A/N: Trigger warning for physical abuse and bodily fluids.
"It is from our families that we first learn...all manner of seemingly mundane corporeal action. Before we come to spoken language, we learn to read gesture, arms reaching out to hold us or harm us." - Juana María Rodríguez
"Oh, the body—its hungers, needs, and limitations. You look at somebody and you realize that they're in there, inside there, somewhere, and how will you ever reach them, understand them?" - Richard Siken
Water and a little flesh. That's all a body is. The rest we acquire, tinted by sun and air, bruised by living. But underneath the sediment of years all bodies, the young and the old and the newborn, the ones marked by magic, the ones that become wolf, the ones that die and the ones that don't, all just water. And a little flesh.
So said Sheila Bennett once while she braided Bonnie's hair, explaining why the moon is of immense importance for supernaturals and humans alike. Even the ocean, the body that birthed all bodies, rises and falls to the moon's touch.
Even the world is just that, water and a little flesh.
As she paces around Monique's room, stretched thin and listless in the long hours between sunset and moonrise, her grandmother's words echo sometimes like a prayer, and other times a warning.
"You're making it worse," the girl says hoarsely from the bed. She's sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees, a pale sheen of sweat covering her skin.
"I- okay, I'm sorry, I just - ," Bonnie pauses and tries to get her bearings, running a hand through her hair. "What do you need? Are you hungry? I could make you a sandwich-,"
" - I feel like I'm gonna throw up."
"Oh! -," she grabs a wastebasket and hurries forward, setting it by the bed and watching the girl anxiously, "Here, just -,"
Monique shudders a little and curls up on her side instead. "I'm fine now...thanks."
The closer they drew to the eclipse, the more withdrawn the girl became. Bonnie had spelled her amulet with a variation of the Energy spell so that she could control her shift against the encroaching moon, but watching her small body twitching feverishly, she wonders if she's been foolish to think she could subvert the moon's power with her own. Maybe this is hurting Monique rather than helping her, maybe -
"Can I have a blanket please?"
The request is so simple and polite, so different from her usual flippant tone, that Bonnie is instantly alarmed.
"Of course you can, honey. Do you need anything else? Some water maybe-,"
"No thanks. Just a blanket." She curls a little tighter and visibly shivers.
Bonnie fetches a blanket, recalling the first night she'd done this, before she even knew Monique's name. Then, as now, she feels stymied by helplessness. She almost hates the moon, irrational as that is, for interfering in her ability to comfort this one girl.
Tucking the blanket around the young wolf's thin form, Bonnie brushes a hand over the damp tangled curls of her hair. She wants to comb out the snarled locks and braid it proper, like Grams used to do for her. Taking care of people, blunting their pain is the only way she's ever made sense of the world. A dark thought takes hold that her own child would turn away from her, would feel pain she could do nothing to prevent.
Monique huddles under the blanket, gathering her body closer into itself like a secret.
Water and a little flesh, all it takes to house a soul.
The moon rises fever-yellow in a humid sky. Even the cool mountain air seems malaised, dragging its feet until the moon's ordeal is over.
Bonnie eats a sandwich and takes her prenatal vitamins, pausing to check on Monique before a quick shower. Dressed in a comfortable nightshirt and robe, she tries to busy herself with reading . But the burning yellow moon seems to coat her skin, making concentration nearly impossible.
She reaches for her laptop, wondering if some online window shopping could settle her mind. Many of her clothes are too tight around her waist and hips now, and it won't be long before she needs an entirely different wardrobe. But once again, the unsettling heat of the moonlight dampens her fingers as they try to navigate the keyboard, beads her neck so she has to keep wiping.
The moon's almost taunting her now. Just water and a little flesh, is all you are.
Abandoning her room, Bonnie checks on Monique again. To her relief and envy, the girl seems to have fallen asleep at last.
Too unsettled to rest, she wanders aimlessly through the empty house, eyeing the paintings Klaus had mounted in the hallways. Some of them are vivid, fleshy scenes of battle or lovemaking or religious ecstasy. Others are abstract blends of color, evocative and striking. She doesn't recognize any of the names, but the shapes and images arrest her, make her resent how little her schooling had actually shown her of the world.
Of course, it didn't help that she'd spent most of high school grappling with the supernatural, she muses before a startling black and white illustration of two figures standing on a cliffside being assailed by winged demons. She peers at the inscription. Gustave Doré , Inferno, Canto 21.
It's strange to find the walls of a Montana ranch-house no matter how sprawling decorated with these solemn pieces, and yet they somehow seem to belong. Her mind flickers to the subject she's been avoiding since said subject wandered off into the woods at sunset.
Klaus.
There's a tightening in her chest at the thought of the hybrid. The Energy spell on his amulet was the opposite of Monique's, instead of subduing the emotions associated with the shift his would amplify them and thus strengthen his connection to his wolf.
Who knew what was happening to him in the woods, under this moon-
Is that concern for my wellbeing I hear, little witch?
She shakes off the sound of his voice. Klaus is more than capable of handling himself as well as whatever...demons the eclipse brings to the surface. He's not a child, she doesn't need to worry about him.
Doré's etching catches her eye again, the moonlight yellowing on lines of contorted flesh.
She shuffles quickly away.
It's the best room to watch the eclipse from, located in the westernmost part of the house, with huge windows she once glimpsed when the door was half open.
It's also Klaus' studio.
He's never expressly forbidden entry to the room, but she recalls him carefully unpacking his collection and senses rather than knows that creating art is an even more personal and private matter to him.
Her hand hovers over the doorknob.
The moonlight is red now, its sickly heat from earlier deepened to a hazy kind of burn. Sweat gathers at the base of her scalp.
Maybe if I don't touch anything...
She looks down at her phone. The eclipse is underway.
I'll just watch a little bit and then leave.
The door swings open at her touch, like it's been waiting for her inevitable decision. She wonders if Klaus was in here before leaving for the woods. She smothers one last twinge of guilt.
This is Klaus. He wouldn't have the same hesitations if he was in her place.
Just this one time.
With one last look over her shoulder, Bonnie walks into the room.
The moon burns crimson in the windows, a shadow eating at her side.
Watery red light fills the room as Bonnie stands by a table scattered with paper, half-opened paint tubes and bits of charcoal. There's small pots of water with brushes in them, and sketches in various stages of completion. She averts her eyes from their lines and strokes. She doesn't want to see that side of him, a side he seemingly shows no one. She spots a rag and sponge still wet. A half empty glass of bourbon. Suddenly when she breathes, she can smell his cologne. She's not even sure if Klaus wears cologne, but she can recognize the warm, smoky scent nonetheless.
The moon burns and she stands in a room soaked in his solitude.
People are afraid of the moon, Grams had said. Something scarred that reflects the light. Something small that can stir oceans. They're afraid of their own strangeness, their scars.
She makes to hurry out of the studio, but stumbles a little in the half light and bumps into a table. Shit. A box falls open on the ground, scattering some wooden objects.
Her hand finds a small horse as the face of the moon grows black.
There's the sound of crying, a woman's muffled scream. Then, two figures, one walking swiftly past some trees dragging the other behind.
In the moonlight she sees Klaus, younger, long dirty blond hair brushing his shoulders. The taller man shoves him face-first against a wooden enclosure. She waits for Klaus to retaliate, but he only sags there.
The other man - hard muscled and squeezing something between his hands - stalks up and down. His boots crunch wet earth in a steady, brutal pace.
"Take off your clothes."
"Father, please I-,"
There's a crack, rope hitting flesh. The thing in his hands is a whip, three tails, each with a cruel band of knots.
Again, she waits for Klaus to turn around, to seize that whip and tear it apart.
But he obeys, slowly, head lowered and hair falling around his face. With trembling hands, he removes each item of clothing and sets it carefully aside. His belt, trousers, boots, vest and torn shirt, until he stands before his father naked save for a small silver pendant at his throat.
He's so young, Bonnie realizes. He hasn't yet reached his full height, and his chest caves in a little. A scrawny man-boy, with hands and feet too big for his body.
And then it begins. The whip rises and falls and rises again. Klaus is quiet at first, save for a few shuddering gasps.
It goes on and on. Rope biting flesh with thick, sharp strikes. Soon, it becomes too much for Klaus to endure in silence. He begins to make hoarse, desperate sounds. Sounds more animal than human.
They make Bonnie's skin crawl.
She almost hates him then, hates the thin rattle of his chest and his tear-slimed face, the way he kneels there naked in the dirt, his gangly hands trying to protect his head. She feels sick, a helpless and enraged witness.
Come on Klaus, stand up. Make it stop.
The man Klaus called father pauses in his exertions, breathing hard, sweat running down his arms.
Klaus sways on all fours, his back streaming red.
The man lowers himself beside Klaus, cupping his jaw and turning his face to the dim light. His other hand pushes the damp blond hair gently away. "Open your eyes, Niklaus." His tone is soft and cloying. "I know you're not spent yet. Look, look at what I have."
He holds up a small wooden horse and gives Klaus a shake. The latter's eyes open heavily.
"Did you carve this?"
"Y-yes -"
"And, did you use my hunting knife? Tell the truth now."
Klaus nods, tries to wipe the snot off his face and fails, sagging into his father's arms. The words come out broken and thin. "It's the sharpest knife we have, I was very c-careful, I cleaned and sharpened it each t-time. It was for Henrik, f-for his nameday I wanted -," he gulps.
His father strokes his face, "Go on, I'm listening."
A terrible gleam of hope enters Klaus' eyes. He rushes into a blubbering confession, how he'd worked on the carvings every night for a month, and they weren't very good but he thinks Henrik will like having a set, because it's a set you see, a small army of knights and a dragon for them to battle. Perhaps, if father would permit, he could travel to town after the harvest, trade for some pigment with which to paint the knight's armor and the dragon's scales, so Henrik would have a set as good as any wealthy merchant's son.
"Is that right?" his father's smile doesn't reach his eye. "This little set in here?" He unfastens a small cloth bag from his belt and pries it open. Retrieves a knight and two more horses. "I suppose artistry can provide things even I am unable to."
A ghostly joy blankets Klaus' swollen face.
His father rises up, a booted foot kicking open the wooden door behind them. There's a horrid buzzing of flies around a dark hole in the ground. She sees the gleam of feces and urine. He steps past Klaus into the cesspit.
And Bonnie watches him empty the little wooden toys down that dark hole.
There's a wounded cry and she wants to look away. Klaus crawls on his hands and knees, across the filth and flies, slipping in his exhaustion. She can't close her eyes. He gropes in that foul pit, pulls out his creations one by one.
His father shuts the door, bars it with his knife.
When her eyes adjust to the present the moon has bled and died and returned speckled silver and her hands are full of small wooden toys.
Bonnie puts them back in their box, slowly, sealing the lid with shaking fingers. There a name etched into the corner.
Henrik.
She almost runs from the studio. She needs to take another shower, crawl into her bed and -
- the glow of yellow eyes find her in the dark. A figure slouches into the living room.
Reality becomes too much and so our rational minds kind of shut down, Gloria had explained. The more we step into our powers as magical beings, the more we need to reckon with all our emotion - the good, the bad, the ugly - all of it.
She wonders how she looked to others in those moments she had lost herself and her magic slipped in. Five years old, catatonic with power pulsing through her. Sixteen, watching a vampire's body jerking in flames.
She wonders how she looked to him, desperate and furious on that bridge in Missouri before it broke under them.
"Klaus?" she calls shakily at the hunched figure on the floor. "What-,"
A shudder contorts his frame. He rises onto his hands, limned and naked in the firelight, leaves and dirt clinging to his hair and shoulders. He's not the lanky adolescent she'd glimpsed in the vision, there is no tormentor standing over him, and yet the sight of him like this makes her shrink in embarrassment and terror.
She starts to slowly retrace her steps when his head snaps up. Amber-shot eyes arrest her, burning like twin moons in a slack-jawed, empty face. A face that holds no trace of Klaus.
Yet, seized as he is by the wolf, he makes no move to attack her. Instead he appears caught in the grip of a terrible internal battle of which, she knows, she's already seen more than she was ever meant to.
"Klaus, it's- it's okay. You're safe now, you're better than safe you're the Original Hybrid. You don't have to be afraid-,"
She jumps when a strangled growl escapes his throat, deepening to a howl of pitiful rage. Not rage at her, no. That would be easier. For all that she's seen in her short life, nothing has quite prepared her for this. There's no spell she knows that can pry memory from flesh.
"I - I should go away -" she speaks haltingly. Another half-growl, but no movement. It feels almost accusatory and her voice cracks. "Klaus...I don't know what to do, I'm sorry I - I don't know how to help you -" She wipes her face and realizes she's crying. "It's like you said," she sniffs, "sometimes people are innocent and they- they get hurt anyway, and there's nothing I can do."
Golden eyes watch her. His whole body shivers like under a fever. She gives a hollow laugh and rubs her nose on her sleeve. "I can get you a blanket. A blanket. Dumb, right."
Picking up a russet colored blanket from the couch she brings it hesitantly to his side.
Sweat glistens along the ropy scars on his back, and she remembers the terrible strokes of that whip. She expects him to shrink away, but the wolf's eyes look at her before lowering his head. Bonnie drapes the blanket over his back. He trembles again.
"I'm sorry -,"
"Stay."
The gold is slowly leaving his eyes. He's starting to look like Klaus again, the Klaus she knows. Somehow, that makes his imploration even more frightening. She can't move, pinioned by the image of him groping in the dark for toys he'd carved with his own hands.
She can't find it in her to refuse him.
Averting her eyes as he wraps the blanket around his nude form, she lowers herself to the ground. They both stare into the fireplace in a thickening silence.
"Talk," he says hoarsely.
"...about what?"
"Talk."
"Okay...umm...okay. Talk. I can do that," she chews her lip, her mind going suddenly blank. "... I'm not really a dog person. Wait, that's not what it sounds like. I like dogs it's just I prefer cats, you know? Not that you're a dog, but - Oh god," she breaks off and notices him listening raptly.
"You really just...want me to talk? Just keep talking?"
He leans against the coffee table and closes his eyes.
Bonnie takes a deep breath. "I - well I never learned how to ride a bike. I'd like to, someday, maybe after the baby's born. Yesterday I spent three hours looking at baby clothes online but then it got kinda overwhelming so I didn't buy anything. I need new clothes too. I know, I know, you gave me that Amex card and said 'spend at will, witch' but I can't just suddenly do that -," she pauses, "I guess...I guess having all those new things would make it real in a different way. Anyway...,"
She continues, turning from thoughts to anecdotes to surprising memories. The time she let Caroline convince her to play hooky from school, how they were both caught immediately and grounded for almost a month. The summer Rudy took her with him on a business trip to Minneapolis and she got lost at the Mall of America. The blue tea-set Grams gave her for Christmas. The stray puppy that followed her home and died in her arms soon after. The squirrel she fed that came back and stole her poptarts.
She wishes she had something more to offer with which to counteract his own memories, stories of a beautiful, picket-fence childhood and perfect parents. The kind of childhood everyone is supposed to have, so you grow up whole and happy. So you have all the answers for your own children.
Her hand grazes his, resting side by side. Her eyes travel up the length of his arm to his face. The way he looks at her... She can't quite describe it. Like she's something he's closed his fingers around in the dark, never to let go.
It makes her dizzy.
"You should probably take that off now," she manages, pointing to the amulet on his chest.
Klaus blinks and lowers his head, waiting. Shifting closer, her hands go behind his neck as she lifts the necklace off. His nose brushes her hair and she feels him breathe deep.
"Should I - should I keep talking?" she asks softly, studying his face. His own eyes return her scrutiny with a hunger that feels almost innocent.
"Hogwarts, you made it."
Bonnie quickly scoots away from Klaus, her cheeks aflame as Monique walks in trailing a blanket behind her like a cape.
If the younger wolf noticed anything she stays quiet, choosing instead to plop down next to Bonnie and lay her head in her lap under her baby bump. Bonnie strokes her tousled hair, tentatively at first, then with gentle assurance. "That feels nice," the girl mumbles in a sleepy voice. She seems subtly different, more centered, a little less afraid.
And Bonnie wonders if she's misunderstood all this time what water and flesh can hold, what a childhood is supposed to be, how the moon loves them all.
She continues caressing Monique's hair long after the girl falls asleep. Klaus' eyes, golden once more, follow the motion of her hand.
A/N: This chapter has been in my head almost from the moment I started the fic. That being said, it took a lot out of me emotionally, and touched on some difficult subjects, so I hope I pulled it off. I also did the last edits with a stuffy nose and drowsy from allergy meds, so hopefully I didn't miss anything. Do let me know your thoughts in the reviews! And I wish you all happy holidays and a lovely new year!
P.S: I know my last Author's Note delved into the sensitive subject of abortion, and I wanted to thank each of you who respectfully shared your own views in the comments even when we didn't agree. What's important to me is that we all managed to speak and be heard, with and by each other, without devolving into any kind of personal attacks. So, thank you for being both honest and respectful within our little community, and I look forward to many more conversations.
