Klaus stared into the gaping white ceramic abyss that was the toilet bowl, and wondered where exactly his adventure had gone wrong.

Somewhere between theory and practice, chaos had stepped in. Stepped in and fucked up another one of his masterpiece plans.

But, say what? All's well that ends well – as someone he used to know always used to say.

And the day hadn't gone too bad. Pretending to be human came easy enough to him. He could walk the walk and talk the talk as good as any blood bag. Just because he was the unnatural spawn of the underworld and ninety per cent likely to bring about the end of days for all mankind didn't mean he couldn't try his hand at humanity every now and again. There'd been a brief glitch in his psyche for half a moment centuries ago when, in fact, he'd actually wished he was human. Wished that he could live and expire with the rest of them. Dark times, them days…

Being human, though, sucked. It sucked bullocks.

First off, he had a headache. A massive mind-bending headache. In five minutes his brain would start herniating down his nose. For sure.

Second off, Lucinda was asthmatic or some shit like that. By the tobacco stains on her fingernails, he'd guess she was a pack a day smoker, which would make her affliction more like emphysema… or bronchitis. Whatever. Bottom line – he was having a little difficulty in the fresh breath department ever since the impromptu front lawn barbecue. And the lovely toilet bowl aroma was not encouraging.

And third off, the witch in whose body he was stuck turned out to be emo intolerant. Or Jeremy intolerant. Or maybe just human meat intolerant.

It killed him seeing good food go to waste, but never the less he flushed the toilet and watched his meal swirl around and disappear into the unknown, the taste of teenage testosterone and bile lingering on his taste buds. "Isn't the boy supposed to hold the girl's hair while she pukes?" he mumbled at Stefan, trying to overcome the acid burn in his throat. Vomiting up one's guts might look like fun on TV, but in real life… Ugh. He was sure the woman had lost something important. A lung, perhaps.

"Only when the girl's an actual girl," Stefan quipped. Because Stefan, the ultimate master of quips and snarky one-liners can only be expected to quip.

Klaus rolled his eyes. Or his eyes rolled on their own accord, he couldn't tell. He'd lost essential electrolytes in the puke and was the teeniest bit lightheaded. "Keep that attitude up and I'll compel you again. We could have had a moment…" he trailed as he got to his knees shakily. Lucinda had weak knees too. Rheumatic knees. On the surface, she had the runway model look down but from the inside, he could tell. She was one big bag of festering disease. Already, a touch of arthritis was creeping in. Some astigmatism in the eyes, a muscular discomfort in the back and something low in his belly he was starting to suspect was a cramp… Festering dens of disease, they all were, yet they protest so much at their release… He rinsed his mouth in the faucet, gargled a bit and spit up little bits and pieces of the meat that had tasted so good but done him wrong. "It's too late now, anyways. You may have to refrigerate the rest of our tender, unseasoned friend. My picnic days are over, I fear." He'd wasted enough time in Mystic Falls. More than enough. There were other things he could be doing, surely, besides cooking boys on the front lawn. "Or maybe I could get some foil, wrap it up to go, you think?"

"I don't think so. Elena might like to have something to bury…" Another quip from the vampire with tousled, chestnutty hair.

"Oh yes… She fancies cemeteries, that one." He sprinkled his face and dabbed at it with someone's towel. Alaric's, by the musky scent of Axe body spray. "I will never understand what you see in her. Besides her resemblance to Katerina, the Whore of Ages. I mean, you show up in Mystic Motherfucking Falls and happen across these lovelies. There's Goldilocks – a classical beauty with a wood nymphy appeal. Bonnie – with her sexy-cute librarian-cheerleader-voodoo priestess thing… And Elena – the less hot, less happy, ten times less interesting version of You Know Who and you pick her? Walk me through that."

"Nothing really to it. Some people prefer simple."

"Well, she's simple." He took a mouthful of Listerine, gargled, gargled again and spat. "Haven't seen a girl that simple since 1326. They used to make her give BJs in the barn. We called her Gummy–"

"Why are you doing this?"

"What?" He wasn't doing anything, far as he knew, except trying to get a rise out of the do-gooder.

"All of this." Stefan pointed to the toilet. "I know you're crazy but you seem especially unhinged right now. All this looking for Bonnie? What's Bonnie to you? You could have snatched her away at any point in time so where's all this desperation coming from?"

It's coming from the fact that witches are the only people I can successfully convert into hybrids, Jackass. "It's not like you lot'll miss her. In fact, I'm considering this a rescue mission. A pre-emptive rescue mission."

Stefan's forehead furrowed impossibly, "What?"

"Remember Gloria?Greta's dad? Greta's brother? Gretta? Maddox? Bree? Sheila? You and your brother, demented fucks as you are, get some sick thrill out of offing witches. It's only a matter of time before Bonnie follows suit if I leave her here. I can so see one of you guys stabbing her in the neck."

"Gloria was gonna–"

"Was gonna what? You killed her for nothing."

"I didn't kill her. That was Katherine."

"Same diff, Stef."

"So you want to add Bonnie to your menagerie?"

"You make it sound so kinky, but yes. It's time I started considering other avenues of hybrid mass production. It's recently come to my attention that I may be going about this the entirely wrong way. I've been trying this procreation thing via the new age methodology, but methinks the time doth come to return to basics. The old Seed and Womb trick."

"You don't mean–"

"I mean exactly what you think I mean."

"You want to use Bonnie to be your Baby Mama?"

"When you say it like that it sounds… exactly correct. Yes."

Stefan seemed to take a moment to choose his next words carefully. "Why not use Greta? I can't imagine her not jumping at the opportunity."

Or not. Could there be a man in the world more annoying than Stefan? Always fussing and asking questions. Like Nancy Drew with balls. Presumptuous fucking bastard. "One of these days somebody's going to take a hot crotchet needle to your eardrums… and your eyes. Try to remember that you are alive by my mercy, Stef, and that your continued survival hinges on my goodwill towards you."

"If your goodwill hinges on me helping you kidnap and violate Bonnie then–"

"Violate? Twenty-first century, Stef. No one says violate anymore. And I'm not going to violate her. I'm going to rescue her from this morbid rat-hole and carry her away to a place where it's Witch Appreciation Day every day. And on some random one of those Witch Appreciation days I'm going to impregnate her, then we're all going to hold out breaths for nine months, give or take a couple to accommodate for however fucking long the gestation period of a hybrid foetus is. If it works with minimal complications, then hip hooray. I mean, what can go wrong? The only thing I'm guessing is that the baby might have to eat its way out of the mother. Like in Alien. But besides that…"

"Bonnie'll never go for that."

Because why? It wasn't as if she was harnessed to Mystic Falls by the spinal cord. The girl was already homeless, friendless and effectively parentless, anyways. There was no one knocking her doors down in the courting of her. She wasn't going to get voted homecoming queen. "What's keeping her here? Watching you and Gummy profess your endless love to each other - it gets old, Stef. Should she stay to watch over Goldilocks and Fido?" He flipped his hair over his shoulder as femininely as he was able. "A girl had needs, Stef. And Bonnie has a particular need that–" His phone started to ring. The vibration felt nice against his thigh, so he left it for a little bit while the ringtone played out. Queen of the Night, by pre-crack Whitney Houston. Surprisingly catchy song… "Darling?" he answered.

"Good news first or bad news?" Greta asked, her voice with a definite edge to it.

"I'm the king of the world, sweetheart. Bad news doesn't exist for me anymore. Shoot."

"I've got your girl."

They were going to have to get into the habit of using peoples' names. "Which girl exactly? The pole dancer from–"

"The one plotting your demise? The one resurrecting Geraldine? The one you're actively pursuing across the globe? Short, kinda pretty."

"Didn't know you were getting in on the hunt, love." In fact he'd left very specific orders for her not to get in on the hunt. Which part of 'guard my body' had she not understood?

"Didn't," she snapped. "She came to me."

"Like out of thin air?"

"Teleported is the technical term."

Huh. He'd have to apologize to the Scooby gang, then. Maybe. Except they were mostly dead. "Teleported into my place? What about all the barriers you supposedly put up for the expressed purpose of teleportation prevention?"

"The force is strong in her, what can I say?"

Greta might be a nerd, he realised shockingly. His mouth opened soundlessly. He'd heard her reference Star Wars lore three times now… How many Star Wars references one had to make to meet the Nerd Criteria, he didn't know for sure, but he was starting to suspect that Greta was very near the limit. She'd found a strange joy in that absurdist movie, Transformers. Rewatched the Lord of the Rings every week or so… Might even speak elvish… In a thousand years' time, she might become a full blown geek. Do I mind? He could dress her up in glasses, make her do her hair like Padme, or do some Hawkgirl cosplay… "Why would she do that – teleport herself into the lion's mouth? Suicidal? She didn't seem–"

"They need your guts, remember?"

He sighed. His adventure had come to an end. He'd had fun… And he'd have the drive back up to Canada with Maddox, so maybe they could turn that into some road trip fun, but otherwise he was homebound. Homebound to deal with impregnating a seventeen year old girl... How Stefan and Damon managed to maintain a fascination with the teenaged variety was beyond him. The fun he used to have at stealing virginities had waned eight or nine centuries aback. The 'oh, don't hurt me' shtick was tiresome, but he'd have to deal with it. Run some pornography in the background and go away mentally to his special place. He might be able to rope Greta into it and make it a threesome…maybe. Revive Lucinda and who knows… Foursome with three witches. And there was Anastasia in the bunker – four witches... "Okay, hit me with the bad news."

"That was the bad news. The good news is that she didn't come alone. She brought Elijah and Damon along for the ride."

A bluejay landed on the windowsill, unaware that that the only thing between it and the Bringer of Doom was a panel of flimsy glass. "How is that good news? You got it inverted, love. Bonnie's the good news. Elijah's gone Iscariot again and Damon the dude that broke your neck."

"And you need to remind me because I'm stupid? I went to college."

Klaus sighed, again. It seemed all he'd done since answer the phone was sigh. Hybrids weren't supposed to sigh. Ever. "Yes. 3.9 GPA. Double major. Doing very well for yourself up until I seduced you into enlisting for my army of the evil undead. I get it. Back on topic – what the fuck? Where exactly are you right now?"

"Home."

"Which home? The one my brother, Damon the Devil and Witchbitch just broke in to and entered?"

"Yep."

God… She's dead in the water. Dead, dead, dead… "Why in God's name are you still there? And calling me? For mercy's sake, tell me that you're getting really good reception despite being in the elevator going down to the ground floor, about to jump in the taxi you already called."

"Well, your body's here. Not like I can just leave it behind."

No, we can't have that… "So if I get this straight, the four of you are doing what exactly? Playing All Fours?"

"We're trying to re-enact the human centipede."

Aww, trying to make me jealous? "Without me?"

"Elijah's acting shady but not more that always. And Damon's been unconscious for hours."

"They've been there hours and you're just now giving me the heads up?" When the master servant line gets too blurry, the first thing to go is discipline. Sleep with somebody once or twice… and all the training goes to waste. People start flouncing orders…

"When I say hours, I mean, seconds." She didn't even try to make the lie convincing.

"…Right."

"And Bonnie's unconscious. What can possibly go wrong, I ask semi-sarcastically and risk invoking a cliché. Relax. I can more than handle a noob vamp like Damon. Bonnie's a super-witch, but she's out like … out like Mohammed Ali playing Jenga. I'm handling this."

Noob vamp, says the noob hybrid. "Making jokes on people with Parkinson's, love?" He could feel her bad mood wafting across the states between them, a lot of turmoil roiling around in her head.

The woman sighed. A lot of sighing going on between them these days. A lot of sighing going on between him and almost everybody else. "It's Damon. I want to kill him–"

"Please do. Broomstick through the heart ought to do it."

"But, I want to torture him too." And she giggled there, as giddily as the antichrist come the end of days. "I want to make iced tea with his blood. Flay the skin off him and make oven mitts…"

Girl is straight up crazy. And evil.

"That's why we installed the torture room in the first place," she continued.

Not really. He'd always planned to give Damon a swift death. The guy was a veritable jerkoff but he had heart. The room was for the little Katerina, for whenever their paths crossed again, and Elena, probably. Either one of them would do fine. The nasty fine print about needing her alive was bothersome, but it'll still allow him a little torture time… "Why don't you just kill him? Have you ever seen a James Bond movie? This is where all the villains make their mistake. Kill first, torture after."

"Come on. I took Henchman 101 freshman year."

"Really, cause you're kind of dropping the ball these days. When I say make a place impregnable, I mean teleportation-proof too."

"If it was teleportation proof, then you'd still be hunting your witch all over surburbia. And by the way, where exactly are you? You have to get back to–" She paused and the line went silent for a while which gave him a chance to eavesdrop just a bit. There was the background hum of traffic, a car horn, the measured footfall of his brother, a frying pan on the stovetop and the sizzle of hot butter… "You're not cooking for the bastards, are you?"

She laughed, the joke was that good. "What's wrong with a little dinner between friends?"

"Friends with culinary benefits? Doesn't exist, love."

"Really? Cause your brother asked me to help him tenderise some meat–"

"Stop trying at the innuendos, love. It's annoying and you're not good at it. How was Letterman last night, by the way? I ended up breaking the tv here when I killed Buffyman– "

"Alaric?"

"Buffyman."

"And now what? You sound bored. How's it going in MMF?"

"Grating, as usual. Except…" Should I?

"Except?"

"Except, remember when I suggested that we summon Jaxxon?"

"Yeah."

"The one demon that Geraldine was never able to defeat? The one that killed her, in fact? You know – fight fire-fighters with fire? Fight demon slayer with demon? And you said it was a bad idea because in order to control Jaxxon the witch that summoned him would be forever bound to him body and soul – remember that?"

"Yeah."

"So, yeah… I did the spell. Who the fuck cares about Lucinda's body and soul anyway, right?"

"You did the spell?"

"Well, yeah. I'm pretty good with Latin, it turns out."

"You need sacrifices for–"

"–it to work, Yeah. I've got a pretty good GPA too, love. Majored in Occult Magic. Minored in Blood Sacrifices. One by fire, one by ice and one by blood. I barbecued Bonnie's boyfriend. I put the werewolf in the freezer and I slit Goldy Sue's throat for the blood."

"Did it work?" A half-reproaching, half keenly-interested note to her voice.

"Well… That's the thing. All's quiet on the front so far. No Jaxxon in sight. So I'm thinking I didn't do the sacrificing right. I should have slit the boy's throat instead and roasted the vampire, you think?"

"Obviously what I think doesn't matter to you."

"I pull my hair in frustration, Greta. The opinion of the henchman rarely if ever matters. He's there to take orders. So take some fucking orders – kill Damon now and use the dagger on Elijah."

"Why? If they can kill me, I'll let 'em. I'm tired of this blood-sucking half ass life. It's like I'm not even human anymore–"

Of course you're not fucking human anymore! Klaus hung up. What's so fucking great about being human? 'Human' meant diarrhoea and death, coughs, cold, lung cancer, breast cancer, haemorrhoids, menstrual cramps, menopause, grey hair, fungal infections, yeast infections, cold sores, glaucoma, high blood pressure, diabetes, strokes, pneumonia, tuberculosis, bed sores, broken bones, polio, leprosy… and asthma. He flung the phone at Stefan. "Your brother's back at my place, trespassing."

"I heard."

"Eavesdropper. I'm gonna head up and kill him."

Stefan shrugged.

"Then I'm gonna violate the witch until she's pregnant. Wanna come along and watch?"

"Meh… I think I'll stay. Take Jeremy off the grill before the police show up, maybe. You know how they get about murder and cannibalism in this place. Kind of a big no-no."

Police? "Oh yeah, about that. Me and Maddox had a little party in the station before we came here. He got a little carried away. Can't remember all the names but we killed Caroline's mum, for sure. She was a shitty sheriff anyway. You might want to get into that line of work." He flipped his hair again, enjoying the feel of it on his skin and even more, the way Stefan's eyes narrowed in annoyance. "I can totally see you in a uniform and badge. A hundred and fifty years' experience as the fun police should look good on the resume." He fixed Stefan with steady eye contact. "Don't clean up. I spent a lot of time getting the house to look like this. Take all the items for resurrecting Geraldine that you have so far, put them in an inconspicuous bagpack – use your schoolbag, I know you have one – and bring them to me. When Elena shows up, shave her head bald and feed her the rest of her brother. Then cut off her hands. At the elbows, and make her eat them. Barbecue, grilled, fried, make her pick. And there might be a demon wandering loose somewhere, so look out for that. It should respond to the name Jaxxon, I don't know. Should be human looking, too." Then he hugged the guy. He'd never have a less gay chance to do it. "Later, bro."