(originally posted on tumblr.)

i'm thinking of you all the while (II.)

"Of course, you don't have to help her. You could just walk away. She dies of collapsed lung, no blood on your hands, and you and Elena get to live the life you always dreamed of."

Kai had been taught that words were like honey. Dip your tongue in that sweet elixir, and you could coax the bear out of his lair, but you could also spite the queen bee. The trick was to mix honey with a little venom, every time.

So really, Malachai Parker just wanted to see Damon and Elena ride into the sunset together. Now, if their tires suddenly got stuck against the corpse of their witch friend, that was only a minor hiccup on the road to happiness, right?

Besides, who has ever heard of happiness without sacrifice? The most Damon Salvatore would have to do was take three steps back, turn and exit the church. That was hardly taxing.

"Either way," he added, not unkindly, "you better act quick. She hasn't got much time."

He could see the petty conflict playing out across Damon's face. A spasm of regret, a little grimace of contrition. Anyone watching him would have thought he was exorcizing the guilt preventing him from leaving Bonnie. But Kai knew, from experience, that he was actually begging the higher gods, in which he had never believed, to give him a conscience. The vampire wanted to feel more shame. If he did, he wouldn't have to go. He wouldn't have to go like a coward. Because maybe that is what people hated most about tragedies; not the pain of renunciation, but the stink of shame and embarrassment.

"Bonnie's time had to come eventually, Damon. Play with fire and you'll get…well, you know how the saying goes. She played one too many times. Chose to be the hero, one too many times. Heroes die at the end. You know that, right? Let her die with dignity, at least," Kai said, dipping his tongue in honey, then reaching out with two fingers to wipe the trail of blood at the corner of his mouth.

Damon crouched next to Bonnie's collapsed body. She was struggling to breathe, forcing air in short gulps down her throat, only to have it rejected by angry, burning lungs. He caressed her forehead with infinite sadness.

"Bonnie," he pleaded with an anguished voice. "Bonnie, I can't lose Elena. I've lost her so many times already…but you, you've been so strong. I wish you could tell me what to do."

Kai couldn't see the look in her eyes. But he could hazard a guess. Betrayed, scandalized, disappointed…enraged. Ha.

She turned her head away suddenly, squeezing her eyes shut. Damon touched her jaw. "Bonnie, please…"

Kai chuckled a little, despite himself.

"Don't tell me you want her to both die for you and forgive you? That's a little presumptuous."

"Stay out of this, asshole. I just want to say goodbye," Damon spat out bitterly.

Bonnie kept shaking her head, kept trying to get away from him. She couldn't move a great deal, but she managed to roll into a fresh pool of glass and issued a muffled cry.

Kai almost betrayed himself. Almost. He managed to cut short his brief instinct to go to her.

Patience, Bonnie. Hold on a little longer, will you? He was nervous and excited, but if he let it show even a little bit, this entire charade would have been for nothing.

"You should scram, Salvatore. Before I change my mind and kill your girlfriend too," Kai warned in a pleasant enough voice. Honey and venom.

Damon let his head hang in resignation. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against Bonnie's forehead. Kai clenched both fists in the inside of his pockets. He would relish disconnecting his head from his body and then putting that head on a stake in front of the Salvatore Boarding House. One day.

"Goodbye, Bonnie. I'm so sorry."

And then, he was gone. Fled the scene before she had time to let out another ragged breath.

Kai waited with increasing trepidation. His veins were pulsing with barely restrained magic. He was ready for Damon to come back with a "spontaneous" attack. The Salvatores were devious that way.

So he paced back and forth in a furor, waiting for a bloody confrontation to take place. It didn't. Minutes passed in the same deadly silence. At the end of it, he felt both victorious and…disgusted.

I'll burn them for this, he thought, absurdly. After all, he had wanted them to sacrifice Bonnie. And they had. And it still stung.

He waited a moment longer. Then, he rushed to her side. Opening his wrist with his teeth, he placed one thumb between her lips and opened her mouth by force. Her eyes were closed and wet tears were trailing down her cheeks. Her heartbeat was faint. He let the blood pour down her esophagus.

Bonnie choked and sputtered. He pressed his wrist further into her mouth. She protested weakly.

"No offense, Bon. But we don't have time for sanitary procedures. Don't worry, you won't get any cooties."

She opened her eyes with a mixture of shock and sadness. He swallowed the dry saliva in his throat. She had expected him to be Damon.

She was going to wrench her head away and spit out his blood and say something stupid and dramatic, like "I'd rather die!" And he would roll his eyes and tell her to rot if that's what she wanted. But he would also think, "that's my girl".

His breath hitched in alarm when her nails sank into his skin. Her eyes were filled with sorrow, but there was so much determination too. She squeezed his wrist with all her strength and gorged on his blood, fast and messy.

She wanted to live. She didn't give a damn that he was not Damon.

.

When she came about again, she was lying in a warm bed. The sheets clung to her skin with sweat. She was burning up.

Am I naked?

No, she was clothed, but her T-shirt was soaked in so much blood that it almost felt like wearing nothing at all. She was weak and thirsty.

"Here you go. I didn't know what kind you liked so I chose boring chamomile."

She looked up at the dark figure standing by the bed. He was holding a cup in his extended hand. She was not sure if she should take it. She was not sure she could.

He seemed to intuit her problem.

Kai sat down by her side, and, tilting the back of her head gently, he placed the cup at her lips.

She drank. It was just water and sugar. But she savored it intensely. When he removed the cup, it was empty.

Kai smiled down at her. "Good girl."

She wrinkled her nose at him, and his smile widened. "I see you're getting back to your old self."

"Where…"

"Are we?" he finished for her. "Precisely? I can't say. But we're heading back to Portland."

Bonnie heard several alarm bells ringing in her head, telling her to push past him and get out of the room.

"We can't have you running around Mystic Falls. You're officially dead now."

Kai got up and walked over to the table near the TV set. He picked up a fresh cup of tea from a plastic tray.

Bonnie watched him with trepidation.

"Are you going to kill me?"

He stopped in his tracks, bemused. "Like right now? No. I mean, I didn't buy all this tea for nothing."

"Don't play games."

"Games are overrated," he quipped, sitting down by her side. "They all have so many rules…and players. Does anyone even win at Monopoly? No, I prefer something simpler."

Bonnie raised an eyebrow, although she accepted the second cup. This time, she grabbed it herself. Their fingers intercepted briefly.

"What is simpler?" she asked warily.

Kai smirked. "You, me, the road. 'Bonnie and Clyde' type of deal. You already got the name down. It would be a shame not to use it."

Bonnie almost choked on her tea. "You're insane."

"Well…yeah. They had to be a little cuckoo to do what they did."

She pulled herself up. "What makes you think I'll go along with your twisted fantasy?"

Kai stared at her heart-shaped face with something like smugness. "Because you're free to do it now."

He got up and walked out of the room, turning the lock shut behind him.

Bonnie wanted to shout after was even compelled to get out of bed and tear that door down – but ultimately, she just wanted to sleep.

So, she slept.

And then, she woke up. Smack dab in the middle of the night.

Because she remembered now. She remembered everything with startling precision.

"Goodbye, Bonnie. I'm so sorry."

Whatever dimness had clouded her mind was gone. She remembered Damon's words and her blood froze in her veins.

When she finally got out of bed, she saw Kai had left her phone on the nightstand.

Why?

She checked it feverishly. No messages, no phone calls. Nothing.

That's why.

He wanted her to see that they thought she was good as dead.

Bonnie walked across the room and leaned her head against the door. Absolute silence on the other side. She was in a motel, by the looks of it.

She ambled to the window next. The view offered little in terms of location. She only saw a bleak parking lot, stretching out in semi-darkness.

Bonnie didn't think. Her mind was turning at record speed and what she craved was action and distraction. So, she pushed the window open and threw her cell phone out swiftly. Angrily.

When that was done, she grabbed the plastic tray and smashed it against the wall. She was running on adrenaline. And some very unstable magic. She wrenched the bed covers and started ripping them to shreds. She didn't yell or scream. You could only hear her grunts and pants, and the sound of sheets being torn.

She had cried in front of him. She had shed her secrets. She had trusted him. She had even endured the Other Side without him, just so he'd have a chance in the real world. She had done everything for him and for her. All she had expected - all she had ever wanted was a little consideration. A little respect in return.

Her mistake. This is what happens when you turn yourself into a martyr. You expect other people to do it too. Your fault.

But he could have at least stayed with her awhile longer. He could have stayed until she died. Instead he fled, eager to escape responsibility.

And now, she was a ghost again. Dead to him, dead to the world.

Bonnie sat in the middle of her massacre. Torn strips of fabric lay around her like a corollary. She wiped the sweat off her forehead. She pulled the T-shirt over her head. Unclasped her bra. Shed her clothes on the floor.

She remembered Kai's words. Because you're free to do it now.

Bastard had been right. She wasn't dead.

But Damon Salvatore was dead to her. And so was the rest of the world.

Malachai found her room trashed and empty. Almost like a hurricane had stormed through it and left nothing behind. He stood still, a momentary doubt lodged deep in his throat. His first instinct was to call her by name, but he didn't have the gumption to check if his plan had failed.

He climbed down to the parking lot, already thinking of ways to track her down.

He shouldn't have.

He had no idea where she'd gotten the new clothes. Because that was not her dress. She pulled up her sunglasses.

Kai stopped in front of the car.

"Bon –"

"Drive."

He had heard that tone before. He remembered the deafening electronic music, the blaring lights and the throng of sweaty college kids. He had found her at the rave, ready to apologize and bury the hatchet, and she had obliterated him with her words. It was the same now, except he was not the focus of her cold rage anymore.

He grinned, frightened and relieved at the same time.

"As my lady commands."

"Don't worry. I put a spell on one of the dead Gemini witches to look exactly like you. So, your friends are probably burying some nobody right now."

Bonnie frowned, but she was not displeased. She considered him with curiosity. She had never appreciated his wits, mostly because she had never stopped to appreciate anything about him.

"You thought of everything."

Kai threw her a lazy look, one hand on the steering wheel. "I always do."

"No. It's more than that. You planned it. You planned this whole…escapade."

Kai shrugged. "Told you I don't like games."

"Why?"

"I think we already went over my disdain for Monopoly –"

"Did you want to teach me some big lesson about betrayal?" she asked, ignoring his remark.

Kai licked his lips, eyes on the road.

"Or maybe you hoped I'd forsake my friends and realize you're so much better?" she continued with dripping sarcasm.

Kai chuckled. "I am so much better."

Bonnie regarded him closely.

"Could it be you wanted to play God, force them to show their true colors, destroy a couple of lives in the process?" she persisted in an eerily calm tone.

"Can't deny it's a treasured past time of mine," he offered glibly.

"…it's none of those things, is it?" she inquired, raising an eyebrow.

Kai blew air through his mouth. "I'm an enigma, all right."

"Actually…" she trailed off. "You already told me. I just didn't listen."

He couldn't help turning his head in her direction. He was unnerved, if only momentarily.What did I tell you?

But Bonnie only stared out the window, ignoring him.

.

She didn't protest or complain when they had to stop for blood. Kai was a vampire-witch now, and he needed sustenance. And she was still human. She couldn't live off magic.

The first time he sank his teeth into an innocent by-stander, she blinked. The second time, she didn't even look away. He always stopped before he killed them.

Mainly because they had nothing to offer him.

Would he stop if he bit me?

If he drained her, he would have enough magic to decimate a city. She didn't want to hear the answer. On some level she knew. Yes, he would do it. And no, he wouldn't. Both, somehow, were simultaneously valid. He would kill her just to bring her back.

Isn't that what he did, anyway?

She smiled at the sweet old man behind the register. He nodded his head and handed her the money. Clean and easy.

She held him trapped in her spell, while Kai removed the faint color from his cheeks.

"Mmm. Blood is like good wine. It gets better with age."

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "Don't spill any on the cash."

She toppled a police car somewhere in Wyoming. A flick of the wrist and a light sweat. The officers weren't inside, but she didn't know if next time they'd be so lucky.

"Get a move on," she urged when the smoke rose into the air.

Kai smiled at her without malice or smugness. He simply smiled like a boy who'd been given his Christmas present early.

.

"Don't compel this one. Let me handle him."

She lunged forward, ignoring Kai's sudden gasp when her knee connected with his groin. By accident. She stood over his lap and stuck her arms out the window.

"Hello, officer. How may we be of service?"

She felt Kai's anger radiating off his body. But maybe it wasn't anger.

He was so engrossed in feeding, she could have come up to him at any moment and ripped his heart out, and he'd have just kept chugging blood. Pint after pint.

She didn't do it, though. Mainly because he would have died happy.

The house in Portland was exactly like she remembered. Homely, warm, domestic to the bone. She had been stabbed to death on the front lawn. She bent down and touched the dry summer grass. No marks of blood here, since it had all happened in another world, but she could still feel the blade going in and out, a dull pain that got easier every time. Kai was excitedly packing supplies. This was going to be a temporary stop. They were going down to California, maybe take a flight to the Asian coast?

She was welcome to ransack the house for whatever she liked. Did she want to burn it down? Because he would be game. "You know, to let go of the nasty memories," he suggested, with almost genuine concern. You bled here, after all.

Bonnie looked around. "No. We'll need a place to return to. A place no one else knows."

They were cloaked behind their magic and no one could penetrate their fortress. If someone were stupid enough to try, they'd get a taste of the Bennett-Gemini mixture. Honey and venom.

A month had passed since her untimely "death". They still hadn't left the house in Portland, but it was nearing time. They had gone over the route, and everything was roughly planned to suit their needs. It was only a matter of…self-persuasion.

She spent all dinner contemplating her next move. Kai watched her with interest.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"I just remembered our Thanksgiving meal."

"Fun times."

"Mm. I'm surprised you were honest about your dad."

"You were a good listener," he replied, setting his glass of wine on the table. He had poured some blood in it earlier, when he thought she wasn't looking, but she'd found the empty blood bag in the trash can.

"How do you know I was listening?"

"Please. You had that look in your eye, the 'Bonnie Bennett' look. The one that screams 'I care'."

Bonnie scoffed. "You think I cared about you? Maybe I was putting on a show to get you to play nice."

Kai chuckled, resting his chin in his palm. "Damn good show, then."

"What about you? Did you care when you abandoned me?"

He stared straight into her eyes. "No."

To his surprise, Bonnie smiled, raising her glass in a celebratory toast. Had he slipped blood into hers too?

"Here's to psychotic bastards who save your life…and loving friends who let you die."

"Couldn't have put it better myself."

Their glasses clinked.

She knew now, what had really broken her was not being left alone on the Other Side. That had been a piece of cake.

Coming back and still being miserably alone…that had been the rub.

So when she crawled into his bed that night, she felt like she was reclaiming that loneliness and putting it to good use.

And fuck it, she had been attracted to him since day one.

She took him by surprise, to say the least.

He shuddered and breathed hard against her mouth. Kai rested his forehead against hers, his face contorted in this sort of pleading frenzy. She remembered that look. He'd been so desperate when she'd left him in 1903.

"Bonnie…please…"

She rode him slow, too slow even for her own pleasure, but it was worth it, just to see his whole body contract in frustrated desire. He couldn't touch her, because her magic kept him at bay, but boy, did he struggle. He put all his life force into his fingers. Just to grab her waist, just to fist his hand into her hair.

He moaned low and hungry, as she let her breasts rest briefly on his chest.

"I know why you did it," she mouthed into his neck. He regarded her with complete enthrallment. Bonnie savored that yearning look. She bent down and kissed the corner of his lips.

"You just wanted me all for yourself."

He flinched, but it only worsened his arousal.

"Sad little Kai Parker. Lonely black sheep of the family. I remember what you told me."

He raised his head towards her but she pushed him back down. She put a hand on his chest, right where his heart was beating wildly, ready to burst out of its cage.

"I wanted to feel your hand on my chest," she recited from memory. "Well, you got your wish."

"Bonnie, don't. Don't do it."

She smiled angelically. "Don't do what?"

"Don't – rip – my heart – out."

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Because …fuck." She swayed her hips a little too hard and he felt the pre-cum on the tip of his cock.

"Eloquent," she replied snidely.

She lowered one hand and grabbed his dick, feeling it move against her fingers. She had never felt more powerful in her life and she was dangerously close to giving up some control, especially since he had lost his already. She sank deep on his cock again and reveled in the way he accepted her fully, without any hesitation.

"C-Close," he managed to say as she rode him faster now.

She had his heart right under her palm, ready to squeeze it out of his chest. And against her will, she was getting too wet, too involved in this battle. She got a little sick thrill whenever she rose and fell against him, thighs slapping erratically, bones knocking like drums.

He snarled all of a sudden, so completely absorbed by his orgasm that he broke through her barrier and took hold of her fingers. He pressed them against his rib cage.

"Do it! Fuck, Bonnie, just do it!" he yelled in ecstasy.

Rip my heart out.

She stared at him wide-eyed. He looked completely in earnest. He would never be this vulnerable again. But it was true. He wanted to die happy.

He came hard inside of her.

Feeding and fucking, those were the key moments. Killing him during either …was not satisfactory.

She removed her hand from his chest and felt him slowly go slack under her.

"I won't –"

But her words became a strangled shriek. He had flipped her over before she had time to put up her barrier. And he was holding her down with his weight.

"You should have killed me when you had the chance."

He grinned at her madly, the grin she had seen so many times in her nightmares, the grin that precluded his very worst intentions. She felt a stab of arousal as his lips trailed down her body and lingered nowhere, until he found her pulsing center.

She should have stopped him when she heard his fangs hatching. But she didn't.

He bit into her.

She screamed from the top of her lungs and came almost moments later against his bleeding mouth.

He drank and licked and drained her and made sure she came again.

She didn't realize, midst ecstasy, that she was grinning too, eyes closed. A silent laugh.

The next morning, he felt drunk. Or rather, hung-over. The marks of the previous debauched night were all over his body and his sheets. And his mouth. Ha. He sported a lazy smile. She must look worse for wear, too.

He slipped out of the room, naked and sated and happy. How fucked up was it that he had wanted to die? He had survived dozens of years in a prison world only to relinquish his right to live just because her pert little ass had made him lose control. There was a joke in there somewhere. Something about orgasms and la petite mort.

But the house was startlingly empty. All of her stuff was gone - at least everything she had claimed a stake over. Including his car, apparently, because that was no longer in the driveway. For the second time that month, he felt a doubt lodged deep in his throat.

He found her note in the kitchen, next to some blueberry pancakes.

I already left. Come find me. xxx

Kai crumpled up the piece of paper in his fist. The irony did not escape him. He had left her once, just like this, back in 1994. He smiled a lopsided smile. He was angry and horny and probably in love.

I'm coming, Bonster.