A/N: Hey! I wrote this on a whim because I've really been feeling the Bamon love lately. Especially with the news that Nina is leaving (will miss her, love Nina, not the Elena character) and I really hope we get good Bamon scenes next season. Anyway, this is a short but sweet (sort of) one-shot of Prison World Bamon and a little post-PW Bamon.

Happy reading! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries or these characters. They belong to The CW. No copyright infringement intended.

Whisper

"You would think as self-absorbed as you are you would be able to take a decent selfie," Bonnie teased as she took the camera from Damon and held it out.

"It's a camera from the 90s," Damon snapped. "It wasn't made for taking pictures of yourself."

The witch and the vampire stood in the kitchen of the Salvatore boardinghouse, having come home from another of their shopping trips and just completed storing away all of the groceries they'd acquired. Bonnie had grabbed another roll of film while at the store, and Damon suspected her photo-taking would soon become an annoyance, just like her false hope.

Bonnie smiled, as he remained straight-faced, and successfully snapped the picture of them. "Why have you been taking pictures anyway? We're trapped in a prison world, Bonnie, we're not on vacation. And how the hell are you going to get them developed?"

"Temporarily trapped in a prison world," she corrected as she settled into one of the kitchen chairs and picked up the video camera that was sitting on the table. "I'll get them developed when we get back home. I'm in 1994. There maybe a time in the far future when I want to look back at this, and thank everything that I got out."

"We're not getting out," Damon said with an eye roll.

"I am not in the mood for your negativity today, Damon," Bonnie told him, firmly. She turned on the video camera and pointed it to him, filming as she spoke. "Damon Salvatore. Please explain to the world why you're such a grouch?"

"I'm stuck in 1994 with a non-witchy witch who nags more than a housewife," he quipped. "That's enough to keep a man from ever smiling again."

"I asked you to do one thing, fix the leaky faucet," Bonnie defended herself. "That doesn't really qualify as nagging."

"It does if you ask a hundred times."

"You were taking forever to do it and the noise was driving me crazy!" She exclaimed.

"Now you know how I feel having to listen to you everyday!"

"Ugh..." Bonnie sucked her teeth and hit the stop button on the video camera. "If you're going to be in one of your moods all day I'll just remove myself right now."

"Fine, do what you want."

Bonnie got up from the table and stomped out of the room. Damon found himself the nearest bottle of bourbon and popped it open when he heard her bedroom door slam.

Bonnie couldn't shake the feeling she was being watched. She wanted to sleep but her eyes kept popping open and surveying the room. Her heartbeat picked up pace when she thought she heard a rustling just outside of her window, then remembered she was on the second floor. She accepted defeat anyway. She wasn't going to get any sleep like this. Switching on her bedside lamp and sitting up, she didn't raise her voice too loud as she spoke, as she wasn't sure what she wanted.

"Damon."

She didn't make a move after speaking his name, just strained to hear anymore telling sounds.

Fifteen seconds later there was a double knock on the door, then it was being opened. Damon leaned in the room, his ruffled hair and plain white tee signs that he'd been on his way to sleep. "Did you want something or are you in here talking shit about me to yourself?" He questioned, sarcastically, his voice raspy from drowsiness.

"I can't sleep," she stated.

"So you want to keep me from getting any?" He huffed.

"I just can't shake this feeling that someone's been watching me," she revealed. Damon could see the concern etched in her face. After discovering someone had completed her crossword earlier that night, a magic-less Bonnie felt a vulnerability she wasn't used to. If someone was there, they were most likely supernatural, possibly dangerous, and Bonnie didn't like the fact that they'd kept themselves hidden this whole time. How could she possibly close her eyes with all these thoughts in her head.

"Is this about that crossword thing again?" He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Do you want me to check the room for monsters? Under the bed, the closet...will that make you feel better?"

"Damon..." Bonnie said his name with a hint of exasperation at his teasing, but didn't deny anything. Damon sighed and stepped in the room, shutting the door after him.

"Head to toe, little witch," he instructed as he headed to the bed. "If having a literal monster in your room makes you feel safe from imaginary monsters, that's on you to figure out." He flopped onto the bed, his head at the foot of it. Bonnie tossed him a pillow, leaned over to turn off her bedside lamp, then lay back down. Her back was to him but she felt him shifting beside her into a more comfortable position. She was finally able to close her eyes and keep them closed because, yes, having a literal monster in her room did make her feel safer, as long as the literal monster was Damon.

Damon was able to fall asleep despite the fact that a slumbering Bonnie started muttering under her breath at one point in the night. He'd heard her sleep-talking a few times before through the walls, his vampire-hearing making it difficult to not hear, but this was the first time he heard her coherently say a name.

Damon.

After four months of living in the Salvatore boardinghouse, Bonnie knew it pretty well. She didn't even need to turn a light on to navigate from her room upstairs into the kitchen without bumping into anything. She'd awoken in the middle of the night parched, and needed a glass of water before she could sleep again.

As she opened the refrigerator to grab some water, the kitchen light was switched on. She popped out of the fridge and saw Kai leaning on the frame of the entryway. She huffed and closed the fridge door, water in hand, "Hundreds of houses to choose from," she said. "Why do you sleep here?"

"Well, I don't want to be too far from you, my new friend," he said as he walked in the kitchen. "You need me, so the closer I always am the better, right? Plus, I like this house. It's big, nicely decorated. Makes me feel rich." Bonnie rolled her eyes and drank from her newly poured glass of water. "Could you pour me some, please?"

Bonnie took the jug of water off the counter and stuck it back in the fridge. "Get it yourself," she snapped.

"You're judging me," Kai said, displeased. "You have no idea what it was like growing up with my coven."

"I don't care," she told him. "You brutally murdered people, your own family, children. You deserve to be here more than anybody." She stormed past him.

"More than Damon the babykiller?" He threw after her. She stopped and turned to glare at him. "Why do you excuse his behavior but not mine? He's a vampire for crissakes. What makes him any better than me?"

"Damon likes to pretend otherwise, but he actually feels remorse for the things he's done," Bonnie replied. "If he could go back to this night in actuality and change it, he would. Can you say the same?" Kai remained silent. "That's what I thought. You could learn to be a little more like Damon." She turned on her heel and headed away.

She was soon back in her room, readying herself to get back in bed. She wasn't happy when she heard someone at the door. "Bonnie," Kai's voice came through the wood. "Bonnie, let me in. I want to talk to you."

"Go away, Kai," she demanded.

"Listen, I think we got off on the wrong foot," he said. "I siphoned your magic earlier to make a point. I don't want you and Damon trying to leave without me, and I won't hesitate to kill you both if you try. I've been trapped here for almost two decades. When I first saw you, I felt happy for the first time. I felt hope. And I thought you were so stunningly beautiful. I don't want to have to hurt you, Bonnie."

"Get away from my room now," Bonnie said, through gritted teeth.

"Things don't have to be nasty between us," Kai persisted. "I think you'll find I can be good company. Open the door."

"No."

Bonnie jumped back as her locked door flew open and Kai loomed in the doorway, leering at her. She realized he must've still had a little of the power he'd stolen from her left. "Why make this more difficult than it has to be?" He started toward her and Bonnie shrieked.

"Damon!" There was already movement as the name was leaving her mouth. Damon had Kai pinned against the wall and it looked like he was struggling not to kill him right then and there.

"She told you to go away!" He hissed at him through gritted teeth. "You're lucky I don't rip you apart right now!" Kai looked completely unapologetic and unintimidated, which added to Damon's anger. "We've already been through this. You don't touch her. If she tells you to leave her alone, you leave her alone."

"Okay, I was being stupid," Kai admitted. "I'm a guy, I haven't even seen a girl in years. I wanted to have a little fun for one night, seeing as you've been too stupid to since you've been here."

"She's a lady, douchebag, not a toy, and definitely out of your league." Damon released Kai, his blue eyes burning into him. "You could never hope to have someone like her touch you. Get out." Kai sniggered and walked out and Damon refrained from drop-kicking him. He turned to Bonnie who was looking at him with a soft expression.

"You okay?" He asked her.

"I'm fine," she said. "I just can't wait to have him out of our lives." Damon nodded and Bonnie gestured to the door. "He destroyed my lock."

"Come on," he instructed. "He could come lurking again and I don't trust him. I don't want you in here." Bonnie complied and followed him into his room. No words were spoken as it was unnecessary. They lay head to foot, Bonnie tossed him a pillow, and his presence helped her close her eyes without a thought.

After almost a year of imprisonment, Bonnie was finally free. As soon as she was back in present-day Mystic Falls, there was no question about where she was going and who she wanted to see. Elena, Caroline, Abby, even her boyfriend, Jeremy wouldn't cross her mind until later. She had to get to him.

Damon couldn't remember the last time he'd felt such uninhibited joy than when he saw Bon Bon standing in his kitchen. She was finally back, in the flesh. He'd fought for that. He'd tried multiple times to get her out of the prison world and had failed, but he knew Bonnie was a soldier and she would get out alive. He only wished it had been sooner.

After a pancake and I'll-never-let-go-of-you-again type embrace of a reunion, Bonnie dropped a bomb on him. His mother was alive and his life was about to change. After months of torture and loneliness, Bonnie had already changed. Her one constant in both worlds was Damon, and after finally seeing him again, she wasn't sure if she was ready to leave him and go back out into the real world just yet. Damon could see this in her face as their conversation about Lily Salvatore came to a close.

"You've been through hell," he observed. "Do you want to stay here tonight?"

"You know me," Bonnie responded. "Literal monsters over imaginary ones." Damon couldn't help but smile, and the night ended with a slight change in routine. Bonnie tossed him a pillow, and he lay beside her at the head of the bed with a respectable amount of space between them, rather than head-to-foot. Bonnie didn't question it, and she drifted to sleep feeling content for the first time in 278 days.

Kai was above her. His hand covered her mouth to silence her screams. She panicked and bit it, and in a rage he wrapped his hands around her throat. She fought and fought as he cut off her breathing completely, looking down at her with nothing but evil in his eyes. She pressed her thumbs into his sockets and he cursed and fell away. She was off the bed and running. She didn't look back as she jetted down the hall, and gasped when she hit a snag in the carpet and fell to the floor. She looked up and he was slowly approaching her, a knife in his hand. A knife already stained with her blood. The blood he'd taken to leave her to die alone in the prison world. And he was here to do it again.

Bonnie screamed.

"No! No! Please, no!"

"Bonnie! Bonnie!" Someone else was screaming over her. She had sat straight up in bed and Damon was trying desperately to pull her out of her nightmare. "Bonnie, it's okay! It's a dream!" She snapped back to reality and sucked in a deep breath when she realized that Damon was holding onto her, she wasn't in the prison world, and Kai was nowhere around. She set her watery green eyes on Damon, his own ocean blues full of concern.

"Damon." This time the name came out in a whisper. She burrowed her head into his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her tightly, holding her as she calmed.

"It's okay," he repeated, softly. "You're here now. You're okay."

Bonnie felt the comfort in his arms. She was safe again. She was home.

The End

A/N: Well, that was my first one-shot. Hope you enjoyed. Please, leave me a review and let me know what you think. :)