Chapter Text
He’s feeling pretty pleased with himself.
He has the White Oak stake, all the daggers save for one, and he’s been efficiently dealing with his nuisances one by one.
He thought that by compelling the elder Salvatore to kill the Gilbert boy, he’d be killing two birds with one stone. While that isn’t quite what happened, at least the irritating vampire is out of the way for now.
Once he takes care of the witch, the Gilberts are next. He imagines how furious Nik will be and smiles gleefully.
He hears the witch angrily arguing with someone on the phone and when she hangs up, he makes his move.
He slams her against a locker with little effort and he notices what a tiny little thing she is.
“No one can get the cure if you’re too dead to find it,” he tells her as he allows his fangs to come out. He can almost taste how sweet her blood will be.
Instead of looking fearful, she narrows her eyes and he feels pain shoot through his entire being. He tries to fight through it, but it increases until he finds himself dropping to his knees.
Despite his pain, he looks up at her, feeling a sense of awe. It’s been a while since he’s witnessed this sort of power and he finds it intoxicating.
Maybe when he’s done with his messy business at the Gilberts he can return to have some more fun of her.
He reaches out to her even as she runs away.
Okay, so he’s obviously miscalculated by a lot.
In his defense, though, the idea that a baby vamp and a newbie hunter taking him out just wasn’t plausible.
Bright side? At least he isn’t alive to live down the embarrassment of it all.
He’s almost surprised by Nik’s immediate reaction. He’d been so sure that his older brother had allowed it all to happen. Either way, he supposes it doesn’t really matter now.
He thinks about the witch he’d attacked earlier. Perhaps things would have gone different if he’d tried to forge an alliance with her. Underestimating her was foolish.
He finds himself standing in what must be her room. He supposes being a ghost, you just think about something or someone and you’re there.
She must have just come out of the show because she’s sitting at a vanity, running a comb through her damp hair, lost in her own musings.
When she notices his reflection in the mirror, she jumps up, letting out a small noise of disbelief.
He’s a little surprised himself. He knows that the Gilbert boy could see ghosts, but he had no idea that she could.
“You’re dead!” She’s pointing the comb at him as if she plans on using it as a weapon.
“Yeah,” he says with a sardonic smile and a shrug.
“So…you’re a ghost?”
“How observant,” he replies dryly.
“I’m not supposed to be able to see ghosts. I’ve never died…” She trails off as a spark of realization enters her eyes. “No, I did. When I tried to stop Elena from turning into a vampire,” she murmurs, talking more to herself than him. She sighs as she focuses her attention back on him.
“Maybe death can actually be fun,” he says with a grin, deciding that he’s not going to give the witch a moment’s rest.
“Oh, hell no,” Bonnie says, shaking her head. “I’m going to be sending your ass back into non-existence right now.”
He doesn’t seem all the concerned as she gathers her materials to perform the same spell she did when she had sent Vicki away.
She does all the same things, focusing, willing him to be gone…and nothing. It doesn’t do a damn thing.
“Yeah, I’d say it didn’t work,” he says cheerfully, taking a seat on her bed. “Nice try, though.”
She knows right away why it doesn’t work; there were people still hanging onto him. And it isn’t like she can go to Rebekah and Klaus and tell them, ‘Hey, the ghost of your dead brother is kinda haunting me right now, so can you like just get over it and let go of him so I can send him far, far away?’
She’d known that there had been a chance of that being a problem, but she had been hoping that maybe with Expression, he would be sent away anyway.
There was still one option; if she doesn’t want to see him, then she won’t. She closes her eyes once again and focuses on shutting him out.
When she opens her eyes again, he’s still there, lounging on her bed and apparently exceedingly pleased with himself.
“Oh, hell,” is all she can say.
He just grins at her.