why would i need the sun when i have you?

Jem remembers eyes. Without an explanation, it's incredibly arbitrary, why not pick someone's ears or fingernails?

Eyes, however, are often said to be the windows to the soul, and eyes would matter so much to a vampire.

He remembers the eyes of every person he's ever killed, and he knows after a while, the details go fuzzy. He tries to remember them, each and every set of eyes, mainly because he feels he owes it to them.

There's a pair of green eyes that haunt the back of his mind, just too far out of focus to remember, but too close to forget.

Boone.

He sighs and leans back on his arms, letting the cool night air from the ocean wash over him as he dug his fingers into the sand.

For five wonderful years, Boone was his whole world, his best (and only) friend. He met the guy fifteen years after being turned, and they hit it off right away. Boone was the kind of guy that made friends at every corner, and he jumped at the chance to make friends with the "mysterious local".

Jem rolled his eyes just thinking about it.

People never said no to Boone, it was like he charmed them with his presence. He'd have girls lined up around the block now. It wasn't just his personality, Jem supposed. Boone was...beautiful.

He had this shoulder-length wavy blond hair, cut short in the front in a set of shaggy bangs. His skin was tan and sun-kissed, and his cheekbones and upturned nose were covered in an endearing spray of freckles.

It's stupid really. He wishes every day that he'd stayed with Boone. Immortality would've been a lot less lonely if he had a constant. It was crazy what they had now. Television in bars. Back when he drank at bars, they just waited for folks to get into fights. He reaches up to fiddle with his necklace.

His fingers hit empty air and he clutches at his t-shirt instead.

It was one hundred and twenty years ago that he'd given the thing away, and yet he continues to forget.

He'd just wanted to give Boone something to remember him by, but it seems that with every second that passes, he remembers Boone more from the lack of the necklace than Boone would ever remember him. He wonders if Boone kept it.

He grabs a handful of sand and chucks it to the surf angrily.

He abandoned for Boone, and for what? To escape the awkwardness of that night?

He scrunches his face and closes his eyes as hard as he can.

Boone's ragged dying gasps, his blood spilled out on the wooden foundation. The hoofbeats in the distance, and Boone's dry lips sliding hot and slow against his. Boone's blood, slipping slowly down his throat, all of it. Every moment of it.

He swallows a sob.

0-0-0-0-0-0

A gunshot. He was used to hearing them here, but tonight it felt...wrong. It was too close. Too loud. It caused his belly to turn inside out and he was instantly clammy all over, in a way he hadn't been for fifteen years. He hadn't felt like this since he was alive, and it was in no way a good thing.

With a jolt, he realized. Where the fuck is Boone?

He felt his insides twist as he heard a strangled cry and hoofbeats pounding off into the distance. He shoved himself off of the bar stool with urgency and found himself drawing much more attention than he wanted to, but he had to know. He had to know if Boone had shot some guy or if Boone-