It's the first time in a century since he's stepped foot in Virginia. The southern side of the country is a place he avoids, partially out of memory and other out of habit. Klaus has been gone for years now, the person that caused him the most pain is out of his life for good, and yet he still avoids his stomping grounds.
He's walking around the outdoor market, his first stop in any town that has one. He enjoys the hustle and bustle of people moving, the smell of blood pumping . Tables and booths of food and clothes line his path and his nose catches the scent of A negative as he's walking past a jewelry booth. He's never sloppy, and has surprisingly never been about the hunt. He needs blood to survive and yes he savors it, but he's used to drinking from the bag but on the rare occasion he needs it fresh. The vendor stands there helping another patron who has their eye on a bracelet, and he has his eye one her. It's a waiting game, always has been, but while he's pretending to browse a silver necklace catches his eye. It's simple chain with a small turquoise stone attached. His hand reaches out to feel the stone the same time another hand does.
The woman body tenses underneath his hand and she turns slowly and brushes the hair out of her face. "Sorry," she murmurs with a tight smile and he can almost see the recognition settle in, with him it's instantly.
She hugs him.
It's eerily quiet when they walk into her home. The big oak door he closes behind him is heavy even with his supernatural strength. Bonnie takes off her shoes at the front door and he follows, bending down to unlace the sneakers and toeing them off beside hers.
She leads him to a huge living room, the furniture old, probably as old as the house itself, but cozy, lived in. Bonnie goes over to draws the curtains back. He looks her over in the sunslight. Her hair cropped below her ears, the sundress floating away from her hips.
He's staring.
She smiles, looking not a day older than seventeen.
He feels so awkward. The drive over was awkward, he'd kept wondering why she'd invited him over. It was never like they were close, not really, and after she explains him how she's still alive, there was a decade dance, a spell, and Klaus in Mr. Saltzman's body, I was so young, I didn't understand how death and magic worked, it was a side effect of dying, a consequence, he was still working on getting over the shock.
"I could go for a drink, couldn't you?"
He nods then and she disappears into another part of the house, presumably the kitchen. He can hear her clinking around glasses before padding back towards the living room and setting one down in front of him.
"Brown or clear?"
He motions to the vodka and she pours an ample amount into his glass. "Do you need something to mix it with?"
"No."
His throat burns when he knocks the shot back and he watches her down her own.
"You know Klaus is gone?" He asks her and it seems like such a banal thing to say. Bonnie probably hadn't thought of the Original in years, and Tyler is still living looking over his shoulder. He'd heard about it through the grapevine and had a brief encounter with a werewolf pack who confirmed it, but for a while it sounded like hearsay.
She smiles then, her face full of pride, "I finally did it…well not me on my own…my daughters and my grandaughter helped—"
"Your granddaughters?"
Bonnie grabs a large book from the side table and flips through a few pages to a picture of a large group of women. "That's my line," she points to three women who look to be in the forties, "those are my daughters with my first husband." She motions two more women, one who looks around thirty, and the other looks much younger, a little bit older than Bonnie,"and those are my grandchildren, and the two sitting at the bottom are my great-grandchildren."
"Wow."
Bonnie laughs, "isn't it hard to believe?"
It is. All of this is hard to believe. He hasn't seen anyone from Mystic falls in over a century and the first time he steps back into the state, he sees Bonnie, who should be dead.
"Where are you staying, Tyler?"
"I don't know…a hotel… I hadn't really thought it through when I came into town. I don't know if I planned on staying—"
Her hand cups his knee and her eyes light up. "Stay here, please. There's plenty of room. We can catch up."
There's hesitancy in his response and she rushes out before he can turn down her offer, "you're my oldest living friend in the world, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I just let you leave."
He doesn't ask what happen to the others, oldest living friend in the world, he just accepts her invitation.
She sets him up in the room across from hers. The house is probably older than the both of them, everything is made of oak, it smells of age. The sheets are fresh, the bed is soft, and he throws his suitcase on top of the duvet. He always packs light, and besides a bank in Wisconsin where he stores the really important things in a safety deposit box, this is all he has.
There's a huge set of French doors across from is bed, dark curtains framing them. It leads out to a terrace. Bonnie leans against the doorframe motions to it, "the girls are going to hate that I gave you this room."
"The girls?"
"My granddaughters. ..great-granddaughters. They spend the summer with me…they'll be here in a couple days."
Tyler nods. He doesn't plan on staying that long.
The stand in silence for a while, Bonnie's heartbeat steady and calming.
"Do you still eat food? Human food?"
"I do," but he still needs blood. He's sure he can sneak off tonight and find a deer or something.
"Give me a half an hour and we can have dinner. You can rest if you like, I can give you a tour later but you can just go look around, whatever. I'll be in the kitchen," she smiles and he hears her feet pad down the stairs.
They have dinner in the backyard. There's a glass of blood left on the kitchen counter when he comes down and he guzzles it before he goes outside. He wants to ask her how she'd gotten it, but he decides not to.
Dinner is some kind of fish with vegetables, they have fruit salad for desert. Bonnie has a large glass of wine that she never lets get more than halfway empty and she talks a lot, maybe to fill the silence, but maybe because she senses how awkward this is too.
She tells him about her husbands. Both dead. One human, her father loved him more than she ever did. "It was the one time I really made my father happy, you know?" The couple stayed together until he died and there was nothing keeping them together. They have three girls together. "I didn't even know if I could still have kids, you know? I never wanted them. Caroline and Elena would talk about getting married and their kids and I never related, not really, but I'm glad I did."
Her second husband was a warlock, much older than her, and he died expectantly, his age catching up with him. "When you slow down the aging process, it has to catch up. It's different for everyone but I woke up one morning and he was fifty. A month later, seventy."
He takes a sip of his wine, he can't imagine Bonnie going through all of this, can't imagine her not being seventeen.
"Will that happen to you?"
She shakes her head and there's a sadness there, "no, it won't."
He doesn't ask any more questions.
Bonnie later asks what he's been up to, where he's been, and he's been everywhere, done a little bit of everything but it doesn't sound like much after listening to her story.
"I've been around."
Bonnie's sleeping habits are as bad as his own, his due to the few years he felt the need to look over his shoulder, never breaking the habit. But she tosses and turns until he hears her get up walking towards the balcony that connects to his. She sits for a while right before the sun rises and comes back inside.
She's spends most of her day outside. Meditating, gardening. After dinner she lies back in a lawn chair and stares up at the sky.
Tyler feels every bit of a predator watching her from his window. He doesn't want to intrude and honestly despite his nature he hates being out when it's dark.
Out here there's no smog to block the stars, just wide open space to make him feel insignificant. He feels like his presence in the midst of it all is unnatural. Real people put down roots, have families, lives, and that's important. But none of those things translate into the language of forever. What's the purpose of living forever if he doesn't mean anything.
He pulls back the curtain and lies back in his bed.
He'll leave tomorrow.
He doesn't leave.
He meets her granddaughters. They come early, loud and giggly and sixteen. They're twins, paternal, both look more like Bonnie's sisters rather than her grandchildren.
Tara wears her thick hair pulled back into a single braid. She resembles Bonnie more of the two, the biggest difference is the deepness of her skin tone but the shape of her face, the way that she smiles is the same. She beams at him in greeting and offers a hug when he reaches out a hand to shake.
Alyssa, however is not so trusting. She looks at him through her mass of hair, pushing curls out of her face to examine him, skepticism written across her face. "You're a vampire."
"A hybrid, actually," he tries to be charming and for suddenly for some reason it seems really important that Bonnie's family like him.
She looks over to Bonnie and speaks as if he's not there. "It's okay to invite vampires into your home, now?"
"Alyssa," Tara shrieks, "you're being rude, and he's not a vampire, he's a hybrid. And he's Grams friend. That makes it different, right?" They both look over to Bonnie who nods and grabs Tyler's hand.
"Right. I appreciate your concern and if he was any other vampire, you're right we wouldn't invite him but he's my friend and this time it's okay."
Her tone leaves no room for argument and the girls don't take it any further, but Alyssa is sure to keep her eyes on him at all times.
She holds lessons in the morning. After breakfast the three witches sit spread out in the living room with grimoires and candles, chanting in a language he doesn't understand..
He doesn't break the ice with Alyssa until Bonnie and Tara are out shopping, and she's in the dining room working on a spell and every single candle in the house goes aflame. It's not abnormal to find something on fire (Alyssa) or walk in on a mini tornado (Tara) but it's the first time that it's not controlled, that Bonnie's not there to help.
He stomps out the burning curtain and goes through every room of the house helping her blow the candles out. And when he's done, she looks at him, deep brown eyes big and a little watery, "I guess you're alright."
He keeps saying that he'll leave tomorrow.
Tomorrow still hasn't come.
Bonnie's accommodating in every way she can be. She offers him shelter, provides him with food, company and it's something he hasn't had in so long it feels surreal. He's grown accustomed to looking over his shoulder and it's a habit he's had for so long it's hard to break.
They're sitting in her backyard, the sun beginning to hide beneath the expanse of trees. The girls are at the neighbor's, hanging out with kids they've known since birth and it's just he and Bonnie. They don't spend a lot of time together, and he tries not to impose when she's with the girls but this is still his favorite time. She's eating a peach, the juice dripping down her chin before she wipes at it with her palm.
"This nice," he says.
She looks over from her lawn chair, her sunglasses covering her face.
"It is."
The girls come in that night smelling of beer and boys and Bonnie issues a stern "be careful" that sobers them up. That's how they end up sitting in the den cross-legged listening to Tyler tell them all the places he travelled. It's more than he would ever like to say, but they're so eager to hear about his life, it almost seems cruel to shrug it off.
He's wrapping up a story about his decade in Tanzania when Alyssa asks somberly, "but you've always been alone, right? You don't have any kids or family or anything?"
"I wasn't always alone…but my family died a long time ago. I didn't have any brothers or sisters. Bonnie came to my Dad's funeral, remember?" His memory is hazy but he remembers drinking and Bonnie. He remembers her sitting in his lap, him sitting his father's chair pretending he was him. "Did you go to my mom's?"
He'd left town before his mother was put in the ground, has never seen her resting place that is no doubt beside his fathers. "I did. The whole town really mourned her." That brings some small semblance of closure, his mother was a great mayor, a great person.
"That's so sad," Tara says knocking him out of his daze.
Then he finds himself with a lap full of girls, Alyssa's arm wrapped around his neck. "Good thing you have us now."
When the girls are upstairs Bonnie curls up next to him on the sofa, the cool summer breeze blowing the curtains, leaning in and kissing his cheek. "I'm so sorry, Tyler," she whispers, her hand grasping his. He doesn't know what she's apologizing for but he accepts it. "It isn't easy being us."
He squeezes the small palm in his as she rests her head on his shoulder.
"Was it ever?"
Tonight he doesn't tell himself he's leaving tomorrow.
In the morning, after she's done meditating in the backyard he asks her, "have you ever taken them to Mystic Falls?"
She shakes her head, "I never will."
That's the most comforting thing he's ever heard.
It's been a long time since he's celebrated his birthday, and he's surprised to come down to the kitchen to find a blood bag and the two girls each icing a cake.
"We didn't know if you liked white or chocolate," Alyssa says looking at him expectantly.
He doesn't remember being sixteen and it's hard to wrap his head around how young they feel to him. At sixteen his father died and he found out he was a werewolf. Sixteen jaded him, and they seem so unmarred by life, so young. "I like them both," he says and even if he didn't he wouldn't be able to choose one over the other.
They both continue icing their cakes, Bonnie smiling from her position at the island and she takes another sip of her tea.
The girls don't stay long after Tyler finishes his breakfast and Bonnie's still stationed on her barstool. She asks Tyler if he has any special plans for the day, and when he admits he'd forgotten what day it was, she nods in understanding. He doesn't know how she knows it's his birthday, it's been far too long for it to be from memory, but she tells him that she's planned something simple.
They're small town southern kids at heart, so the lake is a perfect place to celebrate his birthday.
Bonnie tosses her shorts as soon as they get to the bank, the sunhat follows soon after. He watches her apply sun screen to her arms and legs and she passes him the bottle so he can do her back. Tyler slathers the lotion, careful not to dip too low beneath her bikini bottom.
He takes his time undressing. The trunks she bought him feel snugger than he would have gotten for himself but they fit.
The way that Bonnie takes to the outdoors is something he's never seen before. It's as if she belongs with the leaves and the branches, with the water and the stones. He stares for a while, gets caught up in her getting caught up, before she catches his eye, "you okay?"
He nods and her hand reaches out for him and he placed his hand in hers.
She's the first to test out the water, to disappear long enough that he gets worried before resurfacing. But she does and she laughs and she leans back face soaking in the sun. She's still swimming long after he's done floating, really just bathing in the heat, but he goes back to the bank, the picnic blanket there to greet him.
He stretches out, and like a sunflower he lays face toward the sun. It's not long before he's napping like a lazy cat and not long after that before he wakes up, sight hazy and unfocused to see Bonnie popping grapes into her mouth. He tries to sit up and she throws a hand up. "You don't have to get up," she says bringing the disposable cup she's holding to her mouth.
Sso he doesn't.
When he wakes up again she's there beside him, her skin still wet from the lake, humming under her breath. She notices he's awake and she throws him a smile, "good nap?"
"Yeah…it was really good actually. I haven't slept like that in…in years."
It's dark outside, crickets chirping, the moon high and half-full in the sky. The wolf in him doesn't respond in any way, the moon doesn't call out to him anymore, and the vampire in him doesn't make the night more comforting to him, so he turns his attention to Bonnie. He's slept most of the day and he feels a little bad that she'd gone through the trouble of doing something nice for him, only for him to sleep through it. But when goes to apologize she waives him off.
"I'm glad you're sleeping…is it hard for you…is it a Klaus thing?"
"It's ridiculous but, yeah. You don't sleep well either?"
"Mystic Falls really messed me up," she says and he nods in understanding.
Bonnie reaches out to run her fingers through his hair and he leans into the touch. It's been a while since he's been touched, even longer since he's been touched with this kind of familiarity. She's warm and her bathing suit is still a little damp against his bare skin and it's not completely unpleasant. Bonnie's always touching him, whether it's a brush of her hand when she's passing him something, or if she's ruffling his hair when he's sitting at the table talking to the girls. It's comforting, friendly. He reaches out to touch her, hand brushing against her face. "Thank you, for everything."
"You're welcome."
He doesn't realize that he's moving in to kiss her until she's licking into his mouth, hand moving from his hair down to his face, gently cupping it while angling her own. She tastes like the wine she'd been sipping on all day, and she envelopes him in her heat.
Tyler's been with women over the years, connected with them all in different ways, and while he can't remember what kissing her was like before, he knows that this is familiar, but it's also new. Because this time, in this moment the summer child falls in love with the woman who tastes like the sun.
She pulls away and smiles, looking young moments before he can see the age on her face.
"What's wrong?"
"Tyler, I'm just so tired," she says and he knows she just doesn't mean right now. Like him, she feels every one of her years.
"Me too."
He pulls her back into a kiss that leaves her breathless.
He feels seventeen again, nervous, giddy when she walks into the room now. They don't talk about the kiss, kisses, and if he didn't notice the way her eyes occasionally flit down to his lips, he'd thinks she'd forgotten it.
They're all in the family room, Bonnie at the desk looking through a grimoire, Tara stretched out on the floor with something that resembles a phone, and Alyssa's napping on the sofa when she turns to Tyler in the recliner, "the girls wanted know if you want to go to the beach with us? You're welcome to stay here, but we go every year, and we would really like it if you came."
He's been here for weeks now, finally stopped feeling like he's overstayed his welcome\ and he really doesn't know why she feels the need to ask.
"I love the beach," he says and watches the corners of her lips pull into a smile.
Sand covers the deck of the house when they arrive, the smell of salt water a permanent fixture once they open the front door.
Alyssa runs out of the house as soon as their things are put away and a friend of Tara comes knocking on the door soon after.
Bonnie's in a swimsuit just as fast.
"Are you coming?"
He is.
The girls spend most of their days out of the house, their lessons put on hold, but it doesn't stop Bonnie from waking up early and meditating. The sun's barely crept over the horizon and she's on the deck, eyes closed, wind wrapping around her for at least a ten minutes before she says in a voice low enough for only him to hear, that she knows he's there. He moves to sit down beside her, arms wrapping around his knees.
Sometimes he doesn't know what to say to Bonnie. Sometimes he feels like he doesn't have to say anything.
This is one of those times.
They eat lobster for dinner, the red shells lining the table on the deck. Bonnie's kaftan blows in the wind, and he watches the girls lick at the butter sauce dripping down their wrists with a strange sort of delight.
Family.
He never really had a pack, and his parents died when he was much too young—he's been on the run ever since and for the first time he really feels at home.
He looks over at Bonnie, as the girls argue over a spilled drink and tells her, "this is nice."
She brushes her fingers across his hand and smiles. Her eyes move down to his lips and just as quickly they move away.
"Yeah it is."
It's their last night here before they go home, a cheesy luau is being thrown by their neighbors and since there's nothing better to do, Tyler decides he'll attend with the girls. He's sitting in the living room waiting for them to get ready, his fingers tapping the fabric on the couch impatiently. He can hear their conversation and it's not as if he's intentionally listening but it's really hard to not hear everything that happens in this house.
Alyssa voice is the deepest, so he immediately picks out her voice when she asks Bonnie, "why are you putting perfume on?"
"Maybe I just want to smell nice," she says. He imagines her swiping it behind her ears, on her wrists. He hears her place the bottle back on the wooden dresser, painted white to match the white wicker chairs in her room, the one that sits underneath the vanity she doesn't use, the large one in the corner. He can hear the material of her dress as she pulls it over her head, as one of the girls zips it up.
"Yeah, but you never ever wear it to the beach."
"I'm wearing it now."
Tara's voice chimes in, playfully, "who are you trying to smell nice for?"
Bonnie laughs, and it sounds young to his ears, "myself."
"And nobody else?"
"Well I am gonna drink until someone is hot enough to make-out with and I guess it's whoever that is—" she laughs again and he knows that she says it for him. It doesn't matter how much time has passed, he remembers that.
They lose the girls as soon as they step out of the house, and they only stay long enough for a game of limbo Tyler doesn't participate in, long enough for Bonnie to steal a bottle of wine and a large picnic blanket folded up beside a stack of leis.
The sky is dark, the kind of vast darkness that Tyler hates and it feels like it'll swallow him whole, so he focuses on the steadiness of her heartbeat, the warmth of her palm in his as she pulls him along the beach.
Bonnies stops in what seems like a random position, dropping the picnic blanket on the ground, taking off her sandals. They're far enough away that he can still hear the music playing from the party but he's sure she can't. She sits before looking at him expectantly to do the same.
He slides off his canvas shoes, sits beside her. She's opened the wine, with magic rather than a cork, and before she sips she leans over to kiss him.
It's more than a peck, there's tongue, he can taste the artificial watermelon flavoring in the vodka she'd been drinking at the party, but somehow it's about as chaste as a peck. She sips then as if there's some kind of method to her madness and hands him the bottle afterwards.
Bonnie looks out into the ocean and she says his line, the one thing he says when words escape him but he wants to mark the occasion by saying something. "This is nice."
He hums as the sweet wine slips over his lips and when he tries to pass it back to her she shakes her head. Contingency memorandum
"Are you trying to get me drunk?"
She laughs like she laughed earlier; it's more of a giggle, just as young sounding. "Am I hot enough to make out with yet?"
He laughs too, he's nowhere near drunk, but he feels kind of lightheaded, kind of tipsy off her laugh, drunk off her. It seems like lifetimes ago since he's heard those words, it was lifetimes ago, and it's hard to match up that Tyler with the one of present day.
But his hands go to cup her face, gently, and he angles it perfectly before he leans in press his lips to hers.
She's always hot enough to make out with.
Bonnie moves faster than he does, and making out soon turns to more. Her hand slides into the waistband of his shorts wrapping her fingers around him. He sighs into her mouth and she stops then, "Is this okay?"
"Yeah, yeah," he moans, his breath catching when she starts again, the twist of her hand, unfamiliar, clumsily trying to learn him.
He's leaning back against his hands when she pulls him out, the cool air making him shiver. He watches her hand, brown and tanned against the paleness of him, intent on making his eyes flutter until he closes them. So he doesn't see her when she lowers her head, only feels the warmth of her mouth.
His hand automatically tangles in her hair, not guiding, not pushing, just pulling it away from her face and he groans, falling back on his elbows, watching the floating protozoa behind his eyelids.
He can taste himself in her mouth when he kisses her, before she pulls back and takes a sip of her wine they'd made a space for in the sand.
"Why?"
She shrugs. "We've be skirting around this for a while, since you've been back…since I was seventeen. I just think I'm a little too old to be too embarrassed to do what I want. More importantly, was it good?"
He laughs then, a chuckle, "it was…wow…it's was nice."
Bonnie grins then, and stands, taking the end of her dress and tying it in a knot above her knees. She looks down at him, and he stands awkwardly tucking himself back into is shorts and grabbing her hand when she reaches out for him.
"We can finish later…I've been meaning to show you something, just been waiting for the right time." Her fingers twine in between his and she starts toward the water, her stroll is leisurely, like they have all the time in the world (not that they don't), and as soon as their feet hit wet sand she stops. The water gently laps up against their ankles, the sea foam smell strong in his nose, and he directs his sight to where she's pointing.
"I don't see anything."
There's nothing.
Her hand drops his and he jumps when he feels it brush across his eyelids to close them. Her fingers then move to his temples. Before he can ask her what she's doing an image plays across the back of his eyelids. It's more than an image, it's a feeling. He can see it, but he can feel the darkness. It's wet, cold too. His head feels congested, heavy. There's water in his ears. His throat feels clogged. He feels trapped.
Bonnie says his name, and the scene spins, and he's on the outside looking in. There's a face, a little bloated due to the water, veins marring it.
"It's Klaus," she whispers right after he realizes what this is, and he can't breathe. He doesn't need to, but he can't. She's rubbing his back and talking to him gently, her words he doesn't understand, because all he can think of is what he's just saw. It's one thing to know that Klaus is gone (for all intents in purposes) and it's another to see it for yourself.
He doesn't realize he's crying until she's wiping tears from his face, pulling him back towards the blanket. "I'm sorry, Tyler. I thought you'd be happy to…I'm so sorry."
He doesn't know how he's feeling but whatever it's is it's overwhelming.
"Can we go home?"
Her grip tightens and they start towards the house.
There's a group of teenagers on the deck, and he makes it a point to wave at them before walking into the house. When he tries to let go of Bonnie's hand to walk to his room she stops gently tugs him toward the direction of hers. The perfume is the first thing he sees on the corner of the dresser.
He picks it up, feeling the shape of the bottle beneath his fingers. "You used to wear this."
She nods taking the bottle and putting it on the dresser and she tilts her head, brings his head to her neck. He inhales. He hadn't paid much attention to it all night, too many people and scents covering it up. "It smells good on you. "
She steps back, face neutral, "come to bed." She turns to unzip her dress, letting the thin material fall to the ground and walks toward the bed, pulling he covers back.
When Tyler's undressed down to his underwear he slides beside her, eyes on the ceiling fan.
"I'm tired, Bonnie."
"I know."
They're back at the house and the last few days have been strange. He hasn't talked about the night he saw Klaus and she hasn't brought it up. There's also a mood overhanging the house, like everybody's realizing that summer's over. The spell has been broken.
He can hear the girls moving in their beds around in the room beside him. It's the hottest night of the summer and everybody's a little restless. He hears Bonnie out the balcony, drinking, probably a glass of wine and he finds himself walking towards those French doors.
It's the first time he's ever done this, sat with her like this in the middle of the night and he can tell she's a little shocked to see him. She passes the bottle to him and he declines. It clinks hard against the iron table.
"The girls are leaving tomorrow?"
"Are you sad?"
"A little, but they'll be back during the year…everybody comes down for Christmas. But it's not the same. I'm going to miss them," she says in between sips.
"Me too."
She lights up then, kind of proud, "they're great girls."
He agrees.
"I know you've grown attached to them."
"You too," he says grabbing the hand that's not holding the glass. "I've grown attached to you too and I haven't told you thank you for that night. "
He feels the heat radiating from her face and he laughs, "not that…the Klaus thing." She laughs. "It was surreal…I knew…but it's going to take time for me to really get it through my head."
"You've got plenty of it. There's no need to rush. I just thought you'd be happy."
"I am it's just…"
"Surreal."
"Yeah."
She lets go of his hand and curls back into her chair, cradling her glass. She looks out into the yard, into the trees behind it, all the land that reminds him of the place he grew up. "What's wrong?"
"What do you want?"
"What do you mean?"
She tops off her glass and takes a sip.
"Every year when they leave, I think about what I'm going to do in the time between visits. I could meet someone, fall in love. I could have another baby. And every year that I don't I wonder if that's the only way to feel like it all means something. One day they'll be off doing their own thing, and they may send their kids to me for the summer, but in between what am I going to do all by myself? I just realized that I could live the next thousand years like this."
"And what do you want?"
"The thing is I like having family around, I didn't really have it as a kid, but will I spend the rest of my life waiting for the next set of grandchildren to be born or the next husband? Because eventually they'll leave—they'll die. That's fine for one lifetime but to through it again and again," she sighs, "I don't think I'm strong enough."
There's a quarter of wine left in her glass and she goes to fill it only for Tyler to put his hand over the rim. "I want that. A family, home. Even if I have to watch them die, and I understand how hard that is, we buried enough people before we could legally drink to last a lifetime, but that's better than not having one at all."
Her face softens at that. "I'm just feeling sorry for myself. Don't mind me."
He shrugs. "So am I." He looks at her again, the moon full and the light bright across her face, "do you want to keep talking about it or do you want to keep drinking…and maybe we can finish what we started at the beach?" He removes his hand and she pours more wine into her glass, passing him the bottle. "Come to bed."
It's the first time they're both naked at the same time. The first time there's full body contact and no interruptions. It's flattering how she's so responsive, every touch bringing out a moan or a sigh. He fits their lips together and everything feels so easy, familiar.
He traces the tan lines across her breast with his fingers, leans down to suck a nipple into his mouth. Her back arches off the bed, her hand flying into his hair.
Her hips buck when his tongue licks out to taste her and she laughs, tipsily, the wine gone to her head. It's not long before she pulling him back up to her mouth and he's learning the depths of her.
"God," she sighs hands grabbing his ass, pulling him deeper. They're barely moving, his hips rocking at a slow pace, just a deep steady stroking, slow enough that he can keep kissing her the entire time. He could probably come like this but she starts mumbling barely coherent messages against this mouth, the vibration tickling his lips.
Harder, deeper, more.
He understands wanting more than anything. He wouldn't have appreciated her at eighteen, not in his way. He's always wanted for things, he wanted her then too, but this wanting is wrapped up in time and experience and necessity. There's lust there but there's also a deep seated desire to have this , to be with her like this regularly.
She's laughing again, her heart beating fast, his hand creeping down between them. Nails dig into his shoulders, she noisily calls out for him when she falls, trembling.
It doesn't take long for him to follow her.
The room has her skin hot and sticky, the ceiling fan doing little to keep them cool. He's sitting up at the headboard drawing circles with his thumb on her ankle as she sprawls out at the end of the bed.
"I think that maybe we can help each other out," he says breaking the silence.
"How is?"
"I'm free for the next few centuries and I heard that you were to."
She looks up from her position at the end of the bed, moving her arm that was thrown over her eyes, "you heard right."
"Well you have a family. I'm planning on living forever…maybe we can just not die together for a while, see how that works."
Immediately she moves to kiss him, resting beside him, head on his shoulder.
"It's not a terrible idea."
Bonnie's asleep, the covers kicked off the bed, her arm hanging off the side, when he hears the girls in their room. It's been hours since she'd fallen asleep and finally he'd started dozing too when he hears their voices. "Tyler slept in Grams room last night," whispers Tara and there must be an a look exchanged because they both burst into giggles. "Do you think we'll have to call him Grandpa?"
There's seriousness in Alyssa's tone when she corrects her sister, "Gramps, probably."
They erupt into another fit of giggles.
Tyler finally drifts off.
They're having their last breakfast together, Tyler drinking his blood bag when Tara asks him how long he's staying. Bonnie's at the island having her tea and she grins at him when he replies, "for a while."
That pleases all of the ladies and he uses the positive mood to steal a piece of toast from Tara's plate. When he goes to get a something to catch his crumbs he nudges Alyssa who's at the pot making coffee, his voice low, "you can always call me Tyler. I don't really feel like a Gramps."
He watches her eyes widen and she throws a looks at her sister. He just laughs.
Thanks for reading!