Welcome to Gaia! ::

The hand on her shoulder slid between her back and the gravestone. "Thank you for telling me." He almost mentioned not breathing a word, a wry joke about not making her repeat quarantine, but that felt too grim and too close to home. "I don't know how much I can involve myself," he said instead. "What I can learn from the clones might help, it might not. But if they think I'm a traitor, I don't..." He shuddered to think about it. "If you trust some of them, if they're honestly worth it, then I'll trust your judgment."

He made a small face at his own words as if not having expected them to come out.

"But if you're going to stand anywhere in front of me, maybe wear some heels." He was starting to pick up that trait from Chel, the impulse to switch to something more lighthearted when he was dangerously close to something serious he wasn't prepared for. "Otherwise I'll be split in half before they even get to you," he drawled.

It looked so out of place on a vampire's face that he had to laugh a little. "Weird," Jack admitted, letting his feet knock against her. "Like the world grew too large even for me. How's the view from up there?"

"Ghoulfriend," he corrected her, groaning as she tucked him in and rocked. It was more for show than because he was truly annoyed. "I personally enjoy being able to see everything from up there. Nothing escapes my sight. It's a real b***h in hide and seek, though, if you're not the seeker."

He sighed. "Damn shame we can't go beyond the school. I'm already in love with this place."

He could have pointed out that some found reason to. Nevada had been killed by a student, for instance. Others had their own stories with strong advocation for eradication. But he understood that objectively it didn't tip the scales either way: whether a person believed in only black and white or could see the grey, it was still going to be a messy, imbalanced, and near impossible to ever set straight. Chel, as someone who understood people on a level he couldn't reach without the greatest of difficulties if at all, probably already knew that.

"Nevermind him. It is wonderful." Hair pressed to his face thanks to her perch, he had to try and plant a small, blind kiss under her chin; it translated to more of a graze of teeth thanks to the fangs. "We should have been born monsters and demons," Jack said after a moment.

He puffed out a breath. "Hrm. G-man says I could be a perfectly good giant," Jack replied with a snort. "He would say that. I don't honestly know, though."

He ducked his head out from under her chin and grinned toothily. "Vampire seems to suit me, cliché and predictable as it is. What about you?"

Jack laughed loud enough that he had to cover his mouth, which was a first. "This is the skin of a killer, Chel," he snickered. "You have to wonder how werewolves and vampires actually feel about that series...But as for what you are..."

He tilted his head and considered her for a moment. He could imagine Chel as all of them: a raucous dragon, an obnoxious bigfoot, a sultry mermaid. Jack hummed before deciding, "Doppelgänger. Ghosts that can take on the appearance of people you know in the original mythos, but whom probably can shapeshift to just about damn anything in here."

"Well, I'm not saying a bigger a** would be bad..." He wasn't even going to try and deny it. "What I was going for wasn't that you change yourself," Jack continued. "I meant the way you adapt to people. You stretch yourself for them."

"You do, I think, in your own way. You read them and then react accordingly. You've literally spelled out for me," he said with a more wry smile, "how exactly to deal with AK when she had that little episode, since apparently I was doing it wrong. You're loud and rebellious, but you're sensitive about people."