inspired entirely from theniklaus’ wild animal experience last night.
Klaus has heard Bonnie scream before. Truly, he’s usually the cause of her screaming and he thoroughly enjoys it. Whether it’s because he soundlessly approached her and frightened her, or he’s driven her into the throes of orgasm, he enjoys it.
What he does not enjoy is the shriek that has him snapping a pencil clean in half after she departs ahead of him into the bedroom. For one, it’s loud. For two, there is an undeniable tone of pure fright in her shriek that he’s never heard before. And it has him blurring the distance between them without any regard to anything in his way.
He expects an unpleasant surprise by one of his enemies--or even one of her enemies. That would make sense. It would make sense for Bonnie to be taken by surprise, or overwhelmed by some violent warning meant for him and that be the cause of her screaming. It would make even more sense because it meant that such a person/thing had gotten past his defenses without him seeing, hearing, or smelling them to go after the woman he. . . well, his witch.
No. It’s neither of those things.
It’s a bat.
Souris-chaude.
Eptesicus fuscus.
Big brown bat. It is literally a big brown bat.
He knocked the large oak doors of his bedroom completely off their hinges over a rodent with wings.
That’s not even the most vexing part either.
What annoys him more than the false alarm is the fact that Bonnie was talking to the bat. Not in the “go away, go on, shoo” kind of way. But in the “IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY KLAUS MIKAELSON? YOU SCARED THE HELL OUT OF ME, I’M GONNA SKIN YOU” kind of way.
His fangs retract. His vision loses its amber tint. His offense remains. “ I’m over here, love.”
His entrance didn’t even startle her as much as the bat did. She’d been surprised to see him--crashing in all fangy and growly--but she didn’t scream like before. As a matter of fact, she just looks confused. From him, to the bat on the ceiling. Him. Bat on the ceiling.
Klaus huffs. “ You honestly thought that was me?!”
True to form, Bonnie isn’t quick to admit she’s made a mistake. She’s just as wonderfully stubborn as he is. “ WELL! It’s not like vampires can’t shapeshift! It’s not like I’ve never seen you shapeshift, and you love to sneak up on me and scare me! This is hardly out of character!”
Granted. But. A big brown bat? “ I’m a Hybrid, first of all. And I could certainly do better than a bat. I’m older than Dracula, he should be stealing from me.”
“ Are you serious?” Bonnie doesn’t share his outrage.
“ I don’t need to shapeshift to scare you, love. You’re easy. You’ve always got your head in a book, you scare yourself.”
“ Klaus, get rid of it!”
He could. It wouldn’t take much. Bats aren’t fast. They’re just. . . noisy. Should he be so inclined to catch it and kill it or release it, the most it’ll do is squeak at him when he picks it up. Not as adorable as when Bonnie squeaks when he picks her up though. Maybe try to bite. He doesn’t think bats defecate when they’re afraid. Still. He won’t be performing bat removal for free here. “ Not until you apologize.”
“ What?!” The look on her face when she whirls on him is nearly enough to put him on the floor with those large oak doors. In laughter though, not an aneurysm. She’s too rattled to set his brain on fire. The comical uptake of her voice doesn’t help matters. “ Not until I apologize?!”
“ Is there an echo in here?”
“ Niklaus!”
Ah, there she is. Pressure in the back of his brain. Then the bat flaps around and makes noise and he’s being used a shield. So much for never needing his protection. “ I realize the world must look different from all the way down there, love, but it’s this big,” he says while spacing his hands to show the wingspan of the bat. With it’s wings spread all the way out, it’s 12, maybe 13 inches in size. “ And it doesn’t want you.”
“ You must not want me either because it’s still here!”
“ I’ll always want you, Bonnie. I’d love to show you how much--after you apologize.”
She’s behind him and to the right. He can feel her rage back there. “ Someday, someone is going to curse you, or hex you--nothing serious--just something annoying and long-lasting like you. And I’m not going to do a thing to stop it.”
He’s sure by then he’ll deserve whatever that might be. “ It’s making a roost, love.”
Not really. It’s just resting on his headboard. Now the bat has definitely got to go. It’s all fun and games to terrorize Bonnie but now it’s getting its stink all over his things.
She peeks around his shoulder and makes the most feminine, fearful noise of disgust he’s ever heard her make and he’s a shield again. “ All right, all right! I’m sorry that I mistook your asshole behavior as that of what comes naturally to a big, hairy, brown bat!”
Not as eloquent as he would have liked, but he supposes that will do. “ I know how hard that was for you.”
“ JUST GET RID OF IT!”
For all the trouble it caused, he does just go out and open a window ( “ Not in the bedroom, he’ll just fly back in! Take it away Klaus!”) and release the bat. “ There. You’re perfectly safe,” he says while shutting the window back and dusting his hands off.
His only answer is those big oak doors being slammed back into place by pure, angry, Bennett witch magic.
Really, she’s just being dramatic now.
“ I knocked down them before,” he grins while rapping his knuckles against the wood; and it’s a shame she can’t see how predatory that grin is. “ I can knock them down again. And then you’ll have a whole new reason to be so noisy, witch.”
Those big heavy doors don’t give, but they do shudder at his implication. And he knows it’s not because of fear.
