Owen rolled his eyes. “That’s one way to put it.” A taste of his own medicine indeed. Being around like minded people was nice, but it made him feel like an alien out in public with people he couldn’t always predict. And it got exhausting, sometimes. Owen was one of the few professors that had living quarters in the old gothic building. It was nice to not have to deal with a commute, or worry about traveling at night when he had gotten carried away or caught up in a project. Yet he was starting to feel like another fixture of the building, someone in danger of turning to stone and being used as a statue within the walls of the Academy.
He hesitated. He couldn’t help himself, even if he had already learned the lesson to trust Jonah a bit more than the average bar creature he stumbled into. It wasn’t just him he was putting at risk, but an entire school of people. “No. Perhaps next time.” As though one more meeting really made all that much difference in the grand scheme of things. He was so tempted it made his teeth ache, but leading the vampire even halfway to the Academy still felt sacrilegious. Jonah was sweet and earnest though, and he sensed that answer wouldn’t go over without a few hurt feelings. After a long beat of silence and mental calculations, Owen offered up his plans, vocalized them and made them real. “It’s not part of my discipline, and it’s nuanced magic so I’d most likely convince a more experience professor to do it, in case something went wrong, but - don’t give up on the sun just yet. There are enchantments you might have heard of. Blessed metal can protect you. There still might be an element of pain, though, I’m not sure. Every vampire I’ve ever seen has gone straight to where they needed to in the daylight. Not much sunbathing going on.”
The cider still sat between them, hot despite the passage of time thanks to yet another spell. “I tested it first, you might have noticed. Although come to think of it, there might not be that much overlap between what would poison me and what would poison you.” Mentioning how easy it would be to kill him seemed unnecessary. With enough concentration, he could change the very chemistry of Jonah’s blood until he keeled over. No decapitation or fire required. Even if he wasn’t so goddamn smitten, he still would have had trouble with it. The three instances in his twenties that he’d had to rely on sacrifices to make a casting work still haunted him, and those had just been small animals. Without warning, his fingertips fell to Jonah’s exposed wrist, seeing if his heartbeat was as sluggish as the textbooks said. The contrast in temperature struck him again. “How does it feel?” His palm flattened, covering as much cold skin as possible. “Does it feel like burning? Can you feel my pulse? Can you hear my pulse?” He hadn’t meant to ask so many questions in a row, they had just stacked up as they occurred to him.
Even after all this time, the question stung to hear out loud. It was a cresting wave of pure melancholy, streaked with the gold of happy memories, the pure definition of bittersweet. “I sit inside, mostly. Catch up on reading, listen to the sound, find a fire. Occasionally do some light enchantments - there’s a leak in my roof I haven’t told anyone about. I just put a bucket under it, since it’s technically a naturally occuring water source.” Certain brewing didn’t work as well with tap water, or a manmade water source. Rain water left to sit was better, more attuned to nature. “What do you do when it rains, Jonah?”
“Such a smartass,” he quipped when Jonah brought up the orange again. “I’m trying to be more mindful. And I’m not nearly as exciting as I was in my twenties, sorry about it. Adventure back then was just exploring ruins anyway. Hunting down old tomes, or sometimes trying to find things that never existed in the first place. Are you telling me you were the exact same way now as twenty years ago? Always this adventurous.” Irony spun around the word adventurous as Owen pointedly glanced around the cozy space he had lured the vampire into with almost no effort.
All careers for immortals came with an expiration date, or at least a forced name change or change of practice. He hadn’t thought about how much smaller that window must be for Jonah, stuck at such a young age. That face could never pass for forty eight. “Think you’ll ever try on another career? After a few lifetimes of saving people, obviously. And no, I can’t feel the energy. More of a metaphor. Each witch’s magic is different though - someone must be able to.” Owen paid more attention to the essences of things, not always the energy that flowed between them.
“Oh.” Owen didn’t have words readily available. Even if Jonah had a second life, turning him against his will was still murder. “You were so young. Life’s unfair, isn’t it? Someone should write a book or a song about that,” he teased gently, wondering if the vampire would resent his empathy. Tough shit. He had it. “Did you care for him? Even after what he did?” It was hard to imagine otherwise by the brief description he had been given. His sire was all he had in the world until his untimely death. What must it feel like, to be devoted to your murderer? “Magic hits around puberty. My ancestors were nearly all witches, so I didn’t have the same doubts some who know about magic from birth do.”
Another beat of silence, this time a natural lull in the conversation and it felt so unexpectedly comfortable. He let the feeling turn to kinetic motion yet again, a warmth he felt to his toes. Owen leaned over the tiny wooden table between them, steadying the steaming mug them with a hand so it didn’t spill. His other hand slid to the back of Jonah’s neck, using the grip to draw him forward. The first press of lips was fleeting and electric, cold somehow melting him against Jonah’s mouth with a pleasant hum. He drew back, eyes bright with the happiness of a thirst slaked. “Just, um. In case that was why you were so concerned with walking me home.”
“Oh,” he breathed out when Owen said no to Jonah walking him even halfway home. He’d thought offering just the partial walk would earn him a yes, but maybe he’d just been misreading everything. Maybe Owen brought him to this place just to get him tipsy and happy enough that he wouldn’t push for more. Well, how that had backfired. He wanted to grasp onto the suggestion of a possible next time, but what were the chances Owen was saying that, just to keep Jonah from pushing? And then it was almost like Owen was offering some sort of lifeline and it took him a few long blinks to try to follow what he was saying. He’d heard about vampires who had found witches that gave them rings to walk in the sun with, but it had never been something he thought he’d have access to in his life. Was Owen really offering that? That seemed so much more intimate of a thing to offer than allowing Jonah to walk him a few blocks. It was enough to take his unneeded breath away and he had to tell himself that Owen didn’t realize the weight to what he was saying. Jonah missed the sun more than anything - being able to get that back? It was life changing. It took a while before he realized he was just staring, mouth slightly open while he tried to keep from latching on to the idea of Owen giving him back the sun. Say something, Idiot. “I can’t tell if you’re offering or just mentioning that it’s possible to be an ass,” he tried to tease, needing this moment to be lighter desperately so that he could breathe again.
“Exactly,” he commented in response to Owen pointing out that what might kill Jonah wouldn’t necessarily overlap with what killed him. That was pretty much all that Jonah had really known about witches throughout his life - the multiple ways they could kill a vampire. One had done it to the guy who’d turned him, after all. Owen seemed like a lot of things, but a killer wasn’t one of them, though. Certainly not in a place as public as their current location - even if they were sort of tucked away in their own little cozy area. His breath caught when a warm hand was suddenly pressed against his skin and he looked down at where Owen’s hand was pressed to his wrist before moving his hand to link his fingers with Owen’s again. “It burns,” he confirmed gently. “But the way a hot shower burns after you’ve been out in the snow all day. You never want it to end.” Or at least Jonah never wanted it to end. He let out a soft laugh at the sudden barrage of questions that came his way. “I can feel your pulse. I can hear it too, but I like focusing in on your actual heart more. It’s soothing to listen to. It’s also really sexy. Being a vampire is weird,” he said with a laugh, saying the ‘vampire’ part just a little more quietly than the rest.
“You know you could catch natural rain without having a leak in your place, right? Don’t you want to get that fixed?” he asked, worrying about Owen who was apparently just willingly exposed to the elements at all times. That aside, he liked the mental image that sprang to life of Owen when it rained. “I bet you’ve got a cute sweater you wear too, all cozy in front of your fire?” Surrounded by books, of course. It was a sweet and endearing thought - maybe there really was something to using that question to find out about people. “I have this nice balcony I go out on. Rain usually means enough cloud coverage that I can risk being outside, under the balcony above me. I like the sounds of the rain. And the smell is incredible. If it’s raining at night, though, I’m probably just at work. People suck at driving in the rain.” And that made for a busy ER, unfortunately.
Jonah grinned when Owen called him a smartass before bringing the mug back up to take another long sip. The drink was still warm and strong and just sweet enough and he wondered if he could get Owen to provide this to him in bulk. “Hey, this is very adventurous,” he replied when Owen looked around their cozy area like it wasn’t. Maybe it didn’t look that dangerous, but he was in a new place, in witch territory, surrounded by people who could kill him without much effort. “I’m more adventurous now in some ways and less in others. I guess us growing boring is just part of old age. Where’s your favorite place you’ve been exploring?” he asked curiously, trying to picture Owen in some sort of Indiana Jones type scenario.
“I’ll have to eventually,” he said with a wrinkle of his nose at the thought of changing careers. Moving every few years was going to get exhausting - he wanted roots somewhere at some point. “No idea what, though. Did you always want to teach?” he asked, wondering if it had been some big calling or just a natural progression for someone who seemed passionate about knowledge. Jonah finished off his drink when Owen pointed out he’d been young when he’d been killed, like Jonah could ever forget it, but he kept the mug in his hand, not wanting Owen to know it was empty yet. He wasn’t ready to say goodnight. “Yes and no. I hated him. Still do. My life with him was a lot like being a prisoner. But we’re programmed to be attached to the person who turns us. And he was all I had. He was important, he was part of me, he ensured my survival. Looking back now, it looks a lot like Stockholm Syndrome.” He could talk about the hell he’d been through for hours, but nobody wanted to sit through that - it was bad enough that Jonah had had to live through it. “Do you get to pick what kind of magic you do? Or is everyone just biologically specialized?” he asked curiously, wondering how exactly witch genetics worked.
He’d thought they’d taken another step back when Owen had turned down Jonah’s offer to walk him partway home, but then Owen was throwing another curveball as he got up and leaned across the table, a too warm hand moving to the back of his neck. He moved easily when he felt the slightest bit of pressure from Owen, pushing forward to meet Owen’s lips. It was too quick, too light, and every muscle in his body tensed with the effort to not pull Owen across the table an into his lap, desperate for more. But he managed to stay planted, focusing instead on the tingling warmth left on his lips. “It wasn’t. But now I just want to walk you more,” he admitted, sure his cheeks would be heating up if that was still physiologically possible. “At least let me walk you to the end of the block?” he practically begged. Hell, even to the door would be fine, he just wanted to get this table out from between them so that he could pull Owen into a proper kiss. He didn’t wait for answer before he was standing up and reaching his hand out for Owen’s to help him up from the seat.
