Clove scented candles lit in her own home bathed Bonnie in comfort. The moon poured through her open bedroom window with the breeze. She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, needing a few moments of waking calm before letting sleep take her. Again, Kai had taken her to Hell and back. At least it ended well this time. There was just one little detail of her evening with him that she couldn't get out of her mind. It weighed on her like the back rub, and the subsequent inability not to touch herself.

His tongue.

His tongue and how he used it on her neck. It took her breath away. Nevermind Elena still being under his curse; that was a matter for worrying about tomorrow. Now, in the immediate problem of Bonnie's own reality, Kai's tongue. Even more problematic, the unexpected and painfully instant submission she had committed. He apparently hadn't noticed when it happened, but it had. It had, and that mattered to Bonnie. That terrified her. Because if he knew the meaning of her breaths, he could have taken her however he wanted. He could've gotten that femoral artery he so craved. And horribly more.

Bonnie shivered and turned, pulling her knees up to her chest underneath her quilt. She glanced to her cellphone sitting on her pillow, umbilical to the outlet on the wall. The minute she got home, she rummaged through her closet to dig it out. She hoped it was just the nostalgia for having it, for possessing the constant possibility of being reached by someone, whoever they were. And now after all these hopeless months, there was her phone, impregnated by a small amount of optimism she wouldn't have had if not for Kai. She could no longer ignore the nagging probability that he was different from before. As similar as he seemed, as much as she felt like he was hiding something from her, she found it harder to hate him.

Probably the loneliness making you ill, she thought to herself. Her heart ached for what her Grams might think of her now, because this night was a new step in the wrong direction. Not only did she feed Kai, but she fed from him, willingly. And liked it. She shivered again in remembrance of the intensity with which she liked it. Kai's blood pooling like velvet, red velvet, in the crater of her tongue widening to collect as much of him as she could, gliding hot down her throat. What had she become? A vampire herself, of sorts.

For a fleeting second, Bonnie considered getting out of bed, changing from her sleep clothes into a new, not so bloody outfit and going back to him. For what, she couldn't say. Another hug, perhaps. To lean on someone. To feel her heart crack open. Or even to bicker some more. She only knew that she missed the excitement of being near him, of not knowing what he'd do, of hoping what he would do and being bitterly disappointed, sorely surprised or wondrously satisfied. She just never knew with him, and something in that enticed her. This recent development of liking him was in a way different from liking friends. Her brain insisted to her soul it was not a crush. It couldn't be possible, not with who she was and who he was, all the trite names she had called him that night. How indifferently he accepted her abuse was further proof of his true nature. Crushing on Kai would make her someone else entirely, an invalidating fact.

Maybe she just needed to have sex with him. What she was sick with didn't need to be a feeling so much as her human nature taking its periodic turn for the carnal.

The familiar ping of her notification ringtone buzzed out of her cellphone. The sound alone released a slew of endorphins and she smiled wider than she had her whole time in this prison world. She swiped up the phone and unlocked it, eager to find out what news it bore.

A new number was texting her.

Forgoing all nonsense, Bonnie added the number to her contacts as Kai. Checking the time, she noted that it had been a fair amount of hours since she left his house. He wasn't clingy.

His text said: Hey

She responded: Hi

She waited a long time for him to text back. It actually frustrated her.

Finally, he texted: What are you doing?

Bonnie: Texting you

Kai: What else?

Bonnie: Trying to sleep

Kai: Goodnight.

Apparently her time alone took away her text etiquette. She didn't want him to stop talking to her, but being blatant and rude would do that. She needed to amend it.

Bonnie: Trying and failing. Wide awake. What are you doing?

She waited another frustrating amount of time to hear back from him.

Kai: Watching the craft

Bonnie: lol why?

Kai: But are you really laughing out loud?

Bonnie: No. Smiling though.

Kai: lol why

Bonnie: shut up

Kai: what are you wearing?

Bonnie's heart jumped up. An undeniable blush heated up her cheeks. She received another text from him, an instant follow-up that read: joke. And then another right after that: calm down

She took five minutes to decide on her response before she spited him: T shirt and panties.

Kai: I'm dead.

Bonnie: Finally.

Kai: Do you feel better?

Bonnie: yes

Her candle flame died down and the room fell dark. She wished he would ask her if she wanted to come back over. She wouldn't invite herself and she knew better than to invite him to her. More than anything else, Bonnie wished Caroline or Elena or even Matt could be texted too; she missed all of them and she needed to talk to someone who wasn't Kai, partly so she could talk about Kai.

Kai: Good. See you next week.

Feeling utterly let down by the shortness of the conversation, Bonnie wilted.

Bonnie: Night.

She set her phone gingerly on the pillow beside hers and laid her head, facing it. Hate for herself brimmed within her. She couldn't allow herself to like him, or to hope for another text, or to plan on sleeping with him to get anything out of her system. It was unacceptable. The first plan of action was to wake up at a decent hour, steal a car and search for the ascendant. There had to be one, and she had an idea of where it might be hiding. No way was she going to idle in this prison world while her best friend was missing her life. She had to get back.

Her phone interrupted her thoughts. Willing herself to pick it up calmly and without the enthusiasm she had to water down, she read his last text and wanted to die.

Kai: Sweet dreams, Bonster ;)

He set his hands lightly on the wood of her door, letting his nails beg the paint. He wanted to claw his entry into her home. Her porchlight was on as if she expected guests; he knew she didn't. He wished she wouldn't leave it on. It invited him, but when he drew to it he was spotlit and unwelcome. He didn't want to be seen. He only wanted to stand there in the threshold of her energy and house, and to pine without hope. To ache for her touch again, the crumbling of her will incarnated by her arms squeezed around him. He fantasized lightly that he had the gall to stand there uncloaked, that she would feel him and attend, leave the illusion of her safety and just hug him. Just one more time.

This wasn't the first time he'd stood dumbly at her door for no reason. He didn't do it every night or anything, but probably more than a normal person should. Do normal people do this? It was just so hard to find peace when she left him. Every time she left him wracked with hunger of a different kind, and standing around on her porch without her knowledge gave him a barely sufficient satiation.

He felt his phone buzz in his pocket, and he took only one hand off of her door to read the text.

Bonnie: Night.

One word. It was so clipped. So detached. Was she trying to shake him clean off or was she just tired? He knew it was the end of the conversation; he initiated it himself. But did she need to be so cold?

This night was different. He felt the desire to knock so strong. He didn't know what he would say. Options swarmed, for there were thousands of things he wanted to say.

Hug me.

Let me in.

I'm still hungry.

I have to fuck you.

None were suitable. Nothing he could say, having arrived unannounced in the middle of the night, would merit the kind of reaction he craved from her. She would not hug him at random, or invite him in, or feed him again, or least of all condescend to let a monster of a person like him ravage her. And why should she?

Among the things he wanted to say, the truth burned him the most. But he swore to himself at the beginning of all of this that he wouldn't tell. There was no point. And there was certainly no way she would ever, ever forgive him if she knew.

It just seemed so…wrong, not telling. Given all the horrors he'd put her through and all the ones he would inevitably put her through over their eternity together (he was, after all, kind of a headcase) she deserved to know the truth.

What a rotten truth it was. She would stop talking to him for a year at least. Unfriend him for three. Cut him off her blood supply for four, maybe five. That would suck. But she did technically have forever to get over it, and eventually she would have to. Maybe it was worth it. Maybe he would keep it to himself for as long as he could stand it, until he was absolutely dripping with shame and deceit, before he told. The right moment would, in time and its vastness, arrive.

Meanwhile, he needed to be good. For all the times he lost control, he needed to compensate in painfully decent behavior when he could.

He realized he'd been staring at Bonnie's text the whole time he thought. The blue light of his phone screen was giving him a headache. Leaving the one hand to feel up her door until the very last second, he texted: Sweet dreams, Bonster ;)

He smiled lightly, put his phone back in his pocket and lowered his hand, letting his fingers skim a last bit of magic on their way down to his side. Looking woefully at her door as if with overwhelming sentiment he could see through it, he backed away. There was nothing left to do with his remaining moonlight hours but wander back into the night. Time was all his, no plans and no restrictions but dawn. Maybe he would get lost in the trees and break some. Or find a men's clothing store and get something suitable for his next dinner with Bonnie. Or just go trash some stuff.

Five minutes later he found himself trudging into his own house again. Nothing sounded more interesting than being horizontal in his bed. Something warm in his core commanded it. It had been a revelatory night for him, what with Bonnie being a sap and hugging him and making him feel all oozy and weird.

He fell in his bed, kicking his Converse off and letting them just fall. He breathed in the emptiness of his room, wishing the void would come back. Having feelings was like trying to see in the dark. Not that seeing in the dark was actually a problem for his vampire eyes. Still, feeling nothing was a cake walk.

Cake.

His stomach broiled.

Blood.

His fangs inched down and his face tickled like those damned veins were branching out. Had it not been three measly hours since his last taste of blood? Maybe Bonnie took too much out of him in the heal.

Bonnie.

"Fuck," he whispered.

Sex.

God he missed it. It hadn't been horribly long, considering the time he was trapped in 1994. He filled his quota when he broke out of there, got one good fuck in because it was oddly enough, with all the other pressing, murderous matters at hand. Other than that, he couldn't remember the last time he helped himself.

The memory of Bonnie's form between his arms descended upon him. Her ribs, her waist, those hips…her breasts pressed against his chest when she hugged him tightly to her as if she liked him or something. Her body was truly antagonizing.

Kai liked women. People in general made him want to regurgitate but women sometimes… The need to lay his seed lingered from being human, but in a more intense kind of way. It didn't make sense to him. Though he was a hybrid, he suspected he would still fall in line with typical vampirism and lack the ability to procreate sexually. So why the horniness? What was the purpose for that?

What a fucking bonus it was, though. If he ever did find himself out of this world, he could fuck and fuck and fuck as needed without a second to waste worrying about fathering his own pair of Gemini twins with upgraded problems. Briefly he wondered, without reason, if Bonnie's frame would be able to support that.

Shamelessly he moved his hand down his belly, beneath the lip of his pants. He gripped his shaft and sighed to find that it was hard and ready for action. To both his and its dismay, his hand would have to do. He closed his eyes, trying to focus on the quiet, on darkness and the nothingness inside him.

Bonnie crashed in, naturally. Just like he knew she would, no matter how much he tried to preserve himself. But to hell with control. He closed his eyes and let her in, and mimicked with his hand the thought of her soft sex enveloping his. And he made it last. He savored the fantasy for ten minutes at least, coloring in every corner, sure to imagine her true-to-life shudders as much as her moans, his bothersome bloodthirst as much as the kiss he wanted to plant on the swell of her breast before biting it. Finally, having lost his breath and his mind some time ago, he panted hard exhales to the pulsing of warm spunk in his palm.

He groaned at the mess he had made. Bonnie did this to him.