But there are nights when instead of sleeping
I think of you
And lie feverishly awake on knives of roses,
- Fergus Allen
/
Give me a world, you have taken the world I was
- Anne Carson
/
Here in the moon's shadow.
I lie
sheltering from the sun's brutality.
- Abbas Kiarostami
/
Gothic Klonnie 2k18, Day 2, cwtsh (Welsh): a safe place; the space of the cupboard under the stairs
i.
The party guests had barely cleared off when her grandmother summoned her. Bonnie's ebullience faded with each step until she finally reached the parlor and stood in Sheila Bennett's presence. She was nineteen years old and yet her Grams could make her feel she was no older than three, just a little girl with tinsel stuck to her shoe.
"I'm sending you away, Bonnie."
The words don't quite register. So Bonnie questions, she demands, she protests. Gram's answers are perfunctory, impatient. An old enemy of the family had resurfaced and would not rest until he had destroyed the bright young scion of the Bennett line. Bonnie would need to remain far away from the family, untraceable, until the danger was passed.
"This is Niklaus Mikaelson," Grams says his name with a genteel pinch to her voice. "He will ensure your safety."
A man's figure emerged from the shadows. Or so it seemed to Bonnie in her turmoil. Later, she would wonder if he was always visible, languid and watchful and easily missed. He had an odd face, both youthful and garish, and he moved like a creature accustomed to the dark. Her magic surged to the surface of her skin in protest. She could not - she would not - go with him. She would not abandon her family in their time of need. She turned to Grams, tearful, blazing, pleading her case.
For the first time that evening, Sheila Bennett smiled. The copper bracelets on her wrist chimed like bells. Bonnie felt her grandmother's hand on her cheek. When the touch turned implacable, it was too late. She could not move her limbs or summon her voice. She felt as though she were being drained of blood. Darkness clouded her vision and although she fought it valiantly, she could not win. The shadows took her, they echoed with her grandmother's voice. My brave girl.
They were two miles from his residence in North Carolina when she regained consciousness. She was huddled in the passenger seat like a frightened child. Klaus reminded himself that was exactly what she was. A scared, spoiled little child who'd never had to look their world in the eye. She made no attempt to move when he parked the car in the gravel driveway, under one of several willow trees surrounding the property. No doubt she was still in shock.
He was retrieving her luggage from the trunk when the passenger door swung open and the little witch took off running, like a bird flying its cage.
His prey always ran. Sometimes he liked to give them a head start, let them taste hope, before he unfurled his wolf and bounded after them. Nothing escaped him, not for long.
But this girl was his charge, under his lock and key. There could be no games, no delight in the chase. In the blink of an eye he was upon her, hauling her over his shoulder and returning to the house. She kicked and screamed, she beat him with her fists, she chanted furious Latin. Deadly, hurtful spells that would have flayed the flesh off his bones or set his blood on fire. Instead he marched unharmed up the porch steps and set her on her feet. She was still wearing her party dress.
"What did you do me?" she spat, trying to claw at his face. Her eyes flashed green as a cat's. She was incandescent with rage.
"Your magic's been bound by your grandmother," he informed her coolly. "So I suggest you take up your complaints with her."
It was a blow, as he'd known it would be. The truth sank in, snuffed her rage like a candle. He was almost sorry to see it go. She crumpled to the ground in a small defeated heap of cornflower silk.
Lifting her limp body, he carried her over the threshold.
Once, he had belonged to the Spirits, commanded by them to cull those who threatened the balance of the supernatural world. But as their world grew older and magic flourished, the Spirits had receded from the physical realm. In their stead they entrusted witches with the governance and ordering of magical beings. These formed a High Council, whose members now possessed the ability to command him - and should he defy their authority, the power to destroy was forbidden, upon pain of death, to kill any witch or warlock whose death they had not ordered, and forbidden also from consorting with servants of nature. He, the Council never failed to remind him, was an aberration, a thing that must not be permitted to stray from the confines of their sovereignty.
He enjoyed the hunt. He had spent lifetimes sharpening every skill, honing every instinct. He had hunted feral werewolves and powerful warlocks. He had made a cairn of his father's bones. Vampires and werewolves feared him, but they also envied his penchant for death, an envy laced with desire. He had no need for the company of witches, even if he wished it.
And yet - there were times he wondered, hungered for something inchoate. The Spirits had been far from magnanimous. They were in fact the authors of his servitude. But when he had stood in their presence with their commands and their punishments washing over him like the wind, like flames, like sea spray, he had felt, for better or worse, a living creature, a pulsing speck in a universe whose mystery was also its immortality. He had felt their magic in his bones.
Some days, he almost mourned what he would never feel again.
"What are you?"
After languishing in her room for nearly two days she had finally emerged that morning, showered and dressed, while he set out their breakfast. She wore a simple frock of yellow and white and stood atop the stairs, haloed in the morning sun. The tenor of the question caught him off guard. He'd heard it many times over the centuries, in voices coated with hate, with fear, with disgust. She asked it softly, simply, like an angel come to exact the truth. Klaus brushed the fanciful image aside.
"The best that money can buy," he answered, watching her subtly as she glided into the kitchen.
"That doesn't answer my question," she pointed out, eyeing the food with interest.
"Wasn't trying to, love," was his amiable reply, nudging a plate of eggs, toast and marmalade in her direction. "Eat up now. Can't return you to your grandmother malnourished."
Her composure almost slipped at the mention of Sheila Bennett. Klaus thought of the furious creature from the other night, the wrath on her tongue incongruent with the fresh-faced young woman standing before him. He wondered how she locked that other self away. Where she kept the key.
He had his answer a few seconds later when, under pretense of helping herself to more tea, she plunged a stake beneath his left arm, seeking his heart.
It was a crude weapon, a glorified splinter really, no doubt wrested from a piece of floorboard or a flaking cupboard in her room. He really must keep up with repairs. Rustic decay had reached its limit as an aesthetic.
For a moment he indulged her, pretending to stagger forward with a grunt of pain. He savored the sudden terror in her bright eyes. The raging innocence under her bravado suddenly stricken with worry that she may have killed him. And then he felt it - the steady pulse of magic in her veins. Bound, muted, unreachable...but magic just the same.
Klaus smiled a panther's smile before dragging her against his chest. He loomed above her, drinking the wild beat of her heart.
She was still gripping the stake.
"Go on then, ask me again."
Her hands splayed on his shirt. He covered her bloody fingers with his, holding her to him until the full horror of his invincibility dawned on her. Until he saw sparks of that anger resurface and curl her mouth with it.
"What are you?" she whispered, her face clouded in horror, palms still resting on him.
He leaned forward, let the weapon sink deeper, eyes fixed upon her as his blood limned her knuckles, "That's more like it."
Releasing her just as suddenly, Klaus pulled the stake from his flesh and tossed it at her feet.
Everything was as it should be.
He told himself it was of no consequence that, for days after, his thoughts strayed to her standing there, her hands on his heart and her daisy-hued dress stained in blood.
She kept to herself after that, taking her meals in her room and speaking only when necessary. Curiosity gnawed at him about how she chose to occupy herself, but she was being a docile prisoner, and so he let it be.
Imprisonment, he found, was the only logic through which she made sense of her situation, and in the absence of her grandmother she shifted the blame for her helplessness on the one she saw as her gaoler.
After their little encounter in the kitchen he'd scoured the house for anything that could be a makeshift weapon. He was invincible to whatever she could fashion out of wood or metal but it was still a bloody nuisance, waiting to be stabbed.
A few weeks after, she paused on her way to carrying her dinner plate upstairs. Klaus glanced up from his spot at the table, wondering if she would throw the lasagne at his head in a puerile act of rebellion.
"I'm sorry," she said instead, doe-eyed and fidgeting in her peasant top and shorts. There was a barrette shaped like a honeybee in her curls. Youth was no novelty to him, but there was something startling about the way it clung to her, despite all odds. "I know you're only doing your job. I was scared and- anyway, it won't happen again. Ok?"
"If you say so, love."
If his noncommittal reply offended her, it didn't show. She scurried up to her room and he returned to his reading.
The next morning he discovered her in the kitchen, making breakfast for two in an oversized apron she'd found in one of the closets. Her upswept curls exposed the nape of her neck and he suppressed an instinctive pang of hunger.
"I thought I would return the favor," she said, with a brilliant smile.
"I suppose these are doused in vervain," he remarked, sniffing at the plate of pancakes.
"Nope, just blueberries," she said, undeterred. "Nothing like that grows around here, anyway."
"Looked, have you?"
"Well I haven't been sneaking out of the house if that's what you're asking-,"
"I'd hear you before you got as far as the front door, love."
"Right - ," she said, dryly. "About that... I was wondering if -,"
"No."
She crossed her arms. "You don't even know what I'm about to ask."
"I have a fairly good idea. My orders are to ensure you stay where I can see and hear you at all times."
"Would you hear me if I walked down to the creek?"
His eyes narrowed. "You wish to take a stroll?"
"I've never had my magic Bound before," she said, softly. "I thought...maybe being outside, being in nature for a while, would make me feel better."
It seemed a harmless request enough, but he was far from dropping his guard.
"Fifteen minutes. You may walk unsupervised for fifteen minutes."
Her smile lit up the small kitchen.
"Thank you...Niklaus."
It was the first time she had spoken his name. Her voice faltered a little, like the syllables left grit on her tongue.
"Call me Klaus."
She decided to take her walk at twilight. Bonnie kept a casual pace until she reached the creek. They'd had a few days of rain and the water was deep with a steady current.
Certain that Klaus couldn't see her, she crouched down and grasped a few pebbles, then stuffed them deep inside the left pocket of her jeans. She checked her watch. Ten minutes left. She repeated the action until both pockets were weighed down, then walked slowly into the water.
A glance over her shoulder showed no sign of Klaus. She only needed a few minutes. If she could get close enough to drowning, her magic would unbind itself and kick in to save her.
She knew now that Klaus was neither vampire nor wolf but a strange combination of both. But he couldn't be immune to magic, nothing was. One good spell and he'd be incapacitated long enough for her to get in the car and put some miles between them. She'd go back to her family home and insist on helping Grams and her cousins defeat whatever it was that threatened them. That was her duty, it was where she belonged.
Bonnie exhaled all the air she could, then slipped quietly underwater.
He froze as soon as he heard the faint splash.
It was a warm evening, no reason to think she hadn't decided on an impromptu swim. But every instinct clamored in alarm and, when he sped to the creek, the small circlet of bubbles confirmed his suspicions. He was in the water in the blink of an eye, locking his arms around her waist and hauling her to the surface.
He was none too gentle carrying her inside once he was certain she'd coughed up all the water in her lungs. He didn't set her on her feet again until they were in her room. She stood before him shaking, drenched, a green-eyed mermaid furious at being dragged onshore. He thought of her smiling at him in the kitchen, the entrancing curve of her neck, and his chest burned like he'd inhaled a lungful of brackish water.
"It would appear your magical education is somewhat lacking," he said coldly, advancing on her. "Or perhaps you hold your grandmother's abilities in low esteem."
Her arms wrapped around herself, as though to shield the nakedness of her anger.
"It's worked for other people, I've read about it," she retorted, then paused. The fire in her eyes softened some. "You've been Bound before, haven't you?"
"Get out of those clothes," he commanded. "I don't fancy nursing you through pneumonia."
She made no move to comply.
"Take them off," he ordered again. "Or I will do it for you."
Her jaw tightened with affront. "Can I have some privacy please?"
Klaus turned slowly around, waiting. Her breath hitched angrily and then he heard the quick shuffle of garments being peeled off. There was a warm smell of moss and mineral and sweat, and the thud of stones hitting the floor.
Then, all was still.
He knew, objectively, that she was powerless to hurt him. She was naked in a room, without magic, without weapons. But he thought of that stake in his chest, of his blood running between her fingers. He wanted to return her question. What are you?
"My- my clothes are in there," she said, and for the first time her voice sounded uncertain. He walked a few paces ahead, back turned, so she might reach the dresser. Her steps were light, her movements quiet. She might have been a shadow, Eurydice climbing the stairs of the Underworld. To turn around, to see her, would be an undoing.
Instead he focused on the small room, the books on the window seat, silver jewelry on an end table, the tousled bedding, the marks of her daily life. Keeping her safe meant keeping her confined, cut off from all that made her what she is.
Outside the room, on the stairs, he gripped the bannister hard. He felt heavy-headed, as thought it was he that nearly drowned, as though he'd breathed water instead of air.
His mother had tied him to a tree, coiling her magic around his limbs like snakes. She promised him she loved him, that he would live forever with his brothers and sisters. Her hands, raised to conjure the spell that Bound his wolf, were still spotted with his siblings' blood.
But like a gust of wind to a candle, vampirism outstripped their humanity. His siblings and parents turned ravenous, feral, feeding on human and animal alike, leaving crimson horror in their wake. He himself, by Mikael's command, was restrained and fed only ounces of blood. Even with his wolf Bound, even immortal, he could not take his place among his siblings.
He begged them to release him, but Mikael was unmoved, Esther too distraught and his brothers and sister mad with bloodlust.
Niklaus recalled the day the Spirits answered his prayer, offering him a bargain. They wanted balance restored, and he would be their weapon. They would Unbind his wolf, they said, if he agreed to kill his family.
He remembered the day the Spirits took him to the river. They put river stones in his mouth and river dirt over his eyes. They Unbound his mother's curse string by string. He remembered the first breath after, how he wanted to howl for joy and run naked through the woods. It only lasted a second before Spirit magic settled around his throat, branded itself on his back. He felt that light but implacable touch and knew: his life was in their hands.
He picked up the long spear of white oak they had made to kill the Originals. He set the balance right.
It wasn't a choice, not really.
The crow at the kitchen window startled her.
One moment she was moving her glass from the sink to the counter, the next she'd shattered it against the marble and her hand was speckled in blood and glass. The shock dazed her a little and she swayed on her feet.
Her shadow (for that is how she secretly referred to him) was upon her instantly, fingers circling her wrist.
" - was an accident," she mumbled dizzily. Klaus made some disgruntled noise but guided her to the couch. His arm around her was hard yet comforting. He sat her down and returned with a small First Aid kit and her palm, stinging and bloody, was soon cradled in his. He proceeded to use small pincers to remove the glass.
She studied him bent over his work, the blond curls, the brow with its ridge of thick bone, the soft sweep of eyelashes utterly at odds with his heavy features. He was a jagged mixture of contrasts. Being so close to him had the same effect as though a dangerous beast had tucked away its fangs and permitted your approach.
"Ow!" she flinched when he dislodged one of the shards, earning a growl in return.
"I'm almost finished," he added gruffly.
Bonnie, still somewhat dazed from the sight of her own blood, decided to try her luck.
"Do you- know who this enemy is that wants to hurt my family?"
"No." He removed another glass fragment.
"If you did, would you tell me?"
Absorbed in his task his voice took on a gentler quality. "That would depend on what my orders were, little witch."
"And you always obey the Council's orders? No matter what?"
He shot her a wary glance. "What is it you want to know, Bonnie?"
She'd never really liked her name. It had felt dated and provincial, like she was someone's maiden aunt. But it took on a different quality in Klaus' mouth, became both soft and heavy. She almost hoped he would say it again, so she could decipher the exact moment, the magic of it.
She averted her eyes before answering. "What if they come here, whoever they are?"
"Your lack of magic renders you untraceable and my own whereabouts are known only to the Council."
He cleared his throat before continuing. "Should the unlikely event occur I will do all that is in my power to protect you - and that is a considerable amount, love."
This last was said with a small grin. She had not noticed before his smile had dimples, a kind of youth both startling and disconcerting.
"I see my answer is not to your liking," he remarked, eyes trained on her.
"I just don't like the idea of...standing by while someone risks their life for me."
"This is hardly my usual line of work, I assure you," he said dryly.
A strange levity momentarily suffused the air. Or perhaps she was still light-headed from the cuts. She almost smiled. Whatever the case, his lips covering the fleshy part of her palm, drawing out a tiny shard of glass, drained other thoughts from her mind. His mouth was warm, deliberate. Her breath hitched and she tried in vain to pull her hand away. It was not that it was an unpleasant feeling. It was that he asked no questions before putting his lips to the task. It was that no questions were possible. He was simply carrying out his charge, keeping her unharmed. All that is in my power. The weight of it sat uneasily in her stomach as his mouth drew away glistening with her blood, and she snatched her hand back with more force than intended.
"I'll do the rest," she mumbled, averting her eyes as she reached for the bandages.
"Suit yourself."
Bonnie fought a wave of frustration and embarrassment. This was his job. She was his job. It was a situation neither of them had asked for. She searched in vain for some word, some gesture that would cut through it all.
"Klaus, wait...," she called after his retreating figure. His face was impassive when he turned, the hints of youth fled.
She took a breath and forged ahead, keeping her eyes on her palm. "When I was three...my mother tried to do a spell - a very ancient spell - alone. It was to protect me from different kinds of Curses. Anyway, the spell didn't work...it killed her, actually. I was with her in the basement the whole time. It took almost a week before anyone found us." Bonnie finished dabbing at her palm, the web of cuts that stung like tiny reproaches. Even after all this time, it felt wrong, her existence undeserved, traded for another's life.
"I should have died but...my magic kept me alive, long for enough for them to find me."
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked, warily.
The words came out clumsy, halting. She tried to wade in the heaviness between them with as much skill as she could, telling him that her attempts to escape, her attempts to Unbind her magic were not done to make his job harder, but because she'd rather he not have to do this job at all. She'd rather protect herself, have her life in her own hands, than burden anyone with the responsibility. There isn't any other way she wants to be.
"I don't know how to live without my magic," she finished, quietly, holding her wounded hand.
A silence stretched between them, flickering with something like hope.
The small taste of her blood sang in his mouth. He was vertiginous again, like she was standing naked behind him and all he had to decide was whether to turn his head. Turn his head and lose his footing.
When he replied his voice was thorny, uncertain. "I'm certain you'll manage."
A shadow fell across her face and she made to stand, her bandaged hand tucked away. Tethered in place, he watched her climb the stairs. And he thought once more of the night his mother's magic chained him up, of the Spirits' silent shackle on his shoulders. He thought of Bonnie's hand and her blood on his tongue, how everyday the house they shared felt smaller and more familiar.
How he wanted to follow her up the stairs and lick her hand clean, the blooded and unblooded skin. He imagined she would taste like river stones.
M: Niklaus Mikaelson, we thought you'd fallen off the edge of the Earth. Where you been, man?
Marcel's quick response was gratifying. He'd been a Ripper when the Council discovered him and conscripted him into their service. Klaus had trained him himself, and the young vampire possessed a gift for social charm that kept him connected to a network of informants.
K: Working, I'm afraid, and in need of a favor.
M: Whose tail they stuck you on this time?
K: Can't say. Council politics, you understand.
M: Flying close to the sun I see. What do you need?
K: Any information you can find about the late Abigail Bennett.
No message returned for a few minutes.
M: It'll take me some time. I assume you don't want anyone else to do the searching?
K. No.
M: Definitely gonna take some time. I'll get back to you when I have something.
She had been languishing for weeks.
He noticed how her plates returned to the kitchen barely touched, how her movements were slow, how even her eyes were slowly dulling.
He still had no word from Marcel, or from Sheila Bennett.
He found out why when Marcel phoned him a few nights later with the information he'd requested. Klaus trained his senses on the room upstairs until the sound of her breathing assured him Bonnie was asleep and unlikely to hear any of the conversation.
"Go on."
"Get this, Abigail Bennett isn't dead. She's in a private facility somewhere in Alaska. Or at least, she was."
"Was?" He felt the truth - what he had suspected ever since Bonnie told him the story about the basement - run down his spine.
"One of the guys I talked to had a friend who worked as security up there. Apparently, Abigail broke out a couple months ago and headed South."
Marcel paused. "Funny...you'd think the Council would've sent you after her."
The Bennetts had sat on the Council for generations and had no doubt decided to handle Abigail themselves while conscripting him to provide protection for their beloved daughter. A daughter being hunted by her mother. A child hiding from a parent. It was an uncomfortable, visceral familiarity.
It was almost home.
The following evening he found her curled up by the window, her tea going cold between her hands, her face nearly pressed to the glass in quiet desperation. He had the impression of a wilting sunflower, straining to follow the light.
"Would you like to go for a walk?" he asked, in a rougher tone than he had intended.
"What, with some kind of ankle bracelet on?"
"With me," he clarified.
Her demeanor shifted, a suspicious glint entering her eyes. It was a welcome change from the ennui that clung to her these days.
"I'll get my shoes," she said, setting her cup down.
She moved like a caged animal in his presence now. They walked silently beside the creek while the sun disappeared. The moon, only half full, still burned up the sky. He felt its rays under his skin, calling forth the wolf. It had now been nearly three months since he had brought her here and he had foregone the shift during those moons. In his line of duty his wolf was an asset, its instincts honed for the hunt. But he was wary now of instinct. Unfurling the wolf in her presence might prove unpredictable, ungovernable.
"Can we sit here for a while?" she asked, arms folded around herself.
He shrugged. "As you wish. I am not besieged by mosquitos as you are likely to be."
She sighed, settling down on a rock and angling her face to the darkened sky. Her eyes closed briefly as a look of relief and calm spread over her face. She let out another sigh, this one softer and more luxurious, like she was cavorting in meadow grass instead of sitting on a mossy rock on a humid night. "It's just...so nice to be outside again," she said softly, almost to herself. The blush that warmed her cheeks told him she had not meant for him to hear her.
"I seem to recall you levied quite a few substantial curses at my head the first night I brought you here," he remarked, sitting beside her.
She drew her limbs protectively close and gave him a wary look. "And?"
"I didn't realize Council families instructed their daughters in battle magic quite so young," he said mildly, leaning back to stretch out his legs.
"Grams made it mandatory."
"Preparing for your future seat on the Council?" he asked with a trace of bitterness, for soon, when this danger had passed, she too would have the power to command him.
Bonnie gave a small shudder. "God, no. I love Grams but her Council friends...they give me the creeps. The way they talk about magic is so...cold. Like everything is a means to an end."
He raised an eyebrow. "Says the witch who nearly drowned trying to recover her magic as a means to escape."
"I'm trained in battle magic - and yes, I could probably light you on fire if I wanted to," she said, turning to him with a spark of appraisal in her eyes that stirred him in alarming ways. "But that's not what I want to do with magic."
"Oh?" he drew his knees to his chest and leaned over them. "Please, enlighten me."
She appeared to blush again, though the shadows frustratingly hid the subtle play of her expressions. She was like the surface of a lake upon which light danced and refracted, and only the quickest eye could catch the depth beneath.
"You know how I knew vervain doesn't grow here? Because I love plants, have since I was a kid. Grams would have to drag me back to class from the garden," she said with a small laugh. "My great-aunt Emily owned a botanica somewhere in the Dakotas. She sold roots and elixirs and also regular plants. I always thought I'd like to do something like that."
"Your ideal career is Old Witch in the Woods who makes smelly potions?"
She made an affronted noise. "What would you be doing if you weren't doing...this?"
He smiled in the thickening darkness.
"The sword can't wake up one day and decide to be a spoon. Its nature and its work are one."
She seemed troubled by this as he rose and held out his hand.
"Come along, little witch."
She hesitated briefly before placing her hand in his. He turned her palm upward. "You're healing well," he remarked. "These might not even leave a scar."
Her eyes, dark and green in the moonlight, peeled his guard away.
"Can we do this again?" she asked quietly, then hastened to add. "The walk I mean."
He brushed her knuckles before releasing his hold. "As you wish."
He found the gardening tools a few days later, locked up in the old shed with some of his wood carving supplies. He'd carved Rebekah a set of toy animals for her nameday once. A pony, a rabbit, a fox and a bird. It had been worth the beating he endured later to see his sister's face light up with joy when she opened her gift. It was how he remembered her - not the blood-crazed creature he had been forced to put down but a young girl, his only champion against their father's cruelty. He had dreamed of becoming a carpenter's apprentice, learning to carve the spirits of earth and fertility into wooden bed posts that would bring good fortune to newlyweds, making Rebekah a box for the small jewels he hoped to buy her, fashioning the image of Rán onto the prows of ships that his brothers would sail and brag to strangers about his skill.
They were the dreams of a fanciful boy he could no longer grieve, for Time had borne him far away to different shores. Those dreams were distant now, and comical. Traces of another life.
Surprise and wonder bloomed on Bonnie's face when he showed her the tools and the patch of untended land in the back of the house she could till and plant to her heart's content. But her expression clouded just as quickly and she looked to him. "I'm going to be here for a while aren't I? Whoever this enemy my family's dealing with...it's going to take a long time."
They had been at the safe house for nearly four months now. Before long, if the Bennetts failed to subdue Abby on their own, they would command his services. He would no longer be Bonnie's protector, but the assassin that kills her mother. There was something almost comforting in the bleakness of that certainty, that Time would re-arrange things according to a constant, implacable design. He reached a hand, unchecked, unpunished for now, to capture a wayward curl of brown hair and return it behind her ear.
"There's no telling what might happen."
He added, teasingly. "Unless of course you were lying about gardening and a seat on the Council is what you truly desire. I'm certain I can find a suitably pompous chair and some dour cloaks for you to parade around in."
"I'd rather dig around in the dirt, thanks," she retorted, seizing the shovel with aplomb. "Naturally my first crop's going to be a large yield of vervain and wolfsbane...,"
"Naturally."
Deciding to leave her to her own devices, he nevertheless made sure to deliver a parting shot. "Do keep an eye out for the coral snakes, love."
He made his way back to the house, smiling at her small bleat of exasperation and outrage.
She began spending most of her mornings and evenings in the garden, emerging dirt-covered and radiant each time. She took her meals at the table now, eyes glowing as she detailed what plants she intended to cultivate and what potions and cures they would make.
At first he kept himself busy indoors, listening for her movements periodically to ensure all was well. But eventually he took to lounging on the back porch with a glass of bourbon where he could watch her burrow in the earth like a squirrel. She seemed to soak up the energy of the soil and the sun and the leaves, and subtly shed her layers. Instead of the dainty frocks and blouses she now wore loose shirts and shorts with which to crawl around the undergrowth. She moved freer in these clothes, no longer caged and hesitant in his presence.
They continued their evening walks, which were silent for the most part. This suited him fine, but occasionally he would find her looking at him with a hint of a question in her eyes, and he wondered what would happen the day she finally asked it.
The full moon found them by the creek's edge again, and he arched his head to inhale the air heavy with the scent of trees and earth and her. The wolf rose up, restless and impatient inside him. He'd never gone this long without a shift.
"Can you transform at will?" she asked, quietly, regarding him in that measured way he found unsettling.
"Yes."
"Do you want to...tonight?"
"Yes." He turned to her slowly. "Which is why you should go back inside."
"Can I see?"
Her soft question, the steady gaze of her eyes, unmoored something inside him. He smiled, returning her request from that night he'd pulled her out of the water. "Could I have some privacy please?"
He undressed behind her.
It was quiet, she barely heard the rustle of clothes or his belt being unbuckled. She knew, abstractly, what a man's body looked like. She'd grown up with her half-brother Jamie, pored over magazines in secret with Elena and Caroline. On her seventeenth birthday, when Grams had agreed to a pool party, she'd stolen a private moment with Jeremy Gilbert in her room before anyone came looking for her, her hand on his bare chest and his body pressed against hers. She recalled the feel of his thighs and his half-hard cock through his trunks. For weeks afterwards, she couldn't meet his eyes without dissolving into blushes.
This was nothing like that adolescent escapade, the forbidden didn't send thrills down her spine the way it had when Jeremy played with the strings of her bikini top. Her palms were sweaty and her throat dry. Her heart pounded like she'd been running for her life. When she heard the unnatural crack of his bones undergoing the shift, goosebumps broke out over her skin. She wanted to stop her ears, but didn't. To do so would feel, somehow, like a betrayal.
By the time the wolf appeared in front of her, both larger and more slender than she'd imagined, grey like the willow trees in the woods she'd fled into that first night, she was lightheaded.
It regarded her quietly before emitting a small growl. Its head jerked towards the house and she knew he was urging her to go inside.
Bonnie retraced her steps shakily, the animal following at her side. "Klaus" waited until she was behind the screen door before disappearing into the dark.
She couldn't sleep. She didn't have a phone or computer here, so she thumbed through images of her old life in her mind. She had so much to tell Elena and Caroline when she saw them again. She could tell them about being present while a werewolf shifted. The closest they'd ever gotten was the one time Tyler's car broke down and they'd had to get him to the woods before the shift began. But their parents had arrived quickly to spirit them away before they saw anything.
There was also spellwork to catch up on, entries to make in her Grimoire, parties she'd have to attend and hobnob with Grams' friends from the Council. This house, this life, and the strange creature she shared them with would recede like a speck on the horizon, become tokens she could share at social events to garner attention and interest. She'd forget the feel of soil beneath her fingernails and the warm, loamy scent of it. The scars on her hand would fade. She'd forget the way his mouth had felt there. She'd have her magic back, her life back. She'd marry a prominent warlock headed for a seat on the Council, continue the noble legacy of the Bennetts, help shape and guide the future of witches worldwide. She'd never kneel with her bare knees in the dirt of her own garden. If she wished to grow herbs, there would be a fleet of younger witches at her command to plow and till the earth in her stead. She could even, if she chose, command Klaus to kill her enemies on her behalf.
This last thought left her cold. Her eyes dampened with a confusing, bittersweet longing for something she couldn't name. She felt guilty and furious and mournful, all at once.
She wept quietly.
He climbed in the bed beside her, careful not to wake her. He usually spent these nights outside, finding a quiet nook in the forest to finish feeding on whatever animal he had hunted and sleep until dawn. But the wolf, ever surefooted, had led him here, unmindful of the blood and fur and dirt that would sully the white linens, to the sound of her breathing and the fading scent of her tears.
She had sensed the wolf's presence beside her in her sleep, but in the morning light he was a man again, his body turned away from hers, naked as the day he was born. Her shadow lay on his side, long limbs curled slightly. She should wake him, it would be the appropriate thing to do. Their beds are a boundary they can't - they shouldn't - cross. But she finds herself transfixed by the expanse of his nude back, the rift of his spine, the birthmarks - she counts three - small and distinct like kisses. Her eyes land on the branded triangle on his right shoulder, the mark of the Council. A reminder of what oversaw both their lives.
Following an impulse, she trailed her fingertips across his shoulder blade, then flattened her palm. His skin was warm as an animal pelt, mesmeric to the touch. She stroked it lightly and he stirred in his sleep. He arched against her hand.
Bonnie felt the moment he awakened. His body stiffened, froze in something like fear. Then he was swiftly sliding out of bed, wrapping a sheet around his waist. She tried and failed to suppress a small smile, which earned her a scowl. She couldn't help it. His hair was tousled from sleep and he was naked save for the bedsheet.
"I shouldn't have been in here," he muttered, running a hand through his messy curls that did nothing to tame them. "Your door ought to have been locked," he growled, giving her an accusatory look.
"Hey, your wolf crawled up here, I didn't exactly invite him," she pointed out, pulling the comforter over her knees.
"My apologies," he said darkly. "It won't happen again."
He was gone before she could reply, the door closing firmly behind him. She lay back on her pillow, facing away from where the sheets were still warm from his body. The morning felt wounded, its verve and color leached away.
Their routine continued unabated after that, but something had changed, some shift in the undercurrent, a tension that sometimes made it unbearable to be in the same room. He gave her a wide berth even as he kept her, as always, within sight and hearing. But where once her scent and heartbeat were casual markers of her presence, they besieged his senses now to the exclusion of almost everything else. One morning he went out to the back porch and found her already at work in the garden, kneeling on all fours, her brown skin limned in sweat, and lust knifed him so hard he nearly buckled over. He thought about going to her. He thought about grasping her thighs and burying himself inside her and the two of them rutting like foxes in the earth. He thought of her hand, so gentle and curious on his back, turning frenzied with need. He thought about how she had looked in bed, the nightshirt slipping off her shoulder and the musky scent between her legs. He thought until he went nearly blind.
Stumbling indoors, he splashed cold water on his face. His cock ached for release. He wished there was indeed a field of vervain he could lie down in. That agony, he felt, would be preferable to this.
He stopped watching her after that.
The message came soon after from Sheila Bennett herself. The danger was passed and it was time for Bonnie to return home. No need for him to do anything further, she assured him. A Council representative would arrive to take Bonnie home in a week.
Klaus was almost relieved.
Almost.
The day of her departure he carried her luggage to the front porch while she finished dressing. It was nearing sunset, and the sky was mottled purple. Like bruises.
She appeared atop the stairs, ensconced in that mournful violet light, wearing a white dress with green flowers that flared around her knees. The bodice hugged her waist and left her arms bare. She looked quite lovely, like the morning she'd stabbed him in the kitchen. That other girl with her knees in the mud and easy smiles seemed already a fading dream.
He followed her outside, but instead of waiting on the porch like he'd expected she walked around the back to the garden that hadn't been touched in a week, not since the message arrived. She surveyed the little plots, the trellises for the morning glory she'd never see bloom. Her face flickered like the setting sun.
"I won't forget my time here," she said at last, turning to him. "I won't forget you."
"You needn't try to remember," he returned. "As a future Councilwoman you can summon me to your side with a snap of your fingers."
She looked stricken. They stood there in the gathering dusk, watching the shadows steal between the empty lattices.
"The night your wolf slept next to me...he- you helped me sleep," she said, toeing the ground with her shoe. "I wanted to thank you, for sharing that with me."
"There was never a choice, little witch," he said, simply.
She bit the inside of her cheek and something flared in her eyes, not quite anger, but a fire, the spirit that he'd glimpsed behind her defiance, that made her incandescent.
"Well, this is," she said quickly, before she rose up on her toes to kiss him.
He tasted her berry lip gloss. Her lips caressed his, soft and unflinching. It caught him off guard, like a stake in his heart.
She drew back and they stared at each other as twilight blackened the air. Nothing had changed and yet, it seemed a rift had opened and the world was pouring through.
Her mouth, half naked where the gloss had rubbed off, snagged him like an undertow.
Klaus drew her abruptly close. He kissed her hard and starving, angry in a way he hadn't been in years. At himself, at the Spirits who set this invisible fetter at his throat, at her and the riverine taste of her mouth. Dragging her more tightly against him he let his hunger run untrammeled, mould her to his body like a missing half. She stumbled in her kitten heels and then her arms went around his neck, her tongue touched his. She whimpered against his teeth, but didn't push him off. Her hands fisted in his hair. For a moment, they swayed together like a life-raft on choppy seas.
She was gone with the next breath, wrenching herself away from him and hurrying to the front of the house where he heard the vehicle pull up. She didn't spare a backward glance. He saw the white of her dress disappear inside a car, and then he was alone, in that half-grown garden under a mottled sky.
A/N: I started writing this as a gift for my dear friend thefudgeisgrumpy to celebrate her defending her dissertation to become a PhD (CONGRATS AGAIN HERO DOT MARIAH CAREY DOT MP3) and then we started planning #gothic klonnie 2k18 and I realized this also somewhat fits the the prompt for Day 2. So, here ya go sis...hope it was worth the wait! I'm in the final year of my own PhD and things are, how you say, INSANELY STRESSFUL, so my updates might not be super consistent in the next couple months - by that I mean, I may not stick to a schedule and instead of updates you may be surprised by sudden tropey oneshots and two parters like this one. WHO KNOWS. Imagine me as that dog sitting in a room on fire, except with a laptop in front of me. I'M FINE. Anyway, I'm working on part two of this and some other stuff, so stay tuned. And head over to Tumblr all this week through the 31st for tons of gothic klonnie goodness. Let me know your thoughts, and happy Halloween loves! xoxox