Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Before

Bonnie hits play on the old CD player, settles in the middle of Stefan’s 1994 bed with the grimoire open in front of her, and closes her eyes. It’s the only room in the entire house Elena never stays long, apparently it’s the only place she can’t fully separate the best friend she has with the boyfriend she let go, lingering guilt for the way it was handled, and as much as Bonnie loves her she needs less distractions.

The CD must be Stefan’s, she found it in his room, a perfectly curated selection of gentle classical music. She can’t read music if you put it in front of her, but she doesn’t need to to hum along, to follow the ups and downs in her mind until it all inevitably clears. Her focus changes to her heartbeat, counting each beat until every second between numbers grows longer.

In the quiet of the house, Bonnie waits for her magic to claw its way back.

***

After

Bonnie’s barricaded herself in Ric’s office, herself and the floor covered in books and grimoires, when she gets the call. She leaves them all over the place, wondering briefly if Ric will be mad when he sees it, only to leave the mess, lock the door, and run off anyway. If he even cares, he’ll forgive her when he finds out why.

Waiting for an uber makes her wish she had her own car again, or that she knew where Ric had put the key to Damon’s. She bounces on her feet, checking her phone constantly for messages she knows she won’t even get yet, and when the car finally arrives she jumps in and barks out, “Whitmore Medical Centre,” before the poor guy has a chance.

It’s not all that far by car and the driver makes it even faster, whether because he senses her anxiety or because he just wants her gone, she doesn’t know or really care. But she does leave him a slightly more generous tip before running into the building.

They’re exactly where Stefan said they’d be on the phone, his arm wrapped around a red-eyed Caroline. He moves back, only enough for Bonnie to give her a proper hug, his fingers curled tight around the hem of her sweater.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, we were hanging the Christmas lights in our dorm, Mom came back with hot chocolates and she just fainted,” Caroline says, pointing down the hall. “They’re running tests now.”

“Is Jo with her?”

Stefan shakes his head at the same time Caroline says, “Not as her doctor, but she promised to check in when she could.”

Bonnie pulls her back into a hug, grabbing Stefan by his shirt and pulling until he joins in properly. “She’ll be okay. She’s the sheriff of Mystic Falls, she’s the toughest person in the world.”

It makes Caroline chuckle and nod into her shoulder. “You’re right. I know. It was just a shock, that’s all. She’s fine. She’s gonna be fine. But if it’s okay with you both, I won’t go up to New York with you. I want to stay with Mom.”

“Of course,” Stefan says. “I’ll stay with you.”

Caroline pulls out of their hug. “No, Stefan. You should spend Christmas with your brother. He’s expecting you, they both are. I’ll be fine here, I’ll have Matt if I need anything.”

“They’ll understand. Besides,” Stefan adds, “Damon would kill me if I left here and couldn’t give him accurate updates about Liz. He wouldn’t expect you to do it. Although that depends on how much you wanna tell them.”

Bonnie understands the hesitation; true to her word, Elena’s been calling everyday since they left almost three weeks ago, whether for ten minutes or two hours, and everyday she says she’s fine, feeling better, everyday they ignore the bags under her eyes, the bloodshot whites, that Damon’s sending Stefan messages after particularly bad nightmares because he worries he’ll make it worse. They’ve been in the room with Stefan, sharing ideas and promising Damon he’s doing fine because he actually gets it more than the rest of them.

Some nights Bonnie wishes she’d let go of the Ascendant in time, that she’d stayed and faced the wrath of Kai with Elena, that her friend hadn’t gone through it alone. But she pushes the thoughts away; if she had, they’d likely still be in there. No one knew where they were or had any idea of how to get in until Bonnie got out. There’s a chance, given time, that Damon might have confessed what he was feeling and the connection to Elena would have gotten back to Jo, who could’ve helped, but it’s not a chance Bonnie likes to imagine. Kai’s inability to use Bonnie’s blood to get out was a major factor in getting the Parker siblings’ help in the first place. Elena was in there long enough; she can’t bear the thought of being stuck in there with a sociopath for Christmas. Or worse, alone.

Elena hasn’t been looking too good, but she’s still so much better than she was here. Worrying them now will only bring them back early, which wouldn’t help anyone, especially if it’s over nothing.

“They only need to know that Liz isn’t feeling well and you wanna look after her,” Bonnie says. “Let Damon focus on Elena, you two focus on Liz. If they need to know more, that’s up to you to tell them, Care.”

Bonnie leads her to a chair, takes her hand as they sit, Stefan taking the other, and together they wait.

***

Elena’s cry is lost in Damon’s mouth, giving into the feel of him inside her. They wrap themselves around each other until the nerves in their skin burn, too sensitive. Too much. Yet never enough. But Damon pulls out anyway and they move into comfortable positions on the too-small sofa, leaning into the wall for balance. They stay wrapped up in some way, a leg each tangled against the wall, Elena’s foot behind Damon’s back, Damon’s leg bent, knee at the perfect position for Elena to rest her chin on when she wants to take in the view. To draw patterns with her fingers when she doesn’t. Elena grabs the throw from the floor and drapes it over their middles, pulling her side up to cover her breasts.

They arrived in New York yesterday, the city all lit up with Christmas decorations. The partial view of the park is pretty, but Elena really only cares about the snow. It started this afternoon and has stayed more or less consistent, millions of tiny flakes that look white and soft from up here but will melt before they even reach the ground.

“Do you wanna play again?” Damon asks, his voice gentle and unhurried, almost sleepy. Elena traces her yes into his leg, then nods. Just in case. “Your question.”

The game started three nights ago, after a particularly bad nightmare led to a day and a half of getting drunk on blood, tequila, and weed. It started with a lazy round of truth or dare in a motel bed. It started innocently and horny enough - “what’s your current favourite position?”, “fuck me against the window.” - then, half asleep and coming down from the high, Elena had dared him to tell her a secret, something about his time with Augustine.

He’d kept the inner details vague last time, only telling her about Enzo, their escape plan, his revenge, turning off his humanity for the next fifty odd years, ignoring a couple of lapses.

She hadn’t actually expected him to answer; once it was out she’d regretted it and hoped that, by the sound of his unchanging, even breathing, he was actually asleep and hadn’t heard. Only he wasn’t and he had and after a while, he’d answered. “If I hadn’t’ve had to turn my humanity off to leave Enzo, I would’ve gone straight to Stefan. If I had gone straight to Stefan, maybe things would’ve been different between us sooner.”

He didn’t offer up anything else and she didn’t dare ask, not wanting to ruin the moment. Instead she told him about thanksgiving with Kai, then about her and Bonnie’s first week in the prison, figuring out their next steps and getting nosy about 1994 life. She didn’t dream that night.

It’s been the same every night since, sharing infinitesimal moments of darkness and countering it with something warm and bright. The second part is very important.

Elena traces their initials next, coating them with a heart. Damon grins, knowing exactly how that feels against his skin by now. There’s a question she wants to ask, something that’s come back to her time and again, but his smile stops her. Finding Enzo and actually stopping Augustine the second time around has helped him talk about it little by little, a chapter of his life finally, properly closed, no longer able to come back and haunt him. There are other closed chapters, too. About moments in his human life, even moments with Katherine. What she wants to ask is not like that yet and she can’t bear to make him lose that smile.

“Was Christmas good for you as a kid? You said once it was yours and Stefan’s favourite holiday.”

“It had its ups and downs,” he murmurs, watching the snow now, too. “Before he was born, it was mostly quiet at home. But in town they’d go all out and Dad would eat, drink, and be merry, then come home and pass out, so after presents Mom and I would make and eat cookies and tell stories and have quiet fun. After Stef was born and a little older, it was more fun overall. He and I would decorate the lounge and our rooms, though we’d be outside as often as possible, he fell in love with cooking and baking and wanted to make everything, which was great for me because I just wanted to eat it. Mom still told us stories. Dad would give us a small allowance, which we’d use for presents, but I’d secretly earn a little more to get extra for Mom and Stefan. And like I said, the town went all out and Dad was always there, so it was the only time we didn’t have to worry as much. We kept it up when Mom died, especially her stories. She was so good with them, though that wasn’t hard - anything in our imaginations was better than dealing with real life. You know, the rest of the year, she wasn’t even that good a parent. She could be terrible with her punishments, whether we deserved it or not. She was just never as bad as him. And she did love us, there was something about Christmas that allowed her to show it better.”

Elena kisses his knee and, despite his story, Damon’s grin grows. “I remember our first Christmas back home. Stefan came home and said Caroline had roped all the boys into Secret Santa, it was the first thing he’d really said to me that wasn’t hostile because he’d got Caroline and was actually freaking out about what to get her because he thought we had more important things to deal with, but he couldn’t tell her that because she didn’t know yet.”

“He got her a Mystic Falls snow globe keychain,” Elena remembers, laughing. “She was so annoyed when she showed us.”

“I told him not to,” Damon swears, hands up in surrender. “But he panicked.”

“Hey, she actually loves that snow globe, she put it on her keys that same night and it’s still there. She brings it up every year, but I know better than to believe she’s still mad about it.”

Damon snorts. “Yeah, because it was from Stefan, not because it was a good gift. I refer back to a certain nursery rhyme - Stefan and Caroline sitting in a tree, F-U-C-K-I-N-G.”

Elena nudges him with her foot, pressing her heel into his ribs until he laughs. “This is why no one will ever let you around children. You’ll teach them all the bad things.”

“Lies, I’m great with kids. Ten and under, piece of cake. Eleven to thirteen, hit and miss. It’s the older ones I hate. Fourteen plus, so hormonal and testy and annoying. Eww.”

“Your question,” she says, changing the subject.

Damon’s smile fades slowly, not wanting the moment to stop so quickly. Elena focuses on keeping her breathing in check, of knowing she’s safe and in the real world. His question is exactly what she expected.

“How did he hurt you?”

“Magically mostly, he’d syphon off me and experiment. Turning my blood and skin to acid, that was the worst. Thankfully he only did it twice. And it only really started on thanksgiving; before that he had to actually catch me.”

She mentally applauds herself for getting it out quickly and… devoid of so much emotion. Shame and rage and fear and sadness that creeps up when she least expects it are now settled low in her gut instead of wrapped around her heart. This is why she’s grown fond of the game; it’s a huge advantage, having this kind of heads up.

Damon’s hand is slow along her thigh, his fingers gentle, patient, waiting for her to go on without rushing her. Content to simply watch the snow for a while.

“You obviously guessed it was Caroline who got me and Bonnie into cheerleading. And I wasn’t lying that night you came to the house, I did love it once. We had so much fun.” Elena stretches her leg out and kicks up slowly, raising her leg straight into the air then resting her foot on Damon’s shoulder. “It helped that I can be very flexible.”

He turns his face into her calf, kissing along her skin, then pressing his blunt teeth over her femoral artery. Damon’s eyes change, red deepening, veins showing, fangs scratching.

A cellphone buzzes.

“Saved by the text message,” he whispers as Elena kicks off and vamp-speeds to the coffee table.

It’s Damon’s phone. Elena puts in his pin and reads the message. “It’s from Stefan. He and Caroline aren’t coming tomorrow. Liz isn’t well and Caroline wants to look after her, so Stefan’s gonna stay and look after them both. Looks like it’ll just be you, me, Bonnie, and Jeremy.”

Damon groans. “Bummer. Tell him to keep us updated.”

Stefan’s next message is quick. “He promises he will and he said that Caroline said to Skype them when we open presents so we can all do it together.”

She puts the phone back, pulls the throw off Damon’s lap, and grabs his hand. “Come on. Shower with me.”

***

“How’s the syphon search going?”

Despite asking, Stefan’s not focused on Bonnie, it’s on the window showing them into a room with Liz Forbes in a hospital bed, surrounded by doctors. They promised to keep watch while Caroline went to steal a blood bag, her hunger beginning to worry them. But only Stefan can hear them and the taut pull of his brow must mean it isn’t good.

“I haven’t found any mention of them in the grimoires yet, but I’ve asked my mom and Lucy if they’ve heard anything. Just waiting on them. What are they saying?”

Stefan presses his finger into the glass. “That doctor is from radiology. She’s talking about glioblastoma.”

“Glioblastoma? But that’s - ” Bonnie can’t bring herself to finish. She’s not entirely sure of everything that it is, but she knows enough. She knows it’s bad.

She knows it’s cancer.

“Are they talking about treatment options?”

“They’re not really saying anything right now.”

The doctor comes out of the room. Bonnie nudges Stefan her way, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Ask her, Stefan. Compel her. Please.”

By the time he gets to the doctor they’re too far away for Bonnie to hear. Stefan makes it quick, let’s the doctor go, and shakes his head.

Bonnie’s too afraid to ask what that means.