landlady wasn't happy to see them back, but she didn't dare to refuse. So Bonnie ended up in the same room where Damon had left her. After the landlady left, Damon flopped down on a couch beside the window, and pulled out a bottle of Black Magic from somewhere. Bonnie wished she could peep into his mind sometime, just to see what he was thinking.

"I'll take a shower" she told him.

"All right."

Damon looked at the small, delicate figure, the mass of fiery hair. He thought he knew her well, he could read her thoughts, but somehow, he could never figure out how her mind worked.

"But they were going to kill me anyway. If I'd told about you, they'd have hurt you, too."

He wondered at how easily she had said it, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Faced with death, threatened with torture, how could she even think about saving him?

It hurt to think about it, he had to admit, taking another swig of Black Magic, the look on her face as she had said it, the tears he had wiped away.

Would she do that for someone else, he wondered, for Stefan, or Matt, or Meredith, or Elena? Would she try to save them too, taking her own life at stake? But knowing her like he did, he knew that she would. She would do anything for her friends, the ones she loved, the ones she cared about. And suddenly he felt glad that she considered him to be one of them.

Could he do that? Risk his own life to save someone else?

She came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, shivering, for the inn didn't have a water heater, and Damon found he couldn't look away, from her bare arms, the goose-bumps on her skin, the shape of her body under the towel, her hair shining in the firelight. He wanted to touch her then so badly, just to see what those lips would feel like, or how they would taste...

"Turn around. I'm going to change."

"Couldn't you change in the bathroom?" he grumbled, trying to sound irritated.

"But I always change here. The bathroom is so small!" she said, looking at him with such wide, innocent eyes that he couldn't hide a smile.

"I've seen you naked before, you know." he said with a smirk, turning. "What a pity you were all covered in blood."

He knew that she had blushed red, though he couldn't see her face. He could hear the rush of her clothes as she put them on. Her scent, fresh from the shower, wafted to him. It always smelt like strawberries, but it had something else as well, something that was entirely hers, something that was just Bonnie.

"I'm done!" she called in her sing-song voice.

"Do you remember the time we had first met?" he asked suddenly. He said it so quietly he thought Bonnie hadn't heard it at first. He was about to repeat his question when she said:

"Of course! It was at my house, when you and Stefan had come to take Elena" she remembered how he had perched on her sill, the look he had given her, half amused, half searching. How she'd thought he had fallen off the window. "Oh wait. I think I met you before that. At the party that Alaric threw for us- You kissed me!" she said excitedly, "And you said kissing a redhead cures one of all ailments!"