Welcome and enjoy! Here's another piece of my playlist: Elle King – Catch us if you can

If I'm a fifth of whiskey

You're the champagne

If you're a wildflower

I'm a grenade

Warnings for the chapter: Jess' work and her lovely vocabulary and also Kol being Kol

Chapter 4: Perception

If he were being entirely honest, which Kol wasn't at almost any time in his long, long life, he would have to admit that had he met Jessica Reid, a name he'd found on a bill at her house, under any other circumstances he would've been positively fascinated by her. However, the situation was as it follows, hence he was only able to be mildly amused by the current situation.

Jessica worked at a sex shop. A proper, rows of dildos and artificial vaginas and vibratos and handcuffs and whips along the shelves, sex shop. Kol stopped short when he slipped in after her, balked and then a chuckle broke out. Next, laughter followed.

"Oh, this just gets better and bloody better, doesn't it?" he exclaimed, laughing madly at the situation.

"Hey, Annie," he spotted Jessica greeting another employee, then heading behind the counter, into another room, to change for work. Kol took his sweet time exploring in the meantime, which he enjoyed immensely, no regrets.

Truly, over the years, humanity had found such amusing ways to get and give pleasure. He was baffled by some of the contraptions on display, but generally he could guess the usage of many of them. Kol had to admit the idea of remote-control vibration devices, via cellphones, yet another marvelous invention, appealed to him. He was in the middle of comparing two different intriguing items when Jessica walked back out, talking to her coworker. Her voice caught his attention.

"Let's get today's haunting on the way," Kol said cheerily, in a much better mood surrounded by sex toys than left to his own rage, walking over to the medium. She had simply changed her shirt, into a dark red one with the logo of the shop on it, and twisted her hair up messily with a clip. It exposed her neck and Kol found himself distracted by the steady, calm pulse he saw there as he attempted to knock things off the counter.

The day was slow, which, considering that it was ten in the morning, wasn't unusual from his point of view. Finally, a customer came in and the other employee walked over to help them. Jessica remained at the counter, doing some kind of accounting. He decided it was time to pester her and started trying to push the stapler from the counter to the floor.

"Bloody move, will you," Kol growled after a few unsuccessful tries. The stapler shook, but didn't slip off the counter. Jess threw a look up from her paperwork at the object, her lips curving up at the ends.

"Not bad, you're improving," she told him in a low tone. "You just need a tad bit more patience and practice, and you'll be able to mimic a proper poltergeist."

"I do what I can," Kol huffed, smiling with her. "You cow," he added for good measure, knowing that she couldn't hear him. However, he couldn't deny that the medium made him feel calmer. Somehow, in her presence, he wasn't focused on the feelings of revenge and rage, as he had been since his death, and in his past. Instead, there was something about her that made him feel accomplishment for every single thing he did, even if he was attempting to haunt her.

"Jess, could you?" the other worker at the shop called out, causing the redhead to look up and nod. She closed the accounting book, keeping a pen in the spot where she'd been writing, and went over to a young man who had wandered in, looking particularly lost. Kol followed, curious as to what the conversation about all the different gadgets in the store was going to go.

"Hello," Jess greeted with a smile. "Can I help you find anything?" The young man shuffled from foot to foot, but he put on a confident face.

"Well," he began, then seemed to gather his courage and continue. "I'm looking for something for my girlfriend. We've been together for a while now and I want to make her birthday a little bit more special than usual." Jess nodded, waving for him to follow her.

"Do you know what she likes?" she asked, walking over to the top choice section. "If you're not certain what you're looking for, I can recommend almost anything from these," she presented the various choices of goods on display.

"I know that she likes, well, you know," he jerked his head to the top right corner, where there were some kind of oval devices, each having a vibration and multiple pattern options. "Oral." Jess nodded, taking one of the pink boxes off the top shelf. Kol had to admit, he admired her figure when she stretched up to reach it, her work shirt riding up to expose the skin above her jeans.

"This might be a solid choice then," she told the young man. "Its focus is on clitoral stimulation and has a sucking option, which might be interesting for her. You can use it both on nipples and on the clitoris," she handed it to the customer to inspect and got another box. "Another good idea could be the rabbit; this is our more popular item. It has a dual motor and provides both vaginal and clitoral stimulation." Kol was flabbergasted. Jess was completely calm, compassionate and treating the whole situation without any awkwardness at all. Soon enough, he saw that her presence was doing the same for the young man as it did for him, making him relax and become more comfortable with the situation.

"I think I like this one better," he said, moving the hand holding the first item up. "I was thinking maybe also some light bondage?" Jess smiled.

"Of course," she put the second product back on the shelf before leading the young man further into the shop. "You can go with the classic handcuffs," she pointed to the assortment of different products in question. Kol spotted fur on some, bare metal ones, leather and even bejeweled handcuffs. "Or, you can go perhaps the more unorthodox way and choose the swing," she pointed to the other section of the wall. "It might not be strictly bondage, but it definitely aims for what you've described to me that you're looking for. You have the option of stand-alone," she showed the one in the box on the bottom shelf. "This one is set up in the middle of the room, if you have space for it. Or, the one that you hang on the door," she showed him the ones hanging on the hooks in the middle of the shelves. "If you're lacking on space these are also a good option." The young man stood, inspecting the products for a moment, looking pensive. "I will give you a moment to think about it, but these would be my suggestions. I'll be at the cash register if you need any more help," with a smile and a gentle pat on the man's shoulder, Jess left him to think over his options.

"Thanks," the young man called out, causing Jess to nod with a smile politely at him. Kol followed her back to the register, where she resumed her accounting work. He had to admit that his intrigue with the woman was rising by the second. The customer her coworker was helping passed by, purchasing her items, the other woman doing all the work at the cash register.

"You good?" the coworker asked, sitting down in a spare chair. Jess looked up, glancing at the young man inspecting the swings and then back at her colleague.

"I think he just needs some time, but should be okay," the medium replied. "How was your date last night?"

"Not too bad," the brunette coworker replied. She was an Asian woman, in her twenties or early thirties, rather slim and attractive. "Tinder wasn't a bad choice of a dating app," she laughed.

"C'mon, girl, give me some details," Jess giggled. "Did he live up to his pics?" The brunette laughed.

"Definitely," she said. "He works at the local hospital, which is, like, immediate brownie points. Though, he does have challenging work hours. He's a resident there," she said. Kol rolled his eyes, attempting to toss the stapler onto the floor once more. It rattled violently. Jess gave it an amused look, but didn't comment.

"Hey, I hope it works out," she tossed to her coworker. "One of us should get laid, at least."

"You know, you could just install the app?" the brunette suggested, shrugging.

"Nah, I prefer to live vicariously through your escapades," Jess laughed.

"Excuse me?" the customer from before was back, carrying items in his hands. Jess looked up at him with a smile.

"Made a decision?" she asked.

"Yes, I think these will do great," he told her, placing the items on the counter. "Thanks for all the help, I really walked into this place not knowing what to choose and expecting it to be awkward as hell."

"No problem," Jess grinned, taking his items, checking them through the register and printing out a receipt. "In the end, this is just another shop. I hope you two enjoy your special night," she told him, accepting his cash and giving him change back.

"Thanks again, have a good one," he greeted, taking the matte deep red bag the young woman had packed his purchase in and leaving the shop.

"Anniversary?" the coworker asked, not glancing up from her phone.

"Girlfriend's birthday," Jess replied. The brunette sighed.

"I wish someone would be that romantic for me," she told the medium. "We need more men with balls."

"Agreed, sister, agreed," Jess nodded sagely.

Kol stalked Jess throughout the day without a lick of shame. He followed her from her work to a café where she hung out with her friends, did his best to knock over their drinks, managing to make their napkins fly about, and finally he tailed her on her way to a bookstore, and then home. During that time, Kol was able to see her interact with quite a few spirits on the way. She wouldn't give up on any of them, even those he deemed as close to apparitions. She would talk to them, walk with them, and finally invite them to her address to come in the evening, any day, in order to put their affairs in order.

After she'd had dinner at her apartment, an alarm rang on her phone, and Jess settled in the sofa chair in her living room, turning on the TV. She watched the news for a while, before switching to a random police TV show.

"So, will you let me help some spirits tonight?" the young woman asked him conversationally, looking in the general direction of where he was standing, inspecting her books.

"Can't do that now, can I, darling?" Kol grinned, but seeing as she didn't react, he swiped at the last book on the shelf, managing to make it fall to its side, but not to the floor.

"I'll take that as a negative," Jess sighed. Her hands went to her hair, combing back the stray locks into her messy bun. "Well, if you're going to cockblock, might as well help you communicate better." She stood, leaving for her bedroom, and came back with a box.

"Caving in, love?" Kol asked in a teasing voice, sitting down on the couch. He watched the young woman with interest as she unpacked the contents of the box.

"Ouija boards don't take as much energy as other forms of communication," Jess said, laying out the board on the coffee table, on top of numerous magazines and books, and placing the planchette onto it. "They're made for spirits, after all. It will help you sharpen your focus and get messages across. Give it a go," she told him.

"Are you bloody joking?" Kol snapped, his anger rising again at the audacity. He wasn't just some common house ghost, he was Kol bloody Mikaelson, a former witch and Original vampire. He knew bloody well what a Ouija board did, if well-crafted. It was meant to amplify the power of the ghost in order to make communicating easier.

"So?" Jess asked and Kol swiped his hand over the planchette, sending it flying past the woman's head and into the wall in his anger. Jess turned around, looked at the projectile embedded in her living room wall with a raised eyebrow, and then turned back to the board. "Well, in all your rage and pouting, you will have to admit that my way works," she said, getting up and pulling out the planchette before returning it on top of the board. "Now, remember that you can't kill me with that, because you need me to commune with the living for you, and having me dead would kind of, you know, defeat the purpose. Hence, you should harness all those troublesome emotions you got going on and focus them into gently, and I repeat gently, moving that little thingamabob about and telling me at least if we can have a deal?"

"Why don't you shove it?" Kol helpfully supplied with a groan. He tried to ignore the fact that he found her babbling a little charming. She was nervous, perhaps.

"C'mon, now, it's not a bad arrangement," Jess prodded. "I'll give you a few pointers so that you can definitely charm your next medium and you let me work in peace?" Kol stood from the couch, doing his best to manipulate the planchette of the Ouija board once again, and he managed to get it to go up and then violently stick itself into the 'NO' on the wood. Then, he huffed and went to leave the woman's apartment, shocked when he actually managed to phase through the door. He did catch her reply as he was going, though. "We'll see if you'll be in a better mood soon, then. You ain't getting better than that from me."

Kol had only been in Seattle for two days and he'd already managed to make a name for himself, apparently. One, he'd alienated the only medium in town. Two, he'd vexed seemingly the entire population of ghosts in the city. Three, he'd found himself, yet again, in a problematic state of loneliness.

Kol didn't particularly mind being alone, but he did mind the annoying sense of not belonging. The lack of a place for him, a slot where he fit, perfectly, unequivocally and irreplaceably, that was the part which he had an issue with. Always and forever. He hated that bloody vow about as much as he hated the feelings which it brought on. Always and forever could go to hell. Obviously, it didn't apply neither to him nor to Finn. After all, they were dead and forgotten, never mourned. So, screw always and forever, because it was an elitist club of only three self-absorbed people.

He spent his days oscillating between The Hallow and exploring the city. Kol had always been a fan of traveling and experiencing things for himself. Meeting new people was his forte. There was something about his charm which drew in those who met him. An edge of dangerous, a touch of witty and the constant feeling of not knowing whether he was serious or not with his words. Yes, Kol was a charmer when he wanted to be, and he darn well knew it. At other times, he was a psychopathic murdering maniac, which he also knew. He didn't have a problem with either. He had a problem with the lack of roots his nomadic and chaotic lifestyle brought. He had issues with his lack of 'home'.

He didn't go back to bother Jessica. He didn't feel bad about annoying her, but he felt like it was useless in his present state to go back to her apartment. Kol took the time to honestly mull her offer over. It wasn't a bad one, as far as offers went. And, he'd managed to learn from a few ghosts who would still speak to him that deals were something Jessica liked to make.

She would arrange an exchange of favors if a particular request from a ghost was too costly regarding either time or money on her part. The cheerleader he'd met at The Hallow with a bullet wound in her forehead, Ashley, had been all too eager to talk to him again. She'd liked the danger of his reputation, he supposed, after the mess he'd made at Jessica's. She's told him all about how the medium had helped her send a letter to her family, written in her own hand and signed as from anonymous, in order to bring some comfort. At that time, she'd met a recently deceased witch from Spain, named Carmen, who'd asked for a larger favor and in turn, Jessica had asked her to help her with some interesting recipes from her homeland. Cooking in exchange for witch business. Kol thought that Jessica had been underpaid for that endeavor, but he'd kept it to himself. However, knowing that the medium hadn't gone back on her word or tricked the ghost brought him some solace. Perhaps, he could take her deal, as well.

However, he was petty. So, Kol went back after a few weeks to the run-down apartment where the medium lived and bothered her again. He would take the time while she was sleeping to practice using the Ouija board, and while she was awake, he would rattle things around the home. Kol found out that after only three days of practicing he could start messing with electrical appliances. The laptop was still an unattainable holy land, but he could make her coffee maker go insane with a little bit of concentration. It miffed him that she took all of his pestering in stride, giggling at his attempts and praising him sometimes with a singsong sentence of how she wouldn't help him unless he behaved. The woman was headstrong and loved her rules.

Kol had found out that his vampiric abilities to affect another's mind were still intact, but left him panting on the floor after only a few hours of usage. So, he took to bothering Jessica in her dreams. He would place her in the darkest parts of his mind, showing her the gory blood binges he'd been on throughout ages. That didn't deter her in her determination, either. She sometimes woke up, with a groan rolling over to the other side of the bed and complaining about the setting, saying how he had no imagination. But, at other times, she would comment on the historical periods he was showing her, taking note not of the gore, but of the time itself. That only furthered his admiration for her character.

Before he knew it, he was taking her in her dreams on numerous trips he'd taken around the world throughout the centuries, showing her, through his eyes, the people and cultures as he'd seen them. She'd wake up from those nights full of questions, which he couldn't answer in his present state. But, at least, he was getting better and better at haunting. Kol had considered going back to the Gilbert house, applying his newfound abilities to pester the doppelganger and her brother, but he had decided against that. Instead, revenge in blood was more appealing.

Before he knew it, weather changed and they were heading for a Seattle winter. And, with the colder weather, Jessica changed the way she dressed. It was always amusing to Kol, seeing humans wear different clothes at different times of the year. For him, it didn't particularly matter. He wore whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. Humans, however, were much more sensitive to cold and heat. They wore coats and scarves and they stripped down to undergarments and lighter clothes. It was all quite fascinating and endearing. Jessica was the same. In the early autumn, she switched from short sleeved shirts to heavier sweaters and opted for deeper and warmer boots than her usual sneakers. Still, she always wore her waist length jackets. He enjoyed seeing the switch, as he always did.

It was on one of those days, when the weather was rather nice for the usual forecast in Seattle, which included a lot of rain, that Kol followed Jessica after work, doing his best to annoy her on the way home. He went as far as to pull at her hair tie, causing it to snap and make her locks fly all over the place in the wind. But, all she did was laugh, and not the small chuckle, but a proper laugh, which for Jessica was, most interestingly, a cackle. As they were getting closer to her apartment building, Kol had a familiar itch in the back of his head. He was quite familiar with that tingling sensation.

"Darling, we're being followed," he told the medium, rushing a bit in order to fall into step with her. She didn't react, so Kol decided to tug at her scarf. Jessica awarded him with a smile and a shake of her head, but she didn't turn around. "Jessica, you're being followed. You need to duck into a bar or a crowded street," Kol tried again, but it was in vain. She couldn't hear him.

He turned around, spying the two men following her. One white, one black, about five meters behind her. The white one was built and tall, while the black was rather lean. They seemed like a pair of friends walking down the street, but Kol could spot them casting glances at his medium a little too often. He felt the telltale buzz of magic around them and realized that it was worse than he'd thought. They were witches.

"Jessica," Kol spoke to the woman urgently, again falling into step with her and bending down to her ear. "You need to hear me, darling, you're being followed. Jessica!" Kol groaned when there was no reaction whatsoever. The woman kept walking forward, oblivious.

Then, he had a crazy idea. If he could get about the place by focusing on essence and supporting his own existence through it, why couldn't he use Jessica's essence to get through to her? It seemed silly not to at least give it a go.

So, Kol focused on the woman walking next to him. The constantly messy red hair. The full lips quirked up in a smile almost always. The oddly narrow, yet attractive eyes. The slim body she seemed to put in the weirdest positions when she read or watched a TV show. The infectious cackle of a laughter which came out of her mouth when she was earnestly amused. The curiously low voice with an almost whispery texture to it. Her bright essence, like a waning sun on the horizon, spilling glorious colors all across the skies. Kol held onto that essence, letting it spread throughout him like the warmth he got from drinking alcohol.

"Jessica!" the woman whipped her head to the side, looking straight into his eyes. Slowly, her eyes widened, mouth falling open in shock. Kol noticed that she had the greenest eyes he'd ever seen. "You're being followed, get into this bar!" he told her urgently, grabbing at her arms and pulling her towards the only crowded place he could spot. Before she reached the door, though, a hand wrapped around her upper arm, tugging her into the alley instead of through the bar doors. "Jessica, fight, darling, knee him in the balls," Kol instructed urgently, seeing her dragged away in her shock.

Instantly, Jessica seemed to recollect herself. She looked up at the unknown white man pulling at her, and dug her heels in, trashing to get his hand off of her. Kol saw her reach into her back pocket and then her free arm flew forward, fingers in a fist with her keys gleaming in it, landing straight into the man's face.

"Let go of me, you motherfucker!" she swore, managing to get his grip to loosen. She turned around as he reached up to hold his injured eye, only to be met face to face with the black man. "Oh, fuck off!" the woman exclaimed, gripping her keys in her fist tightly.

"They're witches, Jess, they're witches," Kol told her, standing helplessly behind the black man. "You can't fight them off if they start using magic." Her eyes darted to him, before returning to the black man. She seemed to think it over and then lowered her keys, which made the black man take a step forward.

"Now, now," he said to her in a low voice. "There's no need for you to get hurt."

"Rape!" Jessica screamed out at the top of her lungs, causing Kol to wince. Smart and effective, he figured. "They're trying to rape me! Help! Rape! Ra-"

"Shut your mouth," the white man had managed to get ahold of himself, grabbing Jessica from behind, his hand on her mouth. She trashed again, biting, kicking, screaming, but it was of no use. The white man held her tightly. "Devon, the powder," he said to his partner. The black man dug into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of some kind of powder, blowing it into Jessica's face. Kol watched in horror as she slowly stopped kicking and screaming, finally going limp in the man's arms.

"Bollocks," Kol swore, making a quick decision and following the two men down the alley. He would be damned if he let them to anything to his medium.

That's all folks! Let me know what you thought :)

Review reply for the guest:

Thanks so much for leaving me a comment! I'm glad that you're enjoying the story and that you like my writing style :D
I'm always worried about writing canon characters, I have to admit, and Kol is a particular challenge xD I'm glad that you think I've got him down good :D
Best!