Vampire Diaries 1. Chapter 1

_"I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife" - Hozier, Take me to Church_

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><p>She was all the light of the Sistine Chapel contained in a delicate human body. Klaus enjoyed witches and what they offered his ambitions as well as his bed, but there was something numinous and fierce in Bonnie Bennett that even he wouldn't dare touch. She was too full of a kind of righteous innocence that would singe the flesh off his condemned body if he got too close.<p>

But some nights when the darkness was suffocating and thick with the endless years of immortality, god how he wanted to have her flickering beside him like a votive candle, to touch and devour her radiant flesh, to burn and burn and burn.

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><p>She'd hated and feared him as long as she'd known him, but it was different from the way she hated other vampires. <em>That<em> was a brutally simple kind of hate that would die with a stake buried in their hearts. But this, the way she hated Klaus, it was a desperate, unfocused, stormy kind of hate, the kind of hate that was hungry and that could consume. She hated how he moved through the world like he owed nothing to anyone except himself, how he could be so utterly and luxuriously selfish.

Yes, she _hated _Klaus, but in her heart of hearts, in the place where she burned with desire for more than she could ever possibly have, she envied him too.

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><p>When he heard that bitch Katherine was on her long deserved deathbed he had to come see for himself, to glut himself on centuries of foiled triumph. He didn't expect to stumble on Bonnie Bennett in the moonlit woods. It took him a second to recognize her newly bobbed hair, but the crooked jaw and angelic full lips were the same. She didn't see him, and he watched her wiping tears from her face, sniffling and looking up at the sky as though the stars could deliver her somehow. Before either of them could make a move a gust of cold air rattled the bare branches and disturbed the leaves at their feet. When he looked up another figure stood before her, facing her: the hulking spirit of a young vampire, blustery with the rage of his stolen immortality.<p>

"It's _you_?" he spat, "you're the Anchor?"

"The one and only," she said, dryly, tiredly.

Klaus watched the exchange with interest. His informants had been correct. Bonnie Bennett was now a living, breathing gateway to the Other Side. No longer a witch, but a gatekeeper to Death.

"Well what the fuck am I supposed to do now?" the young vampire sounded increasingly agitated, "I thought I'd have to go through some big black door, or swim across a lake or something. Instead I'm talking to some hippy-dippy tramp out here in the woods."

Green eyes flashed with a fire that Klaus remembered but had tried to forget. The fire of a lost innocence.

"You can go through me, or stay in limbo for eternity letting fools with Ouija boards play with you. Just imagine how many "hippy dippy tramps" are gonna summon you as their own personal Edward Cullen. Or maybe some witch or warlock will decide to carry you around in a slow globe. Go through me, or you don't get to go. Anywhere. Tough choice I know," her voice crackled with sarcasm, but he could sense a bitterness underneath. She was tired. And she was alone.

"What do I do?" the vamp asked, sullen and quiet.

She didn't smile. Queens and angels rarely did, but her face was ethereal in the moonlight. She said one word.

"Kneel."

Klaus watched as the youth complied, supplicating himself before her slender form. When she put her hands on his shoulders he started to tremble, the outline of his body dissolving into light. Bonnie's agonized cry melted into the young vampire's groan of release and Klaus felt desire lance through him. _He_ wanted to kneel there, at her feet, and have her slap his hand away just when he tried to touch her. To to do what no one else could truly do: deny him.

He suddenly flashed back to that long-ago night when he'd forced her to Unlink his siblings and she, incandescent with rage and desperation, had said "You bother me. You use people to get what you want and it's _not right_." It took all his self-possession not to risk everything he'd worked for and kneel before her, let her read him his sins while he begged to kiss her sweet, young feet.

Just as he gathered his heated thoughts the young vampire was gone, crossed over to the Other Side, leaving a wilted and gasping Bonnie. She took a ragged breath then crumpled to the ground.

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><p>She was so tired of emptiness. A gate was neither desired nor reviled. The wind whistled through its grates but left the structure unmoved. It swung open into Paradise or locked you shut in Hell. But no one truly cared about the gate after they got where they wanted.<p>

Bonnie felt her senses return along with a scent she remembered from a childhood holiday: the warm, salt smell of the soothing rush of waves settled over her like a blanket and her eyelids fluttered against a soft darkness. She was blindfolded.

Someone was carrying her, strong warm arms that held her with firm tenderness. It never even occurred to her to protest. Whoever it was, they carried her like she was the most precious thing in the world.

_This is a dream_, she thought faintly as the sea breeze caressed her hair. And any moment I'm about to wake up screaming in agony, feeling hollowed out with another Crossing.

She waited for wakefulness but the dream flowed on. A door was being opened, she felt the slight jolt of being carried upstairs. The sea scent was fainter now, replaced by new and stirring odors of lemon verbena, lavender, chamomile and soap. Then, fresh air swept over her again. Her bare feet touched warm stone and firm, gentle hands at her waist.

The silk blindfold slipped off her eyes and she blinked away dots of blue and yellow. When her vision cleared, Bonnie caught her breath. She was standing on a sprawling white marble balcony, gazing out at a moonlit sea. Foam white as pearls blossomed in the hands of the dark silvery water, and over it all lay an awareness, like the stars themselves were looking down at her with adoration.

"It's all for you, love."

The voice, his voice, jolted through her and she whipped around. Klaus stood behind her at the entrance to what looked like a lush bedroom. He was wearing jeans and a white Henley that, along with his softly waving dark blond curls, gave him the look of some modern day Adonis, instead of the monster who'd terrorized her and her friends. The realization that Klaus had always been a handsome bastard surged to the surface.

"What are you doing here?"

Full, blood red lips twitched in a smile, "I could ask you the same thing."

"But you must have brought me here. Why?"

"Dreams don't work that way love, at least not for witches. I can't bring you anywhere you don't want to be."

At that word "witch" she felt an ache so deep that the air around them shifted, grew cold and harsh for a moment before she steadied her breath.

"You miss it don't you?" Klaus said quietly.

"And? You offering to be my supernatural therapist?"

He brushed close to her in a blur of movement before disappearing into the bedroom. His soft, deep laugh ghosted across her skin.

Somewhere in the back of her conscious or subconscious a voice piped up. _This is crazy, you need to wake up. It's Klaus for god's sake! _

But that voice came from another time, another life, when she was naive and full of hope, before Death had swallowed her whole and spit her out.

So instead Bonnie ventured inside to a bedroom that lit itself in baroque splendor with each step she took, reminiscent of the illustrated Art of Europe books she'd pored over with her dad in a long lost childhood. Back then she'd had dreams of working in a museum, turning corners of a gallery in smart Loboutins impressing the rich and powerful with her knowledge of Rembrandt and Monet.

Yet here she was, in the company of her former nemesis, painting the walls of a dream with her imagination.

Klaus was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room. A fireplace crackled behind him, casting his features in an otherworldly light, like torches flickering shadows across marble statues. But he was no statue, and as she watched he took off his shirt in a smooth motion. His skin was unmarked and smooth with the flawlessness of immortality, except for a feather transforming into a flock of birds tattooed across his shoulder. She wondered how a tattoo needle could pierce his skin long enough, if he felt pain, if he enjoyed it.

Her mouth was dry, "What are you doing?"

Klaus lifted a pair of steel handcuffs into the light. They had thorns like a rose-stem. He put his hands behind the chair and she heard a click and his eyes met hers. His face was different now, expectant, hungry and there, behind his eyes, the slightest trace of fear. "Offering, love."

Revulsion mixed with a dark excitement in her lower belly, and the walls around them grew closer, velvety and glistening.

Klaus continued in a low voice, "I saw you in those woods when the vampire Crossed through you. How many has it been today? This week? Last month? And did your friends hold your hands, did they comfort you through the pain?"

"I don't have to listen to this." She closed her eyes and tried to will herself awake, but the dream persisted, clinging to her like a second skin. _I can't bring you anywhere you don't want to be._

"Or were you alone, like tonight? Alone and caught between heaven and hell? I know a little something about that."

"You don't know _anything_ about my pain."

His eyes were burning into her, "Then why don't you show me?"

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><p><strong>Soooo I just wanted to publish this before the week caught up to me. This isn't my best work but I wanted to celebrate Klonnie week with y'all. Enjoy and look for an update soon :) xoxo<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**This is un-betaed and hurriedly edited so I apologize for any errors. I'm not sure where I'm going to take this or if I'm going to keep taking it, but I had lots of fun writing this chapter. A note to any devout Catholics: this chapter contains the use of Latin prayer and sacral symbolism. If these things offend you please don't read. **

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><p><em>"And watching, with eternal lids apart,<em>

_ Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,_

_The moving waters at their priestlike task_

_ Of pure ablution round earth's human shores," - _John Keats_  
><em>

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><p>He hadn't walked in someone's dreams in a long time, and he'd no sooner walked out of Bonnie's than he remembered why. It made him too vulnerable because you could never predict when the dream would turn, when a sudden flash of anger or shock or, even more dangerous, desire would shatter the delicate illusion and reveal him. And more, like water from an overfull glass those shared dreams could spill over into waking like, blurring and transforming necessary boundaries.<p>

But he couldn't resist the teasing promise, the other side of that coin: it could reveal something about Bonnie Bennett too. And like a fevered pilgrim kneeling at the altar he couldn't look away from the opening veil, even if the light within scalded his eyes.

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><p>The roses were vivid as blood, soft as silk. They were delivered to her door with no return address or name, only a gilt edged card with a single, handwritten Latin word: <em>Ave<em>. The beginning of a prayer.

Bonnie threw out the card, then she drove the flowers to the local cemetery and left them at a stranger's grave. A thorn pricked her finger and she cursed under her breath, fumbling in her bag for a Kleenex.

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><p><em>"Please."<em>

_She stared raptly at the blood welling and pouring from her slit wrist. Warm wet ruby drops splashed at her feet, splattered red petals across her bare thighs as she raised a blood-flecked foot and ran it with balletic grace up his denim-clad thigh, stopping just short of his bulging erection._

_"Hmm?" was her dreamy response to Klaus' groaned plea. Bound hand and foot to a chair, he could only watch as she stood there dripping benediction inches from his starving, sinful mouth like the the holy spring of Lourdes._

_Bonnie was enraptured by her own blood, at how she could bleed and bleed without feeling lightheaded. This was her dream, and no pain could touch her that she didn't want or desire._

_Klaus on the other hand..._

_She knew he was close to breaking, and with an innocent smile she trailed blood over her decolletage so it ran down her cleavage like mountain streams. His eyes blackened and a growl rumbled in his throat. Sweat covered his bare torso and dripped off his brow, sweat that she had brought forth, the sweat of a trembling lust that was all hers to tease and deny._

_'Come and get it big boy.'_

_But she'd already started dissolving the dream. Klaus had barely snapped his restraints and lunged towards her before she began melting away. Bonnie laughed at the thwarted hunger on his face, and as the last of the dream faded away she saw him drop to his knees, panting and ever so slightly awestruck._

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><p>Bonnie ignored Jeremy's texts on her phone and poured herself some hot cinnamon tea instead. Ever since she'd told him she needed some space he'd been circling her like a wounded puppy, hurt and anxious and full of questions she was in no mood to begin answering.<p>

How could she tell him the only person who made her feel anything these days was a centuries old monster who relished in her scorn and denial, who got high on degradation and a hard-on for her blood?

She could barely face the voices in her own head these days, the ones that whispered that she was a freak, a pervert, some kind of sicko for returning to those dreams, for returning to Klaus, over and over again. She'd try to deny him at first, to deny her own desires. But like the devil that he was he'd seen through her, plucked out the secret wanting and dangled it before her eyes.

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><p><em>'I can feel your hurt and rage Bonnie. It eats you up inside doesn't it? All that burning anger trapped in such a sweet and pure vessel. Why keep all that poison locked away? Why not feed the hungry?'<em>

_'Why would I feed you, or give you, anything?'_

_He looked up from under his lashes almost coyly, a demon wearing the face of an angel, 'Because you would never let your anger spill over your friends. They'll never glimpse that fire because you think they don't deserve it. And you're right.'_

_He made as if to touch the wisps of hair around her face, but withdrew his hand, 'those fools could never deserve the goddess that walks inside you wearing a saint's disguise. The latter hates me, and I've earned that hatred. The former wants to punish me, and I crave that even more. So what are you waiting for, love? Give me what I deserve.'_

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><p>By now she was familiar with the cold air that followed in the footsteps of the dead. She set down her tea and turned to face the haggard looking werewolf couple standing in her kitchen in spirit form.<p>

They were young, probably no older than sixteen, leather and denim clothes ripped, clutching each other's shivering hands. Bonnie remembered sixteen. It was the taste of summer and magic and a world that seemed hers for the taking.

"I'm the one you're looking for. The Anchor," she said, "are you ready?"

The boy nodded and stepped forward but the girl, a fragile young thing with doe eyes and red hair, clutched at him with a cry. She turned an imploring, desperate face to Bonnie.

"Please," said the girl.

Bonnie simply shook her head.

"C'mon Trisha," her boyfriend gathered her close and knelt to the ground, "at least we're together."

"What...what do we do now?" Trisha asked through broken sobs.

This time Bonnie found it within her to smile. "Pray."

Light gathered furiously around the kneeling figures, swallowing them up even as their timid voices recited along with Bonnie

"Ave Maria, gratia plena

Dominus tecum

Benedicta tu in mulieribus"

The agony came as it always did and choked the words out of her throat, turning them into low cries instead. Waves of pain shuddered over her and the last of the prayer echoed in the blinding light.

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><p>The clawfoot bathtub was the only thing Bonnie liked about her shoebox apartment. Lounging in hot fragrant water that soaked away her bodily aches was becoming a force of habit.<p>

Leaning her head on a towel, she ran idle, underwater hands over her small, firm breasts, the taut expanse of her stomach, resting them just above her pubis. Her skin was soft and smooth as cinnamon, her body young and firm. To the outside she looked like a girl ready and sweet for love. But these days the only hands she could stomach were her own. It was much easier this way, she thought as she slipped a hand between her legs and stroked herself. She was stone to the rest of the world, because being flesh was too vulnerable.

Her eyes drifting shut, she parted her labia and caressed the heated, secret flesh within, making slow circles up to her clit. One leg looped over the tub, the other cocked at the knee, Bonnie began to touch herself in earnest, flicking and rubbing until arousal began to claim her body centrifugally.

_Let me touch you, love. Please._

_No._

_You can burn my hands off my arms later if you want. Just let them worship you first._

_I said no Klaus._

Knowing he could feel her as hotly as she felt him, Bonnie sucked two of her own fingers and penetrated herself. A low moan came from her lips and somewhere she heard Klaus say _god_.

She was moving her hands faster now, rubbing and thrusting, slowing down only to heighten the building heat, licking her fingers and mingling spit with the salt essence of her arousal.

_Bonnie_, he groaned in her mind, god, _Bonnie please._

She moved one hand to cup her own breast, squeezing and pinching the nipple. Moments like this she wished she really was a goddess, a many-armed one like Kali, so she could touch herself in all the places she wanted, all at the same time.

_Tell me, Klaus. What kind of saint has monsters entreating her?_

_A fallen one. An earthly one._

She was close now, so close, her inner-thigh muscles tightly flexed, hips moving urgently against her own hand.

_And you said you wanted to worship me? Is that what you want Klaus?_

_Yes, fuck, ahh. Bonnie yes._

_Then pray. Pray to me._

The orgasm was ready, waiting coiled and tense like a jaguar to leap up and devour her whole, waiting for his hoarse, aching prayer.

_"Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,_

_ora pro nobis peccatoribus,_

_nunc et in hora mortis nostrae."_

She screamed as the wave broke, a pleasure so intense piercing her whole body, it was almost painful. Throes of orgasm racked her body and she splashed wildly in the water, wishing the pure, white-hot sensation could cleanse her of life and memory.

Behind her flickering eyelids she had a glimpse of Klaus. He was kneeling at her side, dipping his fingers but barely into her bathwater and then touching them to his lips. His eyes closed as though he was savoring the taste of something indescribable.

_'By this holy water and by your precious Blood, wash away all my sins, O Lord. Amen'_

For a moment she lay there soaking it all in, the prayers, the afterglow. But eventually the water grew cold and she had to get out.

Lying in bed she wondered if Klaus could still see her and sense her, if he was lying in his own bed thinking of her, pleasuring himself. Or maybe he was lying next to someone else, a flesh and blood woman who let him do more than just pray.

_I'm not doing this anymore. No more roses, no more dreams. It's finished Klaus._

Bonnie shut out his voice and reached for the sleeping pills in her bedside drawer.

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><p>"Klaus, might I ask what draws you away from New Orleans at the very height of our war with Marcel?"<p>

He was about to get in his car when he cursed out loud at Elijah's voice. He was hoping to leave without notice so he could evade just such questions like these.

Klaus turned around, "I have business in Mystic Falls, that's all you need to know."

"Ah, and might this business involve a certain green-eyed witch?"

When Klaus was silent, he pressed on, "Although, I hear she's not the force of nature she used to be. Hardly. She's just a gateway now. The Anchor. So what could you possibly want with her or that town?"

Klaus rubbed his fingertips together, smiling fondly at the memory of water. "I'm going on a pilgrimage brother. Like the sinners of old."

Elijah's eyebrows rose, "Are you drunk?"

"Don't worry, there'll be plenty of time for war later," he slid into his Camaro and started the engine, driving off into the night leaving a very confused Elijah behind.

He had no idea what he was going to say to Bonnie Bennett when he saw her, he just knew that whatever they had, whatever you'd call their twisted, torturous, fantasy connection, it couldn't end like this. Just seeing her in dreams was enthralling enough, seeing her in flesh and blood was going to be even more dangerous.

Maybe she'd let him kneel and pray his way back into her mind. Or maybe she'd strike him with whatever she could. But either punishment or benediction it would be at her feet.

What more could a pilgrim want?

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><p><strong>This fic is very experimental for me so please RxR if you can, I would love to hear your thoughts! xoxo<strong>


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Vampire Diaries, Angst, Romance