A/N: It's no surprise now that I like starting new Bamon stories and figured compiling one-shots in one place would be a good idea. Thanks to Bloodshots by Farie Insignias for the idea. Requests are greatly encouraged!

Note for this One-Shot: Pre-warning. This is very angsty (apologies) - only this time, it's Damon on the brunt end. Giving our girl Bonnie a break lol.

i. Almost

It's fun having a best friend, it really is; the inside jokes, the loyalty, dependence, meme culture, etc, etc, but falling in love with said best friend… that's just a shit storm.

For starters, Bonnie is touchy. He hadn't noticed it before, when he wasn't, you know, in love with her, but now he's freshly cognisant and dying inside – he's noticed. Boy, he's noticed. Whether it be the sudden clutch of his wrist when she's excited or the nonchalant brush of Bennett fingers on his back, she's everywhere and it's rudely intoxicating.

What's worse, in the past few days, he's been promoted from best friend to Gay Best Friend and is frequently called on for fashion advice. The old Damon would have brazenly enjoyed having a pretty woman twirl around in a criminally skin-tight dress but now it's like having the thing you want most in the world - but can't have - paraded in front of you.

Not like, Damon corrects, is. It is the thing he wants most in the world only this time, he's too moral to just fuck the consequences and have it.

He's played out the conversation a thousand times:

"Bon, it's stupid but I'm in love with you. Do you want to maybe make out or just continue this episode of Gossip Girl?"

To which Bonnie will, first, assume he means a family love and scrunch her nose up and make her eyes all wide and Disney and probably snuggle into his chest, her head like a damned dagger to his dead, unbeating heart. When he explains that, tragically, he means love love, she'll go very still and say, "What about Elena?" like he isn't aware that loving Bonnie Bennett makes for a tricky conversation with his comatose girlfriend. He'll probably make a joke like, "Lucky for me, you won't be around at the same time" and it will land flat and heavy on the couch because a world without Bonnie Bennett isn't his.

"Damon, I-"

That's what she'll say. A broken line, the words unformed because how can she tell him without breaking his heart? How can you say 'I'm not' in a language that doesn't devastate?

You can't. So, he'll save both of them the pain and keep this…complication to himself.

/

"Have you thought about what Elena said?"

Damon stalls on his mouthful. "Huh?"

Bonnie's face twists with disgust. "Okay, gross, a bit of turkey just fell out."

"You love it," he responds instinctually, but drags the napkin across his mouth anyway, a little embarrassed. "Elena said many things, Bon-bon. Specificity, please."

The witch loosens her arms off the picnic bench. "About you, you know," she gesticulates aimlessly, looking like a flailing bird (and he smiles before his brain reprimands that finding Bonnie Bennett cute is not beneficial to anyone), "dating again."

His mouth re-aligns. "What?"

"It's just, we have a good sixty years or so before I disappear from this earth," she winks and he cringes, inwardly, and probably outwardly, at the thought, "that's a long old time for seducer extraordinaire Damon Salvatore to wait."

She fills his silence with something more tentative, "I mean, not that there's anything wrong with waiting. It's," Bonnie glances down at her hands, "pretty romantic, I think."

His best friend has acquired a kind of dreamy, dimpled look and it's a testament to how fucked he is that this is all he can focus on – now, when she's wondering if he'll consider dating someone other than the supposed love of his damned life.

Why does everything have to be so confusing?

"I don't know, I guess I haven't really thought about it," he manages, lamely.

Bonnie's brow quirks, "Seriously? For as long as I've known you, you've been Mr Babe-magnet-"

"- Don't ever say that again."

"- Fine. Flirt, charmer, whatever you want to call it. Has no-one taken your fancy?"

And right on cue, there's the drum of a phantom heart only the witch has managed to arouse, from the depths of his darkness, screwed-upness, monstrosity: the human.

His vision is assaulted by a darting hand. "Hello?" Bonnie trills, "Earth to Damon."

Maybe he deserves this? After all the death and heart-break he's caused, maybe he deserves this? Maybe looking into her searching eyes and saying 'no', above the screaming in his lungs, his chest, the heart she's reviving, is his comeuppance?

She leans back against her chair, brow furrowed. "I don't believe it."

Because it's a lie.

Damon flicks his hand across the table to steal a fry. "Sixty-years is quite generous Bon-bon. What's to say we won't die again and get trapped in another Prison World?"

"Well then I guess you'll be stuck with me forever," she grins and his chest concaves.

"Sounds awful."

She laughs and it's brilliant, as usual. "You used to be able to do that snarky, I-hate-you-Bonnie thing so well. I almost miss it. That attempt was just pitiful."

He threads a hand through his hair and she watches; he notices and tries not to smoulder. "Be careful what you wish for, Bonniekins."

"Is it possible for you to just say my name?" her mouth flirts with a smile.

"Obviously, Bonnie…." Damon pauses for dramatic effect, then puffs his cheeks to say, "…Boop," with a satisfying pop.

She snorts and calls him a child, which he takes, proudly, and twirls the straw of his coke with his tongue, smug and almost happy.

(And almost happy isn't a bad life, she's showing him that.)

/

When she knocks on his door all jittery and giggly the following morning, Damon's convinced she's just been asked out by bloody James Franco or someone and the scowl that films his features is just friendly (not-so-friendly) jealousy at the idea.

"I've got you a date," is what she grins instead and Damon doesn't say anything but 'oh'.

"It's not a big deal, just a friendly meet-up with a stranger, that's all," she hurries, pushing past him into the Boarding House hallway, reminding him of Caroline Forbes on a mission – terrifying, avoid at all costs – "It's been almost a year and a half now," she smiles, "I think this is a good thing."

Several emotions jostle for prominence in his mind but, as he stares at the witch in the centre of his living room, her eyes rounded in trepidation, he's too exhausted to argue.

"Is she human?"

Surprise flashes across her face then she laughs, quickly, "Wow our lives are strange. Yup, she's human. Don't eat her," she blushes, "You know what I mean."

He briefly enjoys her embarrassment and flings his body on the couch, massaging his temples at the forming headache. Well, as close to a headache a vampire can get. "Don't drink her blood, don't compel her, be normal. Got it."

Bonnie pushes at his legs to make room for her on the couch; the cushions sigh a little with the added weight. "Are you okay?" she asks softly, running her hand along lower region of his pant leg. It's so affectionate, he squeezes his eyes shut. See, touchy.

"Fine."

"Shit, Damon, I'm sorry. I just… I want you to be happy and recently, I don't know, it seems like something's been on your mind."

"I'm fine," he snaps without meaning to.

The couch groans as she shifts, wriggling up the crevice between him and the back cushions until she's got her head just below his shoulder and her arms wrapped around his front. Her touch, her scent, is nauseating, and he hates how fucking safe he feels. His fingers are running along her hands and her next words dance on the shell of his ear.

"Are you happy?"

Damon shivers. The softness of her breasts are pressing against him and his veins actually thicken with the effort of control. He stays very still. Almost, his fingers seem unbidden to stop stroking hers, that sliver of touch that's allowed, that she won't question.

"Talk to me," Bonnie whispers and then she kisses him. It's a near silent brush of skin against skin, the nakedness of his exposed neck, connecting with the warmth of her lips. And if it weren't for the throb of lifted contact, the itch of his hand to touch where she met him, he might have imagined it.

"What was that?"

He feels her tense around his frame. "I said, talk to me."

"No," his frustration swarms, "No, what was that?"

"Nothing."

Damon flinches, ripping open Bonnie's cage around his chest, freeing himself from the couch and her stupid kisses that aren't kisses; love that isn't really love.

"Damon?" Bonnie pushes up from the cushions, her hair static and poking the air in awkward angles. He yanks away from her concerned stare and paces toward the fireplace – the Bourbon waiting for him. "Damon, what the hell?"

He chucks the liquid down his throat, ignoring her. The vampire pours himself another glass but at the hand on his shoulder, he pivots, fangs probing at his gums.

Shock flickers across the witch's eyes but not fear, she doesn't fear her best friend and today, that makes him angrier.

"What the fuck was that?" he says again, trembling with the effort of control. Bonnie doesn't take a step back; doesn't remove her hand from his shoulder, instead, she places her other one.

"Damon"- the pulse through her finger tips is steady – "Talk to me."

"Bonnie, let go," he says carefully, and the jolt her heartbeat is betraying. She senses, as does Damon, his danger.

The witch shakes her head. "No." Her breath thickens with the slow crawl of veins but she doesn't flinch. "I'm not going anywhere, you know that. Not now, not ever."

His mouth twitches with the influx of pointed canines – torn between releasing the monster to push her away, terrified that when he does, she will. Her fingers flutter over his skin, the translucent horror of it, and land, feather-light, tracing the veins that scratch and burn. His world compresses into that touch.

"Please," her voice breaks, "Talk to me."

Damon slams his eyes shut. Almost happy. Almost happy.

Her breath tickles; her fingers sliding from beneath his eyes to his chin, down his neck. Her pulse rises and then nothing, silence, and she's kissing him. The tremor in her bottom lip as it pulls a tentative response from his. Unravelling and colliding, the coils of tension, his fangs, re-absorbing, and Bonnie, Bonnie's kissing him.

And then she's not.

A/N: I'm sure I can be persuaded to write a part two – if people want. Reviews please!

As always, if you want to support my writing, a coffee is always appreciated. I'm wavesketcher on ko-fi or there is a link in my tumblr bio (perpetualimaginings).