In Kaleidoscope
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.
A/N: Hi, guys. As promised, here are the snippets into the Bonkai multiverse. Also, once the Charade is done, I'll probably add glimpses of that world in here, from time to time.
Oh, and also. Have to share this because it's odd but neat. I happened to be looking at a map, and there I see, in bright bold font-Lake Parker. Then, right next to it, just a couple streets down-Lake Bonny. And I'm just like...universe, why? why you mess with my head like that? (O_o)
1
World 1: The Heretic and the Saint
Dear Grams,
Give me some answers. Please? I was doing good. Moved past it. But it's Mystic Falls and stable means squat here.
So last Friday someone dead came back. Again. You know how that goes. Maybe one day you can try it. But I'm off base here. Technically, the Kai that's walking, talking, and stalking around town isn't the same one who died years ago. Some dupe version. Dupe and vamp...
Yeah...
Hope it doesn't get awkward. Or bloody. Hate to have to hurt the guy. Not after the original went and proved himself, you know? If Kai's up there with you on the ancestral plane, drop him a word. I met his fangy version and he would not be impressed.
xoxo
-o-O-o-
Being left to fend for himself in a world that wasn't his own? Not his first time on that particular merry-go-round.
But it was a novel thing, finding himself actually...enjoying it.
Truth was, as far as an alternate universe went, this wasn't much of a difference. No new world order here. Even the president was the same, and from Kai's quick jaunts into both the east and west coast over a week's span, much of America remained unchanged. He meant to see further, check the old world for anything remotely interesting that he'd yet to encounter back in his home universe, but he wasn't holding out much hope. Even Mystic Falls was the same, down to its sleepy town feel and bumbling mayor and city council with their 'see, hear, and speak no evil' approach to the insanity that unfolded before their faces, on a regular basis.
So far, Bonnie Bennett was the only x-factor.
It wasn't merely that she was alive and well here. If that was all, he could've shaken it off, he was sure.
No. What kept throwing him for a loop was how she wasn't the same girl who died.
Aside from literally being two different people, that is. The Bonnie that he'd hexed, that one asshole of a Salvatore vampire had allowed to die for the sake of turning her in a last-ditch and total failed effort to have his cake and eat it too. That Kai had also let die because he'd been a vengeful stupid prick himself, once upon a time...
This was not that girl. That Bonnie had been plucky-his own words-resentful, loyal to her friends to a fault, and beyond judgmental with everyone else who toed the lines of authority and her standards of a moral code.
The one crossing the street now, eyes glued to her phone while she texted someone, haphazardly bumping strangers' shoulders along the way and tossing distracted apologies in her wake. While wearing the world's tightest pair of shorts and a loose, off-the-shoulder tee-shirt that seemed like her boyfriend's, thrown on in a hurry. Those tawny legs bare and silky, ending in a pair of army boots. One bare forearm wrapped in a delicate network of tattoos that his eyes had yet to get close enough to really make out.
Wow, really not the girl he'd buried, whose grave he'd at turns decimated and rebuilt and shed a few passing tears over, only to reduce to rubble again when the mood struck. Which was a lot, over the years, turned out.
He sat in the coffee shop, tracking her progress towards the building that housed the security firm she frequented regularly. Ninth floor, suite 902. Nondescript middle-aged secretary seated behind bulletproof glass at the counter, her welcoming smile bland but eyes sharp enough to tear through most normal people's facades. They were a super private outfit, and well-schooled in the ways of not just the everyday world but also, that of the 'other.' Kai found that out, when he'd attempted to case the joint and saw not only that the secretary was completely impervious to all his suggestions to share Bonnie's file with him, but also that the bulletproof glass that protected her also stood up to the strength of his attacks.
She'd held up a gun-which his magic had been unable to whip out of her hands-explaining politely that it was loaded with vervained bullets, and then apologetically directed it at his nose, the barrel of her nifty little gun pushing through the glass like it didn't exist.
He'd blinked, listening in mild surprise while the older woman, in bored accents, had effortlessly sent him on his way, saying, "Seems you're lookin' for the elevator, sir. Through the double doors, at the end o' the hall, take a left. Have a nice afternoon. Don't come back, ya hear?"
So he'd resorted to just monitoring Bonnie.
It was her third trip this week, just like last, and although her hours weren't consistent, the days she showed up were predictable enough that he'd crossed out the idea that she was a client.
This Bonnie had found gainful employment as security detail.
He'd spent a solid minute or two laughing it off when he found out.
His coffee was cold by the time he realized Bonnie's trip to the office was taking longer than her others this week had. He tapped his fingers on the counter, occasionally eyeing his watch. Maybe the secretary was cluing her in on his last failed attempt. He'd been sure he could hide his trail, fall back on compulsion to make certain the woman behind the desk wouldn't even remember his visit.
His total screw-up, that. Oh, well.
A trio of women sat in the corner of the shop, one of them giving him sidelong sweeps of her eyes. Tall, dusky, curvy in the right spots, and best of all-a jugular vein that pulsed erratically, calling out to him. He'd had an apple fritter to go with his cup o' java but now he needed a proper meal. And maybe a good fuck, why not?
The frayed edges of Bonnie's cutoff shorts floated to mind, revealing hints of caramel curves. He set his cup down carefully and stood. Yep. Definitely a fuck and feed was in order.
"Whoa-ho, there cowboy," came a low, teasing voice, just behind his shoulder. "Didja know it's rude to bail on company?"
Cowboy?
He turned slowly, willing himself not to let her get under his skin but who the hell was he kidding? Definitely not her. Even in his world, no matter how oblivious she tried to play it, he knew she'd always picked up on his crush. Had used it against him in the worst way, influenced by her vampire BFF. So many bad choices all around, there.
Fuck if he was going to make the same mistake here.
Especially with a Bonnie that apparently, had grown far too comfortable in her own skin and magic.
Aside from the sex kitten look she wore so casually, and the dark imprint of what he saw now was a stylized phoenix scrolled with a deft touch around the skin of her forearm, Bonnie's power didn't pummel the surface of his own like it usually did. He was used to sensing her, before he even saw her arrival.
This time around, she'd snuck up on him, her magic seemingly absent. He hadn't even been able to pick up her scent.
Not the same girl, came the now-familiar mantra.
"Sneaky," he drawled.
Mossy eyes stared guardedly at him, but a hint of curiosity peeked out as she looked between himself and the three friends at the far table. The woman he'd been planning his rendezvous with shifted awkwardly, her face falling under the weight of Bonnie's stare.
"Whoops," Bonnie said, the corner of her lip tipping up just a little. "There goes your brunch."
"Ya think? I dunno. I was expecting an appetizer but got delivered the main course, from the looks of it."
"Where?" she looked around innocently.
He chuckled, nodding his head. "Okay, Bonnie," he said easily, pulling out a chair for her, and reclaiming his own once she'd seated. His eyes slid quickly past the way those shorts rode up higher than decency allowed. Seriously, what the hell had happened to her here? He wasn't complaining, but Jesus.
He blew out a breath he didn't need.
"Okay, Kai." She turned fully, indifferent to the way her knees brushed his thighs. "Let's pretend we're normal people. So it goes like this. You find me, and ask me what you want to know to my face. Instead of looming behind corners and in alleys or-I don't know-trying to assault my co-workers?"
"See, I beg to differ. One, I wasn't assaulting anyone and two, that actually has a story behind it."
"I'm sure."
"No, really. I figured it out, Bonnie. You're a consultant, private detail. Probably pays good money, right?" He shrugged. "Well, I'm here. A little short on cash. Thought I'd go in and try for a job there. Didn't work out."
"That's not what I heard. Also, I do the work because I like it. I don't need to do it-why? Because I can conjure up money to get me by on a day-to-day. Quit BS-ing. You can do the same. Or failing that, compel your way around."
"I'm kinda bored, too." His eyes squinted at her in mockery, while his voice dropped an octave. "You really wanna see your only hybrid vampire witch in town run out of things to do?"
They shared a measured gaze, neither of them blinking or moving or indicating that any breath was being taken. He'd never seen her so restful, ever, and it threw him. Only people who gave no shits about the world's expectations of them could find that type of stillness. Everyone else fidgeted, caught up under the weight of worrying what friends and families and even perfect strangers thought.
Unbidden, his fangs grew sharper, his head pounding.
"You should eat," she said calmly.
"You offering?" he asked, cocking a brow.
She rolled her eyes, then closed them, and in seconds a blood bag appeared on his lap. He eyed it distastefully.
"Here's the thing, Kai," she said. "Why is there even a hybrid vampire witch in town? Period? What do you want? I already told you I can't get you back to your world. None of the covens that I've reached out to know anyone who's ever heard of that trippy thingamajigger."
"Are you not-so-politely telling me to move along?"
He cursed the rare impulse of honesty his first night here. After the other Kai had left them alone in the cemetery, both of them had fallen into a mutual impersonation of half-zombified idiots, incapable of movement beyond just staring slack-jawed at each other for a few minutes there. She'd recovered first, naturally, and her first instinct had been to ask about herself, in his world. Some madness had driven him to spill the truth.
That his dick moves had led to her death.
Now she was gonna call him an asshole and kick him out of her town.
"No, actually," she said, propping her elbow on the table to lean her face against her hand. "Stay if you want, so far you've been keeping yourself off the radar-good job there. But I'm curious-" she sighed, shrugging the one shoulder her shirt was baring. "Why settle for this?"
He sighed dramatically. "Restless soul that I can be, I traveled a lot. Kinda reached all corners of the earth." He rubbed his jaw, chortling as he added, "Somehow I always find my way back to Mystic Falls. It's turned into home for me, believe it or not."
Her sober face was close, hints of the Bonnie that he knew well peeking out for the first time since she arrived. "He didn't get out of town quick enough. Didn't even get a chance to explore the world that he died saving."
Was that it, then? Survivor's guilt? The way she sounded...was like a punch to his gut. So she cared about her Kai. Or maybe she'd convinced herself that she had, but it was a posthumous thing, something his other version had probably failed to enjoy.
Why not see if he could work it in his favor?
"Same could be said about you," he pointed out. "Actually, I'm betting he got to see more of the world than you. If he was like me, that stint in the prison dimension meant lots of backpacking around continents. Didja forget? You're looking at an ace pilot."
She dropped her gaze, ignoring his attempt to flirt-shocker-and instead just blankly focusing on the blood bag that he'd yet to pick up.
"Your friends brought you back, and here you are. Again."
Now her fingers brushed his lap, while she opened the bag for him, tearing the top off slowly, her eyebrows furrowed-whether in concentration or displeasure, he couldn't tell for sure.
"Maybe you should take your own advice, Bonnie. What're you settling for?"
"You don't have family here-"
"Neither do you."
"Yeah-huh. They're just all lying six feet under."
She raised the bag to his lips, slipping the opening through his mouth without any struggle from him at all. He covered her hand with his, tilting the bag up, drinking slowly while she watched him. His throat warmed under her appraisal, along with the rest of his face, and his fingers where they touched began tingling.
"Who was that guy?" he asked when he'd lowered the bag.
"What?"
"You know." He schooled his features into nonchalance. "The night I arrived, he showed up for a sec in the graveyard."
"Oh." She started smiling. "He passes through town sometimes."
So he was supposed to sit there and watch her go googly-eyed over whatever booty call buddy she'd set up for herself? Now his blood boiled. He moved away from her, needing distance because whatever just happened between them felt too damn intimate and meanwhile she sat there, smiling about some guy.
"When I came back," she said softly. "I hated them."
"Who?"
"My friends." She stared out of the window. "They were so thrilled-Caroline, Elena, Damon. Leave it to a gang of vampires to go force an entire coven of necromancers to do their bidding. Never hit them how it could backfire. In the end, they got what they wanted. Good ol' me, back in business."
She reached out, grabbing the cup that Kai had left half-finished. Her hand wrapped around it, and he sensed her magic at work. Soon steam rose from the opening in the lid.
"Everything was back to normal, like the next day." She took a sip, blinking furiously down at the counter, eyes hidden by long, curving lashes. "Nothing changed."
Like the one from his world, Bonnie left a lot of things unsaid, but still wore her heart on her sleeve. Numbness flashed across her features, but he caught it since he couldn't seem to tear his gaze away from her. A bad habit that hadn't been exercised in a long time, but now was back in full force.
Occasionally, it had its uses.
"Nothing changed," he repeated. "Except for you."
She gave him a sidelong glance, careful in choosing her next words. "It...wasn't what I would've wanted. Coming back."
Only one reason for that, he realized. He chuckled in disbelief at the stupidity of her friends. "Don't tell me, they didn't put it together. The one person in their group that died over and over to save everyone-might've actually found peace there at the end?"
The smile she gave wobbled just a little. "Who needs heaven, when you've got Mystic Falls?"
They sat in silence staring through the window, at the sun-dappled sidewalk outside littered with people going about their day, all of them oblivious to the pair sitting inside the coffee shop. Opposite sides of the same coin.
"You realize," he drawled. "According to a few arcane texts and a lot of popular scripts, you're like some sort of saint, right?"
"And you're the worst kind of demon."
But she bit her lip, rolling her eyes while he started laughing, ending it with a silent wow and shake of his head.
What were the odds? She not only had survivor's guilt, but also resentment that his other version, through last-minute heroics, had probably found and kept his peaceful end. Which her friends had ripped her away from.
"I don't hate them as much now," she said presently. "But things are still shaky. I'm sharing this with you because the Kai that I knew was the type that rocked the boat. Try..." pausing, she smiled hopefully."Not to?"
He pretended to mull it over, then nodded. "Sure." And slurped a little of the remaining drops of his bloodbag, while eyeing her from the corner of his eyes. "Why not sink it instead?"
She punched his shoulder, pushing him away at the same time. He played into it, grinning while he leaned towards her, delirious and happy and relishing it because this wasn't a moment that he'd ever shared with her in his home world. With her or anyone, really-not for a long time. Not since he was a kid, when joking around was still possible with some of his siblings.
Five years of living as a Heretic meant his best moments early on had mostly comprised of watching the terror that flashed through people's eyes, those seconds before he bled them dry. Or frenzied, bloody fuck sessions with female vamps, the few times he encountered one that he could tolerate.
But in the last couple years, even that well had run dry.
First, the inherent problem with being a Heretic lay in how much his witch nature-still active and entrenched in traditional magic-kept up that old loathing towards vampires in general, despite having joined their ranks. Despite his siphoning making use of vampirism as an eternal source of mystical energy to draw from. It was a catch-22, one that he'd grown accustomed to, and would've eventually found a way to overcome, were it not for the additional ingrained self-loathing that the merge with Luke had sparked. Which not even turning had killed completely. The handy little switch that vampires at will flicked on and off? Wasn't a feature that he carried, not with his witchiness still in play.
Being only half-undead had its drawbacks. Which was why, the rare moments of fun that weren't at the expense of other people's misery or pain-or life... he wanted to draw those out. As long as he could.
Times like these, he could feel normal. Without minding it so much.
"My friend," Bonnie said suddenly, cutting into his thoughts. "He went through the same. Rose from the dead. Corny, but if anything, he's the one that came through like divine intervention. I was ready to rip this town apart when he showed up."
Which wiped all semblance of the smile Kai wore, right off his face.
Of course. Mystery man was her own personal savior. Right.
He got up, indifferent now because he really didn't need to hear the rest of this story. "That bloodbag just whetted my appetite," he announced.
She glanced up, confused. "Kai-"
"Well, Bonnie," he clapped his hands together. "It's been fun. We should catch up again. And let me know about any openings at your job, mmkay?"
"Fine," she said, shrugging. "Remember, stay off the grid. Go have your fun, but if you hurt anyone too badly, I'll come looking for you."
"Now that's the wrong threat to use to keep me in check." He stalked closer, unable to help himself, not when she was right there, but she tossed a careless glance at him and he involuntarily froze in place, his nose bumping against an invisible wall.
"Boundaries," she said lightly.
Spending a few seconds clenching and unclenching his jaw, trying to decide if it was worth the effort maybe damaging the coffee shop fighting her, he decided for once to drop it, broadcasting his choice with a wide grin, adding in a wink when he noticed the tiniest relieved sag of her shoulders.
"Be seeing you, Bonster," he said, sauntering towards the table where the woman still sat with her friends, all three of them watching his approach wide-eyed. Their panties all collectively growing wetter by the moment, he sensed with his nose.
He leaned in, his lips touching the soft skin of the woman's ears as he whispered. She flushed, pretty and shocked but above everything, intrigued and all kinds of turned on. Within moments, she was walking out with him, held tightly against his side while her own arms clung to him.
His exit would've been perfect, was on the point of getting there, but at the last second he glanced back. Bonnie wasn't even looking. She'd turned around, gazing once again out at the street while finishing his cup of coffee, which killed him a little, knowing her lips were possibly resting where his had been, on the same damn piece of plastic. And the way the sunlight hit her form, bathing her in a soft, ethereal glow-
Kai almost choked on air stuck in his throat.
Cliché, but effective. It looked like a fucking halo around Bonnie's hair.
A/N: Premier is tonight! Anybody watching? Thought of it, but the idea of seeing Bonnie on the screen and Kai missing hurts. A lot. Much as I miss my girl, the writing for her is atrocious and I can't in good conscience keep swallowing that load of horse dung. So, anyway, cheers to you Bonkai peeps and hope you enjoy this. :)