I didn’t manage to ask her. I chickened out. Instead I just listened to her talk, mostly discussing her family or friends.
One day she informed me that her older brother, Sorrel, had just lost a friend. We were early enough that no humans were near us, so she could be a little freer with what she said. “Did you know techno vampires all have a genetic disorder that will kill them around the time they’re 50?” She looked aggrieved. “I didn’t really even know techno vampires were a thing, but Dad confirmed it – a hybrid between vampires and witches. But he had no idea that they’re all doomed. I guess no one does but them.”
I frowned a bit. “No one’s ever tried to look into it? See if there’s a fix?”
Honey shrugged. “Not that I know of, but they keep themselves pretty isolated, even from other supernaturals and from each other. It sounds like a lonely existence. That’s why Sorrel befriended her in the first place, apparently. He wanted her to have at least one friend she could count on.” She sighed a little, looking sad. “I never met her. Most of us didn’t. I knew Sorrel had a long-distance friend he talked to sometimes, and I’d even wondered if she was a girlfriend at times, but it’s kind of awful that she just never really had a chance, you know? I’m worried about Anna now – Sorrel’s friend helped us solve a crime that, long story short, involved another techno vampire being held captive. Anna’s free, but she’s like halfway through her life now. She said she already knew about the genetic disorder, apparently they all do, but I just can’t imagine knowing you only have a few decades left, at best.”
For supernaturals, who were generally fairly long-lived – Honey’s dad was several centuries old, for instance – the idea of such short lives was particularly sad. Even for humans, though, that sounded fairly young.
“Someone really should try to look into that,” I murmured. “If no one has – maybe there’s a chance something could be done.”
Honey’s eyes fixed on my face intently, sending my heart into spasms of panic and happiness. “Someone like…a researcher?”
I was surprised at the suggestion, but she was right. A supernatural researcher was the exact person who might be able to help. “Well, yes, I guess,” I hesitantly allowed. “They’re going to let me start research in residency, maybe I could look into it if this Anna vampire would be willing to help me out.”
“Would you?” Honey looked delighted, cementing this idea in place. I mean, I wanted to research to help supernaturals anyway, and this sounded like an ideal cause given that an entire species needed assistance, but with the look on her face? Couldn’t say no to that.
“Sorrel’s having a tough time, even though he tries to hide it – it shocked him that she just died like that without knowing that she was even sick. I think it helped some that he was able to wrap up the case and rescue Anna, but if he also knew that someone might be able to help all the other techno vampires because of this – or at least start to try, even if it takes a while to solve – I bet that would be a comfort, too.”
I nodded immediately. “If Anna’s willing to help with testing and all, or another techno vampire, I see no reason not to.” I mean, if no one had ever helped them before, it actually sounded like it was way past due for some supernaturals to lend a hand.
Honey was happy with this plan and agreed to contact Anna and find out if she’d be okay with helping me once residency started. Within a few days, she reported back that Anna had been a little hesitant – kind of understandable, most people don’t jump at the opportunity to be poked with needles and asked endless questions – but Honey and Sorrel had talked her into it and she was now apparently on board with the idea of trying to find a way to help her people.
It gave me a goal for right after graduation now. I still planned to research my dad’s disease, too, but his was rare and killed only a handful of people ever, while with techno vampires, an entire race was doomed to die in a short period of time. While I had the assistance of a techno vampire, I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity and do as much as I could to try to find a solution – before it was too late for her.
That actually got me started on research even now, in my spare time, looking up information about witches and vampires more generally. There was precious little info about techno vampires as it was, but Honey put me in contact with Anna, and since we were communicating via email and about purely research purposes, I had no trouble starting to gather information now from her, things about techno vampires and the disease, trying to start to put a picture together as much as possible so that when I could actually start real work on the project in a few months, I would already have a good starting place.
Since I was feeling somewhat motivated by this new project, it surprised me one day when I came in to find Honey looking gloomy.
Honey didn’t do gloomy. Upset, yes; tired, yes; angry, yes; sad, sometimes; downright gloomy? No.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as soon as I sat down.
“Someone targeted Riven last night,” she mumbled. “I’d – I’d promised myself I’d look after him. I know I’m not protecting him like Ren, but I still thought I could help make sure nothing happened to him. But it did. We saved him and all, but…then I tried to heal him and just hurt him instead and I hated that. I couldn’t even end up doing anything. We had to call in a – uh – specialist to help him. I just – I just wanted him to never feel pain again and I couldn’t stop it and then added to it.”
I wished I dared give her a hug. She really looked like she needed one. “He’s okay now?”
She sighed and nodded, but her eyes looked tired and sad. “They finished a couple hours ago and went to sleep then. I had to come straight here.”
She’d probably been up all night, from the sound of it. Not as big a deal for fairies as humans, but still not ideal.
A thought came to me and I hesitated, then decided to act on it as I saw the teacher arriving. “Meet me in the courtyard at lunch,” I whispered to her.
She looked surprised but didn’t indicate she wouldn’t, so during the rest of my classes that morning I just hoped she’d actually meet me there.
When lunchtime came, I stood in the courtyard, in as quiet a corner as I could find, hoping the usual gaggle of students didn’t come and find me.
It was sunny outside today, the perfect way to help a fairy regain energy, particularly if they hadn’t slept. Honey could make up some for her lack of sleep just by sitting in the sun during lunch.
I leaned against the wall, fingering something in my hands while I waited. I couldn’t do anything about how complicated her life was, but maybe I could still make her day a little better.
Someone approached and I looked up hopefully, only to have those same hopes dashed when I saw it was a couple of girls from our program. Lisa, I thought? And…Bev? I couldn’t quite remember their names.
“Hi Kade!” Lisa smiled at me, the slightest bit of flirting in that smile. I knew Lisa was interested in me, had been for most of two years now, but she couldn’t take a hint – or just ignored them.
I nodded slightly, deliberately reaching into my pocket to pull out my phone and look at it. It might be a little rude and cold, but sometimes dealing with all these people was overwhelming and trying to be politely nice to them just didn’t always get the hint across. Maybe that was why Lisa never gave up – I was too nice about it.
“Want to eat lunch with us?” Lisa asked, totally unperturbed.
Bother, I was probably going to have to do this more directly. “I – ” I almost told her I appreciated the offer, then realized that might be on the edge of too nice, so maybe a little less so? “I have plans today,” I told her.
“That’s too bad. What about tomorrow, then?”
Damn it, I shouldn’t have said “today.” Now, how to get out of this?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Honey enter the courtyard, her eyes scanning to look for me, then she paused when she spotted the two girls talking to me. I could see the hesitancy in her face, the reluctance to interrupt us, and I felt my heart sink.
I couldn’t let these girls ruin this for me. I’d been looking forward to this all day and I wasn’t going to let them mess up my plans.
“Excuse me,” I said, pushing off the wall and walking past them without answering her question. A little colder than normal, but maybe – maybe that was fine. Maybe I didn’t need to be polite all the time.
I approached Honey, observing the way she watched me come near, her eyes flickering between me and the girls behind me.
I wondered what their faces looked like. I might have been afraid that they’d be upset and target Honey as a result, but I knew Honey could handle herself. Okay, I didn’t want her to be even aggravated by petty behavior as a result of me, but I wasn’t worried about her, either.
“Sorry,” I said when I got within a couple feet of her. “They – waylaid me. Do you want to, uh…?” I glanced around the courtyard, seeing way too many people around now. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.
“Let’s go out front,” she suggested, to my surprise. “There’s a nice forest to the east, I bet most of the students won’t bother going there.”
She was right, it was nice. Quiet, away from windows with potentially watching eyes, and bright with fresh growth poking through. Maybe not as sunny as I was hoping, but it was something.
“What do you have there?” She had noticed that I was holding my hand behind my back, hiding something from her this entire time.
I sighed a little, reluctant, and brought my hand forward to offer her the object.
She took the sunflower from me, looked at it for a long time with an expression I couldn’t understand, and then looked up at me. To my relief, there was finally a smile on her face.
“You keep giving me sunflowers when I’m feeling down,” she said.
She remembered the one I gave her our first year! And she’d noticed that day that it was me! That made me more nervous, actually, and I found myself rubbing the back of my neck as if somehow that would calm me down. “Ah, well…if it helps, that’s good,” I finished lamely.
“It’s very sweet,” she smiled at me, her smile widening when I started blushing. “Did you know sunflowers are my favorite flower?”
I did, but I didn’t want to admit that because it would involve admitting I’d accidently eavesdropped.
“It fits you,” I managed instead. “You always seem so sunny. Err, usually, that is.”
She seemed surprised, but smiled yet again. At least, despite this going not at all how I’d initially planned, her smile was back on her face where it belonged.
And somehow that smile made me blurt out the question I’d been struggling with for a couple weeks. “Would you like to get coffee with me sometime?”
I froze, not even sure how that question had managed to pop out, and then terrified of her answer. What if she didn’t want to see me outside of class? Well, actually, we weren’t in class at the moment, but we were still at school, between classes. I was actually asking her for time away from school. Was that too much? Would she realize how much I liked her? Maybe this was too far.
Honey blinked, thought for a moment, and then, to my immense relief, nodded. “That should be fun. Why don’t I give you my number so we can set up a time we’re both free rather than trying to do it before class?”
I was getting her number on top of getting a coffee date? Well, not a date, but you know…an, uh, agreed upon meeting.
“Sure,” I managed.
Dazed, I ended up going back to class after lunch break finding myself in the possession of Honey’s number and a promise for a coffee meet up.
Today was turning out to be pretty good.
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