(initially posted on tumblr.)

persephone is dead

Here, they are both kings of the underworld. They've swallowed the princess.

She suspects, sometimes, that Grams wanted her to meet Kai.

Why else would she have sent her to his lair?

What was Sheila hoping? That she would save a soul? Redeem a dark, dark heart? Like in the stories of old, of beauties and beasts? Princesses and underworld kings?

It never works like that in real life. The fabric unravels when you try to stretch it thin.

People are people, not gods, not even witches. Beyond the powers and the magic and the spells, they are children, trying to return to a warm nest. He is looking for the childhood he never had. She wants to recover her worth, the spark she gave up too many times before.

So, she kills him. And he kills her. Because they never find those places, and they waste all their magic on a quest that isn't theirs.

He is torn to pieces by the vampires he resurrected. Bonnie quells his breath with a spell, almost out of mercy. Before he closes his eyes, he rips her heart out. Out of mercy. Because she was turning into a vampire.

They wake up in each other's arms. They are both kings of the underworld. They've swallowed the princess.

The prison world has been waiting for them. They tumble out into the May morning together, and they say nothing, because this is the end, where it all begins.

Now they know they're gone for good. No friends can bring them back. No enemies can reach them.

They are residents in an empty town, but it is no longer a prison. It's an infinite space, their own endless universe, filled with possibility, and therefore, vacant.

Reality has bars. This place…has none. The sky is all they see.

"Why did you do it?" she asks Kai as they sit up on the roof of Elena Gilbert's unburned home.

"Why'd I kill you?"

She shrugs. "I mean, I know you wanted revenge. But that's not why you did it. Why did you waste your last breath on me?"

Kai looks at the falling sun, a sun that he knows for sure will rise tomorrow. How many people in "reality" have that certainty?

"I knew you'd rather be here with me than be one of them."

Bonnie knows what he means by one of them. Not just vampires, but any other supernatural creatures who dwell in death.

She steels herself. She has a black heart too, and for the sake of this black heart, she left her family and friends.

"You knew we'd come back here?" she asks, leaning into him by degrees.

"I made a wish. Blew out a candle," he grins sadly.

"You lived here for twenty years. Why would you want to return?"

Kai still has blood on his face and clothes. He is not wiping it. He is never going to wipe it. Bonnie sees the skin underneath the blood. It's young and warm. She touches his jaw. He turns towards her.

"Didn't have a choice. There's no other place where you, Bonnie Bennett, and me, Malachai Parker, can be together."

"You sound like being together is a punishment." And he'd be right, but if anyone should feel that way, it's her. She is the one who has been perforated by their forced intimacy. But now she doesn't feel one bad thing about the thin space between them. Not one.

Kai has a glint in his eye, a boyish glint of someone who has given up on themselves. Devil may care. But there is an underside, And in that underside, he has put all his eggs in her basket. All his hopes and dreams. Angry and red as they are.

"It's more of a necessity and that can be a pain," he says with a twisted smirk. "I mean, consider things from my perspective. I thought about you all the time. When I was sleeping. Or plotting revenge. Or eating some disgusting snack food. It was torture. Couldn't focus on anything. Couldn't be himself. So…what choice did I have?"

Bonnie frowns, gently tugs his hair back. Then drops her hand, turns away and stares at the sunset.

"Sounds like you had a rough time," she says with bitter amusement.

"I couldn't breathe without you," he adds, spitefully. "My lungs would just stop working. I hated you for that."

She smiles a mean, saccharine smile into his face.

"Who knew there were easier ways to kill you?"

"Oh, you have no idea."

"I'm flattered, either way."

"Don't be. It's stupid. You were that thing, that something I wanted, and this time, I thought I could get it. And it wouldn't be taken away. It wouldn't be this easy fix, like absorbing magic for half a second. Like killing little kids and then having to kill a new pair every ten years. It would be done. It would be permanent. It would last. Nothing's ever lasted."

Bonnie tries to stay still. She feels a pain somewhere between her eyes, in the back of her head, where thoughts come together and break apart, because she's never thought of it this way. But it makes sense for him to feel like he's just a thief, a constant borrower, a beggar, living off perishable things.

"Well…you got it now," she replies, because she'll never say You got me now.

"Yeah."

"So. You can breathe again." And you don't have to kill children and you don't have to go for easy fixes anymore.

She doesn't think he's heard her, but then:

"I'm trying to say I love you."

"That's bad," she replies, a beat later. "That's really bad."

He nods his head and lets his fingers linger on the small of her back. He plays, a bit, like old times, between pain and pleasure, but finally, pulls her head gently against his. He breathes in. To show he can do it. She closes her eyes and listens to the silence around them.

I love you because I can't destroy you and I destroy everything, he thinks but doesn't say.

He doesn't have to restrain himself. She doesn't have to be afraid. In their world, they can be themselves, good and terrible, joined, together.

Here, they are both kings of the underworld. They've swallowed the princess.