♡ 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗲 ♡

𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 three

east of eden.

─── ༺♥༻ ───

FREYA could feel the wind pierce her skin as Kai waved the ascendant in her face. There was a faint scent of metal in the air. Even fainter was the chill frosting her spine from his silhouette towering over her. The faintest of all was her skin - as all warmth and colour slowly drained from it like a waterfall of muddled rainbows.

Cupid shook her head in dismay at the boy who seemed to gleam underneath the soft sunlight.

"You had it all along." She followed his fingers like clockwork until they came to a stop at the tip of her nose. "So, you're a narcoleptic and a liar. Do you have any good qualities?"

Kai's mouth widened in a smile and words formed on the tongue. He'd say something dumb, probably. Something teeth-rottenly sweet like yes, you or something narcissistic like many. Freya wasn't sure if she wanted an answer at all. It was as if she already knew he didn't - or wished that she could give him some of her own.

Yet, before he could speak, Damon did.

"Thanks for the mind games, jackass," Damon muttered angrily. He didn't have the same patience Freya did, if any at all, while narrowing his blue eyes into slits that made her shudder. "You're wandering around like a crazy man, why?"

"Looking for the exact right spot. We need to find where the power of the eclipse is focused." Kai muttered, gazing at the sun through a hole in the ascendant. Freya noticed how the shadows lit up his face in a peculiar way, sculpting it with devilish memorabilia and prayers she was taught to never give. Not to men like him. Not to anyone who was too clumsy to hold a priceless heart.

"There's something not right with him."

Bonnie spoke beside her ear, catching her off-guard until blinks coated up her hazy stare. It was quite an understatement, Freya had better luck shooting doves than she did witches. There was a lot to love about something as broken as he seemed to be, but love couldn't fix everything. Not the damage that seemed patched up with sticky tape and sarcasm. It would be a team effort.

Thank God Freya wouldn't be a part of it.

She couldn't leave quickly enough. He was working his way underneath her skin and switching up her veins with vines until her insides felt like a jungle. He was like leaves running between her feathers. Raindrops in her clouds. Lightning in her hair. Something that she hated being there but naturally was.

Freya couldn't begin to list all the things that were wrong with him. It'd take her too much paper and not enough ink. It'd take too much time thinking about him that she'd want back. It'd be fruitless in her garden of Eden.

"There's a lot of things not right with him." Her mumbles fell into a chuckle as Bonnie nodded along. "I might hit him with another arrow. Just to make sure."

"And not to make him hurt just a little?"

"Psh, I would never." She nudged her with the edge of her shoulder. "That's just an added bonus."

A paper plane landed at her feet. Scrunched up hard enough for the ink to bleed into places it shouldn't, Freya glanced her eyes over at Kai uneasily. She had heard tales like these before. Pulling at pigtails and chasing girls around the playground just to get a smidge of attention. It didn't matter if it was negative. Anything was better than nothing; Freya Valentine was giving Kai Parker nothing.

Nothing but a hard time, at least.

She wondered if it was slightly dove-shaped or if he was just really bad at folding. Either way, there wasn't much time to ponder until Damon scooped it up from the floor with a sour look. He began unfolding it roughly until the edges split and tore at the seams. While Kai's paper dove diminished before his eyes, Bonnie became more interested in the words printed beneath his thumbs.

"Hey.. Oregon," Bonnie recalled, tapping against the newspaper with the edge of her finger. "I read this paper like a thousand times and there's something in it about Oregon." She brushed off his look of suspicion and followed each word like black and white breadcrumbs.

"It's just a stupid dove." Freya shrugged.

"It's a plane." Kai hissed barely moments after.

Crossing her arms, her head found it's way to a tilt. "What plane has a beak?"

The boy dropped the ascendant and grasped a few steps closer. There was a sense of pride in his voice he could never shake. A tendency to always be right even when he wasn't. The stubborn walls built around his heart that cupid's arrow couldn't even pierce. Freya began to wonder if his chest was as empty as the eyes he stared down at her with.

Kai glanced away of her a moment, unable to hold the gaze, and winced sarcastically.

"It's the cockpit."

"You're a cockpit."

Freya was caught up in another web with Kai. Mustering up the meanest words an angel of love could spit and twist the sweet tone on her tongue into sizzling caramel hot enough to burn. She could break hearts quicker than she could mend them sometimes. So wrapped up in him, in fact, those around her no longer existed.

"What about it?" He questioned, ignoring the two as their hands were inches away from wrapping around throats. Kai Parker didn't deserve to have an angel on his shoulder - but definitely deserved one as perched as Freya.

He gave her a curious glance, lips pulling at the edges. "You're not very nice for an angel. Change profession, maybe?"

"Usually my clients aren't selfish, lying witches who end up in a metaphysical prison before they turn twenty-five. Change your personality, maybe?"

They were like a cassette, a never-ending and brain-mashing cassette. Always spinning. Always arguing. Always waiting for someone to come and snip its film before it started to burn.

Bonnie decided to finally snip. "Freya, remember when Kai said he had all these brothers and sisters?.." Bonnie's eyes skimmed the page before looking up at the sociopath with nothing but disgust.

Freya kept a steady, iced gaze on him as he waited for her expression to change. "Yeah?"

"A family massacred in Portland. The only one missing was the oldest boy, a 22-year-old named Malachai." she read aloud.

Freya let her shoulders fall into her chest. Malachai Parker. 22. Narcoleptic. Liar. Murderer. That was what she had to work with?

Kinslayer and young proficient murderer didn't exactly have big hits in the love category.

"Who names a kid Malachai? It's like they expected me to be evil." he asked rhetorically, shooting them a questioning look.

"They expected right." Freya hissed, pushing against his chest with spite. "You murdered a bunch of kids."

"Hello! Not everyone died. I had a soft spot for one of my sisters. 'Cause otherwise, I would've cut her lungs out, and not just her spleen." Kai barely winced at her shoves and dragged out the last word with toxicity.

Freya ran two hands across her face before inhaling sharply. "What?"

Kai shrugged his shoulders innocently. "You can survive without a spleen."

Freya had to let Damon step forward in front of her at that point. Looking at him was edging on tackling instead of shoving. Tackling would soon turn into torture. That wasn't very angelic of her.

Kai noticed and instead, wiggled his way between her and him.

Leaning his arm over her shoulder, he placed his finger on the picture of the happy-looking family. "Look, well, these two, I, uh, hung off a stairwell railing. Then I put a hunting knife in her abdomen, and him, I drowned in the pool. But, he kept fighting me. I was like, 'I saved you for last, you ungrateful little...' Anyway, that was that."

Freya could feel his arm brush up against her neck. She could smell the scent of his cologne soak up her side. The warmth in his body was like any other. The body he was in seemed all cut up and glued from a perfect men's magazine. That wasn't the problem. It was the monster underneath.

"You just killed your whole family?" Damon asked in disbelief.

"Coven, to be precise. Oh, you know, a family of witches." Kai smiled sadistically and nodded to the angel. "We weren't a very loving one, as you can imagine."

Bonnie scoffed while Freya mustered up another mean look. She was itching to slap his arm from around her. She was positively screaming inside that this was her very own hell. Stuck with somebody that'd never find love? Doomed to be beside someone who couldn't even muster up any for his own family? The universe had played a cruel joke.

"You're making us jump through hoops and you're a witch?"

"Sort of, yeah. No powers, obviously. Oh, and of course, Gemini Coven did not take it too well when they heard what I did in Portland."

Meanwhile, Freya clenched her jaw hard enough to feel the tension rise in her cheeks. Narcoleptic. Liar. Murderer. Sociopath. The more the list grew, the worse it got. She wasn't too surprised she hadn't hit him with an arrow before - nobody could love that.

Her job was to make a sociopath fall in love. What a cruel oxymoron.

"This isn't Damon's Hell, is it?" Freya parted her lips, pushing the ugly emotions aside and wiping down her face until it was just another blank canvas. "It's yours."

Kai didn't answer Freya. Not with a nod, or a blink of the eyes, just him staring intently into her eyes confirming that she knew the answer regardless. She tried to breathe in the cold air but felt his musky cologne soak her lungs, detaching her from reality and coaxing her to take another look at his better qualities instead.

"Oh, come on, Bonnie. You wanna go home to your friends, I wanna go back and give the rest of the Gemini Coven an excruciating death. It's a win-win."

Bonnie widened her eyes as each word quipped from his lips, the first just as crazed as the last. Priding herself on her morality, Bonnie would rather stay trapped than release someone like that back into the world.

Damon, however, didn't seem to mind all that much.

"Look, I know this guy's not a model citizen, okay, but I gotta get back. Not just for Elena, but for my brother." Damon turned towards the girls; pleading with them to overlook it.

Bonnie turned to Freya, expecting the same look of disgust, but frowned as her eyes met the saint. Freya folded her eyebrows into a sympathetic look. Her head was slightly tilted to the side while her bottom lip was pulled between her teeth.

"Bonnie, I can't make him fall in love if he's stuck in some occultic limbo." She paused, words barely holding together. "And... I can't go home until he does."

She scoffed bitterly. "Freya, he's a psychopath!"

"Sociopath, actually-" Kai butted in. However, the piercing glares from Damon Salvatore forced him to back off.

Freya turned her back to them both. "I know! That's exactly my problem. Him being stuck here will only make it harder for me. I can't -- I have a life, too. People I care about, too."

Kai twitched his lip into a smirk.

"I'm sorry, I can't," Bonnie responded, guilt lingering across her face. She had no other choice and they both knew that. Kai narrowed his eyes as the devious glint was now replaced with rage.

Freya watched as his fists clenched beside him, knuckles white and teeth gritted. "Sorry doesn't work for me, Bonnie."

He attempted to grab her, but Damon snatched him by the arm and roughly shoved him against a tree. "We may be having a bit of a disagreement, but don't ever lay a hand on her. Don't ever lay a hand on either of them."

Kai chuckled, his cheek pressed against the raspy bark of the pine tree. "Kind of a non-issue now. We missed the day's eclipse. Raincheck for tomorrow?"

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Freya fiddled with the tip of her arrow, narrowing her eyes on the glided edge and winged tail. They were pretty. Ineffective. But pretty. Cupid felt lost without her arrows. Making those around her fall in love was easy - especially when it was strapped to the edge of her bow and simply needed a little push.

"Should've called me Angel Of Arrows instead," Freya mumbled to herself.

Freya scattered her eyes back to the mirrored tip and immediately scowled at Kai's reflection behind her. "Do you always talk to yourself?"

She didn't bother to look at him. Her life was barely her own outside of work. Now, it didn't exist at all. Kai was the ball and chain tied to her ankle. He was the bricks dragging down to the bottom of a river she swam carelessly in times before.

"Only when in the company of people I don't wish to talk to."

He faked a wince. "Ouch, that hurt more than the arrow."

"You're making Bonnie jump through hoops all because you don't have any magic." her look fell to an almost faux-sympathetic one. "The total and complete uselessness should hurt more."

He leaned forward. "Says Cupid with the faulty arrows."

"And that's not true, actually. Here's the thing: I have a killer effect on magic. I can't generate it myself. But, I can consume it from others... temporarily."

She pinewood scratch her back as he cornered her against the tree."They called me an abomination. It hurt my feelings."

Freya paused. "What feelings?"

His eyes couldn't help but roll. "Look. I can still absorb Bonnie's magic - If I consume it all I'm just gonna end up killing her... But, if we work together, we can all go home as friends." he picked pine needles from her shoulder as he towered over her smaller frame. "Or I can devour her magic, kill all three of you, and go home alone."

She mustered up a scowl.

"You still need to find your true love."

"Magic is my true love."

Freya pursed her lips. In the seconds between his words and blinks, she knew it was true. It made her angry. It made her frustrated. It made her feel useless. It made her feel -- "Sad."

Freya didn't bother snapping her shoulder against his as she walked past. There was a tint of sympathy in her eyes he didn't like. An invoke of emotion he had never felt before. Was it?

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Damon walked along the muddy dirt road path, swinging a stick in his hands like a sword and taking the time to occasionally poke Bonnie with it. "

"You're in a good mood for the first time this decade." Bonnie stared at Damon, annoyed. "stop that."

"Because I have a hot date with my girl tonight."

Freya followed with her hands bunched up in her jacket pockets and hair pulled behind in a pink scarf. "Which girl is that?" Her head cocked to the side. She never remembered hitting him with any of her arrows - at least, not within the last century.

"Elena Gilbert." he smirked, "5'6, easy on the eyes. She's gonna be a doctor."

Freya didn't mention her lack of involvement. Maybe it was a misfire. Or a shot that she had somehow forgotten. Even so, Love could not exist without Freya's arrows - if it could, she'd have no purpose - and be painfully jobless.

"Yeah, assuming Kai's telling the truth," Bonnie mumbled. Damon ignored her negative comment and turned towards the saint.

"You're the love expert, what do you think? Dinner and a movie?" He thought out loud, "Or maybe I should screw the dinner and movie. Skip straight to the good part."

Freya simply shook her head in dismay with a light chuckle.

"Hm, Impatience. Very romantic." She commented sarcastically.

"That's assuming I can do the spell, which I won't know...until I see it," Bonne interrupted again, this time capturing Damon's attention.

"Whatever happened to hope, Bon? 'Member when I was all like boo, grr and you were like 'hooray, hooray. We're getting out of here!' ?"

"Look, I want to go home more than anything, but Kai's a sociopath, who's to say he won't screw us over?" Bonnie turned to face the two, worried more than anything.

Freya halted in her steps, crossing her arms and sharpening her tone.

"If Kai screws us over, I'll kill him myself."

Damon raised his eyebrows at the girl while Bonnie nodded along, neither fully believing her. The Angel of Death was one of her best friends. Surely he'd cut her some slack.

"I heard my name. All good I hope." Kai appeared seemingly out of nowhere, a large axe resting in his hands - something that made Freya's stomach squirm.

"The eclipse will happen directly overhead, In perfect alignment with the Gemini constellation," he stated, holding the ascendant over his head. "You need to dig into the tunnels below us," Kai ordered towards Damon, receiving a deathly glare from him.

"Why?" Freya huffed as Malachai rolled his eyes and paused for a second.

"Have you ever portal-jumped through an eclipse before?" He squinted his eyes, Bonnie and Damon shared a displeased look as he quirked a brow toward the saint.

"... No." She crinkled her nose sarcastically as Kai smirked at her and dropped the axe to the ground.

"I could show you sometime if you want." he held a smirk on his lips as his eyes traced her figure.

Damon butted in and stood between the two, breaking their gaze. While Kai was a bad person in retrospect, he knew how to sweet talk. If only he used that towards falling in love instead of pestering her.

"Yeah, no, you won't."

Kai huffed and dropped that very gaze to the floor.

"Look, the light of the eclipse will shine down and activate the Ascendant, you sprout a little witchy woo, and then poof!" he gestured and explosion with his hands like an excited child, "Anyone standing in the circle of light holding the ascendant goes home."

"Let me see it," Bonnie ordered, holding her hand out to the sociopath. Kai paused for a little while before shaking his head.

Freya watched the two curiously. A brow quirked above her brown eyes, tainted slightly with a pink glint, while her arms crossed firmly. Kai wasn't exactly dodging roses being thrown his way.

"When the time comes." Kai shrugged nonchalantly.

She tutted knowingly, rolling her eyes to the side and pulling at her lower lip with her teeth.

"If it ever does." Her cheek began to burn with the hot stares he directed her way.

"Little patience wouldn't kill you," He stepped forward excitedly. "Would it?"

"Where are you going?" Damon interrupted, talking over the two as they exchanged glares.

Kai tore his away first with an outstretched smile.

"Into town, I need to... gather some important supplies." He spoke out loudly. "Try not to miss me."

Freya scowled. Little chance of that.

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Damon could feel the beads of sweat coat his forehead as he dropped the axe to the floor, a perfect hole spread out at his feet big enough for Freya to feel a little reminded of her death-bringing brother.

She sat in the grass. Picking at daisies and chaining them together from split green seams and lime stems, her lips pursed together at his dedication.

"I don't trust a thing he says." Freya glanced in his direction with eyebrows, sewing together as quickly as the flowers in her hand. "And you shouldn't either."

Damon gave her an annoyed stare. "Oh, you don't like him? I didn't notice."

Her shoulders slumped forward. "My favourite thing about humanity is how little I have to endure its mistakes." She gave him a blank look. "Kai Parker is a wine stain in its rug."

The vampire nodded. "Or a blood-stain."

Before Freya could say anything else, a shadow overhung her back and blocked the warmth from settling on her skin. If it wasn't the heat from the sky that made her goosebumps thin, it was the fire that nestled inside her chest as his voice danced along her eardrums like a sinister song.

"I heard my name, all good things I hope." Kai turned to set down his backpack with ease. His fingers barely latched away when Damon ripped it from his grasp and rooted through it disappointedly.

"Zima," He hissed. "Grunge, every Alex Rodriguez rookie card known to man.. and a pager. Really?"

"555-Hiya-Kai, no way I'm giving those digits up."

Freya tossed the flowers to the floor and took a stand. "Those are the important supplies you needed to get?"

"Look. The future sounds great, all right? I'm super excited about the Internet, but 1994 has been my home for most of my life. I'd hate to get homesick. So let's get down there-"

"No." Bonnie interrupted, straightening out her posture from the tree she previously leaned against. Her eyes were narrowed and her gaze as sharp as arrows. "We are not going anywhere until you show me the spell."

Kai nodded, crossing his arms in front of him with a defiant look. "Okay."

The quartet stood in silence, waiting for either Kai or Bonnie to move. Freya could count the seconds between them -- and how many teeth Damon could've broken from the sheer force of his gritted jaw. She noticed his clenched fists. Bonnie's laboured breathing. Kai's smug perfect face.

Anyway.

"Are we literally not going anywhere?" Damon snapped, breaking the silence of a thousand breaths.

"Fine, you don't want to show me the spell? Then you can do it yourself." Bonnie rolled her eyes, the reflection them painting an image of a prideful Kai Parker.

"You want my magic," she spoke slowly before reaching her arm out to him. "Take it."

Freya glanced between them before stepping forward slightly. Tension was at an all-time high and the inhabitants were anything but sober from it. Prodding the bear wouldn't help -- at least, not the teddy-shaped one of Kai -- who seemed to hide his ferocity well beneath the fur and stitching of an enthusiastic smile."Bonnie."

Kai's lips curled momentarily. "Watch your bestie, dovey, she's being brave."

Bonnie ignored his taunts and reached out even further. "I'm serious Kai! This was your big threat, wasn't it? If I don't do the spell and get us out of here, you'll just take my magic, leave me for dead, and do the spell yourself. So go ahead. Take all of it."

"Don't mind if I do."

Kai shrugged as he slapped his hands on her shoulders, digging his nails into her shoulder and feeling the euphoria of her magic running through his veins. It was intoxicating. Thrilling, even. A drug he found himself too hooked on to release. The Bennett didn't expect such a rush of pain the moment he touched her -- and not for her body to tense up like it was brought to the very brink of death himself.

"Bonnie." Damon dragged her name out, worried for her safety.

"It's okay, he won't kill me." she assured, swallowing down the sharp pains in a large breath.

"Doesn't look like that from here." Freya gave Damon a worrisome look, one he mirrored perfectly.

Bonnie's face contorted into a mask of pain that Freya couldn't look away from. It was haunting, no, aggravating. Before her mind could catch up to her body, her hand was sinking into his arm and pulling him back to face her.

"Kai, stop it!"

Her plan seemed to run stale. She wasn't expecting him to turn to her, a wary look in his eyes, and actually listen. She lifted her jaw as his stare seemed curious, not mad, and how hers wasn't intimidated. He could've put those hands on her instead. Hurt her, too. He wouldn't.

It wouldn't be as fun.

"He doesn't know the spell. Which means we don't need him." Bonnie uttered as she regained her composure. "Motus."

There was a blink in between their moments. A quick switch in his eyes from fondness to panic. There was barely enough time for Freya to realize that he wasn't breathless because of her -- but because an axe was buried into his bloody chest.

The material of the jacket sank deep underneath the metallic blade. Malachai stumbled for a few moments before his eyes rolled backward and his limp body fell into the soil. His fingers were stained red. His head lay on her unfinished daisy chain. A halo of picked flowers cupped his hair. Even in a temporary death, Kai had to parody divinity.

"Bonnie!" Damon scolded her in disbelief.

Freya's eyes lingered on his dead body, a sick feeling in her stomach from the sight of it. Bonnie and Damon stood in silence before he continued. "Great work, Bonnie, you took the only chance of us getting out of here and turned him into a giant... douche-kebab."

He then noticed the angel's silence. "Freya, stop staring at the dead body."

"Sorry, it's a little jarring to see the guy I'm bound to die on the floor, Damon." She balled her fists and approached the two angrily. "Is everyone here an axe murderer now?"

"Technically, if you kill an axe murderer with their own axe, it completely cancels it out."

Freya narrowed her eyes.

Bonnie interrupted loudly, neither phased about the corpse behind them. "Guys, think about it. What prison gives an inmate a key?"

"Is that a trick question?" he furrowed his brows, chugging a bottle of Kai's Zima. Freya gave him an unimpressed look. A Zima that had been standing since 1994, mind you.

"I think the Gemini coven used a Bennett spell to create this place, what if that's why my Grams sent me here?" Bonnie mumbled to herself, ignoring the confused looks on both Damon and Freya's faces.

"This is the face I make when I don't understand you." Damon joked but was met with Bonnie's stern face. Cupid narrowed her eyes at the tension that had suddenly entered the air and lay over them like an itchy blanket.

"You know the last thing my Grams said to me... was to stay strong. What if that was her way of telling me I have the power to get out? I have the ascendant, a massive celestial event to draw from, plus a burning desire to get away from you." Bonnie smiled to herself before she started to chant, her power radiating off her in a soft glow. "That's why Kai wouldn't kill me. He needed a Bennett..." she paused.

"I'm his only way out of here."

✧ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 4,407. ✧

a/n: me including freya and kai in TOY when they're still being fleshed out here is a form of self torture i think