AN: If you haven't seen this song yet youtube it. Call your girlfriend, by robyn.

"Don't do it, Damon!" Alaric grabbed at his sleeve. "I know for a fact that you are not drunk enough to do this."

He wasn't. "I'm doing it."

"Damon, please! Just go over and say hey."

"This is how I say hey. I need to do this!" he took another step breaking out of his friend's grip. Maybe he didn't need to, but he wanted to. It would be fun. "You said you wanted me to stop slumming around like the lord of the dead. Go out and do something fun, you said. Go meet up with Bonnie, you said. Tell her how you feel, you said."

"Damon, this is going to destroy lives…" Alaric called from behind him, his voice blending in with the crowd's hushed mutterings.

Matt stopped him before he could climb the stairs. "You sure you want to do this, man?"

"Did I not put my name on the roster?"

"I thought it was a joke." The boy braced him at the shoulders. "Dude, think about this."

"You know how I feel about people calling me dude." Damon shrugged the jock off, "And I'm a hundred and seventy years old – I stopped thinking a long time ago." He ambled up the stairs as the lights dimmed in the Grille.

Matt shuffled over. "Your funeral," he whispered as he plugged the mike in. "And now, our final final contestant. Damon Salvatore, doing Call Your Girlfriend." He looked down at the card in his hand, "Whoops– Call Your Boyfriend. He's changing it up a bit…" he chuckled, nervously. "Put your hands together, this ought to be… something."

Damon took the mike. The music cued up… I'm too old to be doing this. So what?

He took a deep breath in, cleared his throat. 1, 2, 1, 2, 3,

"Call your boyfriend
It's time you had the talk
Give your reasons
Say it's not his fault
But you just found somebody new"

Tricky part now: Robot walk, robot walk, then spin. Remember to spin. Big hand loops, hammer fist pound, spin…

"Tell him not to get upset, second-guessing everything you said and done
And then when he gets upset tell him how you never mean to hurt no one
Then you tell him that the only way his heart will mend is when he learns to love again
And it won't make sense right now but you're still his friend
And then you let him down easy"

Stand, choppy 90s dance, head grab, hair pull over…

"Call your boyfriend
It's time you had the talk
Give your reasons
Say it's not his fault
But you just met somebody new"

Two back steps, backroll, sexy flop… "Don't you tell him how I give you something that you never even knew you missed"
Log roll, chest fondle… "Don't you even try and explain how it's so different when we kiss"
Stand… "You tell him that the only way his heart will mend is when he learns to love again"
Jerky hand wave… "And it won't make sense right now but you're still his friend"
aerobic pump… "And then you let him down easy"

Drunk Madonna dancing…

"Call your boyfriend
It's time you had the talk
Give your reasons
Say it's not his fault
But you just met somebody new
And now it's gonna be me and you"

Bounce…

Crazy dance, crazy dance…

Psychedelic hands…

Crump it…

Butterfly spiral hands…

"And you tell him that the only way his heart will mend is when he learns to love again
And it won't make sense right now but you're still his friend
And then you let him down easy"

Down on your knees

"Call your boyfriend
It's time you had the talk
Give your reasons
Say it's not his fault"

Fist bump, fist bump… and remember to spin!

"Call your boyfriend
It's time you had the talk
Give your reasons
Say it's not his fault
But you just met somebody new"

Nose wipe…

"What?" he took the beer from Alaric and flipped the crown, talking above the noise of the crowd cheering for him. He gave them another wave, and flashed a quick smile as he returned to his seat. Let it not be said that Damon Salvatore hogged the spotlight. "I sang that like a pro."

"I'm not saying you can't sing."

"You'd be lying if you did. I danced the shit out of it too."

"Exactly, and you won your little prize–"

"Right–" Damon reached into the back pocket of his jeans and retrieved the envelope of cash. "Pay your rent or something."

Alaric stared at the envelope for a moment, then back up at Damon. "Yeah… About that…"

"You compelled the landlord?"

"Yeah."

"That's Classic Damon. You've grown well, my pupil, but still," he nudged the envelope again. "Take it, pay for my beer."

"You have a tab."

"Yeah, but a girl likes to feel special every now and then, Al." His eyes swept the crowd, spotting the table in the corner with Caroline, Tyler, Elena… "Where's Bonnie?"

"She left while you were singing Sex on Fire."

"She loves Kings of Leon."

Alaric snorted. "But does she want you to get up on stage in front of God and everybody and say that her sex is on fire? Questions like these are what you have to ask yourself before you decide to do karaoke."

Damon swallowed a mouthful of ice cold Bud. Bonnie was gone. Jeremy was gone too. Not good. Primeval instinct was telling him to go find the boy and rip his heart out once and for all, but he'd give this 'decency' thing a little bit more time. Bonnie wanted a non-murderer, he'd try easing up on the murder. He'd do that for her. He'd pretend. Wasn't that part of their deal that he'd put his best foot forward and at least act as if he cared about other existing people? He swigged the beer around, wished it was blood and took another hard swallow. "That song was harder than I looked."

"Sex on Fire?"

"No, Call Your Girlfriend. It's just… crazy."

"It's catchy, though"

"Yeah."

The two of them lingered, taking in the music, watching the youth of Mystic Falls parade pass them. A girl in half a skirt and a mini tube top gave him a wink and a smile. He tipped his beer at her and gave her a sad shake of the head. "Remember when my life was rated mature audiences only? Now it's some creepy PG-13 thing. Even Barney gets more sex than I do."

"Barney Rubble, HIMYM Barney, or Purple Dinosaur Barney?"

"Purple dinosaur Barney," he groaned, reading the label to see exactly how much of his so called beer was actually alcohol.

"From who? He always seemed kinda… celibate to me."

Of the legions of people he'd met in his existence, Alaric is the only person who'd follow-up on that. "From the plushie freaks? I haven't thought it through as yet, but you get my meaning."

"Actually," Alaric straightened. "I don't want to get your meaning. I still have to see Bonnie in the classroom every day. I'm still her teacher. And she's still seventeen… So I don't want any details whatsoever on how she features into your sex life."

"Her sex really is on fire, Al."

"I don't–"

"Like sticking your dick into a wet, tight… furnace."

"Right–"

"Alaric… Al-man…" he gave the man's shoulder a squeeze. "You have to realise something if you want to make this work. I've been a vampire for most my life. And I can tell you, assuredly, that besides blood and sex, there's not a whole lot going on with us. Especially when we start combining the two? It's practically one big R-rated rabbit hole. Stefan actually goes down a real rabbit hole, but for us the R stands for raunchy. Get used to it."

"Maybe you're too usedto it."

"Excuse me?" He raised an eyebrow. Some random day, he'd break Alaric's neck again and make a little game out of it. First person to kill the other one ten times wins… Wins the right to be the Head Vampire in Charge. He'd win of course, but all rulers need challengers every now or then.

Alaric wriggled in his seat, that way he did when he knew he was going to say something annoying. "I'm saying you're too used to it. This layer of… of sexy blood musk…"

"Sexy blood musk?"

"Sexy blood musk," Alaric confirmed. "That'll work like honey for half… maybe eighty to ninety percent of all the women in this place. But people like Bonnie are allergic to it. You need to–"

Damon's head hit the table with a solid thunk.

"I'm just saying sometimes less is more. Instead of karaoke, maybe try a phone call. Walking over and saying hi."

"I'm not drunk enough for this conversation. Or gay enough."

"Because karaoke at the Grille isn't gay at all, right?" Alaric snorted. "You're two days away from holding a boombox outside her window."

It wasn't too hard to track her down. The dozen crows he had on 24/7 lookout weren't for nothing. She was right there smack down on the top step of her porch… with Jeremy.

Yes, he'd gotten up on stage and told her to call her boyfriend and have a sitdown, but he hadn't actually meant it. Yes, he did feel a certain regret for crushing Jeremy's teenage heart and possibly turning the kid into a love-scared cynic for all his days thereafter, but he didn't actually care.

"I've got stuff to sort out," she was saying.

"Well, let's sort it out, Bonnie. You just need to free yourself from Damon. Get him out of your head, and everything can go back to how it–"

"Sorry, Jere," he flickered over to the wicker rocking chair, popping up behind the two of them.

Bonnie actually jumped. Then teleported.

No matter. His business was actually with the boy. "As much as I like you, and I really do, this triangle isn't going to cut it for me. We're voting you off the island."

"Damon, you–"

He cut him off. "You're a better guy than me, Jere. You'd never intentionally go after someone else's girl, and I respect you for that. I know how it feels to have the rug pulled out from under you. You meals don't taste the same. As a vampire, you might feel the urge to kill a large number of people and consume copious amounts of blood. Deal with it however you like. But… I've already… planted my flag on her virgin territory… if you see what I'm trying to get at, and I will prosecute you for trespassing."

That sounded worse out loud than it had in his head. It even made him feel uncomfortable. His eye caught on the single daywalking ring on the banister. He supposed he could allow that much… A trinket from the girl he'd never so much as touch again.

Poor Jeremy, the sad bastard. Confused as fuck. "She teleports now," he tried to explain.

"Teleports?"

"Yeah. Spell she picked up while we were on vacay. The first time she did it was when she left Mystic Falls that time. She just popped out of nothing right in front of me and–"

"What about my sister?"

"Elena?"

"Yeah."

"One minute you're sniffing after her, the next–"

The boy's neck went snap much the way it when he'd been human. He looked down at the corpse with pity.

"Give the lad a chance, won't you?" A girl, five or six, appeared, right there on the rocking chair where he'd been sitting a second before. Peanut butter and jelly all over her hands, frosty blond hair, frock dress, white stockings, pigtails, two missing front teeth, black eyes with no white in them… The rocking chair creaked as it moved. "He's cute. Not as cute as you, but still…"

A chill went down his spine. A literal chill, which was saying something because vampires never get chilled. "Jaxxon?"

"Say my name."

"What do you want?"

"Just to say hi. And give you some pointers. You're not making any progress whatsoever on the Bonnie Frontier and I thought we could brainstorm so how 'bout it?"

"Must I?"

"I could put the collar back around your neck. Did you forget about that? Yeah, that was real too."

The things I do. The light in her bedroom flicked off. "Okay, five minutes."