A/N: well, i'm a very susceptible person, so when irresistible/revolution starts a mini-bonlijah renaissance, i can't help but follow suit. i'm her bonlijah groupie (or just her groupie in general lol, but pls go read those exquisite fics), so here is my little tribute to the ship. also, i have always wanted to write a trashy teacher/student story, so i'm killing two birds with one stone. hope you enjoy!

i.

"Nec femina post te ulla dedit collo dulcia vincla meo..."

Bonnie understands little.

His voice does not sing the words. He does not make Latin sound melodious. Rather, each word is a stone falling into water, washed clean and heavy with importance. Latin is not an ornament for him. It is still a language. In fact, he sounds as if he speaks it frequently.

Bonnie leans her elbow on the notebook and her head against her palm. She feels as though she were being made to look through a narrow scope at a world she does not want to explore.

In truth, she's painfully intimidated. She can't even meet her tutor's eye half the time. It might have to do with the fact that he's dressed to the nines, yet almost never in the same suit twice, and his understated sophistication is not just an act. He really does seem to know every classical work under the sun.

Oh, and he's a very old vampire. That might have something to do with it too.

"Miss Bennett?" he queries expectantly. "Would you like to translate that for me?"

Bonnie drags her sneakers against the floor and stares down at the notebook. He has a way of saying her name very softly, but rather forcibly, in a way that makes it difficult to ignore. He won't be left waiting.

She looks over the foreign words askance. "Well, femina definitely means woman. Dulcia means sweet…?"

Elijah draws a critical brow. "Are you asking me or telling me?"

Bonnie picks up the pencil next to the notebook and begins to underline the words at random. "I – I'm telling you."

"Good. Are there other words you might attempt?"

"Nec must be some sort of negation."

"An astute observation."

Bonnie winces. His sarcasm is always feather-light, but she feels it anyway.

"Post must mean after? Because we also use it in this context, like when we say post…postmortem," she blurts out, wondering if he will take offense. He is, after all, the definition of "after death".

Elijah only smiles faintly. "Yes, you are slowly getting there. Can you put the words together?" What do they mean as a whole?"

Bonnie furrows her brow.

Her tutor stands by the window, hands in his pocket, watching the activity outside.

Bonnie sneaks a glance too.

Cousin Lucy and some of the other witches are working in the garden. They're all wearing hats against the oppressive sun. She envies them a little. The weather has been sultry, but in this darkly lacquered study she feels cold.

"Miss Bennett?"

Bonnie looks up. "Yes. I…I'm sorry, I forgot the question."

Elijah cocks his head to the side, eyes slightly narrowed as he regards her. Being watched – or rather, scrutinized – by him is always a daunting experience. He is the embodiment of decorum, but there is something powerfully under control in his gaze. As if he were doing you a favor by remaining fettered.

Very old and very dangerous vampire is the refrain that has been drilled into her head since she arrived at the sanctuary. But he's also an "ally", someone who can be "trusted". Bonnie doesn't understand how you can trust a supernatural being that has been here before you and will be here long after you are gone. What does "trust" even mean to him? Don't all these very central human things lose their meaning after the first hundred years of existence?

He seems to have a talent for guessing her thoughts, especially when they are being contrarian. Or perhaps her face gives her away. In any case, Elijah leaves his post by the window and saunters in her direction.

He stops by her desk.

Bonnie looks up, awed by his presence. She looks down quickly when their eyes meet.

Elijah leans towards her notebook. His hand rests on the page, fingers underlining the words, casting shadows.

"Nec femina post te," he says coolly, river stones falling one by one around her. "Translate it for me."

The sun sinks lazily between branches and slips through the curtains, unfurling a strip of light on the dark wood.

She stares at that point of light and tries to focus. "Um…no woman…no woman…"

She pulls a few locks behind her ear and her hair falls down her back.

She can feel his gaze, not on the notebook or the words, but on her now exposed shoulder. The modest bolt of bare skin does not reveal the blood underneath. But the blood makes its presence felt. Her pulse is erratic. She knows that in the blink of an eye he could bend down and sink his teeth there and draw enough blood to leave her dizzy and untethered. It would take less than a minute to drain her. The sun would be in the same place in the sky.

Her grandmother used to call her foolish, but she often thought about the bite of a vampire. What it would be like. How much it would hurt. Whether she could survive it. Whether she could rise from a pool of her own blood.

Sheila Bennett told her she would be safe from vampires as long as she was alive, but Grams is dead and Bonnie has been consigned to a new "family". Such promises cannot hold water anymore. She remembers Elijah telling her on that first day, I am here to teach you the meaning of those spells you utter without inflection. The spells you hope to use against me.

The words on the page blur. She thinks about the natural antagonism between them, the battle underneath these polite lessons. She thinks about his teeth there. The sun has not moved.

"You're right, of course," Elijah breaks the silence suddenly. His tone is perfectly amiable. "I could do that. I could quite easily break your flesh and have my fill. You have little training. Your magic has yet to be sharpened."

He watches Bonnie's startled intake of breath. The alarm and curiosity in her eyes.

"But …I would much rather hear your translation." His mouth quirks, turning his gaze back to the page.

Bonnie swallows her own shame. She feels it coursing through her veins faster than blood.

She stares at the verse. And suddenly, it's quite clear.

"Nec femina post te. No woman after you," she says, breathless.

There's only silence and the imponderable passage of time.

"Well…that was not so hard, was it?" he drawls at length, and his voice seems to have a queer magnetic force, demanding her attention. She looks up at him.

There is a small smile at the corner of his lips, but his eyes are not smiling. Or at least, there's a different smile there.

Bonnie nods. "I – I guess not."

"Then it will not be hard for you to give me the rest of the translation tomorrow," he says and glides away from her, like a window closing.

The cold is different now.

Bonnie exhales. She watches his receding back. She wants to call after him, but she wouldn't know what to say.

She picks up her notebooks and papers and rushes out of the study.

That evening, she lies in bed, poring over the words with her dictionary and notes at hand until they finally make sense.

When they do, her heart skips a beat.

No woman after you has put sweet fetters upon my neck.

Bonnie touches her own neck. There is something profoundly unsettling and beautiful about the evocation of confinement.

She picks up Propertius' book of elegies, the source of the verse. The columns of Latin poetry make her head dizzy, but she decides to make an effort and translate two more verses. She has always wanted to be a diligent student. She knows Elijah will be pleased.