While You Were Sleeping
She's having a nightmare.
He can tell by the way her nose scrunches in discomfort, the way the veins in her neck slightly pulse and ebb with each clench of her jaw, how a slight sheen of sweat coats her forehead, from the small whimpers that occasionally spill from her plump lips.
It's adorable, really.
When he'd awoken, it had been to his abrupt disappointment when he'd discovered that their bodices were on complete opposite sides of the bed. But he couldn't even bring himself to be irritated.
Because it ultimately didn't matter that they'd awoken apart. What mattered was that they were together in the first place.
Because if you'd asked him what was going through his mind when he'd decided to curl up against her sleeping state, he'd only have one answer.
He'd just wanted to touch her.
And it was as simple as that.
It was a need that'd spread over him slowly. The longer she laid there, mere spaces away from him, the more his fingers itched to curl around the soft curves of her waist. Her body heat and vanilla scent wavered over and caressed his skin, but it didn't warm him enough, and the lack of contact between their bodies became unbearable. He couldn't help himself from tightly slotting himself against her.
He'd just wanted to feel the delicate fluttering of her heart against his rib cage, and hear each inhale and exhale of her shallow breath, reminding him that this was real, that he finally had her all to himself.
That he had finally gotten what he'd wanted.
Well, not quite what he'd wanted, but this was only the first step.
Because now it was a bit hard for his brain to remember what he had really wanted from her before being trapped in 1903. He'd become so grossly saturated in his revenge fantasy and his constant obsessive thoughts of causing her pain, that the notion of gaining her forgiveness had become a mere memory that'd floated farther and farther away from his grasp each time a pair of Heretic fangs punctured themselves into his skin.
And then, to make matters worse, he'd turned. His perceptions and emotions became excruciatingly heightened and muddled to the point where he could really only bare to keep grasp of a singular and familiar burning anger.
He'd been momentarily confusing and melding emotions together, after the merge, and that suffocating mess of emotions only grew stronger with his transformation. Everything he'd felt was equally painful as it was unbelievably confounding.
So he acknowledged the only thing that had managed to surface above the sea of jumbled emotions: resentment.
It was that carnal and fiery feeling of rage and hurt that had settled deep in his gut and soon bled over anything and everything else he could have possibly been feeling. He had grabbed onto it and it anchored him to reality, kept him from floating into the dark abyss of inherent insanity that he knew was chipping away at his resolve little by little.
It gave him clarity. It gave him a new purpose. It allowed him to sleuth, and to plan, and to calculate.
It allowed him to remember that she was supposed to suffer for what she had done to him.
He'd wanted to watch her spirit break and crumble. He'd wanted to watch her desperately and pleadingly attempt to put the pieces back together, only for him to viciously rip them apart again. He'd wanted her to be so broken and hopeless that she'd surrender to her suffering, and allow him to mold her soul into something ugly, and vile.
He'd wanted to make her unfixable.
And then kill all of her annoying friends as the cherry on top of his revenge-fantasy sundae, of course.
It was what they'd all deserved.
But then she had gone and distracted him, had gone and worried the tender skin of a perfectly plump lower lip between her teeth. A perfect lower lip that he quickly began to realize should've been worried, sucked, and abused by him.
She had all but bludgeoned him off his searing path of revenge with her unintentional seduction, until he was mindlessly staring at her mouth like a cuckolded dimwit. And then he simply couldn't think about anything other than her teeth tugging at her supple lips until Damon Salvatore decided to walk in and ruin the moment.
It was a damn shame, really.
He's not so sure what her reaction had been in the moments leading up to Damon's arrival. He had been too busy selfishly worming his body closer to hers. He'd been too busy focusing on other...things. Things that made the blood race in his veins, his brain dizzy with lust, and his mouth drag open in pleasured anticipation.
But then the "best friend" had decided to grace them with his excruciatingly late presence. And if he's being honest, it wasn't too hard to get back on track after that.
Damon's mere existence simply irritated him to no end.
And so he was truly ready to end them both, had her deliciously bright magic thrumming through his fingertips and flooding through his veins. He'd held Damon Salvatore's pathetic and narcissistic life so beautifully primed to be crushed between his fingers.
He had been so...close.
But then she had started to reason with him. Had hacked at the already cracked and fractured remains of his soul in a way that had actually gotten to him.
And he truly, genuinely wondered how she did it.
He'd been gone, albeit a little distracted, but his dark desire to ruin Bonnie Bennett had sent him tumbling back into that familiar sociopathic void that had no means of escape. And yet she'd somehow wrenched his pre-1903 and post-merge self out from the thoroughs of the lost and vengeful person he'd become. She'd reassembled the broken, black and charred pieces of his heart into something almost salvageable.
Key word being almost.
Even still, she had been right, of course.
About his disgusting and outright pathetic feelings driving his revenge.
Because despite the hatred, the resentment, the darkness that shrouded him like a tarring second skin, she'd been right.
She had been right about every last bit of it.
She'd deliberately fed that desperate parasite inside of him, the one that'd latched onto his soul the minute he'd discovered she'd returned to the real world, and the one he thought he'd squashed once she'd turned around and left him in 1903. She'd used cajoling words, used a raspy and unusually tender tilt to her voice to finally satiate the monster that'd begged and screamed for her approval, and still screamed for it. And he knows that in that moment, she was manipulating him, and was bending his disgusting parasitical feelings to her will.
Except, that desperate parasite, he just couldn't bring himself to care.
Because now it all just makes him wish he could go back to that blissful moment in time before the merge, back when Bonnie Bennett meant nothing to him.
He wishes he could go back to when he couldn't even fully enjoy the fact that she was the first girl he'd seen in 20 years, because she quickly became an obstacle, one who'd he'd have to thwart to finally escape his prison world.
He wanted to go back to when he'd had to lie when accounting all the characteristics of hers he'd "admired" under the crescent light of the eclipse in the caves.
Because in all honesty, he didn't admire her bravery. He thought it made her stupid and reckless. And he didn't admire her patience because he'd practically written the book on patience, or grudge holding (whichever one came first). He couldn't even admire her loyalty because it had been given to people undeserving of it. It had been given to people who'd had the nerve to be late to their supposed best friends' death sentence.
To people like Damon Salvatore.
More than anything, he wanted to go back to when he'd been telling the truth when he'd said that Bonnie Bennett wasn't all that great.
Because the only thing that he'd ever truly admired her for, was the fact that she'd bested him.
She'd hid her magic in the same object he'd tried to use as a pawn of manipulation. She beat him. And he'd hated her for it.
Because Kai Parker never loses.
There's really only one other person in his life who had managed to best him, and that person had landed him in a prison world for 18 years.
He doesn't count his little brother Joey, who used to beat him in Dr. Mario on the new Nintendo.
He hadn't been trying very hard to win back then.
And he hadn't been trying very hard when he'd gripped onto Joey's neck and forced his body underneath clear pool water until the skin underneath his fingers turned blue and the succinct sound of cartilage cracking reached his ears.
And he knows that he shouldn't, has no right to, but sometimes he misses his siblings.
He misses the sound of several feet padding along the hard wood of the family room below his. Misses the hand turkeys, and the colorful school artwork splayed crookedly on the refrigerator, and the matching christmas sweaters, and the plastic toys littered along the front lawn.
And sometimes, he feels sorry. For what he did to them. At least after the merge happened, he did.
It was like every emotion; everything he should have felt; the grief, the shame, the profound sadness, came crashing onto him all at once, like he was finally remembering what he did.
It was unbearable.
It was like Luke was inside him, and he was peeling his eyes open. And his eyes stayed open until he could see them and only them, and himself for what he truly was.
He'd felt the anguish he should've felt while he remembered how Josette lay whimpering on the floor with her face twisted in grief and a gash in her stomach. Feel the disgust he should've felt every time a tendril of excitement ran down his spine in tandem with each bash of his baseball bat against Ricky's face, until the blood had dripped and his skull caved.
He would've happily gone on feeling sorry for himself, feeling sorry about what he'd done to his siblings, write thousands of letters to Jo only to burn them all and start over again when his tears began to smudge the ink. He would've happily left Luke to assault his conscious to the best of his abilities, but then Damon had to go and mention that she was back.
And it was worse somehow. Worse in a different way.
With his siblings, his guilty conscious made him remorseful and sick.
But with Bonnie, it was different. It hurt.
Like a knife was being plunged into his own abdomen and being twisted and twisted until he remembered every single detail of agony that had been etched onto her pretty features when he'd plunged his own knife into her.
None of the siblings he had killed or attacked had to suffer for as long as she had.
And he'd even gone and cried for her. Cried so hard that he'd nearly passed out from exhaustion. It was the first time he had ever felt thoroughly disgusted with himself. It was like something dark and ugly had twisted around him and finally showed him his own monstrous reflection.
And then she had consumed his every thought in the nights leading up to the rave.
Sometimes, he'd think about the way those cat-like eyes of hers would turn sharp and then darken with fervor when she got angry with him. It was a look that he had seen a thousand times before back in '94, but it's a look that she had reserved just for him. He'd even memorized the way her Cupid-bow lips would pucker and twist in discontent when her attention settled on him.
He liked her anger, when it was directed at him. He could practically taste the fire on his tongue, it was that visceral. And though her face would remain cruel and composed, the heat in her eyes gave her away. And he could feel her magic blazing and flickering, unsteadily, threateningly, like she was a breath away from exploding.
He liked her anger because he knew that she wasn't normally like this, even after covertly witnessing countless of her arguments with Damon. She was usually demure, selfless, rational, moral; she was a little firecracker sure, but she always reigned herself in in the end.
But with Kai, her control slipped so easily and messily from her determined grip, which was how he'd ended up with a pickax straight in his heart that first time he'd pushed her over the edge.
On the other end of the spectrum, some of his other thoughts about her, were disgustingly optimistic illusions that had churned and festered in his head to the point where he had actually begun to believe them.
He'd consequently filled his head to the brim with those delusions of her finally forgiving him and reluctantly agreeing to a tentative friendship. A friendship that would then eventually become something more.
And that is what made him hurt that much worse when he'd first felt the tip of her knife twist into his leg.
But it wasn't as if he was in love with her, God no.
He didn't love anyone.
Not even Jo, or Joey, or Liv, or any of his other siblings. Definitely not Luke.
As a sociopath, he'd had soft spots for certain people, or weaknesses as he'd liked to call them, never love.
Because as much as he'd thought about Bonnie Bennett post-merge, and about the things about her that made him feel disgustingly soft and infatuated, after he'd been trapped in 1903, he'd thought about a hundred times more about the things he hated about her.
Those dark thoughts would flit through his mind right in those airy moments when he was dangling in between consciousness. Those thoughts breathed through all of the substratal hurt he'd felt at her betrayal.
He'd thought about her self-righteousness, her hypocritical reluctance to trust him, her stubbornness. He'd thought about her scent, her lips, her eyes, her skin, how the jaded green of her eyes looked against her skin. Thought about popping those gorgeous emerald eyes straight out of her skull. About watching crimson liquid drip from those succulent Cupid-bow lips. He'd thought about the exact shade of purple that would sprinkle her dewy caramel skin when he was done with her.
Because she didn't deserve the right to be so breathtaking, and so cruel.
He'd thought an awful lot about crushing and mutilating each aspect of hers that made her so painfully beautiful to him, with his bare hands.
And he's honestly surprised he hasn't eaten her yet, what with all the violent thoughts of mangling her stroking his conscious.
He hadn't fed all night. And according to Mama Salvatore, he should be through with transitioning. He had already tasted his first drop of human blood off of the skin of his dying fathers' face, and even though it was enough to complete the transition, he knew that it wouldn't be enough to satisfy his cravings.
Even still, when he'd buried his nose into the supple skin of her neck last night, and ran it along its throbbing carotid artery, he hadn't been overwhelmed with the need to bite into her delicious smelling flesh. He supposes that he could attribute his stunted hunger to his witch side, maybe his siphoning abilities have somewhat suppressed his instincts.
But there's this dark feeling that's wafted over him at the prospect of feeding. It's a feeling that tells him that if he had fed on Bonnie last night, he wouldn't have been able to stop. Not because he has no self control, but because he has no self control when it comes to her.
His body shudders as he imagines the hot spurts of potent and ancient witch blood splashing against the insides of his throat.
Bonnie jolts awake besides him, consequently jerking him out of his deep contemplation, almost as though she can hear his thoughts of devouring her.
He merely watches as muddy green eyes lock on his and then widen in a sort of comical manner. He hears the way her heart races at the sight of him and his eyes zero in on her dainty fingers tightly gripping onto the bed sheets under her.
He has to prevent the corner of his lip from quirking upwards at her unbridled astonishment and consequent fear at the mere sight of him.
Clearly, someone had forgotten that he was still here.
It's oddly hilarious, watching her physically fight the urge to scramble away from him. How he can practically smell the nervousness rolling off of her skin in waves.
He decides against laughing at her, though the cruel intention is bubbling up his throat before he can help it.
He decides instead that he wants to coddle her.
Because amusing as it was, something bitter placed itself in Kai's mouth at her frightened reaction to him. If they were going to be able to move forwards together, do the whole water under the bridge thing as she'd promised, he needed to show her that he was capable of caring; that he wasn't always the biting monster she thought him to be.
They needed to rebuild a foundation. Of what he wasn't sure. Trust would have to come later, as it took much longer to build; which he knew, he wasn't an idiot. But he needed to be calculated enough, gentle enough with her so that she wouldn't fear him, so he could get close enough. Which meant that for the time being, he needed to remain in control of his disorganized feelings, and needs to keep those dark thoughts he has about her from surfacing.
He watches as she takes a deep breath to steady her heart beat. She briefly squeezes her eyes shut before propping herself on her elbow. His large Nirvana t-shirt slightly slides off her shoulder blade, revealing the slight dip of her clavicle. Her caramel skin glows as the bone juts out, and the mere sight of the exposed skin makes her look like the perfect image of temptation.
His mouth goes dry.
Like, so insanely dry it's to the point where if he tried to swallow, it'd feel like two sheets of sandpaper rubbing together.
The heat that rushes through him and pools in his stomach is sudden and reckless, and before he can help himself, he's getting blistering images of his hot tongue curling and lapping at the dip of her clavicle.
And his gums really itch.
He should probably leave before he tears through the curvature of that pretty little, dewy neck of hers. Before that darn control he was talking about goes straight out the window.
But he somehow manages to stem the hunger and yearning that's threatening to burst through his veins, and makes sure his new fangs don't pop out prematurely.
Instead he flashes her a dazzling, fangless grin and tries not to let it slip when she slightly flinches again in response.
"Sleep well?"
.
.
"Y-yeah."
It's a lie and they both know it.
What's really unnerving her is the fact that she can't tell whether he's being sarcastic or not.
He must have noticed her mini panic attack, and by the way she'd awoken in a cold sweat, surely he'd have noticed that she was having a nightmare.
She tries not to flinch a second time as he suddenly moves towards her. The bed dips under his transferred weight and a large ringed hand delicately brushes a tendril of brown hair away from her face. Her eyes narrow as she keeps her gaze rock steady on his, and tries not to shiver uneasily at the feel of his torrid fingers against her skin.
When she'd awoken this morning, this was not the Kai Parker she had been expecting.
Albeit, she hadn't really been expecting anyone at all. There had been a brief moment—probably only a few seconds—where she had awoken so jarred and discombobulated from her nightmare, that she'd felt suspended in time, forgetting where she was and who she was, and then reality came crashing down on her as she took in her surroundings and the man staring at her expectantly from the side of the bed. And then, the longer she stared at him, the more she expected to see the brutal, unfeeling, Kai Parker from the wedding hall.
She expected to have to walk on eggshells this morning, to prepare herself for an onslaught of vicious interactions, or at least wake up chained to a chair or drugged in some capacity.
What she was not expecting was this—this tender Kai Parker.
She thinks that's what scares her the most about him; his unpredictable nature. He's dark and cruel one second, then gentle and innocuous the next.
She had allowed him to brush hair from her face, if only to study him, to see if he still had some deep seated anger ready to explode from inside of him from one wrong move from her. But by the way his jaw slackened when he looked at her, the way he took his sweet time in brushing the strands delicately into place, and from the way his shoulders drooped unguardedly, she knows an early altercation isn't what she should be concerned about.
He reminds her of the boy from the diner, the one who she could berate and insult and not worry about getting levitated or choked in response. Not that she had a problem with berating any of the previous versions of him. But the point is, she doesn't need to be as hyper-cautious as she once was, and she no longer needs to halt her tongue or actions to ensure her life.
Which is why she's not afraid when she firmly bats his hand away from her face after she decides that he has been lingering for too long.
"What are you doing?"
Her voice comes out a little snarkier and slightly more contentious than she had meant it to, and so she silently prepares herself for a harsh rebuttal despite her previous knowledge of his placidness. He merely shakes his head, facing the sheets below them, so all she can see is the rough outline of a dimple poking out of his left cheek to show that he is indeed smiling and not planning her demise.
She's suddenly reminded of the terrifying thought she'd had of him the night before, when he'd decided to press himself against her, when he'd let out that deeply sated sigh of relief. She waves the thought violently from her memory.
And she doesn't wait for him to respond to her question; she has a feeling that she wouldn't like the answer either way.
"How did you do it?"
Her voice is softer this time, and she hopes he doesn't notice her overt attempt at changing the subject.
Cobalt eyes glance up to hers in confusion.
"How did you undo the spell? I mean, you said that there was no loophole, that I wouldn't be able to undo it."
Kai pauses, as if at a loss of words, he blinks a bit blankly at her before his face snaps back into a playful smile.
"Well of course you wouldn't be able to undo it, silly."
Bonnie raises a perfectly arched eyebrow in response, and her eyes follow his form as he unceremoniously lifts himself off the bed. His long sleeve shirt stretches across his broad chest as he rises, the hem rides up slightly revealing a hardened expanse of smooth skin.
She quickly adverts her eyes.
"I siphoned it, duh. I wasn't lying when I said you wouldn't be able to use magic to undo it. It would've killed you, which is why I did it, which took me like, 12 seconds by the way."
Bonnie lets out small incredulous laugh, her tongue coming to cluck at the roof of her mouth, and her face turning away from his line of sight. Of course all it took to unlink a powerful Gemini spell from her best friend was a bit of siphoning.
"Anyways, I have to go meet up with some...friends. You can help yourself to whatever's in the mini fridge or order room service. I'll be back around 1-2 hours from now."
Bonnie stares at him incredulously, somehow shocked both at how calvilear he's being, and at how he could possibly expect her to sit around and wait for him. Is he just going to leave her? With no fresh clothing, alone in a hotel room, in the middle of God knows where?
He clearly doesn't notice the outraged look that's begun to twist her features, as he hastily rips his black peacoat from the coat hanger in the closet and steps into worn boots.
She doesn't even bother to mention to him that he's still wearing his pajamas as the door shuts succinctly behind him.
.
.
When he had first met Elena Gilbert, he had been intrigued by her.
She was beautiful, had been one of the first living breathing females he'd been in contact with on the outside. She had meant something to Damon, which of course interested him in a way only sociopaths could be interested.
It had thrilled him when he'd felt the white hot flames lick and singe through his timberwolves shirt, only to realize that it was her doing. So he'd tried some shameless flirting, back when he'd kidnapped her, maybe to push her limits, see if she was as susceptible to the bad boy charm as everyone said she was. She was like one of those perfectly wrapped toys covered in gold and glittering wallpaper.
But then, as he spent more time with her, and began to unravel all the layers that made her novel and glow in the eyes of those Salvatore brothers, he had only been left to find something intrinsically dull.
Elena Gilbert was the dictionary definition of boring.
Much like a one trick pony.
Which is why he can't for the life of him understand why people like Bonnie Bennett and Damon Salvatore cared so much about her well being.
He had been doing them all a favor if you asked him; putting her frail human body under a sleeping curse would guarantee that she wouldn't somehow get herself killed.
Because if his memory of stalking Damon and Bonnie in '94 serves him correctly, Elena Gilbert was basically nothing more than a pawn used for personal gain in Mystic Falls—which consequently put a certain Bennett witch at her beck and call.
It's a shame that all that fuss and sacrifice was all in the name of someone as horrifically uninteresting as Elena Gilbert.
Bonnie Bennett however...
"...Kai. Have you been listening?"
Pin-straight auburn hair invades his vision. Lily Salvatore stands rim-rod straight before him, her arms crossed over her light pink cardigan as he sits on one of the fancy chairs in the living room of the mansion they had rented out before the wedding.
He had cloaked it to ensure that Lily held up her end of the deal; give him her blood, and he would uncloak her family of misfits. He would've brought Bonnie to the mansion as his first option of residency, but the rest of the Heretics don't technically know what happened with Bonnie last night and have most likely presumed her to be dead, but he's sure they'll eventually figure out all the nitty gritty details without his help.
And the other reason why he didn't bring Bonnie here, of course, was for privacy reasons...
"Huh? Oh yeah...totally."
Though he hadn't been listening listening, he knew enough to get the gist of what Lily Salvatore had been droning on and on about. The importance of keeping a low profile, no mundane killings, staying away from the Salvatore brothers, something about business with someone named Lorenzo, yada, yada, yada.
He'd been mindlessly playing with the tea tray set on the table in front of him. His nimble fingers would rip open sugar packets and make a pile of grains behind his tea cup every time Lily Salvatore gave that forlorn and slightly exasperated look at the other Heretics, the one where her eyebrows scrunched and her mouth drooped, like she's about to cry.
Nora smacks his hand away from the sugar packets.
He sends her a dirty look as she sits sort of slouched in the chair across from him and pretends to inspect her nails with an overwhelmingly manicured eyebrow slightly quirked.
Bitch.
He still holds a resentment for the Heretics, sure. They weren't exactly the nicest group of snooty early 20th century British people he'd ever met. Especially not since they'd practically used his body as an all you can eat Buffet until it was time to concoct a plan of escape, but he needed these people. They were basically the last of his coven (and no he's not going to allow himself to waste time feeling like shit about killing the rest). The Heretics were what fueled his Gemini leader magic, and without them, he'd just have the magical capacity of a slightly above average warlock. And they were also valuable for information. They were old, but smart. They knew about powerful curses and spells and historical coven events that occurred centuries before he was even born.
Which is the sole reason for why he had even bothered to come here in the first place.
He needed...information on a Gemini related question.
But he made a calculated decision to wait until after Lily left to do business with this Lorenzo guy. Nora and the blonde Heretic—the one who used to take large and sloppy bites out of his carotid—immediately start to complain about the lack of freedom Lily's been granting them, while Valarie leaves the room to go God knows where.
Well, it was better late than never.
Kai clears his throat, abruptly cutting through all the whining and successfully diverting the attention to himself. He makes sure to flash his most blindingly condescending grin before speaking because he can see Nora's feline eyes narrow out of the corner of his vision.
"Hey so, totally off topic, but I was wondering if any of you guys knew anything about siphoning curses."
He steadies his look at Nora pointedly, whose eyes have narrowed even more, if possible.
What he really wanted to ask was if any of them knew if there was a way to be turned into a siphon via witchcraft, but they weren't there in the conversation yet.
"And why do you want to know about siphoning curses?"
It was the annoying blonde one, Mary-Anne or whatever her name was. She steps a bit protectively in front of Nora's chair, as if to shield his gaze from her, and he has to physically resist the urge to scoff.
"No reason."
He replies glibly, but clenches his jaw when he sees Malcom steady a disbelieving look at him.
"Ugh fine, you got me. I'm just curious about our history is all. I mean, when I was Gemini leader—still am, by the way, in case any of you have forgotten— there was practically nothing in the archives about siphoners. Those pesky Geminis really tried their darndest to erase everything, as I'm sure you all know."
Thelma and Louise stare blankly at him.
"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you guys aren't interested in learning more about your own heritage?"
He looks around when he is met with dead silence, even giving an imploring look to Beau, momentarily choosing to ignore the fact that he is the only one who quite literally can't give him an answer.
"You're better off searching for an answer in NOLA. They've got all kinds of resources, including information on the Gemini coven if my memory serves me correctly."
The mousy one, Valerie who was apparently eavesdropping from outside the room, enters and crosses his chair to snatch a crumpet off of the tea table.
Kai slowly nods his head to himself. He's never been to NOLA but he's heard a few things about it's magical history. It'd be a good place to start, after all. He'll have to ask Valarie later if there are any specific witches she'd recommend.
"Well, alright then. This has really, truly been a riveting conversation, but unfortunately I have to go and be literally anywhere else but here."
He quickly pats the arms of the chair before springing to his feet and snatching four crumpets to stuff into his pajama pockets.
He's thankful that the Heretics don't question his sudden exit, nor do they inquire about where he's staying. It's better this way if they remain uncaring about him. He keeps his alliance with his coven, and they stay out of his business.
It's a win win if he ever did see one.
He breaks off a piece of crumpet and shoves it into his mouth, as he strolls down the street. The flakey breading doesn't taste quite as good as he remembers it to. It's lack of flavor is actually kind of off-putting to say the least, but he keeps whistling, ignores the weird looks he gets from old ladies walking their dogs, and continues on his trek back.
He ultimately decides though, as he rounds a familiar apartment complex, that he can afford to make a quick pit stop.
.
.
Bonnie wastes no time the minute Kai exists the room.
Her cellphone practically explodes with the sheer amount of messages she's received from her friends. But she won't read them, not until after she gets to Whitmore.
It takes her a while too. A thirty minute uber ride and a walk all the way to the front entrance of the college.
There's no one in the dorm when she gets there. She takes the opportunity to shower, scrubs at the uneasiness lingering on her skin from the nightmare she had, and changes into a fresh set of clothing. She dusts some foundation against the tender welts forming around the sides of her neck. If she presses hard enough, she can feel phantom prints of Kai's rings pressing into the delicate skin. She can already feel the inquiring gazes of pity that would scan her throat if she hadn't, feel Damon's proding eyes, and the castigation on the tip of his tongue.
She adds more foundation.
Against her better judgment, she decides to pack a backpack with clothing and toiletries, for when she eventually returns to the hotel, before Kai realizes she's gone.
She hasn't read the messages even when she steps onto the patio of the boarding house. She can see Tyler and Caroline's cars parked on the lawn out front, so she's not sure why she's surprised when she swings open the large wooden doors and sees everyone.
She hasn't even gotten the chance to take a breath before her bones are quite literally being crushed in a hug. There's two people on her, and she can't quite see because there's too many tendrils of hair obscuring her vision, but she can determine her best friends from the familiar perfume and the sets of nimble fingers curling around her shoulders and neck. That and the incessant blubbering coming from Caroline in particular.
She lets out a deep sigh of contentment. Knowing that her best friends, that Elena is safe, after everything they've been through, is all that really matters to her.
"Alright, alright, lets not kill Bon Bon before we even have the chance to have her back."
It's Damon, whose tall form she can barely make out over Caroline's pointed shoulder. Elena has long since detangled herself from Bonnie, but Caroline seems determined to hold onto her for as long as physically possible. And if she's being completely honest, Bonnie's grateful for it. She hadn't felt this savored in a long time.
Elena gingerly peels Caroline away from her, and Bonnie takes a tentative first step in Damon's direction, before abruptly stumbling into his arms.
Her body packs tightly into the hardness of Damon's chest. His large hands rest tenderly around her shoulders, and she knows she shouldn't be embarrassed, but she can't help the blush that floods to her cheeks as she remembers their parting conversation. Or rather, what happened afterwards.
She pulls back slightly from Damon's embrace, his v-neck shirt scantily sticking to hers like film and she pauses briefly when she notices an indecipherable look flit between one ice blue eye to the other. Before she can open her mouth to speak, Matt, and Tyler are whisking her into another bone-crushing hug, and this time, she can feel her shoulder dampen with moisture, and her heart swells when they pull back and she sees Matt's baby blue eyes a bit glossy and red rimmed.
Caroline clears her throat and abruptly pulls Bonnie to stand in between her and Elena in front of the fireplace. Bonnie's eyes cross over to Stefan, who's sitting on one of the embroidered chairs, and gives her one of those 'I'm glad you're back' smiles, which she returns in kind. She turns her gaze back to Caroline, who's quickly wiping off the residual tear stains smudging her mascara, before directing her attention to the rest of the room.
"Um, okay everyone. As much as we're all incredibly grateful that Bonnie is okay and isn't... well dead, there's a reason I asked all of you to come here today."
She takes a deep steadying breath and Bonnie's gaze turns curious when she sees Caroline's blue eyes briefly lock with Damon's, who's standing directly across from them with his arms folded.
"Damon and I think we have a way to take care of our little Heretic problem."
When Caroline does nothing to extrapolate further and instead swallows nervously and then cuts her gaze pleadingly back to Damon, Bonnie sees Tyler huff a bit and then raise his eyebrows out of the corner of her vision.
"Well...what is it?"
Tyler's voice rises over the confused air that's befallen the room, his arms cross over his broad chest as he goes to sit down next to Matt on the leather couch.
When Damon does nothing except pointedly stare at Caroline and ignore her silent and very obvious attempt to get Damon to reveal said proposal, she lets out an irritated sigh and flings her hands upwards in exasperation.
"Ugh, fine, since Damon doesn't want to tell you guys about what was mostly his idea, I will," Caroline shifts awkwardly in her flats, her gaze scanning everyone in the room but oddly skipping over Bonnie, "We want to trap the Heretics...in another prison world."
Bonnie can't quite put her finger on why Caroline's acting so nervous, and while it's throwing her off, Bonnie's forehead crinkles as the idea settles.
It could work, trapping them in another prison world, hypothetically, and with enough power.
Bonnie chooses not to think about the fact that the last time someone managed to trap an entire group of Heretics, that someone was an entire coven, and had the help of an all-powerful leader. This time around, they have one witch, four vampires, and a werewolf as their sole firepower.
The more she mulls the plan over in her head, the more she picks and prods at the logistics of it working, until she precipitously stops once she feels several pairs of inquiring eyeballs settling on her face.
"Why are you all looking at me?"
She doesn't know why, but she feels herself getting angry, maybe because she feels that familiar edge settling in her that tells her she's going to be asked to do something impossible.
Stefan, Matt and Tyler have enough decency to sheepishly lower their gazes from her, but a flash of irritation floods through her when she sees Caroline's gaze flit again to Damon who's standing contemplatively in front of them.
Her eyes immediately narrow in on the 173 year old vampire, whose bushy eyebrows have arched in a wild fashion and plump lips have sucked in a sharp breath, as they typically do before he prepares to pacify someone.
"Well, you were kind of the last person with the 1903 ascendant, Bon. And you're also a Bennett witch so—"
"—Are you saying you want me to create another prison world?"
Her voice comes out rightfully outraged and just shy of menacing.
She can't help it. She just wanted them to get it over with.
It was the only logical explanation. The Heretics already knew how to get out of the 1903 prison world, they'd need a completely new one to keep them trapped.
She knows that Damon likes to tip-toe around disputable situations when haggling for assistance. And she's now understanding Caroline's earlier shiftiness and reluctance to reveal the plan. But she can't be too mad at the others, this was mostly Damon's idea in the first place.
It's not that she's disappointed in Damon for sneaking in the unspoken suggestion, but more so disappointed in herself for expecting more from him.
Their friendship is much like this in many ways: a constant push and pull, a pulsing of hope and then an ebbing of concrete disappointment. One second she's extremely grateful to have him in her life and can't imagine it without him, the next second they're at each other's throats and she's suddenly wondering if their friendship was all some sick ploy of his to get her to do his bidding.
Whatever they're asking her for, she's allowed to be angry because she knows that she'll do it for them regardless of the consequences.
And besides, the more she thought about it, the more she realizes that the idea in itself is ludicrous.
She's not nearly powerful enough to create a prison world alone—possibly without a celestial event—and without the assistance of ancient Gemini magic. And considering they have no Gemini allies that are currently alive, they have even less of a chance of this working. Even if she somehow got Kai to take her to the Gemini archives, she has no doubt that it wouldn't take him long to figure out what she's up to.
The silence that follows after her accusatory outburst is deafening.
It had landed like a blow, and she can't help but think that she's being too harsh. Surely they'd know that she doesn't mean her anger completely, that she'd still try her best to help everyone and trap the Heretics, that it's not them; she just simply can't help the bitterness that festers in her gut every time they ask for her help now.
They're all still staring at Bonnie a bit wide eyed and tentative, and she feels Caroline shift besides her, about to form the beginning of a sentence, when Damon hurriedly cuts her off.
"No, of course we don't want you to make another prison world, Bon. We'd need a whole lot of Gemini magic and spells and grimoires; all things we don't have access to. But if we did happen to have the 1903 ascendant, to make some tweaks to—"
She knows how this goes. Damon will just keep digging and digging until he finds something of substance to gain, only this time, she's not sure he'll be able to scrape deep enough.
"—Then you'd be out of luck. I destroyed the 1903 ascendant already."
Bonnie grits her teeth as the words spitefully push out of her at her own accord, slightly regretting her decision to tell the truth when she sees Elena's doe eyes widen a fraction of a centimeter larger from the corner of her vision.
"You what?"
She sighs at Elena's outburst. Damon's fingers come to rest at his hips as he gazes up at her, waiting expectantly yet warily for her to continue, while Elena continues to stare at her sort of wide-eyed.
And she supposes that everyone (besides Damon) deserves an explanation, especially when she sees Stefan press his lips together into a thin line and focus his attention to the floor in that way that lets her know that he's restraining himself from commenting.
"Back when Damon was trying to use the ascendant as leverage over Lily, I decided to destroy it so that Kai and the Heretics wouldn't be able to escape. Not that that made any difference," she mutters that last part under her breath, but picks up her cadence into a more hurried crescendo as she addresses the rest of the room, "So unless you guys have another ascendant—"
"—Oh...but we do."
She refrains from rolling her eyes when Damon's smug tone cuts her off yet again.
"I figured after our little incident that you'd destroyed the 1903 one, but I just wanted to make sure before we proceeded onto plan B. Ric told me that back at the wedding, before Kai killed himself and turned, that Daddy dearest was trying to send him to another prison world, which means..."
"...There's another ascendant."
This time it's Elena's somewhat raspy voice cutting through the distilled simultaneous realization that's percolated around the room. Damon's eyes flare micheaviously and a familiar devilish grin stretches slowly across his face.
"Exactly. The only problem now is, we have to find it. Ric was supposed to help me look for it today, but he seems to be running a bit late."
Damon's eyebrows scrunch together briefly before he merely shrugs his shoulders, as if deciding that Alaric's unexpected absence isn't something he needs to be concerned about.
If what Damon was saying is true, If there is another ascendant out there, she will ultimately be the one responsible for it; even though she won't have to create another prison world.
"Well, let's not waste anymore time then. I'm coming with you."
She gathers her backpack trap higher upon her shoulder and takes a determined step towards the doorway, when a warm hand rests gently on her shoulder, preventing her from reaching the outside.
She wants to be angry that it's Damon's who's stopped her.
But the longer she stares prepensely into icy irises, she finds the fight in her dissolving, its drainage causing her squared shoulders to slump.
She already knows what he's going to say before he even opens his mouth; yet another side effect of spending so much time alone with him in an isolated environment. It's gotten to the point where she can practically decipher the meaning of each crinkle that lines his forehead.
"Like hell you are, Bon Bon. Your responsibility is to play house with wonder-wizard and keep him as far away from our plan as possible. We can't have any of the Heretics finding out about this. And maybe, while you're at it, you can figure out if the little weasel's making any special plans with his merry band of misfits that we should know about."
It makes perfect sense if she's being honest.
Everything he's saying does.
But something about Damon bringing up her situation with Kai causes a large blanket of dread to wrap around her. The same dread that had ladened her when she had awoken from her nightmare this morning; a nightmare that had been undeniably about him.
And the dread is sudden yet constricting, to the point where her entire body pauses, and she can do nothing but stare at Damon as she feels her own face droop into a scowl. She had successfully been slapped with harsh reality. She had momentarily forgotten that she'd have to go straight back into the lion's den so soon after being granted a brief taste of "normalcy".
Making a completely new prison world now seemed easy in comparison to being tasked with sleuthing around Kai.
He was perceptive, and unstable, she could never quite pin which state of mental duress he was in, definitely not since he'd emerged from 1903 an unhinged, yet unbearably fragile version of himself. If she wanted to get information out of him and figure out what he was up to with the Heretics, she'd have to be smarter than he was, and she'd have to be careful.
Bonnie curses to herself knowing that he's not even at the hotel as of now, when she could've been using the opportunity to dig through his things to find any slivers of valuable information.
I mean, it was just this morning he had told me that he was meeting with—
—The explanation dawns on her hurriedly.
"He's with them right now...the Heretics, I know he is. He told me this morning that he was meeting with some friends. I don't know why I didn't figure it out sooner, I mean it's not like he actually has any friends—"
She says it kind of startled herself, the words tumble quickly and eagerly out of her mouth as the realization spreads through her like inferno.
Damon swears loudly under his breath.
"Well that's just great. Knowing my mother, they're probably concocting some grand scheme of universal destruction as we speak. Not to mention none of us have the slightest idea as to where Enzo disappeared off to..."
.
.
His lips are still puckered into an 'o' even when the whistle dies in his throat as he rounds the corner to the apartment complex.
He doesn't need to get inside, he just needs to be standing at a certain angle, so that his body is projected at a certain orientation, so that he can see inside a certain someone's living room window.
He knows he looks strange trying to peer through the window; he's standing in the middle of the street, his neck is cranked uncomfortably to the side, eyes squinting and teeth sort of bared in that fashion where someone snaps a polaroid of you and the flash is so bright it feels like a gunshot.
But he sees it regardless.
He supposes he should thank his vampiric perceptions for that; his ability to focus on something as trivial and minor as two Whitmore Hospital coffee mugs sitting abandoned on a singular worn green placemat on the kitchen table. His eyes focus meticulously on the lip stains, the faint gloss still smeared on the rim of one of the cups, while a pinkish hue is printed in a perfect ring on the other.
And it's enough for him.
And he maybe feels a swell of relief flood through him, and a nervousness he didn't know was there flush out, but he decides not to dwell on it—them—feelings. After the merge, after turning he's been tending to neglect them when he can, before they can teeter past the threshold to overwhelming, as they often do.
Right now, he settles on a shallow feeling of contentment, maybe even happiness; his job is done...for the time being.
So he promptly turns on his heels, saunters away jovially from the complex, and overturns his pajama pockets that have become dusted with crumbs.
His lips round again to let a small stream of air out. He's not sure which tune he's whistling to, it honestly may be a combination of both a Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails song, not that it matters. It's not like anyone nowadays knows what real music is like.
He's sort of walking around aimlessly now.
He's not in a familiar neighborhood anymore, and for some reason he's not concerned, he's actually more at ease than he's felt in a while.
He has a feeling that he'll be able to find his way back to the hotel regardless. It's not like anyone back at the hotel would miss him; he'd long since used some Gemini leader witchy-woo and spelled them all to not care or acknowledge any of his...suspicious endeavors.
As he continues walking, he begins to acknowledge that he's in one of those suburban neighborhoods that consists of a singular winding road.
The houses are spread far apart on either side of the road. They're large and expensive looking with even larger lawns.
But the neighborhood feels barren.
But at least he knows he's somewhere near the Mystic Falls border, can recognize the fields that are spread along the horizon after the winding road tapers. They're the fields that settle just before the 'Welcome to Mystic Falls' sign, and he's almost tempted to make another quick stop, this time by the boarding house.
He's almost tempted, that is.
He'll wait until the right moment to insert himself back into the likes of those people.
If he's being completely honest, he really has no desire to.
It's not as if they've ever done anything for him, they certainly haven't done anything for Bonnie. But he decides that if he does ever have to interact with them again, he'll do it at the worst possible moment, when they're in a state of distress, so that his mere presence causes that pile of distress to pile that much more until it eventually topples over and obliterates everything in its path.
Maybe he's being too ambitious.
But it is sort of his brand.
After walking for fifteen minutes with no noise flooding his ears besides the incessant buzzing of maggots and light fissures turning on inside of suburban houses; he hears it.
It's a heartbeat.
And he doesn't know why, but he stops exactly where he is.
His stomach coils immediately with hunger. It sort of takes him by surprise, the sheer potency of it.
He can feel it crawling up his veins, a burning heat flooding through his chest. And it's painful and unbearable, but it sort of feels good. Maybe because he knows that he'll be satiating that churning hunger clawing at his insides very soon.
He can tell it's a human heart from the power and pace of the heart's rhythm.
The heartbeat, it's not near, but it's near enough.
The blackened veins under his eyelids ripple and thrash viciously like worms.
His legs carry him with superhuman speed straight to the source.
He sees a man, about mid-40s, Ned Flanders mustache and all, jogging down the side of the road. He's got athletic goggles on and earphones in, and the wires are kind of clumped and tangled in the middle as they dangle by his chest. His black athletic shorts are bunched a little too high, he's got a sizable pouch of fat on his stomach that spills slightly over his neon green fanny pack, and is taking even more sizable heaving gulps of air.
The man is quite embarrassing to look at really, but Kai has never been so happy to see someone.
The man doesn't see him. He's too engrossed in trying to run or whatever he's doing, even as Kai blurs in front of him.
His stomach twists deliciously as the sound of rushing blood roars even louder in his ears. He doesn't bother with the compulsion, he hasn't quite gotten it down yet and he's too hungry to bother floundering with a meal. Instead, he opts for a quick silencing spell before flicking his wrist to drag the man to his knees before him.
It's broad daylight, and he's in the middle of the road in a fancy neighborhood, but he can't bring himself to care. He knows that the lights are on in the houses he's passed.
And he knows that people, witnesses are there.
But he has a feeling that those people wouldn't care even if they saw what he was about to do. Rich people are like that; they're bounded both by fear and selfishness. He thinks that's what he likes most about this neighborhood in particular: the complicit assholesness of it all.
His fangs elongate and he sinks his teeth deeply and harshly into the man's carotid. His eyes slip shut and a satisfied groan leaves his lips and his nostrils flare to suck in unneeded air as warm blood sloshes down his throat. The sloppiness of the bite causes long streams of crimson to leak down either side of the constricting muscles in his neck.
He knows in the back of his mind, somewhere deep in the satiated confines of the blood-lust that's dizzying him, that part of the deal he'd made with Bonnie meant no more killing.
But what she doesn't know won't hurt her.
He knows that he should stop.
He feels the man's heavy body growing limp and flimsy in his grip, the blood isn't coming out as strongly and pressurized anymore.
And it's not as though he's not sated at this point, he could very well leave the man to bleed out the scant leftovers of his blood on suburban pavement with his head intact.
He very easily could have.
But there's something funny to him about decapitated heads, so he doesn't stop sucking until he feels all the sinew and muscle strung below his teeth give and then tear.
The guy's neck finally caves with a sickening crack, his body thumping abruptly to the ground, while Kai's fingers remain around the dripping meat of the throat. And he can't help it, his sociopathic nature is back full force and something giddy and warm floods through him as he breathes in the wonderful metallic scent of blood and sinew coupled with damp lawn grass and fresh crisp air.
He knows that it's wrong. Can practically feel the conscious that Luke gave him screaming in terror at his unriddled joy; but funnily enough, he just doesn't care.
He'd always hated vampires up until this point. His hatred was as ingrained in him as the Gemini notion that he was an abomination was. But now he can't help but think that maybe this blood-sucking lifestyle suits him.
He makes sure to prop the head back onto the "dummy's" body, and wipes his bloody fingers against his pajama bottoms before beginning to trod back to the hotel room, his lips curving to whistle brightly again.
How hilarious would it be for the Scooby gang to find this body and automatically assume it to be Mommy Ripper's doing, or even better, good old Saint Stefano?
That should do well to send that group into that first state of distress.
.
.
She's not listening as Damon and Stefan continue to spitball off each other.
Her nightmare from earlier today has begun to infiltrate her thoughts at full force with all this talk about ascendants and prison worlds, and from that one brief mention of Kai.
The uneasiness she thought she'd thoroughly scrubbed away with her shower at Whitmore, comes back and prickles her skin, and causes her stomach to flop. The darkness seeps through her skin, creeps up her spine and curls around her body to lodge in her throat; she wouldn't be able to speak even if she tried.
Flashes of her nightmare skitter through her brain; images of her limp and lifeless body being thrown by a familiar monster into a prison world.
Her body lays trapped in an unfamiliar cold and barren world, utterly alone, a broken ascendant at her feet, and her bloodied heart lays stagnant on the cool ground next to her. The heart that he ripped out for good measure.
She watches as he waves at her with fangs bared in a grin and bloody fingers, and she wonders why he doesn't lick the bright crimson off of them before vanishing in a beam of white light.
Much like how she's surprised that she has yet to see him feed from anyone. She realized at some point, through mulling over her conversation with Kai this morning, and just barely allowing herself to graze over what happened yesterday, that she never saw Kai feed. Her stomach flips again, but this time, false hope settles over her nervousness.
There's a slim possibility that he doesn't know how exactly how vampires transition; the Geminis were a very anti-vampire institution. She remembers him even saying himself way back in '94, that he didn't know much about vampires. The Geminis most likely didn't provide a lot of education on vampiric endeavours or history. He may not know that he needs to consume human blood in 24 hours to transition fully; he'd curiously opted out of feeding from her even though the opportunity had certainly presented itself. She ignores the shiver that crawls unmitigated up her spine as she remembers just how that opportunity presented itself last night, and instead focuses on the hope that spreads wider and deeper as dark thoughts of his body drying out and desiccating fill her.
She chooses to cling onto the hope that he will die tonight.
He could be dying as they speak.
He deserves it for what he's done to her in both her nightmares, and in reality.
But she supposes that this is all her fault; her continued fear of him. Only she could be held responsible for forsaking herself in his hellish clutches for the protection of her friends.
He'd started the fire, but she'd acted reckless enough to try and touch the flame.
Her friends haven't noticed her withered and self-deprecating retreat into her own mind.
They continue bouncing ideas off one another, though a grim air has fallen, she can tell, over all of them. Maybe because although they're happy that Bonnie's alive and well, the gravity of the other deaths are beginning to dawn on all of them. Liv and Jo, they won't ever get the chance to help.
She decides to will herself to listen, and Stefan's voice pushes through and surfaces above the foggy darkness of her thoughts of dreams and death.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, let's just think about what we can do so far. Bonnie can find out what's going on with Kai, and I'll try to make a truce with Lily, while everyone else retraces their steps to figure out where the ascendant is."
"Except that if it's not still in the wedding hall, we're all basically screwed."
Matt's gravelly voice plunders bleakly through Stefan's inspirited attempt at gaining some grounding, successfully hammering down the already somber blanket that's layering the room.
"Well one thing's for sure," Damon begins snarkily, his icy eyes taking on that widened and slightly feral look that it does when he's saying something sarcastic, "we can always count on Donovan to point out the most obviou—"
Just then, a crash sounds.
The front door to the boarding house door swings open and lands on the wall with a resounding crack.
Alaric bursts through the door, practically barreling through the living room.
He's holding keys in one trembling hand and pants haggardly, his face pale with panic and shining with beads of sweat bundled on his furrowed forehead.
"It's—it's Jo. Her body—it's gone."
I'll be updating this fic every 2-3 months. Also yes, from now on I will be switching back and forth between Kai's POV and Bonnie's.