Chapter Text
You have an idiot as a best friend.
“Damon, I am so convinced that you are going to die.” You’re worried. I mean, seriously, this time. Damon is the most annoying piece of shit you’ve ever met and he’s going to be surrounded by the entire Original family. They’re holding a ball tonight in their, apparently, massive, and, upsettingly, gorgeous mansion and unfortunately, he’s an annoying piece of shit that, if he were to die, you would be medium/very upset so–
“Fuck it. I’m coming down there, I’ll see you in five hours tops.”
You barely even hear him start to argue when you hang up and immediately start looking for plane tickets. You can’t do much but you’d be damned to hear that the idiot died and you weren’t there next to him.
–
“And you say I’m the idiot.” You bullied Damon into picking you up from the airport. He insisted that he wasn’t coming but when you threatened getting into a seedy cab, he quickly called you a bitch and got on the highway to come get you.
“You are. Which is why I’m here. And you are so lucky that we don’t have to go dress shopping.” When packing, you were battling past fashion demons while stuffing your XL duffle bag to the brim and luckily found a wonderful dark green satin dress from a couple years prior. You quickly tried it on to find that, yes, you still look sexy as fuck in it and boom, you threw it in the duffle. You also packed enough clothes for a month and left all of your shampoos in your bathroom at home; Damon always had the fancy shit anyway and it was the least he could do as you were definitely going to be saving his life at this ball or die trying.
“Just get in the fucking car, boombox” Damon huffs and tries to look annoyed as you slide into the passenger seat of his car. He loves you, and you know it.
“Alright, tell me exactly what it is that I’m walking into.” All you can do is hope that he really didn’t piss off the Originals as much as you think he did.
–
Pulling up to the Salvatore boarding house was a lot like coming home in a lot of ways. It was a big old building that despite never having been in, you had been told so much about that it felt like home. Even with the bad memories, Damon always held a fondness for this place and that fondness was passed onto you through his many stories. Seeing it in person made it all the more real and filled you with certainty that you had made the right decision. You couldn’t do much but if this place was real, then so was everything else he told you on the way back from the airport and that meant that your favorite idiot really was on everyone’s shitlist.
“Okay, I forgot everyone’s name, you're going to have to say it again.” You were notoriously bad at names which was unfortunate because you were about to be introduced to a lot of people you definitely had to remember.
“Not my problem that you weren't paying attention, '' Damon says, as you both get out of the car and he sends you a mocking smile over the top of the car. You glare at him and take your bag out of the back of the car and throw it at him on your way inside. He catches it with one hand, opens the door and sweeps a condescending hand inside. Fucking vampires. When you’re walking through the door Damon leans in and quickly whispers,
“Oh, and by the way I was so excited to hear you were coming that I told everyone that they should totally come over and meet you, so–” He was interrupted by Stefan stepping in and giving you a, surprisingly, friendly hug.
“It’s nice to see you again” He says as he smiles just a little too wide. You quickly turn to Damon and lift an eyebrow and ask,
“Why is he weirder than usual?” and Damon answers with a simple flashing of his sharp vampire teeth.
“Ah.” Your last interaction with the younger Salvatore brother was a brief passing. You two were cordial but hugging? You knew he was up to some shit and apparently that shit was human blood. Interesting indeed.
“Okay, okay, very funny. It is nice to see you, you’ll keep Damon out of trouble so I can focus on keeping the rest of us alive.” The usual brother drama was up and running, excellent.
Before Stefan and Damon could go back to their weird posturing, you look behind Damon to see a lot more people than you expected to be awaiting your arrival. There were also a lot more teenagers than you thought there were going to be. Damn, did this shit start young. Damon leaves, at a human jog, to climb the stairs and put your bag in the room next to his while you look around the room. You may be bad at names, but you’ve always been a good gossip and Damon, that incorrigible shit, is your best friend for a reason, so you’re relatively well informed as to who your main characters are. Stefan, the Doppelganger, the latest in the Bennett witch line (an honor to meet her, if she would unstick herself from the Doppelganger), newly turned blonde vampire, alcoholic history teacher, Doppelganger’s younger brother, and the blonde bartender. As you’re looking around the room you notice the varying looks that you receive, most of which are defensive, and it mildly disappoints you that they remain that way even after Stefan’s glowing review. You decide to relieve them of their confusion, might as well introduce them to the one who’s either going to save them all or die alongside them. So, you wave and introduce yourself, and address the elephant in the room.
“Before anyone asks, I’m not here for any of you but for Damon. He may be an idiot, but he’s my idiot and I refuse to lose any more friends to their own stupidity. Besides, I hear that we have an Original problem.” You’re grinning, but the room doesn’t really know what to do with you. You smile wider.
“Originals, plural, boombox. I would say we’re fucked but since you decided to show up, I will now say that we are now only majorly boned.”
–
The Scooby-Doo gang eventually decided to, at the very least, allow you in on the shitshow that has been their lives for the past couple of years. Damon, bless him, kept you up to date as much as he could but he is not only an unreliable narrator but one that, apparently, couldn’t stand to let his best friend see him in a bad light.
“And he what?! To Caroline? When she was a human?!” Needless to say, you and Damon were going to have words later about his treatment of underage girls, no matter how good his plan was at pissing his brother off.
“I said I was sorry!”
“We’re coming back to that later but, let me make sure I got this right, Stefan comes back, Damon comes back, Townspeople go crazy, Katherine follows, new vampires, werewolves, Originals, oh my?” Alaric, presumably feeling left out, adds hunters to the list and raises his glass in a toast.
“You’ve got it.”
You nod.
“I knew there was fuckery afoot.” And with that you and Damon turn to each other, toast and down the remainder of your drinks. Somewhere between Elena finding out about vampires and Bonnie lighting Klaus on fire, Damon had gone to get you a Tito’s and soda and kept ‘em coming as the supernatural gossip got continuously more supernaturally crazy. The only thing you could say was, thank god for Damon his perpetually full liquor cabinet, handling that stone-cold sober would have been a trip. Having finished your drinking with Damon, you turn back to the group with a grin and you say,
“Well, I will certainly try to keep you all alive as much as I can, despite the fact that all of you seem to have a kink for self-sacrifice.” Damon guffaws next to you and rocks back into the couch that the two of you are sharing and you hit him on the arm. Or try to, three drinks in and the attempted hit on the arm turned into a slap in the face as you miss your target with his rocking laughter. This alone would send the two of you into a fit of giggles that would take some time to subside but it was when Matt, deciding to grow some balls, interjects and says to the group, quite loudly,
“How is she going to help us? She’s as bad as Damon! And she’s fucking drunk too!”, that really sends you and Damon to the floor. You’re shaking, unable to breathe, holding on to Damon, laughing so hard you think you’re going to piss yourself and Damon is laughing so hard he’s started to cry. You’ve missed him. You only sober up, from laughing, when you notice the young Bennett.
She’s looking at you, has been since you arrived and didn’t say a word when they were telling you all about their drama and was now looking at you like a puzzle, solved and disappointing. You’ve always disliked when people found you disappointing. Like when your dad would only say your name as a sigh like he was tired and how everyone in your life eventually figured out that you were too much, too little, too loud, too everything, all the time. You find yourself looking back at her, curiously, and you find that you’ve stopped laughing, stopped moving and you’re just looking at the young witch and you wonder, out loud, a little tipsy and a little condescending,
“To be so young, so powerful and yet, still know nothing,” and hum out a sound as you get up from the floor and walk to sit on the ottoman in front of her. She looks defensive, affronted, and a bit like a puffed up cat, all prickly, and yet so adorable and powerful and lovely- and you feel comforted by her almost. She deserves better, this young witch, and you decide, in a split second, like you make every decision, two things. One: the young Bennett, Bonnie, is going to be your friend, and two: not all secrets, especially in this group, are meant to be kept. So, you look at her, straight on, throw your shoulders back and bid her to–
“Touch my hand.” You have her attention and when she’s looking at you with more curiosity than disappointment or defensiveness, you extend your right hand, palm up and wait. She takes the bait, lifts her right hand, trembling, and gently touches soft skin to soft skin.
Her eyes fly open wide, she gasps and grips your hand.
You grin.
When she comes back from wherever the witches go when they touch you, she looks at you in awe, smiling and exhilarated.
“What was that?!,” She focuses back on your eyes, leans in and softens her voice, looking for an answer, “what are you?”
Damon, now laying down back on your shared couch, lifts his drink, somehow full again, and hollers, “Give ‘em a show, boombox!”
You smile, look at Bonnie, and then turn inwards to pull forward the well of energy, teeming and full, that sits right underneath your skin. It flows through you, easy and powerful and fun, joyful and so deep that you smile wider at the feeling of it running through you. You start to hum, low and a singular note and let your power pick up the rest. The room fills with your hum, low and singular now thrumming throughout the room, echoing and loud enough to feel in your chest and you stop humming. The sound continues, growing and moving and now loud enough to make Alaric’s coif start to vibrate. And you remember Bonnie’s question, the whisper, soft and in awe asking gently, pleading, curious what are you? So you add to the darkly loud hum that fills the room with Bonnie’s gentle voice, what are you?
What are you? Echos around the room, what are you? Coming from everywhere and also seemingly nowhere, what are you? But certainly not coming from a, now open mouthed, Bonnie Bennett.
When Damon chooses to drunkenly start humming along with your hum filling the room, you know you have reached your desired effect and quickly cut the hum from the room. The room is now silent and your seemingly innocent power happily bubbles beneath your skin, between your muscles and down to your fingers and toes, caressing you adoringly and you make another decision. This is a group of children, no matter how powerful and influential they may be, they are indeed still children, bar Alaric, and sometimes to get children to listen to you, they need to know that not listening has consequences. Or perhaps you decide to do this because it was Damon’s favorite trick of yours and despite everything, you had missed him, or maybe you simply wanted to see the shock on their faces or maybe you, in a fit of tipsy rage think that you would hate for Bonnie to ever look at you disappointed again and you let your power come forth once more and everything is still quiet except–
Bonnie’s soft voice, stolen and cut and made to fold by the blood in your body, whispers, all around the room and in everyone’s ears,
This is what I am.
The room is quiet. You are sure that if a pin were to drop, you would be able to hear it, even without your supernatural ability.
Damon just sighs,
“I love when you do that, but Bonnie’s voice? Really? And you call me the drama queen.” And you find yourself looking at your best friend, grateful and annoyed and, again, so happy to be together with him, that you can’t help but chuckle.
Your chuckle breaks the tension and soon everyone is laughing small laughs, some uncomfortable and some genuine but it’s Damon’s that makes it all worth it. He’s an idiot but he’s your idiot and this just hardens your resolve. They were to live or you were to die trying to save them, him. So, you look back to the group with a smile, full of teeth and barely concealed malice, or unfettered happiness, depending on how you look at it, and you say,
“What a great shitshow! Happy to join the cast!”