So here we are, sitting alone, on the Boardwalk steps, the lights from the fires along the beach and from the Boardwalk itself making it almost as bright as dawn. I don't know where the others have buggered off to, and I don't particularly care. They'll be back.

Out of habit, I offer Michael a cigarette, and laugh when he refuses. Kid's such a momma's boy. Oh, he might have a leather jacket, a motorbike, a piercing and some badass friends, not to mention a blood hunger that'll catch up with him in, oh, a day or two, but he still won't touch tobacco. It's almost endearing how hard he tries to be cool. Maybe that's part of the reason I didn't let Star get on with it, just kill him.

I light the thin white tube in my hand and take a long drag, feeling heat sear my lungs. Someone once told me that these things would kill me. I guess I'll take my chances.

"How do you think the world will end?"

I glance over at Michael, who's staring out at the waves. "The hell kind of question is that?"

Michael shrugs. "The first that came to mind? I hate awkward silences."

I take another pull from my cigarette. Truth is, I've given some thought to this one, since, barring some unforeseen incident, I'll probably be around to see it happen. In fact, Marko and I even have something of a bet going. He thinks the vampire population will eventually overrun the human food supply. Whereas I, I realise, blowing out a lungful of smoke into the warm night air, have no friggin' idea. My money's on a nuclear explosion, but it might just as easily be a meteorite strike, or God (if there is one) getting fed up with the world and deciding, 'Right, that's enough of you.'

"Any ideas?" Michael's finally looking at me. I treat him to a grin as I pull in another breath of burning tobacco.

"I guess it'll all just go -" I start, and then have to stop and let out the rest of the pollution lurking in my lungs before I can finish my sentence. "Up in smoke."

Michael laughs, and I can't help but notice how surprised he sounds. I should probably end it here, this charade of friendship, should probably let him know he was only ever supposed to be Star-chow. But I don't want to. I'm having more fun with this guy than I've had in the last decade. Hell, maybe I'll even help him make his first kill, instead of stringing him along to become one himself. The kid might be fun to have around.

"I don't know how it's going to end," Michael says softly, "but for some reason I think it's going to be soon." He shakes his head. "I guess I'm a fatalist."

"Nah, you're just paranoid."

Michael laughs again, that humourless half-smile twisting his face. "What's the matter?" I ask, flicking the ash from the end of my cigarette and onto a passing girl's foot. "We're all paranoid, one way or another." Paranoia's saved my sorry ass at least once, probably more.

Maybe it's all these morbid thoughts bouncing around, maybe I'm trying to make up my mind about what to do with Michael after Max is done using him as bait, maybe it's just for lack of anything else to say, but I find myself asking, "So how do you think you'll die?"

The look Michael gives me is one hundred per cent You're joking, right? I take another puff and stub the cigarette out against the sole of my boot. "I'm serious."

He shrugs, the leather of his jacket bunching up around his shoulders. "Probably old and senile in a nursing home somewhere." He catches me looking at him, and demands, "What's that smirk for?"

I echo his shrug. "You never know what life's gonna throw at you." Michael Emerson won't be fading away in a nursing home anywhere. He made sure of that the night he started making eyes at Star.

"Well, how about you?"

"Huh?" I've lost the train of the conversation. Verbal irony distracted me.

"How do you think you're gonna go?"

Oh, this one I know all too well. "With a bang." I snap my fingers, which isn't easy with leather gloves on, and then fish through my coat for my packet of smokes. "Young, violently, and having too much fun for my own damn good."

Michael sighs; he sounds jealous. "You can say that again."

I pull the pack from my left-hand pocket and take out another cigarette. "It's the only way to live. Anything else is just passing time as pleasantly as possible." For a moment I think of Max, his terrible shirts and his mansion on the hill and his incessant scheming to make this ragtag group of vagabond vampires into a 'family'. It's really rather sad, though I'd never say that to his face. I haven't got that much of a deathwish.

Michael nods, as if he actually knows what I'm talking about, and then, to my surprise, reaches for the pack of cigarettes. "Maybe I'll have one of those after all."

"Attaboy." The end of my cigarette flares to crimson life before sinking into sullen ash, and I take a drag before tossing Michael the lighter. Watching him fail miserably at trying to get the end of the cancer stick to light, it's all I can do not to laugh out loud. Honestly, he tries so hard.

I've made up my mind. I don't want to miss a single opportunity to torment this guy. Let Star find another chump. And Max can have Lucy Emerson.

Michael is mine.

A thought makes me smile, even as the kid starts to cough like he's trying to bring up a lung. Soon, he'll be one of us, forever. Although, I think, glancing over to see Michael trying to pretend he didn't just react like every first-time smoker ever, he might need a little nudge. Maybe it's time to take him out hunting.

I can't wait to see his reaction.

AN: First time writing in the LB fandom. I have officially cemented my status as a fandom whore.

I don't know if this is any good. I quite like it.