Author's note: Sooooo...um...*nervous laughter* I did a thing...there's a longer note at the end to explain the events of this chapter. Enjoy, loves!
Jeremy's return to reality was met with the happiest of tears from the women and even smiles from the sometimes stoic Salvatore brothers. The trip back from the Prison World had gone off without a hitch, much to Caroline's delight. Even Damon was hard-pressed to find any issues to complain about. The second they'd stepped foot back in the present world, Jeremy had been swooped away by Stefan, Caroline, and Elena, the latter two fussing over him and raving about cooking his favorite foods and getting him home to Mystic Falls.
Jeremy, for his part, looked incredibly uncomfortable at the attention. He let himself be led by the two women, but it almost looked as though he wanted to be back in the Prison World.
"It's a mental thing," Damon said softly, watching the trio head up the stairs. "Being back around more than one person was hard for me. Sensory. Overload. It'll take some time."
Bonnie was surprised at his testimony. It was the most sincere and the most human she'd ever seen Damon. It was the first time she saw a spark of something more than snark and bravado. Underneath it all was a man who actually had the ability to care. It was refreshing to see.
"Yeah, being back messed me up so much, I went out and killed a bunch of people," Kai chimed in, effectively ruining the sentiment of the moment. Sensing that he'd made a faux-pas, he pecked Bonnie on the cheek and shuffled towards the foyer. "And on that note...I'm hungry. Gonna go pick up some late night snacks. Want anything?" When the other two shook their heads, he sauntered out the door with a light slam behind him.
"Harry Potter came through." Damon's gaze was shrewd as he looked at Bonnie. "Which, I guess means you did, too."
"Sad you can't renege on the deal you made with Kai?"
"Cute of you to think him holding up his end of the deal has any impact on what I plan to do," he responded, a cynical grin spread across his face. "But in this particular case, it would do me better to work with the royal witchy duo than against."
"It's going to be intense. Going up against them." She quickly met his eye before busying herself with tidying up the room. "I'm glad you're joining us. All of you." In that moment, there was an imperceptible thaw. A camaraderie that could only be forged when going against a common enemy.
It was annoying.
Shaking off the feeling, and Damon seeming to do the same, he held up a bottle of bourbon-seriously, did the guy just keep a bottle in a hidden pocket-and reached for two glasses.
"Yeah, I mean, I guess it all worked out in the end." He handed the tumbler over to her. "Hate to say it, but if you'd followed through with our plan to get rid of Psycho Killer, he wouldn't have been around to get Jeremy out, so kudos to you, Bon-Bon." He held up his glass to toast her.
Bonnie felt the air crackle, an electricity that sliced at her skin. The magic that pulsed around her caused her entire body to go numb with absolute horror.
"What the fuck did you say?"
"Kai…" she slowly turned to face him, her body heavy with dread. She expected anger, rage. Instead, she was slapped with his look of utter betrayal. It was the second time she'd seen it in the last several days, but this one...the pain she saw was immeasurable.
"What the fuck did you just say?" Kai repeated, gaze boring into Damon, who looked like a deer caught in headlights with his palms forward in surrender.
Offering an appeasing-if not slightly insincere-smile, the vampire cocked his head to the side and let out a breath. "Back so soon? Bon-Bon and I, here, were just saying we should have asked for some chips."
"Forgot my wallet," Kai said absently. Having enough sense to realize that he probably wouldn't get any answers from the other man, he put his focus back on Bonnie. "What did he just say?" He was trying to keep his voice calm, but the anger was seeping through the cracks in his armor. "Because it sounds to me like he just said you were conspiring with the Scooby Gang against me."
"Kai…" she was grasping for words, not sure of how to start.
"Yeah, that's my name. You've said it a million times and I already knew that part. Now try answering my question."
"It was before I got to know you," she began softly. "Our first meeting was so aggressive and they told me what you did…" Now that she'd fallen in love with him, any reasoning she'd had back then had been completely unraveled. All her reasons were stupid; they didn't make sense. How could she even explain herself at this point? "You know about my sister. I thought if I helped them with their problem-"
Scoffing incredulously, the hybrid's hands rested on his hips as he clenched his jaw. "So you thought helping some strangers kill another stranger would help you feel better about your dead-for-over-a-century sister. Sound right? Don't you fucking move." The last statement was geared towards Damon, who'd been trying to slink away unnoticed.
"This is obviously a lover's quarrel. There's no need for me to stand here and make it weird." He made a big show of shuffling towards the stairs, no doubt to get the others out of the house.
Kai made a fist, stopping the other man dead on his tracks with his magic. "What was the plan, Bonnie?"
She shook her head, refusing to answer, knowing that if she did, they might not ever be able to come back from it. "It doesn't matter, Kai. What matters is that I didn't go through with it. Because I love you so much. I could never-"
"No," he barked, startling her. "You don't get to say that to me." He pivoted towards Damon. "You're going to tell me what the plan was, or I'll squeeze your heart until it pops like a fucking berry." To prove his point, he brought his fist close to his chest, causing Damon to stagger and grip the side of the couch.
The older vampire's eyes met Bonnie's and she could almost see an apology in his blue orbs. "We knew you had a thing for her," Damon bit out, taking a pained breath as his heart constricted, "so we thought we could use her to get close to you and figure out the best way to kill you." The hold on him was relinquished and he fell to the ground, gasping for air.
The hybrid stood perfectly still, giving away nothing save for the facial tick as he ground his teeth together. He turned so that his entire body was facing her. "Well, that was smart, wasn't it, Bonster? Using the asshole hybrid's limited feelings against him? Cold, calculated." He said it like he was impressed, but the ice belying his words pierced her painfully.
"Stupid. It was so stupid." She stepped forward and reached towards him, but he backed away from her, his body rigid. "Of course I didn't go through with it. I wouldn't be here if that was the case."
"Everything has been a lie."
"No, it hasn't. You heard Damon. He said I didn't move forward with it."
"Our entire relationship has been based on a fucking lie," he shouted, the room vibrating as objects began to shatter around them. "Who the fuck cares if you went through with it?"
Discerning the potential for a violent episode, Bonnie got Damon's attention. "Go upstairs, get everybody out of here." The vampire immediately blurred out, eager to get Elena to safety.
"Bonster is so, so sweet and loyal, isn't she?" her fellow hybrid mocked, grinning darkly. "So afraid that evil-Kai will hurt them."
"That's not it; I'm not afraid of you," she said softly, "but when we're angry, it tends to manifest itself in a very physical way." She closed the distance between them and curled her hand around his bicep. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. There-"
"Manifests physically? How? Like this?" His fingers aimed at the couch, which immediately caught fire. Another quick spell rebuffed her, causing her to relinquish her hold.
Bonnie stumbled a few feet before righting herself and extinguishing the fire with a flick of her wrist. "Kai, stop it. I didn't tell you because it has no bearing on our relationship. I stopped it once you and I-"
"Once you and I what?" Surprising her, he encroached upon her space and wrapped his arms around her waist. Others watching the scene would think that they were caught in a lovers' embrace, but Bonnie sensed the sinister edge that lurked underneath his skin. "Once I kissed you?" His lips tickled her ear as he leaned in close. "Once I placed my tongue against your clit?" He held onto her when she tried to squirm away. "Maybe once I slid my cock into you the first time."
She scoffed in disgust and grabbed his forearms, pouring magic through her hands until they singed him and he let go. "Don't be an asshole."
"You're the one who did all those things with me to fatten me up for slaughter, Bonnie." He was yelling. "You're the fucking asshole."
"I never went through with it," she screamed back. "I wouldn't hurt you. I love you, Kai, you know that."
"Stop fucking saying that," he spit out. "How can you even say that to me with a straight face? You love me? You've been lying to me since the day we met. All that bullshit about you agreeing to get to know me, that was just so you could figure out my weak spots? You knew that all I wanted was a chance with you and you used it against me."
"You left a dead woman on my doorstep the day after I met you," she bit out exasperatedly. She acknowledged, deep down, that she was in the wrong here. But there was a part of her that wanted to fight back, that still resented him. "And all the stories about you. The fact that you killed your family, Kai. I'm sorry, but for all intents and purposes, you were not a good guy on paper."
"But it wasn't your fucking fight, Bonnie. You put yourself in a position to kill a guy you didn't even know. And you're so pious, right? You ever stop to think how you look on paper? How Stefan looks? Damon? You have a hundred years on me and you're telling me, in that time, you've done nothing you regret?"
"I admit that I made a quick, uninformed decision. And I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I didn't think it mattered once we got closer and they knew I wasn't going to move forward."
"You know why it matters?" His tone was harsh, critical. "Because now it puts into question every moment we had together. Because now, I'm running through every second we spent with each other and I think 'did she do that because she wanted to pull information out of me? Or does she actually love me? Or even like me?' Because the trust I had in you is gone, Bonnie. All of it."
She was completely taken aback by the comment, and the rage left her like a deflating balloon. "Kai, I love you so much. And every single intimate act we've done has been because I adore you. I would never use sex to get anything out of you."
"You would never use sex, but you'd use my feelings, right?" Scoffing, he stared down at the spot on the ground, teeth clenched. "You're such a fucking hypocrite."
She stared at him, slack-jawed. "How am I a hypocrite?" Her anger started to creep back in, blinding her to the bigger picture.
"So we're playing the dumb? That's not a cute look on you, Bonnie. You really need me to spell it out? We literally just fought about it. As I recall, you told me that I couldn't be trusted and that I was keeping things from you. That I wasn't who you thought I was. Ringing any bells?"
She remained tight-lipped, reluctantly-albeit silently-acknowledging his point.
"You made me feel like absolute shit, Bonnie. You said some terrible things to me." A dark chuckle escaped his lips. "And like the lovesick puppy, I admitted I was wrong. I apologized. And that whole fucking time, you were sitting on this monumental fucking secret. The audacity, Bonnie, to look me in the eye, to tell me where I went wrong."
"Kai…"
"What the fuck can you even say right now? You wanted to kill me." He was practically roaring, his blue hues darkened with hate. Hate that hurt her to the very core. "You have the nerve to tell me you love me when you once held a knife to my heart. You were going to destroy me." He sucked in a sharp breath. "You fucking disgust me."
Curling into herself as though punched, Bonnie could finally see, now, where he was coming from. The gravity in what she'd done, in her dishonesty. "Kai, I'm sorry. You're right, I'm so sorry. I should've told you. And me hiding something so extreme from you, I had no right to get pissed about you keeping Jeremy from the group." Her words were frantic, coming out in rapid succession. "But you have to know that the only reason I didn't say anything was because I didn't want you to assume that I was still involved in some kind of nefarious plot. I swear we all let it go, Kai. It wasn't even a thought on my radar once we became close. It's why I tried so hard to create peace between all of you, so that we could just move forward. Be happy."
"Are you even listening to yourself? How am I the emotionally mature one in this? You're still making excuses for what you did. The nerve, Bonnie, the fucking nerve." His mouth was so tense, she was afraid that he would crack his teeth. "You didn't even give me a chance. You didn't even try to find out how I'd react, you just assumed." Shaking his head in disbelief, he met her gaze. "The sickest part? I love you so much, I probably would have accepted it and moved on. But, no. You took this lie and you built on it. You let me fall completely in love with you and then, I have to find out from Asswipe? Were you ever going to tell me?"
She was chastised into silence, unable to formulate words.
Her silence spoke volumes.
"I see." He nodded and took a deep breath, rotating his neck as though working out a kink. When he glanced at her again, his face was completely stoic, impassive.
A chill went up her spine. It always made her nervous when Kai got like this. When he completely shut himself down, none of her words were going to get through to him. "But I see where I was wrong. I'm sorry, Kai. I'm shit at all this. Close relationships, love...I thought I was doing what was best, but I was so, so wrong." Her breath shuttered in her chest. "But I do love you. I know you doubt that, but I could never fake how much I love you."
"We're done." He said the words with a finality that felt like a guillotine to her neck.
"What? Kai, no."
"The first time I thought I had love and acceptance and it was based on a lie," he said softly, his tone flat and devoid of emotion. "But I appreciate it, Bonster. Lesson learned. I won't ever assume I could have it again." She saw a flicker of something flash in his orbs, but it was quickly muted. Still, she saw it for what it was. It was the rejection he felt knowing that their relationship started out for all the wrong reasons.
She blurred forward until she was practically on top of him. "I don't accept this. It doesn't matter how we started. What matters is that we're real. You were the one who told me, Parker, we're kindred. It's you and me." Frustrated at his lack of reaction, she lurched forward desperately, capturing his lips.
For a brief moment, Kai kissed back and relief flooded her insides. However, it ended all too soon and he pulled away. His eyes were still dull and he sighed sadly. Kissing her forehead tenderly, he then let his lips graze her ear. "Just needed one more for the road."
Startled, Bonnie barely got a chance to react before his hands sandwiched her face, snapping her neck.
Everything turned to black.
So, confession time. Back when I first started this story, it was intended to be this lovely fun romp featuring two awesomely magical badasses who kinda end up falling in love. Bonnie and Kai vs. the World. However, my amazing writing partner has been really supportive, which has allowed me to push my creative boundaries. As you recall, I had previously thought this would only last for 10-13 chapters. I never thought I could aim for anything longer because a)I'm not prolific and b)I tend to lack confidence in my abilities to build a world robust enough to deal with a heavier plot. She gave me some really impactful feedback, which changed the trajectory of this story. It's 100% still going to be a HEA piece, but the path there just got a bit more windy. Adore you, all