It was never you. It was always you:
your unutterable name, this growl in my throat. — Erika Meitner
/
If you could only see the beast you've made of me
I held it in but now it seems you've set it running free
The saints can't help me now, the ropes have been unbound
I hunt for you with bloodied feet across the hallowed ground - Florence Welch
It's nearly midnight when she reaches the Mikaelson manor outside the French Quarter. Her three-month-old infant daughter swaddled inside the shelter of a brown raincoat and all her worldly belongings crammed in two weekender bags, Bonnie Bennett almost considers turning away. Instead, she climbs the rain-slick stone stairs and lifts the heavy brass knocker. Music and the glow from the windows above confirm she's arrived in the middle of some celebration.
It's a long while before someone comes to the door - a witch, lean and dark-haired with coven tattoos on her left forearm. Sound and color pour out the doors and wash over Bonnie, along with waves of a rich, energetic current that makes her skin flush warm: magic, and specifically the magic conjured by mating bodies.
"Can I help you?" the other witch asks, not unkindly. Her demeanor is casual but self-assured, undoubtedly an alpha.
Bonnie knows how she must look: bedraggled, desperate, clutching a child. She tries to speak in as clear and firm a voice as possible. "I'm here to see Abby Bennett. I'm- I'm her daughter."
"I'm sorry...but Abby doesn't live here anymore. She left about two months ago."
It takes every remaining inch of Bonnie's resolve not to burst into tears. Of course Abby was gone. Her mother made a habit of disappearing and reappearing at the worst of times.
The second witch eyes the bundle in Bonnie's arms, the dripping rain. "Why don't you come inside? I'll see if anyone knows where she went."
Bonnie mumbles a thank you, too mortified to look her in the eye as she's ushered into a well lit parlor.
"I'm Sophie," the witch introduces herself. "Have a seat, I'll be back in a minute."
Alone with her baby, Bonnie wants to shrink into herself and away from the lavish, elegant room. Everything from the polished wood floors to the vases of blooming gladiola to the Monet framed above the mantelpiece engages in genteel mockery of her predicament, the way someone might pull their skirts away from a dirty puddle on the sidewalk. Underneath her clothes she's drenched in sweat, a product of the humid bayou and the fever flushes that came with increasing frequency the longer she was away from her mate. The scent of mating magic envelops the house in a narcotic haze. Were she a shifter instead of a witch Bonnie's certain she would've been driven to a frenzy by now. Her eyes dart around the room and land on a bucket of ice atop the lacquered bar.
Bonnie swallows another draught of shame. The silver ice tongs are so bright they nearly hurt her eyes. She takes two cubes in hand and runs them over her flushed throat, the slope of her breasts. The ice dissolves far too quickly, taking the blissful cool with them. She reaches for another cube and the baby starts to fuss, plucking at her shirt to let her know she's ready to eat. The sling makes it easy to maneuver a nipple into her mouth and Zeli latches on, feeding happily. Looking at her daughter brings a mix of peace and turmoil, tempered with blinding love.
"How about this room, huh Zuzu?" she murmurs, reaching for some ice with her free hand.
Zeli chortles in response, fist pounding her mother's breast in appreciation. Bonnie fights the urge to press her closer, as though she might reabsorb her daughter into her body. But her body is far from safe. Will Gabriel had ensured that.
If they couldn't find Abby-
As though sensing the direction of her thoughts, Zeli detaches and puts up a whine. Bonnie tries to get her to nurse again but she won't have it. She wriggles her arms and legs trying to get free of her swaddling.
"Ok ok hold on." Balancing an ice cube in one hand she manages to lift Zeli to her shoulder and stuff her boob back into her shirt, though not without further staining her blouse in milk. She's struggling to remove her raincoat when she feels a smooth tug. The coat slides off her like silk, but she's denied the chance to savor her new freedom as she grows aware of the source of her relief standing behind her. It's been nearly a decade and yet there's no mistaking the cool musk of his aftershave, just the right blend of earthy and expensive. Back then it made her want to rake her nails across his smirking face.
"Hello, love."
When he'd heard Sophie asking people at the party if they knew where Abby Bennett had got to on behalf of her daughter, his instincts piqued at once. He was striding down to the parlor before he was aware he'd left. It'd been years since he laid eyes on the stubborn little omega witch, but she'd left a lasting impression. Just the sound of her name conjured the fiery lick of magic on his skin when she'd brought him to his knees. It's not fire that precedes her now but water, rainwater running down her coat and forming stains wherever she moved. The garment is ugly and shapeless and he uses her distraction to slip it off her small frame. Her scent - sweat and rain and milk - catches him like a fresh blow. Omegas of all genders smelled different after parenthood; their scent grew deeper, more subtle, less striking to those who weren't their mate.
But Bonnie - her scent still set his head reeling. Someone else's mate she might be, but nine years later and he still wanted to drag his nose along the curve of neck and shoulder. To have his fill.
She turns around, her baby clutched against her like she's afraid someone might snatch the little thing, and Klaus studies her face, the same charming, stubborn, crooked jaw, the same green eyes, the same arch of a Botticelian forehead, but the expression more shuttered now than it had once been, with a touch of gauntness that sounds a faint alarm.
"Klaus," she says stiffly, patting the baby on her shoulder. Her neck glistens wet in the lamplight, ice turned rivulets disappearing into her neckline. He sees but refrains from remarking on the ice cube melting in her hand. "Do you know how I can contact my mother?"
He puts a mocking hand over his heart. "And here I thought you'd hastened to Louisiana with your child in tow to visit me."
His eyes flick to the small child in her arms. Only a few months old, if he had to guess.
"Nine years though it's been, I distinctly recall you saying you'd never have cause to set foot in this city."
She bites the inside of her cheek, choosing her words with painful precision. "Like I said, we needed to see Abby."
"We? Abigail never struck me as the grandmotherly type," Klaus says, pretending to frown in thought. "Unless you are referring to the child's father. Surely he's on your heels, parking the car perhaps? Are you in need of a family room?"
He catches her small flinch before she gives him a defiant, desperate look and he finally notices the subtler, more foreboding note to her scent: that of another alpha, her mate. Besides her bedraggled state, he knew well enough that Bonnie Bennett wouldn't be here, in the heart of his domain, sans mate with an infant in her arms, without urgent cause.
"I see."
His eyes take her in again. The spotted jeans and sweatshirt don't quite mask the new fullness of her figure, but she's in a sorry state. Only at her lowest point would Bonnie Bennett deign to arrive at his door. The thought darkens his mood but doesn't quite extinguish the flicker of wolfish pride. Whatever the reason, she'd come looking for safety under his roof. And there she would stay.
She starts to pick up her things. "Thank Sophie for letting me sit for a while. We'll be leaving."
"And where will you be staying?" he asks coolly.
"I'll figure something out," she says in a tone clearly meant to dissuade further questions.
He steps subtly in front of her, bends to pick up her second bag before she can.
"Klaus -" she says again, expression troubled, restrained but barely so.
"You mother's suite is unoccupied. You can stay as long as you wish."
"You know that no one shall trouble you. Not even I," he adds softly.
Green eyes flicker with the memory of a promise made nine years ago. He sees her jaw tighten slightly, pride and exhaustion warring inside her.
"Okay," she sighs. "Just for a day or two."
He has a servant escort her to Abby's old room and returns to the party in search of his guests, company, relief. Sophie gives him an inquiring look but he ignores her, making a beeline for the omega he'd been dancing with before Bonnie arrived. She happily wraps herself around him, all silken skin and sheer dress, perfumed with her heat. When she nibbles his earlobe playfully he growls, the wolf closer than usual to the surface. The omega gives a delighted purr. They find a shadowy corner and he lifts up her skirt, hitches her thighs around his waist.
When he'd established New Orleans in its current state he'd done so in defiance of everything his father believed: that alphas should rule over all others by force, taking favors and bodies and lives in exchange for benevolence, wielding their power over omegas with impunity. Mikael had followed that logic to the bitter end while he, the bastard son, had denied it, mocked it, abhorred its ravages. But the way his name slipped from Bonnie's mouth - Klaus - fills his head with ghosts. Mikael's shadow reaches back from the grave, takes hold of his spine. Take her. It's what an alpha would do.
The thought of her rainswept in his parlor, her shard-glass face, cooing soft words at her child, causes a stirring in his chest. Something dangerous, laced with fear. Like he'd been running through the woods with Mikael on his heels. Bonnie Bennett had had that effect on him from the first moment their eyes met. Like she could light the air on fire, bring him to his knees, before he even smelled the smoke. If he couldn't do this, couldn't protect her without laying a finger on her, then everything he believed, everything he'd built, was dust.
He buries his nose in his lover's neck, the scent of calla lily and vetiver, the sharper scent of her arousal. Anchoring himself. She moans his name and cuts her teeth on his shoulder.
Klaus moves between her legs at a frenzied pace, like an exorcism. But he can't outrun it, outrun himself. He cums to the thought of ice, salty sweet with milk, melting in his mouth.
Her grandmother, Sheila Bennett, used to say heaven and hell lived in the eye of the beholder.
The pithy saying may as well have been about New Orleans. Depending on who you spoke to the city was a safe haven or a nest of demons. A joyful sanctuary or a den of vice. Within its walls, alpha copulated with alpha, omega with beta, sometimes even alpha with beta. None formed mate bonds, even fewer produced offspring. It was a city ruled by desire where its inhabitants refused to let desire rule them. Teeming with shifters and witches both, surrounded by wetlands and protected by a well organized contingent of packs and covens, none dared threaten its sovereignty though plenty cursed and grumbled about its existence. And no name was more cursed and despised than Niklaus Mikaelson, the alpha who steadfastly refused to take a mate, who'd first established his vast home in New Orleans as a sanctuary of sorts for those who wished to, as he claimed, live by their own rules. Traditionalists swore they'd never set foot in his lawless city. In a world fueled by magic, desire was coal, was oil, was gold and gemstones and reservoirs of water. It needed to be contained, rationed, carefully preserved for the good of all. Without restriction, indulgence reigned. Vices took hold that ravaged the natural order. Without restriction, magic itself would run amok and destroy the lives it was meant to sustain. Bonnie had sworn by these edicts. Once, she'd been one of those who vowed she'd never have cause to seek out New Orleans.
After two weeks of cheap motels, Abby's room feels palatial. Bonnie's relief at the scent and feel of spotless linen, the gleam of a clean bathroom, is so strong she's almost ashamed.
"Definitely beats a motel," she sighs at her daughter whose eyes flutter drowsily. Bonnie moves to the window, rocking Zeli and taking in the twinkling city, the smell of sea salt in the air, the dark glisten of magnolia trees that surround the property. Zeli falls asleep soon enough, mouth puckered open, one hand splayed against a cherub cheek. There's no crib to put her in, but after two weeks on the road she's learned to make do. Bonnie clears a space in the middle of the bed and places Zeli on her back, unswaddling her so she doesn't overheat.
With the baby asleep, she goes quietly around the room, searching for any clue, a scrap of information that would reveal Abby's location. After years of a nomadic lifestyle, Abby had grown adept at masking her location. Her mother, Sheila, had once explained this to a confused thirteen year old Bonnie who didn't understand why her perfectly executed location spell didn't work.
Now, as then, she's forced to give up her search. Even if location spells worked, she can't risk using too much magic. Will would find her in a heartbeat.
The thought drains the blood from her head to her feet. Her skin loses warmth and a strong, cold surge of nausea has her rushing to the bathroom to dry heave in the toilet. The spell passes slowly, and soon she's burning up again.
The medical literature spoke of withdrawals, magic leaching from the body, the debilitating rise of fever if left untreated. She hadn't read the books. Her mother's life had been instructive enough. She'd been so naive, so foolishly arrogant in the belief that she'd never repeat Abby's mistakes.
She runs the shower cold. Bonnie stands under water and longs for ice. For relief. One ear cocked towards the baby monitor, teeth clamped down, she tries to ride out the fever. The magic that fuels desire needed focus, a nucleus around which to swirl and clench. It's why mating marks were originally devised: to allow mates a strong and distilled conduit for each other's energy. Hidden beneath the small bandage on her left shoulder blade, her Mark stings deep. Like there's a wasp burrowed in her skin.
A Marked omega in the Crescent City. The shame of it, momentarily suspended by the animal comforts of cleanliness and safety, returns to taunt her as she lies down next to Zeli, as she curls her body around her and tells herself she did the right thing by leaving Will.
Watching her daughter sleep, her curled fists and button nose, the soft puffs of her breathing, strengthens her resolve. Abby might be gone but, if there's any place in the world that someone might have the knowledge to help her and Zeli, it was right here, in New Orleans. She refused to concede that she might fall as low as her mother. Zeli came first, in a way she herself never had for Abby. New Orleans held the answers she needed. And with or without her mother's help, for her daughter's sake, she would find a way to get them.
The rain patters steadily on glass and leaf and rooftop, like fingertips. She thinks of Klaus, his hands sliding the raincoat off her shoulders. How close he'd come to seeing that she'd been Marked. She knew now why she'd refused him all those years ago when he'd promised her safety. It wasn't him that she couldn't trust, but herself.
A/N: Happy New Year klonnie fam! Is this fic just a thinly veiled excuse for me to indulge my mom!bonnie kink? MAYBE SO. The truth is I've always been fascinated by Omegaverse as a trope, and I finally decided to take the plunge and put my own spin on it. I'm officially naming 2019 the year we all #indulge! So with that in mind, a few warnings: subsequent chapters will contain mentions of sexual violence, addiction, and lactation kink (because #indulge2k19). This will be fairly short, about 10 chapters or so. Next chapter will feature Abby and Bonnie's history, as well as Klonnie's first meeting. Ok now I'm gonna hide because I've already Exposed TM myself enough. Let me know your thoughts xoxoxo