Veronica's head fell away from her palm and she groaned loudly. "I can't stand that guy," she complained, lifting her head again and pulling her hair over her shoulder. "It's so hard not to fail him on principle after he tried to put his hand up my skirt." She wrinkled her nose and frowned. He was doing a good job of failing on his own, so she probably wouldn't have to rig anything. 

    Not that she would because she was a very respectable TA who did not break the rules. She snorted a curt laugh at the thought.

    She seemed to perk up, clearly interested. "Yeah, I'd like to read those," she paused, pursing her lips. "Not because I am particularly fond of Orientalist Islamaphobia, but because I am a pursuer of knowledge and I will not be swayed." Her determined expression was exaggerated and mostly joking, but it still seemed out of place on someone talking about jumping into research on a lesser-advocated period of history. 

    "Aww. Big, bad vampire won't admit that he likes me," she teased to his retreating back. She caught the shirt he tossed in her direction, and bounced up onto her knees. She unraveled the fabric and held it at arm's length to examine it. "Oh, hell yeah," she said, appreciatively, looking positively gleeful. "Be right back." She stepped off the bed, and wandered off in search of the offered shower, floating more than she was actually walking. 

    Michael froze, his jaw setting into a worrying position. "He did what?" he demanded, as if he could possibly have misheard. "Why didn't you tell me?" Realizing how that might sound, he clarified, "if that happened in my class, that constitutes sexual harassment, and I have the right to kick him out of my class." The plagiarism, while technically also allowing for expulsion, had seemed a mere irritant unworthy of his time or attention. But if the idiot was also trying to grope Veronica other students, that crossed a huge line. The thought that it might not have happened if he'd expelled him earlier didn't help matters.

    Not that he had a lot of high ground, since he just happened to have succeeded in getting his hand up her skirt.

    "Are you sure about that?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "You might change your mind after you actually read some of these." He shrugged. "But, if you're sure you want to try." From a certain anthropological perspective, it was sort of fascinating. A look into the mind of someone that genuinely believed that the Byzantine Empire represented a sort of fallen Rome, greatness incompatible with otherness.

    Fascinating, but also kind of gross.

    He tried not to rise to the bait, but of course he failed. "I never said I was big," he said. "Or bad. You're thinking of wolves." His frown had even more petulance to it than usual. He watched her leave his bedroom, wondering if he should have given her a different shirt. One she'd be less excited about. And less likely to want to steal. They'd had an extended discussion about her shirt-stealing ways, after all. Was Television even still popular? All he seemed to see now were shirts for the Ramones.

    As she disappeared into the bathroom he wandered back into the living room, still in the dim light of the lamp he'd turned on when she came in. He started picking up books from piles on his shelves, considering and then discarding them. He didn't actually have any idea what kinds of books she'd want to read. Boring or weird or offensive. He stuck a few nonfiction titles in front of the more embarrassing paperbacks.

    So stealth.

    Then he meandered back into the kitchen to actually refill her lighter. Never actually refilling her lighter would probably be adding insult to injury, somehow.

    Veronica blinked back at him, surprised by his reaction. Not that she should have been because it was the reaction any rational teaching professional should have had. She tried not to read too far into it. "It didn't happen at school," she explained, breaking eye contact and sweeping her gaze around the room. "He asked me to help him with an essay," she continued, waving her hand as if the situation wasn't as serious as it was. "I went to his dorm, and surprise surprise, there was no essay."

    She stopped posing, finally. Rolled onto her stomach and pulled one of his pillows beneath her chest to prop her up. Not that this could not have been considered just another pose entirely. She chuckled, and tried to be subtle about the way she was looking at her hand again. "Yeah, I'm sure. Can't just ignore all the shitty parts of history y'know?" She looked up and smile, balling her hand into a fist and shoving it under the pillow as if that would keep her from thinking about. 

    About how she had liked it. About how she wanted him to do it again, and then again somewhere new. About how she had wanted to keep his mark on her.

    Floating past him, she looked over her shoulder with a smirk. His frown seemed out of place one someone who spent most of his time trying to convince her that he was a mature adult. "Dark, then," she suggested, with a giggle. "And brooding. That's a good one." She was still laughing as she closed the bathroom door behind her. She probably could have continued; even with water running she doubted she was out of earshot. 

    She eventually reappeared, skin tinged pink from scrubbing and smelling like his bath products. The shirt he'd given up fell just past her hipbones and paired nicely with the black panties she'd been wearing before. Not that putting them back on had been ideal, but the shirt hadn't been long enough to go without. She didn't immediately notice his rearrangements, bypassing the living room to find him in the kitchen, instead. 

    Effortlessly, she pushed herself away from the floor and floated up behind him. To where his back was turned to refill her lighter. She placed her chin on his shoulder and watched him work for a few seconds. "So," she began, drawing out the vowels, eyes on his hands. "What kind of cool vampire powers do you have?" 

    He could do nothing but huff in continued irritation. It wasn't any of his business, but she should have told him anyway. Because… why? Why should any student feel obligated to report that kind of thing to a random male professor? She didn't seem bothered by it happening, it didn't seem to have left her feeling unsafe. She'd had no reason to think he'd be able to help her, if she'd even wanted help. He was in no position to claim he had her best interests at heart when he was jealous despite himself. It was possible that he just wanted to stake some kind of peculiar claim on her.

    It wasn't like casual non-monogamous fuckbuddies were foreign to him. He'd never been possessive, then. This shouldn't have been different. Different had dangerous implications.

    When she stepped out of his bathroom, she smelled… good. The smell of her and of him mingling on her skin, the faintest suggestion of sex beneath it all. He couldn't just grab her and smell her without being creepy, so he didn't. But the temptation was there. He liked the way she usually smelled, but this was different. Nice. Stirred something in him, and he tried to focus on the fact that she was too young and too human and accused him of brooding.

    He wasn't a goddamn chicken.

    He was finishing up with her lighter as she came up behind him, the smell of butane keeping him from being too distracted. Honing in on the sound of her heart had become second nature, a reassuring sound. "None," he said automatically with a furrow of his brow. He didn't think of himself as having powers, and he certainly didn't think of them as being cool. "I don't know. Be more specific." She clearly had some kind of an idea in her head, a theory she wanted to confirm or have shot down. He couldn't always remember what was normal now. Was his sense of smell really better, or had he always had a sensitive nose?

    Eventually he'd have to explain the compulsion thing. He didn't really want to if he didn't have to.

    "I don't know," she countered with an exaggerated sigh. She pressed her lips to his shoulder as she hummed a thoughtful noise. The movement caused emerald tendrils to cascade across his skin. "You're only going to laugh or frown at me, because I only know what they use in movies." Probably frown. He was very good at frowning, and she had never actually heard him laugh. She was going to have to work on that. She pulled away from him, breaking the contact but still floating. It wasn't a concept that she made obvious, but how often she used her powers around someone was an indication of how comfortable she was around them. Even for something as minuscule as hovering around. 

    She didn't say anything for a minute, as he put the Zippo back together, to at least seem like she was putting a decent amount of thought into it. 

    "Like, can you fly?" she suggested, pressing against him again, briefly, to reach for her lighter. Not that she remembered what had become of the one cigarette she had brought with her. "Or turn into a bat, or turn invisible or hypnotize people." Veronica rattled off whatever came to mind, and they were all terrible concepts from old movies. "We've established that you've got the eternal youth, and a healing factor. That's cool." Her feet were back on the ground, and she shrugged, before lifting the lighter to tap it against her mouth. "What about enhanced speed? Or strength?" she said from behind the tarnished metal. 

    "She me yours, I'll show you mine?" she wagered, lifting her brows in a way that appeared meaningful as she grinned. 

    "I'm not going to frown at you," he said, ignoring the fact that he was frowning even as he said it. "I don't frown at people. I don't always smile, but it isn't at anyone." That made it sound very aggressive, when she put it like that. "I wouldn't laugh at you, either." That would just be… mean. It sounded mean to him, anyway. She laughed at him quite often, but that was different. She was cute.

    Michael nearly rolled his eyes, but stopped himself. That was almost as bad as laughing. "Can't fly," he said, helpfully holding up the lighter for her to better reach, trying not to focus on her breasts pressed against his back. "Can't turn into anything. No invisibility." He hesitated. "Kind of hypnotizing." He shrugged. "I don't know. It's weird." He didn't think of compulsion as hypnosis, but he supposed that it sort of was. Half the time when he did it, it was an accident. He should probably try to get that under control, but mostly he tried not to look people in the eye when he gave an order.

    He turned around as she settled, not having realized just how much she'd been floating about. Sort of peripherally aware of it, but not consciously, until her feet touched the ground again. He leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. "Speed, yes, strength, yes. But not much. It's not that impressive." Not compared to many of the metahumans that made their home here, juggling cars and delivering takeout in seconds.

    "A little late for that," he said, and while he meant that he'd already seen her floating, he realized how it might sound. It was a little bit appropriate, anyway. "Was there anything in particular you wanted to see?"

    "You don’t ever smile," she corrected. As if he didn't already know. But, perhaps he did? Outside of school, and away from her, when he was doing something he actually enjoyed. If he enjoyed anything. Working backwards was much more difficult than she had expected. It was now glaringly obvious why getting to know a person, before having sex with them was the general norm. "So, that's just, like, your default expression? That's unfortunate." Not that that was any better than him just actively frowning at her all the time. 

    "Kind of hypnotizing," she repeated, suspiciously, cocking her head at him. She pulled the lighter away from her mouth and flicked it open with her thumb, before closing it again. She looked almost pensive as she did it a few more times, a sharp snap indicating each time she closed it. She wasn't sure if she wanted him to elaborate, or just move on to finding out if he had ever kind of hypnotized her. She settled for the former, because the latter didn't seem like something someone would admit. "Elaborate?" she suggested. 

    A single brow arched. "You think so?" she inquired, looking down to her feet as she shifted her weight on them. Wouldn't be surprising if he thought he had it figured out, because most people assumed she was just another telekinetic. Psychokinetic abilities were the most common among metahumans. And most branches of study tried to argue that all mutations were just a variations on the theme. "That's my thing, huh? Floating. How menacing." She laughed, lacing her fingers behind her back and turning on her heel. She walked back into the living room to attempt to find that lost cigarette before she asked him for another. 

    "No, I don't need a demonstration. I was just wondering," she replied from where she was looking by the door. She circled the couch, and near the bookshelf. Eventually working her way back into the kitchen. Her hands were on her hips, and she looked positively perplexed. Not that she expected one cigarette to be the easiest thing to find.

    Brows were still knitted when she looked over at him, but the straight line of her mouth made her look uncharacteristically serious. "Do you like being a vampire?" she asked, suddenly. She didn't know if the question was rude, or personal. Veronica also had a feeling she knew the answer, so it was probably a stupid question. But she had asked anyway, because she wanted to know what he would tell her if he said anything at all.

    "I smile," he disagreed, though he was feeling uncomfortably uncertain. He did still smile, didn't he? Trying to remember specific recent instances where he'd smiled was difficult. Surely he just didn't notice. Why would he take note of the fact that he was smiling? It was a perfectly ordinary expression, that he had a normal number of times. "I don't smile during class," he added. "No one smiles during class. It's class."

    There were plenty of professors who smiled during class, and who made their students smile in turn. But Michael was not one of them. He didn't like being made to defend his face, particularly not when she was the one who seemed to like it.

    He should have known she'd single out that one. Wasn't it enough that he literally ate people? Did she have to focus on the thing that made him sound like he was also a date rapist? "It isn't like that," he said, which wasn't an answer at all, really. His eyes were on the anxious way she seemed to be fidgeting with her lighter. "It isn't anything you need to worry about. Not like that." He ran his fingers through his hair before tousling it back to its usual mess. "I don't know."

    He watched her circle the living room, seeming like she was looking for something. If it was clear from her face, he couldn't tell. He was mostly watching her legs. He had a hunch, by the time she returned, what exactly she was looking for. The lighter in her hand was a clue. He was pretty sure she'd stuck it back in her jacket pocket, but he didn't say so. He was trying to think of something… harmless. Unmistakable, but harmless.

    He shrugged and tried to stick his hands in his pockets, but his pajama pants didn't have any. He crossed them over his chest again, gaze lowered to nothing in particular. "Not really," he admitted, which was no real secret. Someone who thought he never smiled probably didn't even need to ask, not really. Then he looked up, met her gaze to make very deliberate eye contact. She said she didn't need a demonstration, but it really was much easier than trying to explain. "Do a jumping jack," he compelled, which was childish and silly but it got the job done. Quick and easy and not something she could tell herself she'd wanted to do anyway. Then he looked away, again, feeling silly. "I've got a pack of cigarettes in my jeans, still," he said. "You can have it."

    "Then I would very much like to see it sometime," she offered as a comprise. Not quite interrupting the way he was getting a bit defensive. He was always defensive when it came to himself, Veronica noted. She would endeavor to resist bringing his mannerisms to his own attention. How often she noticed them sort of made her seem like a creepy stalker anyway. "I smile during class, by the way," she replied, sounding like it should have been obvious. But maybe it wasn't. Maybe he made an active point of both frowning and not looking at her. 

    Her expression read somewhat bemused, since he hadn't explained anything. Just back to reassuring her. Attempting to put at ease non-existent thoughts of concern. Worrisome was one of the only things she wasn't when she was with him; which was probably the opposite of how he would prefer it to be. "I'm not worried," she replied, though the statement was all-encompassing. "If I was worried I wouldn't be here." 

    When he looked up at her, she found herself staring back, because it wasn't very often that he made eye contact with her. Also, he was gorgeous and she stared most of the time, but she got away with it because of the aforementioned not looking at her. Her brow furrowed at the strange command, lips parted to protest, but there was sensation in her brain that could only be described as fuzzy and she did the jumping jack, anyway. 

    She settled, blinking at him. She looked down at her feet, and then back up at him. Her brow furrowed, but she looked impressed and not upset. "And you can just do that to anyone?" she asked. "You can make someone do whatever you want?" 

    "I have some in my car," she said dismissively, crossing the kitchen to stand closer to him. She pushed at his arms with her hands until he uncrossed them, and she could move to occupy the space her with her body. She would make a bad habit of adjusting him to her cuddling whims if she had to. Vampires who didn't want to be vampires could certainly use a hug in her opinion, even if the attempt would likely get her killed in any other situation. She didn't ask any follow up questions, not wanting to poke at any possible sore spots. "Have you ever kind of hypnotized me before?" she asked, lifting a hand to push the hair he'd ruffled away from his forehead. It was curious without being accusatory, a valid question given how much time they'd spent alone together in the past. 

    He considered trying to smile just to prove the point. He was pretty sure it wouldn't, though. There was nothing more horrifying than a forced smile. "I know you do," he said. "You're…" Weird. "… a special case." He might have frowned again, if she hadn't made him self-conscious about it.

    Michael felt more than a little awkward about having made her do that. Possibly he should have chosen an activity that was less… bouncy. That didn't make his shirt ride up on her hips and rest there, leaving the full length of her legs bared for him to try not to stare at. God, he was a creepy fucker. "Most people," he said, "I guess. I don't really know. I try not to make eye contact, usually."

    He blinked in surprise as she pushed on his arms, letting her do it and holding them awkwardly in the air as she wrapped herself around him.

    He was being hugged in the dark by a pantsless woman half his age wearing his shirt. This was a thing that was happening.

    Slowly, his arms settled around her, resting more than holding as if he wasn't quite sure what to do with them. What to do with her. The question made him swallow down something that might have been anxiety, letting her touch his hair as she pleased. "Once," he admitted. "Or… twice. That… that morning. When I told you to be honest. And then when I wanted you to tell me if you changed your mind." He hesitated. "I almost made you forget," he said quietly. "Like it never happened."

    Veronica stopped playing with his hair, her gaze dropping from the dark strands to his face. He'd gone back to not looking at her. She sighed, long and thoughtful as she rested her hand against his face. Her brow furrowed as she smoothed her thumb beneath his eye. "You really wanted to get rid of me, didn't you?" she asked, the words were barely more than a murmur, as if she was talking to herself more than him. She pulled away from Michael, trying to be objective even though he had finally settled his arms around her. 

    She shifted on her feet, lacing her fingers in front of her mouth. She was trying to be mature, reasonable, even though to him she likely looked like she was just being fidgety as usual. "Okay," she started, clapping her hands together. It was going to be difficult to be taken seriously wearing little more than his t-shirt. "This is your one chance," she cleared her throat, discovering this was going to be more difficult than anticipated. "To tell me to go away for good." The words rushed forward all at once, pushing together in a barely intelligible mess. She continued before he could separate her words, stop her from talking. 

    "Don't bring up the fact that I was very adamantly against this earlier, because I am trying to be an adult now and you're not allowed to ruin it. So, just say the word and I'll give up, and leave right now, and things will go back to normal...ish and.." she trailed off, fingering the hem of the shirt with one hand and pushing at her hair with the other. "Yeah, anyway, I am sure you get it. So, whatever you want."

    "It wasn't…" She wasn't wrong, except that she was. He'd never really wanted to get rid of her. Not in the sense that he didn't enjoy her presence. "You seemed miserable." He'd wanted it to go back to the way it was before. Not that it was ever ideal, wanting her and resenting her for the fact that he wanted her. At least then she'd been happy to quietly enjoy her crush, for however long as she'd stayed quiet. Crying over the fact that he'd had sex with her without any intention to be with her in any real way… compulsion was a bandaid fix for a problem he'd created.

    "I'm not going to – what?" He was briefly offended, then brought up short as he replayed her words in his mind. "Oh. Tell you. Not…" He didn't know why he'd assumed, even if only for a moment, that she wanted him to compel her. As if her willpower was so poor that only being compelled could possibly keep her away. He sighed, trying not to look at the bare skin of her thighs. The submission and vulnerability in her posture shouldn't have appealed.

    "We tried that before," he pointed out. "That's why you were miserable. Trying to give me what you think I want all the time – that was what I meant, when I said you're too young for me. You're too…" He huffed, running a hand over his face. "It's not just that you're willing to get hurt," he said, trying to think at the same time as he spoke, which was almost never a good idea. "That would be bad enough, but it's like… you'll hurt yourself, if I let you. Like you're trying to prove something, like you think you need to prove something." Maybe that was his own fault, saying that she was too young without clarifying what exactly that meant.

    "I'm not going to do that again, okay? We're just going to… I don't know. I don't know what we're going to do. I'm going to lend you some books, I guess. And you're going to have a cigarette. And try to stop looking at me like that."

    He was not cooperating. Veronica didn't know why she was surprised that he'd managed to find a way around what she had been trying to do. Not that verbally backing him into a corner in an attempt to get him to admit he wanted her around was subtle. He was very determined to focus on the time that she had been briefly unhappy, as if it said anything for the entirety of their time together. "Well, rejection sucks in any context," she replied, with a wave of her hand as if it should have been obvious. "I'm going to be miserable, sometimes. It's one of my many and various emotions. You can't base the potential of whatever this is on how you 'hurt my feelings that one time.'"

    She looked briefly surprised. "Yes, I meant tell me. With your words. And while we’re on the subject I would prefer you not kind of hypnotize me, again, in the future." It was a simple request in which she would have to hold him to some sort of honor system. She couldn't exactly stop him if he chose to do so anyway.

    It wasn't hard to notice the way he looked at her, and not always at her face. Eyes and attention trailed downwards more than he probably intended. He was much more agreeable when they were having sex. 

    "But it's different this time," she insisted, releasing the end of the fabric she'd been toying with to cross her arms over her chest. "This is me trying to reach a concise, mutual agreement. No more trying to force you into what I want, no more trying to tempt you with sex." This would all be easier if he would just tell her what he wanted instead of leaving her to guess. Insofar, all of her assumptions had apparently been wrong. She didn't know if he was referring to physical or emotional pain; didn't want to make things worse by asking. He probably meant both. "I'm not trying to prove anything," she said with a frown, indignant, convinced that he tried to make her sound younger than she was. 

    Now, it was her turn to huff, having once again not reached a clear conclusion with him. She didn't know how exactly she was looking at him, not paying very much attention to her face, so she tried to smooth her features into something that felt more neutral. "I'm going to get dressed and steal your cigarettes," she started with an exhale. "Pick out some good books, I guess." Pushing hair away from her forehead with both hands, she turned around to walk back to his room to find her clothes. 

    "Tch." He didn't quite frown, brow furrowing and holding up a single hand in half-confusion, not quite the dual-hands of complete bafflement. "I'm allowed to make decisions based on not making people cry. That is a valid basis for decision-making. Okay? Just because you're going to be miserable sometimes doesn't mean I have to be why."

    "Obviously I'm not going to – obviously." It wasn't really clear why he thought this would be obvious, when he'd done it before. He was nonetheless clearly offended by the very notion.

    He was being very indignant about a lot of things

    "No more trying to – have you been trying to tempt me with sex?" Once again, indignant. Not least because it had clearly worked. And was still working. "Anyway, that's – yes, stop doing that, ideally. But I'm not convinced that this is different, and I'm not… no. Going back to normal isn't happening." Which was mostly his own fault. Even if she suddenly stopped showing any and all interest in him, he didn't think he'd be able to stop. He'd still look at her, still think about her, still want to touch her.

    Still want to bite her.

    But there was no good way to say 'you and I are not something, but there is not nothing'. 'There is no we, but there isn't not an us.' Nothing that didn't make it completely obvious that he was spewing bullshit, waffling instead of making the decision that he knew he'd need to make eventually.

    Relationships as a concept were foreign to him. The closest thing he'd had to a 'real' relationship was with the woman who'd bit him. He wasn't used to this, this desire to have everything spelled out with clear boundaries. That wasn't something he felt like explaining, either. His romantic history was a mess. Not very romantic, either.

    He watched her turn away from him, the way her hips moved beneath his shirt. God, she looked good in his shirt. "Yeah," he agreed, because he didn't know what else to say.

    Shit. Did he even have good books? He ruffled his own hair as he moved to the bookshelves, squinting at the spines. No. The good books weren't on the shelves. The shelves were all the books he never read. He abandoned the shelves and started picking books up off of the coffee table and out of the junk chair, sliding some out from beneath piles of papers. Good? Good. Not good. He tossed the reject aside, to the floor without concern for damaging the cover.