look who came to dinner ; a drabble

While both their daughters were leading their own lives independent of Bonnie and Dev, the Bennett-Simses always made time for weekly family gatherings. Sunday dinners had become something of a tradition since the girls both moved out. It was a day when they could all just slow down the chaos of life and spend time together as a family. Even if she did see her daughters more frequently than just once a week, Bonnie was always looking forward to it.

“The lasagna still has about 20 minutes.” Bonnie stated to Dev as she closed the oven back up and grabbed a loaf of the bakery bread off the counter. “I think I’ll make some garlic bread to go with it. Mind setting the table for me, dear? Connor and Levi are coming so we’ll need two extra spots set.”

As her husband grabbed some plates from the cupboard and went about setting the table, Bonnie busied herself cutting the bread and making the garlic mixture. “There’s a bottle of wine in the fridge too if you’ll get that out.” She tells Dev as she starts coating the bread with the garlic mixture. Letting that sit when she’s done, she washes her hands and peeks at the lasagna again when the doorbell suddenly goes off.

“That’s probably the girls.” Bonnie said as she quickly popped the bread in the oven and started heading toward the living room as Dev finished setting the table. “I’m coming!” She shouted as the doorbell went off again. Opening the door, she already had a comment ready at the tip of her tongue about how she’d given them a house key for a reason but she swallows it back when she finds it isn’t Aubrey or Haley on the other side.

“Hello, Bonnie.”

“Mom?!” Bonnie exclaims, utterly shocked to find Abby of all people at her door.

“Can I come in?”

Bonnie blinked at her, still processing some shock. She would’ve been less surprised to find someone like Kai at her front door than her own mother. Abby had abandoned her not once but twice and hadn’t heard a single word from her since. She knew the change from witch to vampire was difficult on her but that didn’t excuse the abandonment. It didn’t excuse the first time either. Clearing her throat, Bonnie straightens her back and the shock is quickly replaced by a controlled anger.

“Why are you here?” She asks, completely ignoring her request to be invited inside. Mother or not, she wasn’t about to give her a free ticket inside her home. She didn’t even know anything about her anymore and aside from a few exceptions, she didn’t much trust many vampires these days. For all she knew, Abby could have just given in to the dark side.

Crossing her arms over her chest as she awaited a response, Abby appeared to consider her words before speaking again.

“Because I wanted to see you.” She started, earning a look of disbelief from Bonnie. “And I wanted to... Make things right. The word is vampires have one last lifetime before the balance is restored and then we all turn to dust. I’ve made my peace with that but I never made my peace with you.”

“So, what? You want me to ease your guilty conscience for you and tell you it’s okay you abandoned me? Get real. It doesn’t work like that. You left, that was your choice. That’s what you always did when it got too difficult.”

“No, that’s not what I meant...”

They were interrupted as Dev suddenly came up behind Bonnie. He must have sensed the tension all the way from the kitchen as she felt his hand rest on her shoulder. A small and subtle gesture that communicated he had her back. Reaching her own hand up, she touched his to let him know it was okay. 

“Dev, this is my mom, Abby,” she introduced with very little enthusiasm, “Abby, this is my husband, Dev.” 

It was awkward and neither extended a hand to greet the other. Dev knew all about his mother-in-law so it wasn’t exactly one of those warm and nerve-wracking meet-the-parents moment. Abby did manage a small smile though, offering a, “It’s nice to meet you.”

Then her daughters showed up with Connor and Levi, also appearing to immediately sense the tension on the porch. Sighing, Bonnie shot a look Haley’s way because her youngest already appeared ready to pounce, before looking back to Abby. “You can come in.” There was a hint of warning to her tone though. It wasn’t a warm welcome.

Stepping aside for her mother, she received questioning looks from her daughters to which she shook her head. They’d talk later.

As other anon asked, I dont think the bonkai fandom is as active anymore bc we have so little content to work with, just the potential of what they "could have been" if the writers knew how to handle a dark ship... which probably never would have come to fruition under the CW network (at least nothing of high caliber)... Bonnie was considered the most righteous out of everyone, so it would have been far more interesting watching her struggle against this internal push-and-pull unlike what they failed to do with Elena. Writers wanted us to believe Elena was the "good girl" but she was way too one dimensional, so her empty gestures definitely came off as fake & unrelateble, that's why so many fans hated her lol. It was the actors (Kat & Chris) who really took something that was meant to be/or particularly expected to be nothing & instead turned a few brief encounters into this huge overnight success. We really were under the impression that Kai would be the pivot to Bonnie's new character development. J.P. hinted to us before hand that Bonnie would get more focus S6... & at the time I naively held onto this belief that things would indeed change)..that the prison world would serve a greater purpose in changing her nonexistent role, decision making, & that she'd finally question her unwavering loyalty to the MF gang. Making the ship bittersweet bc it ended way before it even got started. We as Bonnie fans know them canning Kai (his death in 6x22) was complete & utter bullsh*t. That's when my love for tvd really declined, I gave up all hope & started reading the fanfics instead. I think most bonkai fans have that in common. Notice how majority of Kai-stans don't even mention bonkai?? Yeah that's bc they were predictably shipping him with someone as basic as Katherine by default. Hence, they never cared about Bonnie's part in the show regardless. But everyone knows Kai can't exist without Bonnie, essentially that's why he's not the same character in Legacies (just another desparate one note villain).

I think all ships take a nosedive after content is over, but it's still remarkable IMO that with so little content, BK is as active as it is now. Thank you for reminding us that there were a lot of pre-season 6 hints that Bonnie was going to undergo a change in the show. I remember an interview where Kat said she'd get a love interest in season 6, too. Of course, all that came to nothing when Kai proved to be too popular for Bonnie.

Kai stans who hate Bonnie are one of the great mysteries of racism life to me because Kai isn't memorable without Bonnie. He's a fast talking, pop culture cracking villain, and the show is full of them. It was interesting the first time Elijah Mikaelson said "I believe the correct expression is O M G" but by the time Silas was making Madonna reference, it was a running joke that no one found funny anymore. Shipping Kai with Katherine is even more ridiculous because neither of these people would like each other. Between the way Kai hated Damon, mocked the Delena relationship, and cracked jokes about Caroline's humanity off phase, Kai lowkey looked down on vampires. (Which is why, btw, I hate hate the heretic arc because Kai would not have wanted that. Even if Kai had gone evil and chosen to kill the coven, it won't be at the cost of turning himself into an undead blood-drinker). The men Katherine loves are men like Elijah and Stefan who are "good" men, or try to be good, or pretend very hard to be good. The honourable, long-suffering soul. Even the redeemed version of Kai won't be like either of these men.