Bonnie took a day.

Granted all of her days were days she could take, but this one in particular she knew she must spend sitting at her Grams' kitchen table with a cup of tea and a book, and a harsh session of self-reflection in between each chapter.

The sun bathed her through the kitchen windows. She didn't bother getting dressed but lounged in a loosely tied lilac robe of silk and black slip beneath. Her grandmother wouldn't be proud of her wardrobe choice, or of anything she'd done the night before.

After surrendering her blood, the very life force flowing through her to a monster of a man, she dragged herself home, collapsed on her bed and thrashed against her own hand to the idea of that same man fucking her.

She wasn't proud.

If any reasoning could be applied to her actions, she decided it was nature. Her body knew that Kai was the only man around and it responded accordingly. Especially after the different ways his body had interacted with hers that night. It should've come to no surprise when she finally rested her head in darkness and privacy to find that her underwear were soaking wet. They stung cold against her inner thighs. She didn't have to reach down to feel that her cunt was practically agape and saturated in want. When she realized it, she shook so violently her teeth chattered. Kai did this to her.

The guilt made her wetter. There would be no sleeping until she had an orgasm, so she conjured thoughts of Jeremy in attempt to save her soul. And it did, temporarily. But each time the Jeremy in her mind was on his mark and ready for instruction, a shadow fell out from the darker part of her heart, obscuring the good-natured strain with a sinful fantasy. She groped for Jeremy and all she could pull up from the murk of her lust was Kai. Kai, in all his glory, pounding that troublesome erection into her aching hole with abandon. He felt like a terrible ghost in her room, raking his fingers through her thoughts and wrecking everything. The only way to make him leave was to let him.

Bonnie had to bear through a shockwave just thinking about it. She was warm in her sunlit spot, but remembering his ghost hands on her body chilled her. She marked her place in her book and made her way to the small cabinet above the stove. She didn't know why she kept it in there… probably she couldn't do away with the notion that it should be kept hidden, even though no one was around to judge her. She found what she sought, returned to her seat, lit the joint and inhaled. Comprehension of her place in the world as she now knew it was always easier when she was high.

It wasn't often that she indulged in smoking of any kind. Alcohol was easier. But Mystic Falls was littered with weed and finding people's hiding spots was fun. She started collecting with the first stash she happened upon and now had what for her was potentially a lifetime supply. Though she suspected, in line with her growing drinking habit, her smoking might soon become a regular thing. Tolerating Kai and then own her ups and downs in relation to him necessitated any kind of altered mood she could achieve.

Getting high only disorganized her thought process and made her want to see him. She wanted to sit with him, talk with him, laugh like people are supposed to laugh, relate. She wanted to know about him. Everywhere he'd been in the world, everything he did in 1994. How many ways had he killed himself? What was he like when he was a child? Before all the pressure? Before he was cast aside? Did he have friends? Girlfriends? A celebrity crush? When did he lose his virginity? Of all the foods he stuffed his face with, what was his favorite? Favorite color? Favorite song ever?

The sudden adamant desire to know Kai agitated Bonnie. She wasn't herself when she considered liking him. Her instinct for self-preservation was to stamp out her curiosities and cut herself off from him as much as possible. To hold up what she'd said to him: it wasn't a good idea to see each other more than their weekly slot, his feeding time. And at those times, she would need the stone cold resolve of a grade school girl being mean to the boy she can't stop thinking about simply because she can't herself understand the changes she's going through.

The next time she fed him, she insisted on staying outside. It had been the agreed week since they saw each other, save for his nightly jogs past her house in which he made no attempt to see her, yet his passing magic treaded over hers as if stepping with his running shoes on her bare feet. It was irritating. This, in addition to the weird night the week before, and the even weirder high the next day in which she almost forgot how much she hated him, required that she keep her distance.

She knocked on his door at blue dusk, crossed her arms, pretended not to notice the smell of cooking when he opened up to invite her in, and shook her head. To his head cocked in confused curiosity, she began to unzip the red sweater she wore that day. She took a step back, slipping her shoulders and arms out of her sleeves to reveal that she had taken his advice and worn a strapless top.

Kai smirked at her skin. "What are you doing?" he asked.

Tying her sweater sleeves around her waist, she said, "Ringing the dinner bell."

Ignorant of her intention to leave, he didn't need to be told twice. He met her where she retreated, not bothering to hide from her the darkening in his eyes or the veins of agitation. The light wind cooled her shoulders and she shivered. She could see his chest fill with proud air when he looked at her, starved and eager, fangs descending, before dipping his mouth. He bit her rather hard this time. Blame it on delight. She found herself squeezing the back of his shirt in her fist. Her other arm she kept in a flexing right angle at her belly. Its purpose was to subtly keep space between them, should he embrace her in his usual frenzy.

When it was over, she made to leave. He asked where she was going and she explained that she wasn't ready to eat with him again. Not yet. He didn't like that. Brows were furrowed, the wind picked up, one witch's wrist was snatched up in the other's, a second ego was inflamed and a fire started. Orange little blazes licked out from his kitchen window and groped for the porch. She burned dinner. Kai reluctantly let go of her to cast a dampening spell on the fire burning a hole in the front of his house. Disgusted, Bonnie waited for him to turn his attention back to her so she could say, "This arrangement. This relationship. You suck at it."

A sneer was quick to play at one corner of his mouth. "Pun intended?" Infuriated and still bleeding, she took off. And he let her.

More than anything, he was hurt. Again. Because of Bonnie.

He had nothing but interest in her from the beginning and from the beginning she hated him. She made that clear. Her methods of doing so were just as brutal and careless as his; trying to kill him; insulting him; leaving him behind in a dangerous place. They were such a match. How could she not see it? Then again, he wasn't even sure that he wanted what most people wanted from tense boy-girl relationships. Love? Yeah, no. Not his style. He liked being around her. He liked biting her. He liked touching her and wanted her to touch him. Of course he wanted to do dirty things to her, and with her. That would be interesting. He both liked and disliked how much she disliked him. If there was a way to hold onto her fight and also attain her adoration, he would kill to know how. But none of the things that made his time worthwhile could continue if she wouldn't even have dinner with him. And to think of the food that went to waste for it.

Contrary to popular belief, his entire life was in fact not all about Bonnie. He found much revelry in his time alone and much satisfaction in defiling the world in 1994. Despite having earned a slight amount of humanity from merging with his brother, he still felt the same itch to destroy. Now he had a chance to re-destroy the world, with another person. He couldn't have chosen a better companion. Her magic was strong, as was her will. And he could see in her eyes that, whether she knew it or not, she was dark inside. Just like him. It was there the first time he saw her; the wicked in him recognized the wicked in her. He just had to know how deep it ran, how thick it was, what birthed it, what it tasted like. But Bonnie's damn principles stood proudly in the way.

Kai thought of these things while he jogged the neighborhood in his usual route. The closer he came to the house where Bonnie lived, the angrier he felt. Earbuds pounded music with the backbeat of his raging heart in his ears, thinking of all the ways the old Kai would've made Bonnie like him. He could kidnap her. Magically bind her to the inside of his house until she saw how awesome he was and didn't want to leave. Or tie her up in a car and just begin the World Destruction Tour right then. Show her amazing things. Teach her the bad spells he knew that she would secretly love to learn. He could twist her arm.

Her house was coming up. He had trouble breathing every time he came upon her gold magic, lying in a calm ring around her house like a force field. How he wanted to crash into its beauty and fuck it up. To fuck her up, in the sweetest way. How he wanted to ruin her for the best.

He hit the invisible clothesline in the cool night air that meant he was officially in her territory. The sweat collecting on the back of his neck no longer cooled him and damn her if it didn't feel so fucking good to suffer in her warmth. He needed her to know how mad he was that she wouldn't eat with him.

Bonnie bolted up from her bed. It was still dark outside. Something about the way Kai's magic passed by this morning jolted her. Breathing heavily, she crossed her bedroom to look out the window. He wasn't down on the street but she could still feel him lingering, feel his magic accosting her. It was as if imaginary hands were reaching inside of her, trying to pry her heart out of her chest like treasure from a dead woman's grip.

His magic wasn't passing. He had stopped.

Three decisive raps on the front door startled her. His knock sounded serious. She must be in trouble. Knowing she was safe inside her house, she figured she may as well open the door and let him get whatever out of his system. Avoiding him wouldn't accomplish anything.

She padded to the door, seeing the top of his brown hair through the window above it. Already she felt it, his disquiet fizzling into her. She'd hoped, futilely, that he was there to apologize. Checking that her lilac robe was covering her appropriately, she turned the knob and opened the door halfway.

His narrowed eyes found hers immediately. He was breathing through his teeth, allowing each intake to fill his body so that he appeared larger. A black cord hung over the back of his neck, dangling earbuds over his bare chest. An old instinct spiraled through Bonnie's insides and she bit her lip to keep her eyes straight.

Don't look down.

Don't look down.

"What?" she snipped.

"What did I do?" he demanded. And she didn't know what answer he expected from her. He continued, "What did I do to deserve the way you look at me, or the way you act around me?"

Bonnie tongued the inside of her cheek and inhaled deeply through her nose, taking note of all her senses to figure out whether this was actually happening, if he actually woke her up for this.

"Should I start from the beginning?" she asked sternly.

"Yeah."

"I don't have enough time in my life to recount all of the terrible things you've done. But it's a tired topic, isn't it? You know what you did."

He half rolled his eyes and cut himself short to blink disbelievingly at her, staggering his jaws so the hard bones showed prominently masculine, and angry.

"I can't undo what I've done. I can only do right now. And I'm trying. But you won't even give me the fucking time of day."

"You don't deserve it. You can't be forgiven."

"I don't want to be forgiven."

"You're a horrible person."

"Get over it," he growled. The guttural drop in his voice clawed through her skin, awakening something primal. It stirred within her, coating her heart in panic, rippling through her bones until she trembled. For the shortest fraction of a second, Bonnie took in the sight of him shirtless. It would've been easier to enjoy if his head was someone else's, but there he was, plain and inviting for her to see. She could never tell with the kind of T-shirts he wore but he was ripped. Vigorous breath moved his chest. His nipples were tight, bracing against the breeze. Her eyes followed the ravine between muscles down his belly to the point where small dark hairs teased at the top of the elastic waistband hugging his hips. Realizing she was still staring, she jerked her eyes up to see that he was watching her. A dark spark of satisfaction stood out in his pupils, but was not acknowledged by his eyebrows, still narrowed at her.

The sky began to blue with coming dawn. Bonnie felt the trees perking.

"The sun's coming up. You should go."

His eyes darted to her neck, reminding her that she was still open there. She'd tried to seal her skin with magic when she got home, and as a witch she found that she tended to heal a bit quicker than the average human, but Kai had a big mouth. His bites made a landscaping project of her neck, the puncture points jagged from passion and purple from depth. And as nasty as she knew it looked, it was a far cry from the damage he'd actually done.

"Wednesday," she stated, not in the mood for his bloodthirst. He removed his gaze from her neck to bore into her eyes, complacent.

"Don't bother," he said. "I don't want your gross blood anymore." And he vanished, leaving her to purse her lips undecided whether she was glad or severely wounded.