Title: Labyrinth
Rating: M
Genre: AU/AH
Pairing(s): Bonnie/Klaus
#Gothic Klonnie 2k18 Day One & Two:
Oneirataxia ||inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality.
Cwtsh || a safe place; the space of the cupboard under the stairs
Summary: "Klaus has always been one to collect witches. They don't stay because they want to per se. They stay because he twists their minds in such a way that they can't find their way out."
While with her relatives during the summer, Bonnie is kidnapped by Klaus. He tells her that she can leave whenever she wants. The problem is, she can't seem to find her way out of his current haunt. (Post 2x22)
Warnings: Minor Sexual Content, Mind Manipulation, Violence, Gore, ect.
Auhor's Note: Here is my late and first contribution to Gothic Klonnie Week on Tumblr. Tired as hell. No editing here but I will come back and edit later. Love you guys. Please excuse the errors. Here we go!
Labyrinth
"Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought." ~Napoleon Hill
All the rooms looked the same from the outside. The same cream colored doors with gold trimming. She walked across the crimson carpet printed with monochromatic letter "M"s done in a font that brought classic Victorian literature to mind. Perhaps one of the rooms was a library.
She wasn't certain of how much time had passed. Minutes perhaps. A few hours. Days or weeks. Months maybe. It was all the same here it seemed. Bonnie Bennett had been walking down the same hallway with the same rosewood lamp fixtures and landscape paintings on the walls. She had been passing by the same wallpaper printed with the same antique floral design. She couldn't find the staircase she had originally ascended. Forwards and backwards it was nothing but the same.
In all the time she had walked she had yet to try and open one of the doors. Now she was running out of any other options. There was no other space to look for in terms of making her escape and already she was forgetting things. She was forgetting why she had been brought here in the first place. She wasn't sure where she had been brought from. She had been with her family she thinks but she couldn't bring to mind the names. She had friends she supposed that might look for her but she couldn't recall the town in which they lived. Their names she remembered and their faces. She remembered what her father's smile looked like. She remembered everything about her Grams. She remembered she had a boyfriend but couldn't recollect why she had loved him. There was one person besides her Grams that Bonnie could bring to mind very well and that was her captor, Klaus.
She had woken up in a bed or maybe she had just walked into a house through the front door. She wasn't certain of when or how it had happen. Klaus had looked at her as one would look at prey. She remembers his eyes clearly as they transitioned from icy to blue to glowing yellow. "You can leave if you want," he'd said, his tone surprisingly amiable, "I won't stop you."
When Bonnie had turned around though, the door she had entered into or perhaps the bedroom she had been in, whatever means in which she'd reached this place was gone and in its place there was a staircase. She was sure there was a staircase, but then staircase had led to the hall and then that too had disappeared.
She had cursed him at first. Ranted and raved. But now she was just tired. Tired and needing to do something, anything other than the endless wandering that was leading her nowhere.
Bonnie looked down at herself. She hadn't been wearing this dress before. This floor length black and white monstrosity. She wasn't sure what she had been wearing but it wasn't this. She frowned. Her hair had been down and not up. Or had it? She didn't know anything anymore. Nothing was as it was or as it was meant to be.
Her powers didn't work here, wherever here was. Why had she come here, to this strange house with no ending or beginning? She was stuck with no defenses. Her only recourse was to find some assistance or way out and that meant opening a door.
Bonnie didn't want to admit that she was afraid. She was supposed to be stronger than this. But without her powers and with no way out, she felt more vulnerable than she had in a long time.
Bonnie stopped in front of the next door that she came to. She couldn't keep wandering. The inaction would get her nowhere. She had to do something. She had to find answers. "You can do this," she said to herself, new determination surfaced as she reached out and opened the door.
She walked inside and the smell hit her before anything else. It was the putrid smell of decay and as she looked around she saw why. Bodies lined the walls. Dozens of dead bodies wrapped in plastic. Bonnie felt the urge to throw up as she saw one fall from where it was leaning and the plastic fell away revealing pale white flesh in the process of rotting and dotted in purple bruises. The woman's face was twisted into an expression of screaming agony, her light brown hair greasy and littered with grass and dirt. Bonnie didn't recognize the woman's face but in her state of mind that didn't necessarily mean that she didn't know her.
Bonnie backed out of the room without a word and slammed the door behind her. She wasn't surprised, or at least she shouldn't have been. This was Klaus she was dealing with and those bodies likely represented not even a tenth of his victims over decades and decades and murder and terrorism.
Bonnie looked across the hall and decided to try another room. This one was different than the others. The door was cracked where all the other doors in the hallway were closed. She could hear the distinct hum of voices chanting. Witches! Bonnie closed her eyes and remembered Sheila Bennett telling her that they protected their own. Perhaps these witches would help her. Their loyalty to Klaus aside, she as a Bennett, she knew that others knew the name. That thought kept repeating in her mind alongside the thoughts of Klaus that constantly pulsed and reverberated.
Bonnie walked across the hall and pushed the door the rest of the way open. As she entered she was surprised to see that she was in some sort of wooded area. The chanting grew louder and she felt a sudden chill run up her spine as the door slammed behind her unprompted.
It was dark and for some reason she could see the full moon in the sky and hear the sounds of night. Owls hooting, crickets chirping and the chanting as it continued on and on behind the curtain of trees too tall for her not to be outside.
Her first thought was to run. To run and never look back until she found a clearing in the woods and a road and a car and a person, any person that could lead her back to civilization. But she couldn't be outside could she? She had just left the hall of doors. A hall of doors up a disappearing staircase and now she was outside?
The chill grew greater and Bonnie looked down to see that she was naked. "What the fuck?" She moved to cover herself but some unseen force propelled her forward. The trees parted of their own accord as an unseen force lifted Bonnie's nude body into the air and carried her towards the sound of the chanting.
Bonnie looked down and around as she cleared the trees and finally she was able to see the witches. They were dancing around a pit of fire, their bodies writhing in what appeared to be ecstasy, naked and glistening with sweat. The chanting grew louder until it sounded almost like howling.
Bonnie was brought down to the ground slowly at the head of the flames, so close she could feel the heat licking her naked skin. Sweat began to bead on her body almost immediately as the chanting around her suddenly stopped.
Bonnie looked around at the witches that she had so foolishly thought might be willing or able to aid her and she saw then her mistake. Among them were Greta and Luka. Both were dead. That she could remember. There was the white male witch that had aided Klaus with the sacrifices as well. She couldn't remember is name or if she'd even known it to begin with. There was also a person that was some sort of facsimile of her cousin Lucy. But it wasn't the real Lucy. Bonnie didn't get the same sense of family from this woman and her eyes were blacked out and unseeing as if someone had torn them from the sockets.
Bonnie looked away from her and decided that she wouldn't even bother speaking to them. Her first instinct to run would have to do. Bonnie turned to do just that was came face to face with Klaus. Klaus grinned at her yellow eyed and naked, veins pulsing from underneath his skin, fangs descended and sharp as he smiled. "Don't be afraid, love," he whispered, "It's time for your initiation."
The witches suddenly stood straight and stiff all in unison their hands at their sides and eyes on the flames. The spoke as one their tones portraying a cold and empty calm. "Welcome to the fold," they said.
Bonnie shook her head and backed away from Klaus. "No," she said, "I'd rather die."
She turned to the flames and found her escape and began to walk towards them. As her foot reached the edge they suddenly extinguished and the witches dissolved into dust.
Bonnie turned back to Klaus and he rolled his eyes at her though his face remained distorted. "So melodramatic," he sighed seemingly disgusted.
Bonnie raised her hand to slap him and suddenly she was back in the hall of doors, in her white and black monster of a dress. "What the hell is this place?" Bonnie asked herself as she looked around and kept walking.
The sad thing was, she almost missed the contact with the witches. She hadn't seen anyone and who knew how long and even Klaus was better than this nothingness. She being in solitude did nothing for her nerves and she needed something or someone to interact with. She needed someone to talk to something to fight. Klaus knew that she was sure. It was part of whatever this torment was.
Bonnie shook her head. Whatever this was, she wouldn't let him intimidate her. Bonnie walked until she came to the next door and then she pulled it open. When she walked inside there were paintings and empty canvasses leaning against the walls. Bonnie could smell the sweet and piney scent of turpentine and the copper scent of blood.
She blinked and suddenly she was laying naked on an antique red couch, her dark curls pillowed around her. Klaus was across the room standing behind an easel. His was shirtless and his arms and torso were dotted with paint splatters. One brush was in his mouth and the other in his hand as he hummed some kind of tune that was too garbled for Bonnie to make out.
Bonnie huffed as she covered herself with the velvet sheet on the couch. "What's your obsession with getting me naked all of sudden? What the hell is all of this even about?"
Klaus looked put out as she covered her breasts and took the pain brush out of his mouth. "My obsession with getting you naked isn't sudden nor is my interest in you," he said calmly, "I have the habit of collecting witches as you well know. You had a hand in killing my last one." He made a cross over his chest and Bonnie half expected him to burst into flames before he finished. "Dear sweet Greta may she rest in peace." His eyes moved back to Bonnie. "And since I seem to be having trouble making my hybrids which I am sure you also had a hand in, I find it only right that you take Greta's place at my side. Perhaps in my bed as well but I'll leave that choice up to you."
Bonnie scowled. "You said that I could leave whenever I wanted," she spat, "I remember-"
Klaus cut her off, one eyebrows raised. "Do you?"
Bonnie gritted her teeth. "I'm never going to be a part of your creepy little witch collection so cut the bullshit and tell me how to get out of here."
Klaus looked hurt and Bonnie rolled her eyes. She watched as he moved to dip his paint brush in paint set up on the table to his side and that was when she saw it. There was a body next to where the paints were set up, another unknown woman sprawled across the table her stomach cut open and her entrails spilling out. Bonnie gagged as Klaus dipped his pain brush into the blood pooling out of her mouth.
Klaus turned back to her with a huff. "Now don't be like that," he said, as he went back to painting, "I had to get the exact red of your lips stick. I am a perfectionist you know."
Bonnie wasn't wearing makeup. Or was she? She shook her head. She couldn't let him distract her. "How do I get out of here?" She repeated.
"There are two ways out," Klaus said finally. "Two doors you will come to after this one. The first door as one exit and the one across the hall has the other. Choose carefully, Ms. Bennett."
Bonnie opened her mouth to respond and found herself back in the hall way. Her mouth snapped shut. Who cares if he got the last word when she was closer to getting the hell out of there? Bonnie forged ahead and stopped at the next set of doors that she came to. She looked at one and then the other. Like the rest, both looked the same.
Bonnie chose one at random and walked over to it. "Here goes nothing," she had and opened the door.
This door led to a church. It was the church from home. The same church where her Grams' funeral had been held. And Vicki's memorial service. And Mayor Lockwood's. And Jenna's. So much death that had started with the presence of the Salvatore brothers and kept going with Katherine's and then with Klaus's.
There was a funeral going on, like so many she had been to before. She saw her friends sitting in the pews dressed in all black. She remembered their names on by one. Caroline. Elena. Tyler. Matt. And Jeremy. Jeremy who she loved or did she? Bonnie didn't have look to the casket up front to know that she was inside of it but she looked anyway.
Bonnie looked and saw her body stiff and cold in a white casket in a white dress with a flower arrangement of white roses atop the casket. In the pulpit behind the podium was Klaus dressed like a priest and smiling.
Bonnie glared. The first way out. Death. "Message received." Bonnie muttered, not willing to show fear in the face of the monster as she backed out of the room and slammed the door behind her.
Bonnie looked across the hall and wondered what the second option would be. There only one way to find out. Anything would be better than death she supposed. Or would it?
Bonnie reached her hand out of grip the knob and then turned it slowly. After the spectacle of the other rooms with all of the blood and death she wasn't sure what to expect. Whatever she expected it wasn't what she got as Bonnie entered into an elegant and elaborate ballroom. The dance floor was made of black and white checkered marble tile and Bonnie watched memorized as couples danced all around her, moving across the room as if they were floating.
Bonnie dress was different. The black and white was gone in favor of a dress that was a sheer pale blue and reminded Bonnie of the days she had spent as a child looking up at the clouds with her Grams while on picnics in the park and trying to find shapes in the while puffs.
Bonnie was taken out of her revelry as a she was suddenly grabbed around the waist and Klaus was there in a tuxedo, his blue tie matching her dress and his eyes as he lead her out to join the dancing couples.
Bonnie allowed herself to be lead and waited for him to say anything that would explain how this, a dance in a ball gown, would be her other out.
Klaus's hands gripped hers and his body pressed against hers as he leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave." He was laughing as he pulled back and Bonnie pushed away from him.
Bonnie wasted no time walking back towards the door. "You're insane. This is clearly a game to you. I'm not going to play it anymore."
Klaus caught her arm and pulled her back into his body as he wrapped his arms around her middle. "A bit of a dated reference I know but Jareth though sloppy with a debatable taste in women, had generally the right idea," he said. "You want a way out. Whatever way you take is through me. You just have to decide which route you want to choose. When I see that you've made that choice you'll meet the end you decide and this will be over."
Bonnie shoved his arms away. "If this is the alternative," Bonnie said turning to face him, "You may as well kill me now."
Klaus looked mildly disappointed before he shrugged. "Very well then." He said.
Bonnie found herself back in the hall of doors this time dressed in jeans and black blouse, her hair down and with no embellishments. She looked around and stiffened as the hall grew dark, the light fixtures bursting one by one leaving shards of glass to litter the floor.
When it was almost pitch black. Bonnie heard heavy breathing and the sound of frantic footsteps behind her. She turned and saw Klaus running down the hallway his face fearful. He didn't look like himself at all. His face was ash white and clean shaven. His hair was longer than Bonnie had ever seen it, almost shoulder length and unkempt. He was wearing clothing from another age, brown trousers and a white tunic. His frantic steps became a run and his eyes narrowed as he saw her. "Run," he spat, "They're coming!"
Bonnie blinked at him. "Is this a joke?" She stared as he moved to run past and grabbed her hand as he went. She felt it then as threaded their fingers together, this Klaus wasn't monster or beast but human. She couldn't use her powers to defend herself but apparently she could still sense things. "How?" Bonnie frowned.
He turned to her, his hair obscuring his face in the dark. "I'm the only part of him that you can trust. We must go and we must go now."
Bonnie heard it then. The growling. The gnashing of teeth. The panting. The howling. Bonnie turned and looked over her shoulder in time to see wolves, large and black running towards them with hungry red eyes.
Bonnie screamed and allowed herself to be pulled forward. She ran, gripping Klaus's hand and suddenly the staircase that she had sworn was there before reappeared.
This Klaus was human pulled her down the stairs as the wolves ran hard and fast at them, their jaws opening to snap at their heels.
They reached the bottom of the staircase and Klaus tugged her around the staircase to the side. Bonnie watched as Klaus knocked three times and a compartment opened revealing a small room. "We'll be safe here and nowhere else." He said pulling Bonnie inside.
Bonnie followed and Klaus shut the door behind him. The room seemed to expand out as she looked at. It looked like a one room cottage out of some kind if fairy tale complete with a stone fire place and carved wooden bed frame with a small straw stuffed mattress.
"You should get some rest," he suggested, "The wolves will be roaming for a bit. It always happens when he gets testy like that. You unnerve him more than you think."
Bonnie crossed her arms over her chest. "Why do you say he like you're different people?"
"Because we are." Bonnie watched as the human version of Klaus crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. "If we weren't he wouldn't work so hard to try to kill me each time I show my face."
Bonnie laughed. "So what, wolves come out and chase you down each time Klaus remembers he has some kind of humanity left?"
He nodded. "Got it in one."
Bonnie felt like she had entered some alternate universe. Clearly she had. What the hell was this place? "I want to leave." She said.
Klaus shrugged. "Then give him what he wants."
Bonnie glared. "So this is just some other trick right? Some manipulation. Well fuck you and fuck him too."
Klaus looked unbothered as he reached over to the table by the bed and grabbed a piece of twine to tie up his hair. "It isn't a trick. It's the answer. You just don't want to hear it. You give him what he wants or you'll be stuck here like me until he breaks you or you die." He sighed and he looked at her with something akin to empathy which seemed off coming from someone with Klaus's face no matter how young and altered he looked. "That's what he does to people. I'd be free myself if I gave into him. Let him lose himself completely to the monster. I would disappear and we would be one in the same and I might come to enjoy this God forsaken hell, but I refuse to. So he torments me and the wolves come. Constantly they come. Reminding me of Hen-" he cut himself off and then, "Of everything I've lost."
Bonnie didn't know what to say and so she said nothing. She walked over to sit in front of the fire place and stared at the flames. "So your advice is to give in to Klaus or sit here and wait to die?" Outside the wolves howled and Bonnie thought about running out and letting them take her.
"He's more vulnerable to you than you think," Klaus whispered, "I can't tell you much. He…he has a hold on me you see. Keeps me in a vice. But he…he's shown you things here that he hasn't shown the others. Pieces of himself you won't be able to piece together until later. None of the others saw me, let alone talked to me. If you play your cards right…you can use this to your advantage. You have more power than you think, love."
Bonnie looked at him over her shoulder. "How do I know you're not full of shit?"
He smiled. "You don't." he said, honestly, "But if you're going to take a chance on any part of him it should be me."
Bonnie stood abruptly. Maybe he was right. Sitting around waiting to die wasn't her style and she could pretend to give Klaus what he wanted if it meant getting out of this hell he had created. "I'm leaving." She said to him.
Bonnie stood and walked over to the door of the safe haven he had brought her to. She stopped. "The staircase will disappear when I leave?"
"Yes." He replied.
"I won't see you again." I wasn't a question.
"Not likely. After you leave he'll lock me up tight."
Bonnie bit her lip before turning around and walking over to him. "Thank you for helping me." Bonnie wasn't sure why she did it but she found herself leaning down to press a gentle kiss on his lips. This him, deserved her gratitude at least, she told herself.
"You know," he smiled as she pulled away, "I've watched from afar time and time again as he picked witch after witch after witch up all of these years. You are the only choice I have ever completely understood."
Bonnie felt herself blush before she realized what she was doing and backed away from him. "I'm leaving." She repeated.
This time Bonnie was true to her word and she left the room.
Bonnie wasn't surprised to find herself back in the hall of doors. This time when she felt something in her miss the version of Klaus she had left she didn't shy away from the feeling. He was human, she reasoned, that him, it would be alright to miss.
Bonnie walked down the hall a ways and resigned herself to trying a new door. The wolves were gone at least and the light fixtures shone bright like new.
Bonnie opened next door she came to and walked inside. The room she entered had very little inside besides a hardwood floor and a canopy bed with black velvet sheets. Klaus was once again naked sitting at the head of the bed with this back propped up against the head board.
Bonnie opened her mouth to speak but this Klaus paid her no mind. His attentions were on a girl bouncing up and down on his lap as he pounded into her. The girl was wearing a studded color around her neck and there was a silver chain attached that Klaus held the end of wrapped around his fists. Bonnie watched as the girl licked the side of Klaus's face in a lewd manner before throwing her head back and moaning as his other hand gripped her ass.
As the girl looked over her shoulder Bonnie stared back at her own face. Then she was the girl and Klaus was inside of her and she was the one crying out in pleasure as he kissed her and licked into her mouth.
Bonnie felt dizzy and a bit euphoric as Klaus tugged on the chain attached to her collar and thrusted upward into her. This wasn't what she wanted. It wasn't what she could ever want but he felt so good. He made her feel so good.
"I can be everything you want," he said as he released her mouth, "Anything you need. Man and monster. Love and fiend. All you have to do is ask."
Bonnie felt her walls clench around him and knew she was close to coming apart. The hand that slides up her neck is gentle, warm. "Yes," Bonnie whispered and she didn't know if she was playing the part or getting sucked into the game. Klaus moved his hips again and she didn't care. He kissed her once more, Bonnie shivering as stubble scratched against her cheek, and moaning as he bit down gently on her lower lip.
Bonnie moved her hips to meet his and she knew she was going insane. This wasn't her. But this was what she wanted…no what he wanted. She was giving in to get her freedom. Wasn't she? Bonnie was close, so close and then she opened her eyes to find the warmth of Klaus's body gone and she felt cold as she looked around to see that she was back in the hall of doors.
Bonnie growled her frustrations reaching its peak. "Fucking bastard," Bonnie spat. The echo of laughter was the response.
"Through the next door is the right choice," Klaus's disembodied voice bounced off the walls, "You must go through in order to see the last door. The last is your way home. I'll be waiting, little witch."
Bonnie' hands clenched into fist. She was moments away from freedom if Klaus could be trusted. She wasn't sure if he could. But it didn't matter much. Nothing she did here mattered. Whatever this was, wherever this was, it wasn't real. Was it? The tingling in Bonnie's lips and the stuttering of her heart told her otherwise.
"It doesn't matter," Bonnie whispered, "It's almost over."
Bonnie opened the door as directed and Bonnie was met with another black and white marble checkered floor. This time a three headed wolf greeted her. Bonnie only had a moment to be afraid before the wolf bowed all three heads to her and made docile whimpering sounds. Bonnie stepped inside the room and looked towards the set of black throne chairs against the far wall.
Klaus was sitting in one. He was wearing a crown made of silver wolves connected by their tails in one another's jaws. The throne next to him had a crown of gold made of flowers and vines. Next to thrones were three women, Greta, Lucy and a blonde witch with dark skin and a buzzed hair cut that Bonnie didn't recognize but she felt her power. All three were holding a shining gold thread and Lucy and Greta were fighting over a pair of rusty black scissors.
Bonnie walked forward and the distance seemed to get shorter between her and Klaus faster than she thought it would. Bonnie stopped in front of his throne and noted that he was pealing a pomegranate. "What are you the king of psychotic instability?"
Klaus chuckled. "Among other things," he said.
Bonnie looked at the fruit in his hands. She looked at the red juice staining his fingers. She swallowed. Her throat was so dry. She hadn't eaten in so long. Bonnie licked her lips and she noted as Klaus watched her tongue trace the outline of her mouth.
"What will it be sweet one?" Klaus asked, "Will they cut the thread or will you…partake in the forbidden fruit?"
Bonnie was so hungry. She was so tired. She just wanted out. Bonnie looked at the pomegranate seeds in Klaus's hand. She grabbed his hand and brought it up to her mouth. Bonnie allowed Klaus to feed her the fruit and licked the juice from his fingers. "Such a good girl."
She dropped his hand soon after and saw as his eyes followed her movements. She remembered what his human counterpart said about having more power than she knew as she walked over to the other throne. She picked up the crown and placed it on her own head before sitting down on the throne next to his. She turned to look at him. "I want to go home now."
Klaus reached across the space that separated them and grabbed her hand. He brought the hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. "As you wish."
Bonnie was in the hall of doors again and there was one that was open. Bonnie walked through it and she was suddenly in her bedroom with her red sheets and she could have cried with relief.
Bonnie jumped on her bed laughing as she laid on her back. It was over. Bonnie closed her eyes and let sleep take her.
:::
When Bonnie opened her eyes she was in a bed but it wasn't here own. She sat up afraid that she was trapped somewhere unknown a second time and was surprised to find herself facing Stefan Salvatore.
Stefan sat across the room in a chair watching her with no expression. She hadn't seen him since he had left with Klaus at the beginning of the summer. "Are you real?" Bonnie asked, feeling ridiculous in doing so.
There was a shadow of a smile that didn't form fully and then, "I am and you're a lot stronger than even I realized. Not many people could survive a foray into Klaus's mind. I'm sure you didn't see as much as the others. Or maybe you did and that's why he chose you."
Bonnie blinked. "Klaus's mind?"
Stefan nodded. "You been out for a couple of days," Stefan said, "Klaus is good at mind manipulation. He's gotten to more experienced witches so don't feel bad. It's how he gets them. Klaus has always been one to collect witches. They don't stay because they want to per se. They stay because he twists their minds in such a way that they can't find their way out. Not until he wants them to. You've made it out with more of yourself intact than most."
"I could probably say the same about you." Their situation wasn't the same but it was at the same time. Bonnie got out of the bed and looked down at herself. She was wearing a white nightgown. It was the one her aunt had bought her from a small boutique near her home. Her memory seemed to be coming back to her. She'd been snatched out of her bed. Days ago. Klaus had brought her to this house and she'd seen Stefan but that was all she remembered.
"Probably." Stefan shrugged. "He wants to see you now that you're awake." Stefan said, "Come with me."
Stefan seemed cold, emotionless. Bonnie wasn't surprised. He had spent months in Klaus's company. Bonnie had been in his head for days that felt like years and she didn't feel like the same person.
Bonnie followed Stefan out of the room and she froze when she came to the hallway. It looked exactly like the hall of doors. She frowned not knowing if her nightmare was really over until she saw the staircase at the end of the hallway.
As Bonnie followed Stefan down the stairs she half expected them to disappear. When they made it to the bottom Bonnie followed Stefan through a set of double doors.
Klaus was there, sitting behind a desk and shuffling a deck of tarot cards. Stefan left them alone almost immediately shutting the door behind him.
Bonnie wondered with version of Klaus this was. As he looked at her his eyes were somehow simultaneously the soft eyes of his human form and the hungry eyes of a wolf. "Welcome back." he said.
Bonnie studied him a moment before she spoke. "Your head is the worst place I've ever had the displeasure of visiting."
"You flatter me." Klaus said placing a hand over his heart. He shuffled the deck again. "I've had my fun so you're free to go. But know that as you and I are still on opposing sides as I still can't make my hybrids and you still are predispose to fits of ill-advised heroism that will likely prompt you to attempt to rescue my dear friend Stefan, you'll leave as my enemy if you do."
"And if I stay?" Bonnie asked, already knowing the answer.
"If you stay," Klaus said placing the deck on the desk top, "You'll have more power than you likely believe you will."
Bonnie's eyes widened. She shouldn't have been surprised, she'd been in his head so of course he'd heard her conversations with his human counterpart, if that was really what that even was.
"So what will it be, love," Klaus inquired, "Will you stay?" he flipped over the first card and Bonnie saw that it was The Lovers. Klaus picked up a second card and flipped it over, the Wheel of Fortune, "Or," he drew yet another card, Death, "Will you leave?"
Bonnie moved forward and stopped in front of the desk. She debated with herself only a moment before reaching out and picking up one of the cards and holding it up for Klaus to see.
Klaus smiled as he looked at the lovers on the card intertwined. "Good choice."
End Notes: So there it is. Going to bed now. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Thanks for reading!