Yup, another Bonnie/Kol oneshot! A guilty follow-up to L'enfant terrible. Guilty because it's a bit of a (guilty) pleasure, among other things.
I like how it turned out though.
Enjoy! and leave some love :)
"I hear we are to thank you for the gesture."
His voice came from her porch, buried in the entrenching shadows.
After the night she had just had, she couldn't care less to whom it belonged. She was fed up with every living and dead being in Mystic Falls. None of them could get a rise out of her now.
There was still an underlying sense of shame and anger left in her mind, but she did not wish to dwell on that. She only wanted to think well of herself; no more self-deprecation. She had not only done something extremely intelligent and efficient, but she had done it for herself and no one could make her regret this satisfying selfish act. No one.
"Whoever you are, get off my porch," she muttered darkly. "I'm not in the mood."
"Ah, petulant as always. I would expect no less from my – our saviour," the voice replied, a wolfish smile lighting up in the dark.
The young man's figure seemed like a sketch drawn in charcoal against the wall of her house.
"Kol..." she mumbled, her voice losing some of its previous edge. She was surprised by his sudden appearance.
Of all the people who might have called at her door enraged, she did not expect him to be one of them.
"I'm glad you remember your victims. I most certainly recall those lovely aneurysms."
Bonnie climbed up the steps until she was at his level, trying to prove that whatever intimidation game he was intending to play, it was not going to work. He should know that, after what she had done to him.
"Oh, already preparing for an attack? Delightful!" he exclaimed, leaning towards her as if expecting a pleasant form of punishment, like a child waiting to be scolded by his mother.
"What are you doing here, Kol?" she asked coldly.
"Well, I would have waited for you in a cosy chair, but I couldn't get inside your house since I don't have a proper invitation. Perhaps we can remedy that," he replied, forcing a winsome grin on his face.
"There is no remedy for what you are. You know better than I that you will never step inside my house."
"Dear me, harsh words coming from someone so tolerant and merciful."
"What are you talking about?" she asked frowning. "Is that your attempt at sarcasm?"
"Sarcasm? Me?" he asked, feigning disbelief. "Why, I would never be any good at it! Don't you see I wear my heart on my sleeve?"
"I don't have time for your charades, Kol. If you are here trying to exact revenge, then you have a death wish."
Kol tried to keep a serious face, but he always slipped up, always. In fact, he wasn't sure he had a serious face to begin with. He was never meant to think serious thoughts or do serious things. He was meant to laugh and be amused and be excited. He was meant to feel that everything around him was there to please him, so that he in turn would find a less humiliating reason for wanting to please everyone else. He was obsessed with himself and his relation with the world. He wanted to know what the world had in store for him, he wanted to swallow it whole.
And Bonnie Bennett, with all of her inaccessibility and self-assurance that she was better, stronger, smarter – well, she didn't differ much from any of his acquaintances. All his brothers and sister included thought little of him in that sense. He was theirs to destroy, dagger, humiliate or embrace, give or take a few centuries.
But there was something sweet and delectable about her kind of dominance. She might've been vain and arrogant and drunk on power just like everyone else but she deserved to be all of those things, because she hardly ever got the chance to be like this in the first place. She yearned for something which was intrinsically hers, never quite arriving at it, because she never allowed herself to believe she already had it.
He knew this because he recognized in her the same thirst to be selfish, more and more selfish, the same thirst he succumbed to every day.
This thirst was new to her, but it was already working its way out, doing things she wouldn't have done before; such as saving his brother and offering him a soul that should have been forbidden to her.
There was always the impulse to do – to do just because you could. It was a creed you had to follow if you wanted to quench the thirst.
"I haven't had a death wish since the Great Depression," he replied, gazing in the distance pensively. "That was an era to bemoan. People awaited death gratefully. Now, I cannot lament anything. Not even my brother's death. There's no savouring anything with you around, is there?"
Bonnie scrunched her eyebrows in confusion.
"Enough. I don't want to hear about your "lamenting". You came to the wrong person. Alaric was the one who killed –"
"Yes, and you saved him right back, Miss Bennett. Or did you not?"
Bonnie stared at him wide-eyed. How on Earth?
How did he know about it so soon? Had Klaus revealed himself to him in Tyler's body?
She had wrongly believed he was here to accuse her.
"I told you I'm here to thank you for the gesture, but you took that as sarcasm, yet again! Do you believe me now when I say I always reveal my true feelings?"
"How do you know –"
"Oh, come now, give us some credit! I have been asleep for tens of years because of this man. I don't know if you can grasp this, but I've wasted years and years of havoc and pleasure thanks to my brother. I would know if he were no longer but a figment of my imagination."
Bonnie appraised him with reluctance. She had been certain there would be some time before anyone discovered her ruse. Among those affected, she did not imagine that Klaus' family would be first to ascertain the truth, seeing as they were torn with grief. But there was one who was not so broken up about a possible death, one whose head was not so clouded with suffering, one who could see clearly through her machinations, because he had machinations of his own.
She had not expected that person to be Kol Mikaelson.
She did not know the finer details. Obsessed with a tyrant brother who had deprived him of the world he worshipped and which worshipped him in return, Kol could not so easily discard the notion of Klaus' existence. His freedom depended on it.
Like a moth to a flame, he had found his tyrant once more, in a different form, but just as he had always been and always would be.
Bonnie surveyed his gleeful face with wary and distrust.
"So you know he's alive..."
"Well, "alive" is such a technicality. I'm not alive. He's certainly not alive. But here we are, notwithstanding, aren't we?" he asked, his smirk growing wider.
Bonnie narrowed her eyes.
"If you resent him as much as you say, why are you thanking me? He kept you locked up in a coffin, didn't he?"
Kol laughed, tilting his head back.
"My personal tragedies have little bearing on my life as a whole. We...and I... we still need him. Or at least we pretend we do. He's...he's our brother, isn't he? He's one of us. We have a duty to rejoice."
Bonnie felt her forehead pulsating. There was a vibration in her brain, threatening to turn into a migraine. She tried to understand what he meant by personal tragedies having no bearing on his life, but every word out of his mouth was more ridiculous and cryptic than the one before and she felt as if there was no point in deciphering his nonsense.
There was an underlying sadness deep within the roots of his words, but she had never heard this kind of chaotic, desperate talking before and she did not know how to respond.
It had been easier to haul him across the street and into a lamppost when he had only been a cocky idiot.
"You're insane," she blurted out, despite herself.
Kol shrugged his shoulders. "What gave you that impression, darling?"
"Don't call me that. Do the others know?"
"The other Mikaelsons, you mean? No, no, they are safely crying in each other's arms. I would not wish to encumber them any further."
"And you're not going to tell them?"
"Why should I? They love to make a fuss about family and blood and looking after one other. Those of us who are left, that is. Because that's what Elijah told Rebekah: "Now we only have each other, sister. We must stay together. Our kind is dying". Touching stuff, indeed. I would have shed a tear myself. So I ask you then, why ruin such a beautiful moment?"
"You are insane," Bonnie concluded.
Kol crossed his arms, smiling. "Do explain. I'm curious to hear your theory."
Bonnie glared at him. "You want them to suffer, all of them, but you still consider them family. You resent them, you probably even hate them, but you're going to follow them either way. It's like you're sick and you're doing nothing about it."
Kol laughed again good-humouredly. "Oh, you pegged me so well! But I prefer bi-polar to being sick. I just have contradictory reactions, you know. I can't help myself. I don't know what to do right now – should I try to kiss you or kill you for what you did?"
Bonnie drew back as if touched by fire. Her pulse went haywire.
"Relax, darling. It's not you. I want to kiss everybody, all the time. And yeah, probably kill too."
Bonnie clenched her fists. "I think your time's up. You should probably run off before I change my mind and leave your brother a corpse."
"But you know," Kol continued undeterred, "it is you, after all. There is something about you. Maybe I like being mothered. Old habits die hard. Maybe I like a voice of authority. Maybe witches turn me on, though I've never had one before and that's Klaus' speciality, really. I will have to ask him. But there is something, isn't there? What is it, I wonder?"
He leaned into her closer and closer, one arm draped across the wall, trapping her against the door. She could count his eyelashes.
"You're very stupid and brave to get so close to me," she warned him, trying to escape his gaze. He was not trying to compel her, but a stronger force kept her from pushing him away completely.
"Yes well, that's part of the attraction. Not for everyone, I'll admit. In fact, I bet no one's ever towered over you with any sort of wicked desire, have they?"
Bonnie felt a terrible heat spreading across her arms and chest, making her very uneasy. He had such a distinct manner of expressing himself.
"The little boys are too afraid of the fiery witch to even try and everyone else just isn't strong enough. Because what's the point of knocking on your door if they'll just be burnt in return? You hurt their pride, you see. You hurt mine too, but I don't give up so easily."
Bonnie grimaced, trapped between disgust, curiosity and...something else entirely.
"And why are you so different?" she asked boldly.
"Me? Well, I'm no better, I guess. I'm certainly not stronger. I suppose I can't tower over you. But I have something stronger. I have the wicked desire."
Bonnie remained still for a few moments, trying to take in what he had just said. He was so bold and direct, he did not censure himself. She had heard Damon making catty and lewd remarks at women in the past but they had all been tinged with mockery and self-irony, as if those words would never reveal his true intentions. Kol was throwing that right out the window.
"Everyone else in this stupid town is preoccupied with some girl. No one's chasing you. You end up neglected. I know what it's like to be neglected. I can fix that."
"Take it as a thank-you note for sparing a Mikaelson," he added, alluding to his brother.
Recovering from the initial shock, Bonnie schooled her features into an expression of disapproval and raised her chin defiantly.
"That's a bunch of bullshit and you know it. I don't need your gratitude and I certainly don't want to be chased like everyone else. You might be everyone's scapegoat but I am not in your position. I am fine."
Kol chuckled, twisting a strand of her hair between his fingers.
"Methinks the lady doth protest too much," he quipped, enjoying her discomfort.
Bonnie was about to actually protest, but he quickly put his hand up.
"I never said you weren't fine, sweetheart. On the contrary. But I don't think you understand what I'm saying. I'm not talking about "everyone else". Do you know what it's like to be chased by me?"
Something close to a shiver travelled down her spine, but she ignored it. His voice could not and would not incite a reaction. No matter how much her heartbeat spiralled. Damn her age.
"N-no and I don't care to find out," she said, trying to stay firm.
"I don't know, your eyes and mouth tell me otherwise," he muttered as he snuck an arm around her waist and pulled her to him.
Bonnie felt a not-so-unpleasant jolt.
He was about to sink one hand into her hair and his teeth into her full lips when he was suddenly torn away from her by a powerful current.
It was the same ferocious force that had burnt him inside out the last time they had encountered one another. It broke through his resolve, leaving him as breathless and motionless as before.
His mind, this time, did not implode.
She had spared him the aneurysms.
He lay a few feet away from the steps of her house, sprawled across the sidewalk like a fallen bird, grinning madly towards the sky.
It felt like he had kissed her, still. And this was the aftermath.
Bonnie stepped away from the door and climbed down the steps, curiosity getting the better of her.
Kol made a quick recovery this time around.
He was on his feet in a moment's notice and he was already two steps away from her.
"Have it your way, darling. But if you ever change your mind," he drawled, his eyes travelling across her figure, "if you ever want to be chased, you know what to do."
With that, he disappeared in a flash, quicker than that even. He was gone before she could even bat an eyelash.
She sighed in relief.
There was something dangerously weakened about her resolve tonight.
The thirst to be selfish (more and more selfish) had almost been her undoing.
Or was there still a chance it might be?