A/N: Happy New Year, bonkamily! If you don't already know, that's what I'm calling all of us crazy trash lovers. I have accepted our condition. You should too.
Speaking of which, holy shit, you guys are awesome! Thanks so much for your comments and support, you fuel this absolute madness. This story is our collective baby, I swear.
Lemme round up the anons: Guest1 (thanks!), Bamoner (hah, I'm curious what you'll think about this ending), Alexis (you have, but I love hearing it anywaaaay), Guest2 (yooo, honored to hear that, I'm so glad you like it!), Bonkai Junkie (oh, friend, how I feel your name and your craving), Guest3 (killing myself too, no worries!) Guest314 (thanks for giving yourself a number, saves me trouble and aaaah, shut up, I'm blushing!) Bonkai lover (are we twins? because I call this ship crack every day).
So enjoy this chapter and drop some love/comments!
Chapter 4 - Pump Your Veins With Gushing Gold
Tickle head cheek can take your throne
Pump your veins with gushing gold.
"Motus!" she bellowed.
The hotel parking lot was their arena. Training had evolved into a mini battle, per usual.
This time Kai wasn't playing. He was ready for her and she seemed ready for him, too.
"Oppilo!" he blocked, holding his palm outwards, his eyes trained on her.
"Torqueo!" she charged, not even giving him time to switch hands. It was a simple twisting spell, but in the right hands, it could become something like torture.
He grinned and let it touch him around the wrists and ankles. His skin tingled, then burned. He bent over, heaved, then raised his head and said matter-of-factly,
"Phesmatos Fumos Extas..."
Bonnie scrunched up her eyebrows in confusion. It was a simple neutralizing spell. Nothing seemingly dangerous about it.
"...phesmatos fumos augescens," he finished with a smarmy grin.
Oh. Shit.
She realized what he'd done. A resurgence spell weaved into the neutralizing one. The twisting spell attacked her, even though it was directed at him.
Stupid clever idiot, she fumed.
But she could outwit him easily. She accepted the resurgence spell, closed her eyes and swallowed it up until her body stopped protesting. She groaned in pain as she slammed her palms on her knees.
Kai watched her with interest.
"Is this a new strategy? Whining until you win?"
She lifted her palms off her knees. From where he was standing, it looked as if she were holding up small balls of light at the tip of her fingers. Then she flung them at him. Kai yelled "Oppilo!", but two of them grazed his shoulder and an electric shock went through him, so strong that he almost fell to the ground.
"Ouch!"
She'd used the resurgence spell to double the potential of the twisting spell.
Clever, clever…
She was smarter than Jo, smarter than all his siblings and parents combined. Where was she when he'd been growing up? He'd never had challenging competition before. This was more like it.
"Vatos!" she charged, not even giving him time to recover.
Two cars in Kai's vicinity exploded in his face, but he threw up a shield and cloaked himself, turning invisible.
Bonnie threw an anti-cloaking charm in his direction, but he dodged it easily since he had the advantage of seeing without being seen.
"Patience, Bon," he called out when she groaned in frustration. She hated when he disappeared on her like that.
There was silence for a few moments. She could only hear her slightly exalted breath. Other Side silence was different from regular silence. It was so profound, so rich that it filled up your mouth and nostrils and you could do nothing but gulp it up and let it break every memory and song you thought you knew. It was a dangerous thing.
"Come on," she called out. "You're wasting time."
It was eerie and unhealthy how she depended on him for sound, for communication, for sanity. He probably felt the same. And despite his buddy-buddy act, he probably hated it. They were each other's crutches.
Her nerves were getting more and more frayed looking at the way the flames from the cars rose up into the sky. She foolishly raised her hands to extinguish them, but the little trick cost her.
"Phesmatos superous em animi..." he whispered in her ear, his lips on her left lobe.
She knew what was coming. Extreme pain and nose bleeds. She felt warm blood spilling out of her nostrils, dripping down her lips. Her throat was closing up.
Bonnie spat blood on the hot granite and with shaking breath uttered,
"Phasmatos Tribum, Exum Sue, Redem Su -"
Kai had one fraction of a second to realize she was performing a Disempowerment Spell. The incantation was made for a witch to strip another witch of their power. He seized up her neck and clammed his palm over her lips.
He whistled. "Damn, Bennett. You don't play. But don't go doing that again. You'll be stripping both of us of a limited amount of magic."
Bonnie's eyes widened slightly when she realized what she had been about to do. It was easy to forget this magic wasn't her own. Still, he had leveled a painful spell at her and she didn't like it one bit. In fact, her face was sticky with blood and her breath was labored. Not something a witch like her should have to deal with. The magic scratched at her insides with wounded pride like a kitten sharpening her claws.
She bit his hand. Not a nice teeth-sinking-in-soft-skin bite, but fangs tearing at flesh.
Kai yelped, trying to wrench his hand away, but she gripped his wrist and infused magic into his skin until he was writhing and shaking, but unable to feel his hand. It spread into the rest of his body. A paralysis spell.
"Motus!" he yelled and she was thrown on her back, air whooshing underneath her as her elbows scraped the hard ground.
They were both on their backs now.
Him, paralyzed. She, flattened by magic.
It was past eleven. The mid noon sky was fat and heavy with roiling clouds. Bonnie looked at the patches of blue in between and smiled a bloody smile. A shy, sad smile.
It had rarely rained these past few months she had been stuck in May. And when it had, Damon had stayed inside grumpily and complained about the weather. She had stood on Elena's porch, enjoying the feel of the cool drops on her palms.
But now, the rain was going to come full force and she wasn't going to be sheltered anymore. The rain would wash off all this dirt and blood.
Or maybe, maybe it would rain blood.
Rain blood? What's wrong with me? she thought, rather alarmed at first, but somehow, the image of a red sky, pinning her down to the ground, the feel of red water trickling down her body made her heart beat faster.
She felt alive.
The Other Side wasn't winning. Not this time.
She looked over her shoulder at the boy next to her. His nose and cheeks were grazed with black from the car explosions.
He was finding it hard to breathe. His limbs were beginning to break away from the spell, but he still looked knocked out. Or maybe it was just an act.
"We should get up. Start over," she mumbled.
"Let me guess. You were an overachiever in high school, weren't you?" he drawled.
"No, that was Caroline."
"So you're discovering untapped potential."
"More like untapped stamina," she replied, squinting up to see a bird dashing through the clouds.
"Want me to tap it for you?"
"Why are you always gross?"
"Not my fault most of your statements are double entendres."
Bonnie refused to answer, stretching her legs further until she felt her joints click.
"I like how you went hardcore back there," he said, raising himself on his elbows. His face blocked the little light that remained.
"I like how you pussied out back there," she retorted, but gasped at her own words. She didn't know what'd come over. She was always prudish about these things. The word "fuck" was hard enough for her to say.
"Okay, now you have to admit that's a double entendre."
"Screw you."
"Well. Aren't you a potty mouth."
"I didn't say anything bad," she replied petulantly.
"Weeeell, unless you're a carpenter with a toolbox hanging from your belt, screw has limited options."
"I'm allowed to say screw."
"Hey, drop the whole menu on me if it makes you feel better, gal pal," he grinned.
"Gal pal?"
"You don't like bestie."
"I don't like gal pal either."
"Then tell me what you want me to call you."
But their banter was cut short by drops falling on her eyelids, on his hair.
It started slow. Then fast.
Funny how that worked.
One moment the air was tight, heat and moist forming dusty shapes in front of her eyes, a web held together by their own breaths, it seemed, and then it all disintegrated into a curtain of water.
It beat down on them mercilessly, stabbing at every inch of skin, melting them into the granite.
They both got up at the same time. Kai wanted to grab at her leg, but she disentangled herself and sprinted away. She picked up speed, running through the rain.
She started to run back towards the hotel. Kai followed after her, shouting her name with laughter in his voice.
"Trying out for the triathlon, Bon?"
"If that means getting away from you, sure!" she yelled back.
He laughed harder and sped up, but she dodged the hotel doors and skipped down the graveled path towards the highway. He used a shortcut through the small front garden and jumped over the railings.
He was getting closer. Bonnie let out a shaky grunt, something between a cough and a laugh.
Water was getting into her eyes, clouding her vision. It tore at the seams of her pupils, making the world red. Bloody rain. She realized that was also the blood on her face. But she didn't wipe it off. She let the rain do what it did best.
By now she was soaked to the bone, but she felt airy and light.
She had been stuck in this world for such a long time, but it had never occurred to her to do this. Run down an empty stretch of road into the unknown. The horizon looked limitless. You never got a chance to do this in the real world, did you?
Kai was on her tracks, getting closer and closer, his sneakers pounding on the asphalt, his breath a wisp of energy spitting fire at her back.
She wouldn't let him catch up to her. She'd be first. Always better, always faster.
"Let's see who pussies out now!" he shouted behind her.
Bonnie wrinkled her nose. His vulgarity could poison the best of moments. Yet she needed him. It was incomprehensible.
"Looks like it's still you!" she retorted with a grin that had formed on her lips against her will. Her teeth flashed painfully against the rain.
She felt a scream of joy building up against her throat, but it was not so much joy as a strangled relief. The magic inside her was coiling and springing up, seeking an outlet.
And then his fingers clawed around her waist and they were both stumbling down the road, trying to catch their breaths.
He held onto her, howling with mean laughter, and she – she couldn't help it, she giggled too.
They blinked.
Kai looked like a younger version of himself, a little kid sticking out his tongue to taste the rain. His hair clung to his forehead in damp strands that made him look silly and boyish, and she almost reached out to pull them away, but then the same crazy blue eyes flashed at her merrily and she knew he was as old as could be.
His eyes had traveled south and he was marveling with diminished subtlety at her wet clothes and the shapes outlined underneath. It pricked her skin into goose bumps the way he leered at her like that. She was vaguely repelled by the notion that he found her attractive. But she was also insanely comforted to know he was just a man, when you got down to it. A man full of lust and weakness.
But his gaze didn't linger. It never seemed to linger like other boys'. He had a madness underneath this lust that guided him with precision where he wanted to go, where he wanted to hit.
He grabbed her clenched fist. She didn't know when she had clenched it.
"Watch this," he told her, lifting his brows at the sky.
She frowned, her attention suddenly skewered. You never knew what would happen next with him at your side.
Suddenly, she could feel the magic in him, tugging and nudging at her own.
The clouds in the sky seemed to turn a shade darker, a violet bruise. The wind picked up speed, encasing them in a flurried dance. The rain seemed to pause midair before hitting their faces.
He was turning the rainfall into a storm.
"Try it," he urged her.
Bonnie let their magics intertwine. She gritted her teeth because the force of it was a bit hard to control. But soon enough, she heard the ominous clap of thunder right over her head and when she looked into Kai's eyes, they reflected the lightning crisscrossing the sky.
The bitter cold swept out the sweet May weather.
She felt avenged in a way. The month she had grown to hate with all her heart could, for some brief moments, turn into something else.
"Bet you can't turn that tree into char," he teased, nudging his head towards an innocent poplar in the distance.
Bonnie grimaced.
"Why would I do that?"
Kai chortled. "Because it's fun."
"No, it's not."
"You don't wanna be a pussy, do you?"
Bonnie groaned. "I regret starting that."
"Then finish it," he spoke low, his warm breath falling on her face.
Bonnie grunted and ripped her hand away from his. "I don't need you to do it."
She stared at the tree, at the sagging canopy, the wet lush leaves. Something dark slithered across the roof of her mind. It was only lightning, sinking its electric teeth into the wood.
She let out a small shriek.
Her skin tingled.
The tree was a black stump.
She had done that.
Kai was beaming at her with so much pride she wanted to throw up.
"You're a star, Bon Bon."
He leaned forward, his forehead almost touching hers. Beads of rain fell from his hair on her nose. He could be someone else from this angle. If she focused hard, she could see a different face, a different pair of blue eyes.
But Kai was Kai.
Handsome and ugly and demonic.
She sniffed at the air.
Petrichor.
That's what he smelled like. That sweet, purified smell right after the rain hits.
"We'll catch a cold at this rate," she spoke, breaking the spell. "We should get back."
If Kai was disappointed, he didn't let it show.
She trudged back to the hotel. He followed after her in silence.
God, that had been awesome.
She was sinking so quickly she didn't even know it, couldn't even tell. Good little souls like hers were the first to turn dark, maybe because when the light became blinding only the darkness remained.
He swung his feet over his bed playfully. He couldn't wait until she let go to the fullest. It was so exciting to watch her change under his eyes. It looked like the same Bonnie Bennett, but she was shedding a couple of skins, revealing the real core inside.
Everyone had that core deep down, he liked to think. They just needed someone like him to pump their veins with the right stuff. Not poison. Call it an elixir. His magic could work wonders like that.
She had no idea how much he would enjoy her at her darkest. He would enjoy the living hell out of her.
He liked nothing best. Pure darkness.
Well, if that darkness was pure…
He shook his head. He didn't have time to romanticize these notions. He reasoned with himself that he would have been happy to watch any witch transform.
She just had more potential. And held a silly sort of charm to him. That didn't mean anything. Rabbits and birds and kittens held a silly charm to him.
She was a weapon. His job was to make her lethal. And her job was to make him powerful.
There was nothing wrong with having a bit of fun in between.
A knock at the door.
For one idiotic moment he almost feared it was someone other than her. Damon or…his dad. His heart sped up.
Don't be a fucking moron, he chided himself.
He parted the door.
"You left this in my room," she said, waving the beeper in front of his eyes.
Kai stretched his hand out to take it, but she pulled back.
"Not so fast. Why'd you call the number at the boarding house?"
Kai gulped, but a quick smile refurnished his features into the casual laziness he liked to display so often.
"Ah. Just checking if our buddy Damon made his way back to us. The trio just isn't complete without him."
"…why would you check for Damon?" she asked, her eyes darkening with something like hope.
"Paranoia? Stockholm syndrome? I hate the guy. I miss the guy," he shrugged, leaning against the door frame.
"Really?"
"Hey, I won't deny he was easy on the eyes. I understand where your longing gazes came from."
"My what –"
"You know, your googly eyes."
Bonnie pinched the bridge of her nose. "How do you come up with this stuff?"
"It's pop psychology. When two people are stuck together for too long, they start going gaga for each other. Creepy, right?" he mouthed, raising an eyebrow playfully.
"I didn't go gaga for Damon."
And I'm not going to go gaga for you, her eyes seemed to add scathingly.
He chuckled. A silly sort of charm, indeed.
"Well, if I hadn't come along, who knows what you crazy kids would have done…"
"Yeah, thanks for saving me from a reckless mistake," she rolled her eyes sardonically.
"Always here for you, chum."
"Chum."
"Well, bestie and gal pal are off-limits apparently…"
"I called back at the house. I got no answer," she said, turning her eyes downwards.
"You sound disappointed."
"I'm not. I don't want anyone else to be stuck like this."
"Want me all for yourself, do you?"
Bonnie stuck out her hand. "Here, take it."
He grabbed the beeper, but he seemed to pull her with him, or maybe it was his imagination playing tricks on him, because she leaned closer into him.
She spoke into his collar bone. "You know I bested you in the parking lot, right? I won."
He tilted his head to catch her eye.
"I believe it was a draw."
"Not from where I was standing," Bonnie muttered, her eyes half-lidded.
"You weren't."
"Neither were you," she retorted softly.
"So?"
"So."
"How do we settle this?" he asked.
Bonnie's eyes traveled from his collarbone to his jaw. He hadn't noticed their height difference before. Or at least, it hadn't played such an important part. He found he liked the way he could inhale her and the way she looked up at him.
Bonnie licked her lips shyly, as if she were simply wetting dry skin. Her eyes darted further up to his chin and his own lips.
Kai's heart started beating a little faster. What exactly was she playing at? Because if she was about to deploy some cheap method of seduction – he was pretty sure he wouldn't fall for it. That was his ammo, after all. She was just an amateur.
He expected her to tiptoe around it, make small steps to draw him in, the way you'd reel a kite, or pull at a yo-yo. The way he did with her. He expected her to go slow.
He didn't expect her to be painfully obvious. He didn't expect her to grab his chin awkwardly and pull him down to her.
When she crashed her lips on him like a schoolgirl trying out her first kiss, his stomach did a somersault and he felt a bit like the ground was shaking. No, not because of Bonnie Bennett. She had just taken him by surprise. A big surprise.
The air left his lungs in a rush. He gasped and covered her mouth with his, but she quickly moved her lips in a dominant position again, almost as if she had practiced the move in front of the mirror. She was ticklish and innocent, exactly what he hated. His reflexes betrayed him. He pulled her head to him to deepen the kiss, fingers caught in her still damp hair, feeling a sudden rush in his veins that had little to do with lust and more to do with fear.
He remembered how she'd looked at him when she'd made him promise not to play dead again.
Like she'd cared.
He could get lost in that illusion. He couldn't get lost in the little breaths she took as she struggled to keep her teeth shut and not let his tongue in.
But he quivered, giving up a small piece of control.
He wasn't the only one with the elixir, it seemed. She pumped his veins with gushing gold.
Only, gold didn't let you breathe. Gold choked you. Gold melted your insides. And killed you.
That was his mistake.
He hadn't figured it out earlier.
Hadn't understood why she had been so gauche, so obvious.
The spell was pretty old and obscure. He'd read about it in some tattered Grimoire, but never experienced it.
A Poison Kiss. It could temporarily incapacitate you.
Kai fell to his knees. She only had to touch one finger to his chest and he collapsed on the floor altogether, his body unresponsive.
Bonnie wiped her lips, towering over him, her eyes glinting with righteous satisfaction.
But there was something else there too.
Something of him. Mischief.
"I won."
A/N: So I stole that Poison Kiss thing from The Originals, but work with me here :) Also, 70% of the other spells are canon, 30% not so much.
Until next time, bonkamily!