Her name is Bonnie. Kai almost slaps himself when he hears Damon yell it. Bonny looking Bonnie, the very heavy sleeper. The sun rose three hours ago and Damon finished making blueberry pancakes half an hour ago. He's called her three times. On the fourth he's yelling her whole first name. Kai's sitting on the desk chair of the room she's picked. It belonged to someone called Stefan and he had a habit of writing some seriously depressing journals, but they kept him entertained for most of the night.

He's cloaked now but for most of that time he went magicless, sticking to observing from a distance lest she wakes up. When she finally does stir he's siphoning the moonstone he's stashed at the last possible moment. It's occurred to him that he's blowing through a supply of magic that was supposed to last him years. It's not ideal but that's a problem for him to worry about when he's onto the last item. A problem for Kai in about six months if his calculations are correct.

By the fifth yell she's blinking herself to consciousness, replying 'I'm up' hoarsely and turning over in the duvet, taking a few minutes to collect herself as she wakes. In those few minutes she just stares into the ceiling with doe eyes that get bigger the longer she stares. When she sits up he holds his breath out of a reflex unknown and for a moment her eyes (ocean green in the daylight) land on the spot he's sitting in. She gets up slowly with her attention fixed on the space he's in and moves towards him. By the time she's two steps away he's digging nails into the arm rests and readying himself to bolt. But she stops there, looking satisfied in whatever her train of thought was- he has yet to figure that out- and makes a beeline for the shower. His heart's still pounding far too quickly in his ears for him to give due process to the idea of checking in on her while she's in there. The idea of a naked girl, dripping wet, five feet away doesn't calm him down funnily enough and he suddenly feels grossly his age at incarnation. He's acting like a horny teenager and there's no stopping it. It's a good job he's cloaked. When she steps out, white towel wrapped around her torso and barely covering the tops of her thigh, he allows himself one good leer before turning around. It's decided that he won't reveal himself until he's got a better handle on his emotions.

'Oh good, another one.' Bonnie slips herself back onto the chair she ate dinner in as if she never left it. Creature of habit then. Casually strewn onto the table is a newspaper he's all too familiar with. One of Dad's little guilt trips, magically turning up no matter where he goes.

'Fresh from the magic mailman.' Damon replies, plopping a plate of a blueberry pancakes before her and himself opposite. Kai settles onto the kitchen counter and sits swinging his legs as he tunes in to what's quickly becoming his favourite show. She reaches for the maple syrup and begins dousing her breakfast to make it slightly more edible, as she eats she flicks through the pages.

'Walmart has a sale.' She muses aloud.

'Let me guess, one day only?'

Unless they're arguing they tend to spend the days together, only separating to sleep or other mundane activities. But they're never apart for longer than an hour and it's starting to irritate him. When Damon's with Bonnie he dominates the room, he's all brooding comments and sarcastics snipes. Not to mention the fact that Kai doesn't like how close they're getting. But on the seventh day, like rain after a drought, they argue for the fourth time. It seems like a whammy to him.

After finally running out of supplies they take Walmart up on its spectacular sale.

'We should make a list next time.' Bonnie comments, searching the aisles for things she can remember that they need. Damon's commandeered the trolley without even offering her the option to push it.

'What's the point?' He's extra snippy today, the lack of fresh blood and time away from his girl is manifesting.

'The point is that way we know what we need.' Bon Bon's keeping her cool.

'No Bon,' with a quick and violent shove the trolley is overturned. 'I mean what is the point in pretending that everything is fine and normal when it's not?'

'Stop yelling at me Damon, I'm just as stuck as you are-'

'But you're not though Bonnie because we're in this whole mess because of you!' Not a shred of remorse as he blames her, in fact his eyes even darken as he gathers up more ammo to fire at her. Her chin quivers a little and Kai can't tell if it's from sadness or anger. 'If you weren't so useless we'd be out of here by now, but no! Poor little Bonnie can't muster up a shred of magic to get us out of here!'

Wait a second...

'I don't have any magic of my own Damon. It's gone, what part of that don't you understand?'

Magic. Magic that's gone. Kai's flexing his fingers and looking all over the place as if there's someone he can yell his realisation to but he can only stand, mouth agape, as he puts the information together.

'The part where it's suddenly just left you and all I'm stuck with is a hollow, useless, annoying little girl!'

Bonnie's a witch with no magic. He's a witch with no magic.

She's a siphon.

The slap hitting Damon's cheek echoes around the empty aisles and Kai wishes he was paying more attention to have seen that. But he has no more time to wish for a rewind as Bonnie storms away, for a second Damon looks like he's about to follow her and pull her heart through her chest. Black veins have surfaced around his eyes and Kai assumes they're exclusive to vampires. Kai's got a second to pick a side but he only needs half, feet automatically moving to follow Bonnie. Once she's over the sliding doors she starts running. She starts running and doesn't stop until she's somewhere familiar. He puffs as quietly as he can behind her, irritated at how annoyingly fast she is. He slows his pace to recuperate and catches up to her as she's sitting down on the porch steps of the house with a mahogany door and hugging herself, wiping the tears that spilled as she ran. Her breath comes out in stutters as she struggles to balance the sobs with her own self assurance.

'I'm n-not useless.' She says to no one in particular.

Kai kneels before her holding his fingertips close enough over her knee, bare in the purple shorts she's chosen, to feel their warmth. But not touching her. He's still not ready to reveal himself. Revealing himself while they're fighting would be an opportune time but it doesn't feel like the right moment yet.

Luckily for him, right moment or not, it means he's got Bonnie all to himself. A minute more in despair and she bites the inside of her cheek, fixing on his lips with a watery gaze. Kai indulges in the pretend that she knows what she's looking at and he lingers on her own. Before moving back to allow her to stand up and head inside the house. They have a very nice evening together. She makes herself Spaghetti for dinner, more than enough for herself and for Kai to pick at from the pot when she looks away. The large portion is probably in hopes that Damon will turn up and apologise (he doesn't), and then she picks a movie to watch.

The Bodyguard.

He's never seen it before. The Gemini coven weren't really big on movie nights. His father's idea of entertainment was publicly berating him in front of the family for not being able to do his own magic. His theory was the shame would help him blossom. Evidently that theory went to shit and Kai smiles darkly at his father's face when he reaped payback.

Bonnie sprawls out on one couch and he sits carefully in the armchair adjacent as she presses play. At the start of the movie he's not really paying much attention to it, glancing at her engrossed face, far too aware of the realisation that she's a siphon. For the first time in a long time it feels like he's not alone. Not not lonely, but not alone. It feels like he's always been orbiting around the Sun, alone in a pitch black universe. With their arrival there are suddenly more planets in his solar system. But they're all stars while he's wondering comet. No light of his own to hold onto. With Bonnie though… he feels like he's finally found someone to crash onto. They could be magicless together.

Who knew Whitney Houston was such a babe? They're already sleeping together- Oh my god she has a stalker- it's got to be the manager- it's always the manager.

'It is so the manager.' Bonnie whispers to herself as she pops a piece popcorn into her mouth. Kai tears his eyes away from the screen to nod in agreement.

At the moment Kevin Costner gets shot they're both unintentionally leaning closer to the TV only to flop back onto their respective sofas once the credits roll. He's so relaxed and absorbed that in his state of molten emotions he accidentally blurts out

'That's it?'

There's a female echo to his voice and he looks over to his companion with instant regret. Her mouth falls in the same shape the question leaves on his and they're both thinking the same thing. She thinks the words are her own.

Where's the closure? Do they get together in the end?

She stomps up to the VCR player and he thinks she's going to take it out and smash it against the wall. It's what he'd do. But no, she's taking it out and putting it back in again. A restart. Does she think there'll be a deeper meaning this time? He shakes his head, a little annoyed that she's not moving onto a different story. No matter how many times she restarts it, the ending will always be the same.

Halfway through the second rewatch he's already sure he would look like Kevin Costner if he ever got older. Bonnie's way prettier than Whitney Houston. While he's musing away a light snore begins to sound from her couch. Moving her would be too big of gesture for someone who's not technically supposed to be there. So he settles for taking the throw slung over the armchair and draping it over her. In her sleep she stirs, pulling it from his fingers and wrapping it around herself. It's entirely feasible that she wrapped herself up. Besides she was so tired he doubts she'll question it. He lingers for a moment, exhausted and ready to retreat to his own territory for a few hours and out of an instinct swelling in his chest he runs a knuckle over her temple, brushing hair out of the way as a paltry excuse for the touch.

He steps back when he feels it and the table grunts at the motion. A low hum of magic in her veins.

That's not what he feels like.

When he searches for magic within himself he comes up hollow. There's is magic inside her; a greying reef buried beneath the ocean. It's reaching out to him and… he feels like he can touch it, slipping into her waves to absorb it. It's begging to be used so why not? Closing his eyes he navigates himself towards her sentimental core, coasting between the cracks, in a wall she's created to divide herself from her magic. Why would she do that? Unless it's an unconscious choice. At some point her magic caused her great pain and her mind has walled it off to protect her.

It means she's not a siphon.

She's a witch out of touch with her magic.

And the magic recognises a wanting user, jumping gleefully into him. He takes it in small doses, focusing on not waking her as he does. Too much, all at once and he'd jolt her awake. But like this and she's none the wiser. There's a tiny whimper and he stops. It shouldn't be hurting her.

He was around twelve when he figured out he could siphon without hurting people. Before that all he knew was that to get magic he had to pull it out of people. Pulling always meant hurting them. It was when he was trying to open up a jam jar he came up with the theory that he could take the magic without hurting people if he just adjusted how he took it. Brains, not brawn. He never told anyone that of course. If people thought they knew when he was taking their magic, if they thought they had some sort of warning, then it made them feel protected against him. Protected people were complacent. Complacent people were easier to siphon. That and the fact that if he hurt someone while he was siphoning them then in made them fear him a little. He always liked that look. It was similar to the reverie in which people looked at his father.

By the time he's done he has enough magic coursing through him to last a week. The tiredness is gone and he's practically dancing through the house.

In the morning when she wakes, he has to hold himself back from making her breakfast and instead watches as she fumbles miserably with a glass of orange. A quick retrieval of the newspaper and she's spilling milk over cereal as she reads it for the tenth time.

Crunch.

'Another eclipse. What a shocker.' She mumbles through a mouthful.

Crunch and flick and she turns the page.

'10% off is not a sale.'

Crunch. Flick.

'Ugh.' He peers over her shoulder to see what's made her nose wrinkle in disgust, and feels his stomach tighten. 'Who names a kid Malachai?'

Crunch. 'It's like they expected him to be evil.' She tacks on for good measure.

Well that hurt.

More than he expected.

Like Bonnie's any better? He wants to say out of spite. What, they didn't have any other on the nose names like Joy or Hope? Out of pettiness he doesn't even give her a clue for 27 across.

'Eddie turned top 40?' She mutters, drumming her pen against the counter.

That old tongue twister. Eddie Vedder, obviously from Pearl Jam. The Pearl Jam song Yellow Ledbetter. He's got the Album back in Portland. It's on their A-side called Jeremy. Weird name for an album. But he'll be damned if he gives her any clues for that after she's bruised his ego. Not just because he doesn't want to be discovered.

Even worse she finishes breakfast and goes back to the couch to fold her blanket. As she's folding she pauses.

'Wait a second.' looking down at the throw she suddenly realises. 'I didn't put a blanket on.'

He thinks that's the end of it. He's been caught red handed, half expecting the cloaking to wear off immediately. But instead of worry or anger at the realisation that she's not alone, she's smiling. Which means she doesn't think it's a problem. It wouldn't be a problem if- and why is she suddenly packing her things up? Heading to the door and hijacking a nearby car. He's left standing on the porch and almost breaks his hand with how hard he punches the wooden beam. By the time he manages to join her at the destination she's standing at the front door of their joint residence, shifting from one leg to another and working up the courage to knock.

Before she can do that the door opens and her hair flutters at the speed. Damon's in front of her, drink in hand, looking less severe than earlier. Unfortunately the time apart has done them good and Kai's left watching her slip through his fingers.

'You know I can hear you right?' He says.

She ignores him and barrels on with negotiations. 'If I come back you have to be nicer.'

'You have to be less annoying.'

'I'm not annoying-'

For a glimmer of a second he hopes this will lead to another argument and she'll come back to the other house. His earlier cattiness has faded and now this thick feeling has settled over his gut. He's not sure what it is but it's instinctual knowledge that it'll go away if she chooses him over Damon.

'I'll try.' Damon cuts in. How can she choose Kai when she doesn't even know he's in the running?

'Good enough.' Bonnie steps over the threshold and for the first time since he's met her Kai willingly goes back to his squat.