He didn't know why he needed to catch his breath when he hardly needed to breathe at all. He swallowed hard, the taste of her kiss still on his tongue. Her fingertip against his lip made him shiver, but he kept his eyes shut, focused on breathing and not the feel of her pulse against his skin.

    "I'm old," he rasped, "and dead, and I eat people. I'll kill you. That isn't a metaphor, this isn't romantic. I'll kill you." He opened his eyes, dark pupils nearly overtaking pale blue. "Even if I don't succeed, I'll try." There was no if and there was no maybe; he knew himself better than that by now. The pleasure centers of his brain were all fucked up, all his desires mingling into something dark red that sounded like her pulse.

    He wanted to kiss her, he wanted to bite her, he wanted to fuck her, he wanted to eat her. Same, difference. He wouldn't be able to keep it straight. Not for long.

    "I'm a corpse that thinks you're dinner. You need to…" He swallowed again, ran his tongue over his fangs and wished they'd go away. "You should drop my class. There are a million reasons why you shouldn't be anywhere near me, and killing you is only one of them. Stop… stop trusting me. I've already proven you can't."

    He didn't push her away, or stop holding her by the shoulders, so she didn't move. She stayed close against him, her hands on his face still passing lightly over the corner of his mouth. The other gently stroked the darkened hollow of his eye.

    "You've not eaten me, yet," she pointed out. When he opened his eyes she didn't flinch, or shy away from the change in them. She held his gaze with a confidence that would very likely get her killed someday. She pulled her forehead away from his so she could press a quick kiss to his bottom lip, unperturbed by his elongated fangs. "I'm harder to kill than I look," she said, pulling back to catch his gaze again. 

    He was right. She shouldn't be anywhere near him, but the part of her brain that was telling her to get away was hardly a whisper against the one that telling her to stay right where she was. 

    "No," she responded quickly, brow knitting over the bridge of her nose at his suggestion that she drop his class. She released his face, trailing fingers over his jaw and his neck until they settled against his chest. She looked amazed at the fact that he would even try to imply that she should do such a thing. "It's too late," she sounded like she was accusing him of something. "I already care about you. So, I guess I'm pretty much screwed." 

    "You haven't proven anything," she paused and removed his hands from her shoulders, lacing her fingers with his in the process. She held his hands with hers against her waist. "Here you are, all fanged up, and you haven't hurt me." 

    "Yet," he repeated bitterly. Yet was hardly a healthy basis for a relationship. Yet was just another word for eventually. Eventually, inevitably, if not today than tomorrow. "You shouldn't have to defend yourself," he said. "From anyone. Least of all... me." A lover, a boyfriend, someone who cares about you. That was what he meant, but that wasn't what he said.

    His mouth wanted to follow hers, and with the look in his eye the gesture looked dangerous, as if it was his teeth that wanted her instead. He was much the same when her fingers traveled over his skin, as if anything that came even near to his mouth was a temptation.

    "Care about me from a distance," he suggested, but he already knew it wouldn't work. Stubborn, impossibly stubborn. What had he been saying about not getting her way? His fingers laced with hers, but did so stiffly, hesitant to accept the easy intimacy of the gesture. "I've hurt you plenty," he said. "And I didn't need fangs to do it." With her hands holding his he couldn't let her go, and he didn't know if he would if he could. "It's late," he said again, "and dark. I can… walk you back to your car?"

    That seemed safe. And neutral. Like a good way of getting out of the moonlight, letting each other go and not touching so damn much.

    She would have told him not to worry so much, but that would undermine his concerns. She could have pointed out there was always an aspect of protecting yourself in a relationship, but that would be using the concept out of context. A contemplative noise sounded off in her throat, because it wasn't very often that she didn't know what to say.

    Noticing the way his head seemed to dip to follow her mouth as it retreated, she took a step back. She wanted to see his face; wanted to study his features. To anyone else he likely would have been terrifying, and she didn't know why fear didn't register when she looked at him like this. 

    She frowned, again as he made another suggestion they both knew she wouldn't take into consideration. "That was different," she said. A different kind of hurt. Different intentions with different circumstances. "And it was mostly my fault, anyway. I wanted to be offended, so I was." She shrugged. 

    For a brief moment Veronica looked as if she would protest. Lips parted, but pressed together again as her features softened into something agreeable. "Okay," she conceded finally, instead of all the other things she was thinking. Not too late, not too dark. Harder to argue, when he seemed so uncomfortable. "That would be nice." She released his hands and brought her own back to her sides. 

    Better to do as he asked, and keep the mile she had stolen from the inch he had offered. That she continued to steal. She started walking again. "I'm not completely opposed to being bitten," she said, offhandedly, a few steps later, tossing her gaze to him over her shoulder. "On my own terms, though," she amended, as if she wasn't that way with all things. 

    He couldn't tell what spurred her to take that slight step away from him; fear seemed as likely as anything. He could not smell fear, could not sense lies. Maybe with a few hundred more years of practice, he could. He only knew when her heart was racing, when it skipped a beat, and that happened for any number of reasons.

    "Not that different," he said. He wanted to argue with the idea that it was anyone's fault but his own, even if he'd been thinking much the same previously. That she was getting too offended, that she was taking things to personally. He'd almost said as much. But now that she was saying it… that was different, somehow. He liked it better when she was confident, self-assured. Just not as much when she was confident that he was wrong.

    Michael relaxed visibly when she agreed, having anticipated that she might accuse him of trying to get rid of her. In a way, he was. The friendliest possible way. He resumed following her as she walked, shoving his hands into the pocket of his jeans. One emerged with his cigarette case, almost like a reflex. Before he knew it he had a cigarette in his mouth, one hand curled so that he could light it while moving. He nearly dropped it in surprise when she spoke, choking on smoke.

    "That's not – there's no safe way to bite a person until they bleed. I'm not going to bite you."

     "You are very determined to take all the blame for that," she mused as they walked. Determined to be the monster he claimed go be in more ways than just the obvious. Her hands disappeared into her jacket again, and she turned her face to watch the moon, looking pensive at best. There was no good way to explain things, least not in a manner that he couldn't twist to fit his point.

    "Lots of people have hurt my feelings," she said. "Sometimes, even on purpose." She shrugged again, returning her gaze forward. "It was a stressful situation. I suppose you just acted accordingly. I can't blame you for thinking about yourself first."

    Just as she had done. Childish and selfish, all at once. Wanting who she wanted and unwilling to think about the ramifications. As if sex was a determination of whether someone felt something more. Assuming that he felt the same way she did just because he'd been willing to bend a pretty girl over his desk had been foolish.

    Even now, she didn't know how he felt. He carefully spoke around the subject, and she wasn't bold enough to just ask. He liked kissing her, she knew, and apparently he wanted to bite her. Which indicated nothing except that she was still a pretty girl.

    "But you want to," she casually pointed out. She considered lighting a cigarette of her own, but somehow they only ended up wasted in his company. Which was interestingly unfair. Her head cocked as of she'd thought of something, and she laced her fingers behind her back. "Or maybe, you just want to taste me? That could technically also be arranged." Her tone sounded like they were exchanging recipes for cobbler, not having a potentially serious discussion about sharing blood with a vampire. "No biting involved."

    "I am," he agreed, and he thought he had probably explained that enough to not need bothering to do so again. He was, for a variety of reasons, meant to be responsible for her. Regardless of what she thought she wanted, he was responsible, because he shouldn't have given it to her. She hadn't even asked, really.

    "I wasn't just thinking about me," he said defensively. Too defensive, offended despite himself at the insinuation that he'd been even more selfish than just having sex with her would have made him. Determined to be slightly less scummy than he probably was. "I took advantage of you and risked damaging your academic career. I don't want to ruin your life."

    He'd slipped into the present tense. He didn't, though. Didn't want to be an enabler, even if it was her life to ruin as she would. Didn't want to encourage her with feelings of his own, as if those feelings mattered at all in the grand scheme of things.

    "Of course I want to," he said, a little snippier than he'd meant to be. "I'm a vampire. It's what I do." Not that he wanted to go sinking his teeth into just anyone. It was still putting his mouth on a person. He was not the type to put his mouth on just anyone, before and after death. He sucked on his cigarette with a deep inhalation, like a breathing exercise. "That wouldn't help," he said, and he left it at that. Didn't want to explain the primal nature of his desire, to sink his teeth into her skin and feel her blood run hot over his tongue, buried inside her the way he'd been that morning. Holding her, having her, hurting her.

    Thinking about it wasn't helping, either.

    She only sighed, exasperated, in response. He didn't want to change his mind, or to see it her way and she wasn't going to exhaust herself trying to make it so. She could talk in circles if she wanted to, but with him, she would prefer the conversation to proceed in a straight line. 

    Brows perked at his defensive response, even though he couldn't see them. He had been trailing slightly behind her for the most part. Brooding and smoking, which looked quite good on him, but she did not mention it. "Well, that is very sweet, and responsible of you," she reassured. Her tone did nothing to reveal if she at all actually thought his reasoning was sweet or responsible. "I don't know where you got the idea that my degree is the end all be all to my life, though."

    "Besides," she continued. "I'm very good at keeping secrets."

    When they finally reached her car, she leaned against the hood. It was an older model Camero in all black, but it wasn't as old as she wanted it to be. Not nearly as cool as Michael's Thunderbird. She was really going to have to convince him to take her for a ride in that thing soon. 

    Or fuck her in it. She couldn't decide which would be harder to accomplish. 

    She folded her arms beneath her breasts and looked up at him. "Do you do it?" she asked, looking somewhat skeptical. "Bite people, I mean." Not necessarily suggesting that he attacked people. Las Ballenas, like most places, was not without a percentage of the population that was more than willing to donate themselves to feeding a vampire. She tried not to think about him biting anyone else, feeding on anyone else, because the thought made her weirdly jealous. 

    They seemed to have mutually concluded that some things just weren't worth arguing about. Like who was to blame for the fact that they'd had sex, if anyone could be said to be responsible. "You're a history major," he said, exhaling smoke. "Academia is pretty much it, for history majors." Not that she couldn't switch schools, switch majors, give up on the whole endeavor and work in trade. But that seemed like a waste.

    She'd been his student for almost a year and he hadn't known she had metahuman abilities. Maybe not a secret, necessarily, but she didn't share things she didn't have to.

    The thought of anyone seeing them together and figuring out their relationship still made him unbelievably anxious. Whatever their relationship was. He didn't know why he was so certain that someone could look at them and immediately determine that they'd had sex.

    "Not lately," he said, and it almost sounded like a threat with the way he said it. Mostly it just felt very personal, who he'd been biting and when. Not that she'd asked for specifics, but, still. It felt like being asked about his sex life. He wanted to think they were distinct. His eyes drifted over her breasts, then away, back to his car. He froze.

    "Oh, goddammit." He dropped his cigarette, crushed it beneath his heel as he stormed back toward his vehicle. He lifted it by the front bumper, bending to look at the tires before dropping itt back down. "God fucking dammit."

    Someone had slashed his tires. He had a hunch he knew who it had been, too.

    "And now I get to walk home," he said, running his hands through his hair before throwing them up in disgust. "Fucking great."

    "That's assuming I'm going to do anything with my degree," she grinned at him, as if she had so totally made a great point. It was hardly a point at all, more of a contradiction. Which she only did for the sake of doing so. "I just happen to really like history. After I graduate I'm going to be a racecar driver." She raised her eyebrows and actually looked excited enough about the prospect to seem genuine. 

    Her expression changed into something resembling amusement. She had heard what could have been threat in his words, and her face was not at all the correct reaction to it. "What're you gonna do?" she teased. "Bite me when I misbehave? What happens when I like that more than spanking?" 

    Her laughter followed him as he walked around her car to get to his own. She may have been floating slightly, when she moved to lean her elbows on the hood of the car to watch him. She pushed herself upwards, manipulating her gravity to hover over the roof of the car. She crossed one leg as if she were actually sitting on something and not legitimately floating. 

    "Oh, shit. That sucks," she wrinkled her nose, as one foot tapped in the air. She also suspected that she knew the culprit, and she felt bad about it. It's not like she imagined someone would fuck with Michael's car, because she turned them down. Especially when her own was also present. 

    She stopped hovering, planting her butt down on the roof of her car and swinging her legs. "You know…" she paused, and leaned forward slightly, looking around briefly as if she was about to tell a secret. "I have a car, too. I could give you a ride," she suggested. She was doing her best (and succeeding) to look cute. "Since, I'm probably the one that pissed off the guy that did it."

    "You're what?" That was the most ridiculous thing she'd said all night. Which probably meant she was joking. Fuck. "You picked an expensive hobby," he said, trying to play it off.

    "I'm not going to bite you," he reiterated, not dignifying her accusations with a response. Some part of him took offense at the thought of it as a punishment; but how could it be anything but? Both parties did not get to enjoy practically ripping someone's throat out. "You wouldn't enjoy it," he added. Not the way she'd seemed to enjoy getting spanked, and he wished she wouldn't bring that up. He didn't need to be thinking about her bent over with a handprint on her ass.

    He looked back at her, posing on her car like a teenaged wet dream. He opened his mouth to say something, then stopped himself. He looked back at his car, sitting sad and immovable on the pavement. At least it hadn't been smashed. New tires were cheaper and easier than some alternatives. "Fine," he said, and he unlocked his car to retrieve the bag of albums he'd left there. He hadn't brought anything with him but his wallet, so there was nothing else to retrieve. He had the nagging feeling that he was forgetting something as he locked it back up. Leaving his car behind felt wrong. It just couldn't be helped.

    "It's not far from here," he said, rejoining her, black plastic bag hanging loose off his wrist. "Just head south. It's the apartments with the dolphin on the sign that looks like a manatee." There were better and more detailed directions he could have given, but he'd always found this way easiest. It was a very distinctive sign. It was a lot harder to miss than street names.

    "Yup," she quipped, now determined to ride this fabrication until she was bored with it. Spurred by that half a second where he'd actually believed her. "I'm going to be the first woman to win a Grand Prix. Yeah. You're gonna be so proud."

    If he didn't have such strange, disproportionate reactions to her teasing him, she probably wouldn't have found it to be so much fun.

    "You don't know that," she sang as she leaned back and away from him again. She kicked her legs out in front of her and crossed them at the ankles. She brought them back down, examining her fingernails idly, as if to pretend she wasn't trying to imitate all those alt pinups she didn't know he'd been looking at. Only bothering because she already knew she had his attention. And because he really did not look like he wanted to ride with her.

    "What if I've been bitten before?" She inquired, eyes wide, mouth forming into a soft 'o' of mock scandal.

    With more laughter, she hopped down from the car, using her powers to keep from breaking her ankle when she met the ground in her heels. Walking to the driver's side she unlocked the car and disappeared inside. She waited for him to join her, kicking off her shoes because they were impossible to drive stick in; too short skirt riding higher as she settled.

    "If it looks like a manatee, how come it isn't just a manatee?" She asked, maneuvering the car at the behest of his lame directions. She rolled her window down slightly to for another attempt at smoking an entire cigarette.

    "I don't even know what that is," he said, "but it sounds like something that happens during the day, so I'm going to have to be proud from afar." The likelihood that he would attend even if it were at night was extremely low. It sounded noisy and crowded, and not his preferred kind of noisy and crowded.

    Ironically, he'd never been much of a car guy.

    "No one knows anything," he said, "but it's a pretty safe assumption." Practically the disclaimer attached to every history class. He was a lot more certain when it came to long-dead civilizations. He'd had more time to study those. There was no one left to argue with him if he was wrong, either.

    "If you had, you wouldn't be trying to be cute about it." He joined her in the car, feeling awkward all the while. How long had it been since he'd sat in the passenger seat in someone else's car? His bag by his feet, he tried not to look as awkward as he felt.

    He failed.

    "It's hard to explain," he said. "You'll understand when you see it." His eyes lingered on her thighs, bare skin revealed by bunched leather, retreated away to watch the landscape as she drove.

    "It's a car race," she explained needlessly, with a low chuckle. "Or rather a series of car races." This correction was spoken over the cigarette she'd just stuck in her mouth. She dug out her lighter at a red light. Inhaling, she tapped fingers that weren't holding the cigarette quietly on the steering wheel. 

    "I actually don't know what I am going to do," she admits on an exhale. Which confirmed in a way, his point that no one really knew anything. "I don't really think about it. Plenty of time and all that." 

    Veronica had a difficult time thinking about the future because she still hadn't quite grasped that she legitimately had one. She preferred to live in the moment, but not in a bad indie movie way. It was easier. 

    "I look cute about everything," she responded. She alternated between watching the road, and watching him out the corner of her eye. "Don't worry," she said, the corner of her mouth curled because she'd noticed his awkwardness. "I'm not going to kidnap you." 

    She tipped the spent cigarette out of her window and leaned forward, chest pressed against the steering wheel to get a better look at this sign. She started laughing. "Oh my god, look at that fat dolphin. Who did that? That's so awful."

    She pulled into the complex, shifted into a lower gear and fidgeted in her seat. "Where do you want me to park?"

    "You have time," he agreed. "It's not like there aren't options. Teaching, writing, research. Driving really fast." Offering to mentor her seemed inappropriate. Still, he'd had a professor who helped him when he was younger, which had been a reassuring thing when he'd had no prospects at all. History was not a field for the money-minded.

    He knew a few historians who might disagree, but those guys were assholes, so he didn't care about their rich asshole opinions.

    "Debatable," he said, not actually debating the point. Just stating, in a vague way, that he could potentially and theoretically argue that she was not cute. He was just choosing not to, as a courtesy.

    "I didn't think you were," he said, "until you said something." He raised an eyebrow, but the expression faded as she admired the horrible sign that indicated he was home. Almost home, rather. "It didn't used to be quite that bad," he said. "It was always bad, but they tried to fix it a few years back and made it worse. I think it probably actually looked like a dolphin when they first painted it. Sort of an ecce manatee situation."

    "Just around this corner," he said automatically, then stopped. "You don't have to park," he amended. "You can just drop me off."