Title: Losing Bet
Category: The Vampire Diaries
Genre: Drama/Romance
Rating: T
Pairing: Bonkai
Summary: She doesn't want to die for an umpteenth time, but it's more of a warning to him. She doesn't want anymore of his blood on her hands. He doesn't listen. Or he just doesn't care.
Author's Note: To whom must I sell my soul to get Plec to stop ruining any chance at love Bonnie Bennett has? Seriously, who? (One-shot)
If a disclaimer falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Limping, he crosses the field, makes a beeline straight for her, and, while there is plenty of space out here, she feels as if she has nowhere left to run. He stops in front of her, his fists gripping two mounds and drops them at their feet. Two hearts, charred right in the chests of their owners and ripped out for good measure. Inky splotches are all over him. Blood. Maybe his own, maybe not. She may never know.
Her hands curl around empty air, static and magic crackling in her palm. This is it. This could be the end of him or her. Or both.
"No," she protests. She doesn't want to die for an umpteenth time, but it's more of a warning to him. She doesn't want anymore of his blood on her hands. He doesn't listen. Or he just doesn't care.
"Bon..."
His arms wrap around her, pinning her own to her sides, and he pulls her against him. A hand at the tuck of her spine and hips and the other between her shoulder blades. She has nowhere to go.
He's...hugging her. Kai Parker has her locked in an embrace and has if he's ever done this before? Has he ever genuinely hugged another human being? Could she be his first - if it's earnest at all?
He ducks between the hollow of her head and her shoulder, skims his nose along her collar bone, taking in her scent. Fire, brimstone, and a hint of lavender. He presses his chapped lips just under her ear. She's rooted to her spot by fear but more by confusion.
"I tried to kill you."
"A valiant effort."
She leaves her hands dangling uselessly, her gaze darting around them. The once grassy field has been burnt to a crisp. Mutilated bodies lay strewn about. Heretics and Mama Salvatore, all dead. There's nothing but death here.
She tenses, cutting her eyes in his direction. There are two notches in his neck, unhealed, moderately fresh, and possibly infected. He's still a witch, still mortal. His clothes are ragged and singed. God knows how many more puncture wounds they hide.
"You weren't ever supposed to get out."
"Clearly. Next time make sure the person you imprison doesn't know where a spare source of magic is located."
"Nova Scotia?"
"Bingo."
He loosens a little, pulls back, and glides his bare hands down her arms. His rough fingers clench around her elbows, thumbs pressed in the folds, before meeting her fearful eyes.
"You...you killed them? The Heretics?"
"Some of them. I don't know about you, but vampire bites hurts like a bitch."
"Why?"
He tilts his head, a cloud passing in front of the full moon casting a shadow over his face, and he shrugs. "I've got a score to settle. With my father."
"And me."
One of his hands moves to her face and smears ash and blood across her cheek. His eyes, dark and dilated, travel over her face and take in the liquid pooling in her eyes, translucent in the moonlight, her trembling bottom lip, the way she's staring right back at him. She's noting how much larger his presence is now than it was when they first met in his prison world. His lean, boyish figure has been replaced with hard-packed muscles, though it's only been, what? A week or two? The bags under his eyes age him, as does the lack of hair around the sides and back of his head. This could be the last face she ever sees alive, and that scares her.
Her breath hitches when he leans in and kisses her. She keeps her eyes open as his warm mouth moves purposeful and measured on hers. She'd lost count of the number of days since she'd been held like this, touched in this way, with this much care and attention. He wakens something within her she hadn't realized went to sleep. She almost kisses him, too.
He leans back and watches the waves of emotion her face make. He smirks. "We're even."
It all adds up a moment before it happens. His dark circles, the blood, the fact that he took down three or four Heretics. Even as the leader of a coven, he's not strong enough.
He collapses. Clumsily and heavily, Kai hits the ground and because he's clutching so tightly to Bonnie, so does she. A tangled bundle of limbs. Exhaustion is over taking him and as much as she shouldn't care, as much as she wishes she didn't care, he can't die.
She drags his upper half into her lap, his head in the cradle of her arm. Not long ago, she tried to kill him. A knife in the back. A missed opportunity of ramming it straight into his heart. Now she's frantic to keep him conscious, to keep him alive.
The irony does not escape her.
She screams for Damon. Stefan. Caroline and Enzo. Someone who can help, who can do more than she can, but she doesn't know where the rest of them are. Smoke billows from all around and she's not sure all her friends made it out safely. She keeps screaming anyway. Her throat getting raw, her mouth going dry.
His hand slides over hers, their fingers intertwining, his rubbing more blood on her dusty skin. Her cries catch in the back of her throat.
"I told you I changed." He coughs, speckles of blood coloring his paling lips.
"You don't get to die on me. Not like this. If you die, then your coven dies and that can't happen."
"I didn't think getting out of ninety-four would ever happen. Never say never..."
She wants to slap him. How can he make clichéd jokes at a time like this? Instead, she runs her hands over his slowly heaving chest and settles them there. She takes a deep breath and begins to recite Latin.
Through bleary eyes, Kai watches her with intrigue and childlike adoration. Then panic grips him and he tugs her wrists away from him. Black snakes tickle under her skin.
"If other people are the only reason to keep me alive, that's not a very good reason."
"Shut up, I'm saving your life."
"At the expense of yours, no way José."
Her arms go limp and for the first time she realizes she's been crying. Frustrated tears streaming down her cheeks and maybe that's what he was wiping from her face moments earlier.
"Wanna make a bet? Twenty bucks says even if you save me tonight, I die tomorrow. Or the next day. Or years from now on the other side of the country. Probably from getting into a hot tub with an infected cut on my foot. I saw a documentary about that once." He coughs again. "I die before the next Gemini merge and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. So why try now?"
His breathing's gotten weaker and his eyes flutter shut.
"Kai?" She shakes him. "Kai! No, no, no. Don't you do this to me, you stupid bastard. Malachai?" Slapping her palm on his cheek harder with each hit, she gives into her panic. He's not budging and when she pulls at his eyelid, all she finds is white.
She shouts for Damon again, her voice breaking over his name, and he's quick to her side. He's fared better than both witches, only his palms stained red. He doesn't have to ask. He just moves Kai from Bonnie to feed him his blood. On her knees, she crawls closer to their side, questions like vomit from her mouth.
"You don't think he's got vampire blood in his system, do you? He'd become a Heretic and he hates vampires. And even if he comes back, his entire coven, they're goners. He's not dead, right? Damon, right?"
She sinks further into her spiral when Damon starts muttering under his breath, coaxing Kai back to life by sheer force of will. Both of their lips are covered with blood, but Bonnie wonders if it'll be enough. "I should've finished the spell. Damn it, I told him to shut up and let me save his life. Why did I stop?"
Like by their own volition, her quivering fingertips find her lips, tingling and sore, in the early stages of bruising. A nearby tree sets aflame, lighting up the night sky with sparks of orange and yellow embers.
Damon jolts. "Bonnie, calm down. His heart is still beating. Just give him a minute."
"What if you're too late? That happens. Sometimes vampire blood isn't enough. Here, let me."
She pushes Damon to get a better handle on Kai, her hands finding his sternum again. Latin tumbles sloppily from her lips, mispronunciations and omitted syllables. She curses, knowing she has to be more careful. She could accidentally turn his toes to slugs or something. Damon notes the black snaking under her skin too and starts to argue, says he can't lose two witches. Bonnie glares and argues back because this is the only way to save him.
A chuckle sounds between them. "I love when you two fight over me." Kai squints up at them through one eye. Disgusted, Bonnie shoves him away as he continues to laugh. "I appreciate it, really I do. I honestly thought I was a goner for a minute there. Could you imagine?"
Hidden under the overwhelming urge to throttle him, to wring his neck and drive home the point that his death is actually a very real probability and an extremely bad thing, there is a sliver of relief. In spite of the death and destruction they have all faced tonight, she can sleep content with owing him twenty bucks.