v.

"Day two of Road Trip with a Vampire—"

"Really? That's the best you can do, imitating Anne Rice?"

"—and Damon is still annoying as ever."

"At least I didn't get us lost for three hours in a world with no traffic."

"Shut up, Damon. Anyway—holy shit, slow down—"

"What? No traffic, remember? Besides, I'm a vampire. Superhuman reflexes."

"Yeah, but you still have to obey the laws of physics, Damon, which don't like people going around a curve at 120 miles an hour."

"Anyone ever tell you you're kind of a killjoy, Bon-Bon?"

vi.

They reached Orlando in the mid-afternoon, during Bonnie's turn at the wheel. She tried her damnedest to ignore the eerie silence, the otherworldly desertion of the streets; she'd gotten good at that in Mystic Falls, but it was somehow different in a big city. The six-lane interstate should have been full of traffic at this time of day.

Whatever, Bonnie reminded herself. She knew that she—that they were alone, here. Just her and the living dead.

"So what now?" Damon asked. His feet were on the dashboard, stolen sunglasses perched on the end of his nose.

Bonnie flexed her fingers on the steering wheel. "Now we go to the beach."

vii.

"Nightswimming deseeeeerves a quiet niiiiiiight—"

Bonnie splashed the vampire, and he broke off, sputtering and giving her a wounded look. "It's barely sunset," she pointed out. "C'mon, the water's great."

"You just want to see me strip," said Damon, waggling his eyebrows at her.

She rolled her eyes. It was weird, though, wasn't it—that for all Damon's sex-crazed brain, she couldn't remember him being anything but fully dressed around her. And this bikini (much more expensive than anything else she'd worn, taken from a beachfront store) was the least he'd seen her in. Of course, he hadn't looked twice at her. It wasn't like she wanted him to creep on her, but—guys never seemed to look at her like that. Guys who weren't Jeremy, anyway.

She shook her head. Saltwater stung her eyes. "If it gets you to stop singing, yeah," she said.

When he reached for the hem of his shirt, she looked away.

viii.

They sprawled out beside each other on the sand, water lapping halfway up their bodies. It was the new moon tonight—well, every night, technically—but between the stars and streetlights, there was enough to see by.

"So," said Damon. His voice was hoarse, and his head was pillowed on his hands; his ring glinted faintly between strands of dark, sandy hair. "Is it late enough that I can sing the song now?" He wasn't even out of breath, the bastard, even though they'd just had a truly epic splash fight. Bonnie'd even managed to dunk him under water, once.

"It will never be the right time for you to sing anything." Bonnie turned her head to look at him, the damp sand smooth and cool under her cheek. Damon flipped her off; she elbowed him, and turned back to look up at the sky.

It seemed impossibly huge, in that moment. It was the same sky she'd looked at all her life, but for the first time it hit her, that she and Damon were the only living people under it.

"God," she said, nearly choking on the words, "we're really alone, aren't we?"

Damon propped himself up on his elbow, looming over her; there was a flash of fear, vulnerability, that he was seeing her like this. Bonnie rubbed at her eyes, horrified to find them wet. She hated crying, especially in front of him. But there was none of the smugness or laughter in his voice that she'd come to expect when he said, almost flippantly, "No, we aren't."

Bonnie glared up at him, trying to plaster over vulnerability with anger. It came to her so easily around him. "Have you seen anyone else here?"

Damon bumped her shoulders with his knuckles and then just left his hand there, resting, the cool metal of his ring against her skin. Then he gave her his best charming bad-boy grin. "I know I'm not your first choice, Bon-Bon, but we aren't here alone. You're stuck with me, remember?"