dear enemy (the vampire diaries | anna~bonnie)

[fiachairecht]

dear enemy. the vampire diaries, anna~bonnie. bonnie isn't asking for help, not really. 1k words, rated t. for elasticella in battleshipex 2021.

"Before you say anything," Bonnie starts, and she's a little bit gratified to see Anna silently raise an eyebrow in response, "This is not me asking you for help." Her voice is steady — it's her hands, hidden in the folds of her dress, that are shaking.

Anna stretches herself over the apothecary's counter, nudging bottles aside as she clears enough space to prop her chin in her hands. "That's too bad," she says. "I really want to see what it looks like when a witch comes begging for a vampire's help. Oh wait — I think I'm seeing it right now, anyway."

"Sorry," Bonnie says. "Not begging, either."

"Then you're wasting my time because..."

I could kill her, Bonnie thinks. Light her up so fast none of her mother's potions could do a thing to stop it, light her up and let the flames take the whole street, burn it away from the inside out just like the magic burned Grams away to nothingness. But all she says is, "Because you owe me," and her hands still, curl around the fabric of her dress so tight she can feel her pulse in between each of her fingers.

Maybe Anna feels it too, or maybe she just smells — senses it, however they do that, her lips peeling back over sharp teeth and her veins standing out dark enough to cut through skin. "I don't think I do."

"You have your mother," Bonnie says. Breathes in, breathes out, and tries not to think too hard about the flames. "And I don't have my grandmother. This means you owe me."

Anna's face softens, something almost like pity easing away the black tendrils under her eyes. "Oh, sweetheart. Your grandmother made a choice. That's something my mother never had, and I'm sorry, but it doesn't mean anything for us."

It's only two steps to the counter, then a few inches more between them that Bonnie closes without a thought, twisting her fingers in Anna's hair and yanking her head back until she can't do anything but meet Bonnie's eyes. "I could tell anyone what you are and they would believe me."

Fear flickers in Anna's eyes, there and gone before Bonnie's sure of what she saw. "How long until they start to wonder who you are, little witch?"

"They won't," Bonnie says, but Anna's words are burning against her skin and she won't, can't let her win, not like this. "Not until you help me bring Grams back."

Anna laughs, startled, and then hisses in pain as Bonnie pulls at her hair in surprise. "Oh, no. No, no, my way only works before people die, remember?"

"I don't need your way," Bonnie snaps, and it's a good thing the counter's still between them, the edge digging into her chest and stopping her from doing something even more monumentally stupid. "I need your power."

Anna goes still, so still Bonnie's sure it's the prelude to some kind of attack. But all she says is, "Then can we please not do this where my mother could walk in on us?"

Bonnie unwinds her hand from Anna's hair, ignoring the sudden emptiness in her palm as Anna straightens up and shakes her head. "Okay," Bonnie says. "Okay. But no more double crossing." It comes out as more of a question than she'd meant it to be.

Anna shrugs in response, makes a noncommittal noise as she locks the register. "If you give me a reason," she says. "After all, it would be a terrible thing if you started to trust me."

"I've heard worse things this week," Bonnie mutters, and only realises her mistake a second later, backed against the counter with Anna's arms bracketing her in on both sides. 

"Worse, huh?" Anna smirks. She isn't cold, Bonnie thinks, latching on to that thought because the alternative is — screaming, fainting, worse. She's pressed up against an apothecary counter by a tiny vampire in a leather jacket and combat boots and all she can think is that Anna isn't cold.

"I'm wearing vervain," she says, over the sound of her pulse in her ears. "You can't do ... whatever you're thinking."

"What am I thinking?" Anna presses herself up onto her tiptoes, lips ghosting over the air just centimetres away from Bonnie's own mouth. "I have more than one way to get what I want, after all." Her hand slides down Bonnie's arm, and Bonnie's traitorous body shivers in response.

It's only because it's been a stressful few weeks, she reasons, as Anna's fingernails scrape lightly over her palm. She'll get Grams back, they'll talk in through over tea, and in a few days this will be a distant, hazy memory, just vague outlines under the hot, electric taste of magic gathering in the air between them.

Magic.

"Stop it," Bonnie says, and her voice is softer than she'd meant it to be. She's not sure which one of them she's talking to.

Anna laughs, a brush of air against Bonnie's neck. "Stop what? It's not my fault if you want me, little witch." And then her mouth is on Bonnie's, there and gone so quickly Bonnie would have thought she'd imagined it if not for the pain that flares under Anna's all too humanly blunt teeth.

Bonnie shuts her eyes, leans back against the counter as if the tiny amount of extra space she gains matters. "I hate you," she says, the words hardly audible under the sound of her pulse pounding in her ears.

"Yeah," Anna says, and Bonnie can hear the rustle of her clothing and the dull thump of her boots as she steps back, the clink of glass as she swipes a few bottles from the counter. "Lucky for you, necromancy sounds like more fun than explaining the internet to my mother for the twentieth time."

Bonnie takes a breath, the heat of magic ebbing as Anna walks towards the stairs. It'll be worth it, she thinks, breathing in and out, listening to her heart rate slow. Grams will be back. She will.

Everything else can wait.

She's not lying to herself.

She's not.