Disclaimer: This story is a creative exercise using characters from The Vampire Diaries.

Trick Me, Touch Me

xxx

Bonnie's vision blurs. When it comes into focus again, she is pressed against a tree in the woods miles away from the others. Kol looks at her with that cheerful grin she knows better than to trust.

"Isn't this a lovely place to have our little reunion?"

Bonnie stares him down, focusing her powers on detonating aneurysms all over his brain.

He recognizes the look, and tenses up at the memory of exploding blood vessels. When nothing happens, his smile grows wider. "It seems your little magic tricks have no effect on souls."

"And all this time, I thought your kind didn't have any," she snaps, gripping her hands into fists to stop them from trembling.

"What a sharp tongue for someone so recently de-clawed," he remarks, his fangs gleaming in the moonlight.

Bonnie sucks in an unsteady breath. "Those won't work on souls either."

"Let's test that theory."

He ducks his head and bites her. She feels the pressure of his fangs against her skin screams, heart racing in terror. The pressure intensifies as he flexes his jaw and bites down harder. Slowly, she opens her eyes when she realizes there's no pain. She relaxes, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Are you done?" She shoves at his shoulders. "You can't hurt me."

He pulls back, discontent. "This realm finds new ways to irritate me," he grumbles. "No matter though. You're not the one I want to hurt."

She narrows her eyes. "Somehow, I don't believe you."

"I don't see why not. Out of the two of us, I'm not the one that deceitfully trapped the other person underground," he hisses, his lighthearted grin morphing into a scowl.

Bonnie manages not to flinch in the face of his anger. It helps that she knows he can't harm her. "Get off of me," she says, pushing him away. The moment his fingertips leave her skin, he vanishes.

"Kol?" she calls out, spinning around. He couldn't have run away from her. He disappeared too quickly, too completely, without even a breeze to give away his movement or the direction he went in (not that she can even feel the breeze now). As if he were never there to begin with. She moves away from the tree, and bumps into something. Kol appears briefly, looking as bewildered as she feels, before vanishing again. Tentatively, Bonnie reaches out a hand where she last saw him.

He materializes before her eyes with one arm outstretched, his palm pressing against hers.

"So that's the trick," Kol murmurs, lacing his fingers with hers in an unyielding grip. "You have to touch someone to see them."

Bonnie tries to break free, but his strength is absolute. She hones her power into her captive hand and pushes it out, hoping to blast him ten feet away. When nothing happens, she tries harder and harder. Still, he stands there unaffected.

"What are you doing?" he asks, noting the strain on her face.

Bonnie falls over slightly, gasping for air out of habit. "Why isn't it working?"

Kol furrows his brows before understanding dawns on his face. "Why Bonnie," he croons, wrapping his free hand around her neck and tilting her chin up. He can easily read the horror in her eyes, sees her silently begging him not to say it out loud, and it makes the words rolling off his tongue that much sweeter. "Have you gone and lost your powers coming to this side?"

Her face glows with hate and he smiles sharply. Slowly, effortlessly, he lifts her off the ground by her neck. "How did you manage that? All my abilities are still intact."

"We've covered this, Kol," Bonnie says, affecting a bored tone. "Even if you still have all of your Original strength, you can't hurt me. Put me down."

"Just having a bit of fun, darling." He gently sets her down on her feet, never once breaking his hold on her hand. "And like I said earlier, you're not the one I want to hurt."

Bonnie clears her throat. She shakes her captive hand once more, but stops when his grin widens as he glances at their joined hands. She casts a suspicious glare at him. "Then who do you intend to hurt?"

He shrugs carelessly, a paradigm of boyish charm. "Tell me Bonnie, how badly do you think Jeremy and Elena Gilbert feels now that they know you're dead and with me?"

"Elena doesn't–" Bonnie stops short, suddenly remembering Jeremy shouting her name before Kol grabbed her and whisked her into the woods. No.

"Please tell me it'll be bad enough for them to end their miserable lives once and for all. Perhaps they'll both stay dead this time around."

"Shut up!" She smacks him in the face, furious that he has the audacity to say such a thing.

"Relax, darling," he drawls, completely unaffected by her attack. "There's no need to be so rude. After all, I'm not the reason you're dead, though I do have an idea of who is responsible." She looks away, silently confirming his suspicions. "Even in death, you defend your murderers."

"They didn't do anything to me. It was my decision to cast the spell," she argues.

"Ah, I wondered how Jeremy managed to cross back. So a Bennett witch breaks the most fundamental law of Nature and pays for it with her life and powers. All for a boy."

His judgment chafes. She tilts her head up, glaring at him unflinchingly. "Go ahead and laugh. It was worth it to me, to see someone I love get the happiness he deserves. I don't expect you to understand."

"You're right," Kol says, frowning. "I've run with witches for centuries, some of them Bennett witches like yourself, and I know that balance is everything to them. I'm struggling to understand how you could fundamentally go against the very nature of your being for something as trivial as love."

"And you never will if that's what you think of love."

"Here's to hoping it'll stay that way." Kol mockingly bends at the waist and drops a perfunctory kiss her hand. She tries to pull away again, to no avail. "So darling, how ever shall we pass eternity together?"

"You're crazier than everyone says you are if you honestly think I'll willingly spend another minute with you."

He shifts his index and middle finger to rest lightly on her wrist. "Are you saying that you'd rather wander this earth alone forever than stay with me?"

"Yes."

She doesn't have a pulse for him to read, no heartbeat to quicken and give her away. But all the same, he knows. It's in that light in his eyes, and the reflexive way her hand squeezed his for less than a second when he painted her bleak afterlife with his words.

"You're a liar, Bonnie Bennett."

Somehow, his accusation shreds her to pieces.