Damon and Jeanne-Marie, Friday afternoon

[om_aurora]

A surprising powers discovery occurs by the lake. Jeanne-Marie is pleased to have a willing experiment subject, and Damon is awfully satisfied to have a good meal too.

The day was lovely, so Jeanne-Marie was wandering and humming to herself--something-or-other Mozart, but she couldn't remember what it was called, only that it was his. She toyed with the sleeves of her zip-up Canadiens hoodie and with the fringe of her hair in its ponytail randomly, or with the rhythm.

She supposed she could be doing homework, but she had, at long last, finally made up most of the difference in her classes. A little dedication, some superspeed flashes, and the help of her willing friends had made it far easier than it should've been in what was still and probably always would feel like a foreign language.

She could be reading or working out or any other number of more productive things too. Her conscience tried to tell her she really should... but the day was too sweet, even creeping up on twilight as it was.

So when she spotted a familiar, dark-haired figure settled beneath a tree in the long, soft grass, she lit up (figuratively speaking) and started immediately towards him to see if he might like some company.

Damon didn't normally relish the sunlight and the chirping birds and the sounds of nature, but there was a part of it all that reminded him of home; the backwater minuscule town where he'd spent most of his life. He must have fallen asleep under the tree, book in hand, legs sprawled out in front of him, sunglasses shading his closed and deeply dreaming eyes.

From her far-off perspective, he seemed very engrossed in his book--and very comfortable too. She picked up her speed briefly, flashing to a stop a good four or five yards away so as not to startle him. The words, "Damon, what are--?" were already out of her mouth before she noticed the book had gone a little crooked and he was completely, utterly still.

She clapped a hand over her mouth, otherwise freezing in place.

Too late.

He stirred, shifting his head to one side to catch sight of her, then let his lips twitch to one side. "Watching me sleep, Glowbug?"

Her smile was apologetic as she came nearer. "Well, the view is not so bad, is it? I'm sorry, I didn't realize. The sunglasses."

Damon reached for a small flask at his side, taking a healthy sip before knocking his head back against the trunk of the tree. "The view's okay, I guess. What are you doing up and about and away from all your shiny comrades?"

"I meant the view of you." She grinned stopped just beside him and sat herself down there, legs pulled up lotus-style, knees touching his thigh. She didn't tend to hang on Damon in quite the same way she did some of her other friends, but she was perfectly comfortable with his brand of flirting by now and felt he meant nothing by it; he was not quite like Remy, in that respect, but near enough that she was not worried about giving him the wrong impression--or him giving her the wrong impression. She could be comfortable with him in her usual way. "I just wanted out of the house, and the winter was so long, it's nice to be outside. What are you reading--when you're not asleep?"

He stretched happily at the compliment, a lazy smile pulling across his lips. Reaching up, he pulled the sunglasses off, giving her a good, long, appreciative look with a someone intense ice-blue gaze. He didn't say anything. She would get his meaning, either way. She wasn't so bad herself, after all. "And why do you want to know, Miss Nosy?" he taunted.

She smiled right back at his unspoken approval. His eyes were lovely, and though she still occasionally recalled that his compulsion worked through them, she didn't think twice about watching them--she mainly just thought, "No wonder." (It seemed obvious that he wasn't using it on her, anyhow.) "I think you answered your own question: because I am nosy.

"I like to know what people are reading. Before I came, I never read much in English, so I usually take friends to the book store with me, to recommend things."

He smirked slightly, then reclined easily against the tree, opening an arm for her to join him. "Well, if you must know, I was re-reading Frankenstein."

Without a second thought, she scooted nearer, her hip against his, and leaned into his side to look at the book. He always smelled so nice, too."Re-reading. It must be very good, then. I heard that it's scary--and sad." She scanned the page with an eagerness that made it clear that these were attractions that only added to the allure of a good story.

"Scary, sad, completely ahead of its time in all things horror and science fiction," Damon shrugged against her. "It's about the search for love, and humanity, and the madness that search can drive you to."

"Ah, yes, I must read it, then. All of my favorite topics in one book." Jeanne-Marie's tone was a little bit wry, but she meant it, for all that. "Shall I borrow yours, or find it in the library? I am done with all the romances Wanda recommended, and will need something soon."

Damon's eyes squinted at the edges for a moment, as he tried to figure out just why, exactly, his first impulse was for him to offer her his copy. They weren't having sex. They weren't even making out. He didn't really care about her. She was just...the only person at the school he could actually talk to without having to result to any bullshit. Fucking humanity. If he were an actual vampire, he told himself, then he probably wouldn't even have to bother with it. As it was...

He rolled his eyes and snapped the book shut, holding it out to her. "Don't say I never did anything for you."

Jeanne-Marie accepted, her smile unabashed happiness. "Thank you. I promise to take very good care of it. And bother you when I want to talk about it after." She tried to frown then, mock-questioning, but couldn't quite manage. "No, maybe that is not a favor. All right, I promise not to bother you about it after. But I will ask for more things to read, certainly."

"Crease the pages, and I'll expose you for the heathen you are," Damon warned her, but a small smile ticked at the edge of his lips.

She smirked. "Maybe I'd like to have it all out in the open at last. But!" She patted the cover and her smile grew almost beatific. "Not at the expense of your book.

"How long were you asleep? It is almost twilight and you had your sunglasses on."

Damon shrugged. "Not too long. Must be a bit more sleep-deprived than I thought."

"Mmm there is a rash of bad sleep going around, I think," she murmured, unconsciously running her fingers along the edges of the book cover. "I have never tried to sleep outside; it must be relaxing. Maybe I wouldn't need my glowing bear even." She looked up and smirked.

"Not if you're sleeping in the daytime," he agreed with a lazy drawl, letting his eyes slip closed again. "I defy stereotypes that way. The only vampire in the world that doesn't mind a good catnap in the sun.."

"I have read a lot of vampire books," Jeanne-Marie admitted, still smirking. "You do have some similarities, but the differences are striking. I think that sort of vampire couldn't stand to be near me, for one." She held up one hand, leaving the book in her lap, and with barely a thought created a low-level white glow around her fingers, over her palm, in illustration.

When she moved, he looked up again, smirking slightly at the sight. "You do have that 'holy light' thing about you, don't you, Flying Nun?"

Jeanne-Marie tried to purse her lips and look disapproving, but it just came out as a smirk. She got that reference, yes. She turned up the light so it seemed to puddle in her palm and held it out to him, then issued a grinning challenge: "Let's see if the unholy vampire can handle it."

"You do realize that's a load of bull, right?" Damon pointed out. "I've been in plenty of churches. I'm even - gasp - Catholic. Lapsed."

He reached out anyway, though, curious enough to take her challenge. He had no idea what her 'light' was supposed to feel like, anyway. As soon as his fingers got near, though, he let out a breath, and he couldn't have stopped himself from taking her hand if he'd wanted to. Whatever it was, whatever she was doing, he wanted it. Just as much, probably even more, than he ever wanted to feed off of other people.

Though she'd been about to make a flippant remark about Damon in a church, the look on his face, the sudden urgency in him stopped her with her mouth halfway open. She didn't pull away, but nearly asked if she really was hurting him.

But no. No, it wasn't that. There was something else, some kind of tugging sensation she'd never experienced before. It made her want to light up all over, for some reason.

And it was him. "What is it? What do you feel, Damon?" came out in a whisper as she clutched at his hand.

Just a taste. It wouldn't be so bad, would it? Jeanne-Marie would probably never know. Or he could just erase her memory of it, like he did with the girls in town. But somehow, he knew that whatever happened, he would be found out, and then he'd end up kicked out of the school, or worse, Xavier would try to wipe his mind.

More than that, he wouldn't have his private little confidante anymore.

Rather than risk temptation, he pulled his hand away from hers, letting his eyes roll back as he fought off the desire clawing up the inside of his brain.

"How do you do that?" he hissed out. It wasn't holy light, that was for damn sure.

Jeanne-Marie considered, slightly concerned, but even more curious. He seemed to be hurting, but in a way that... she thought she recognized. She wasn't sure if she was uncomfortable or excited, watching him. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

Voice still quiet, leaning back a little to give him space and killing the last of the light, she replied with absolute honesty: "My brother and I both tap into potential and kinetic energy in the world around us--and our own bodies--and convert it in different ways. The light is electromagnetic; Mr. Lensherr says all humans have electromagnetic fields, but my body just... knows how to do take it further."

"Perfect," Damon grumbled softly, finally getting control of himself enough to look up at her. "So you're, what, a fountain of energy?"

"That is one way to put it. I draw the energy and focus it so, yes." She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes; the way he had put it made her realize... Hmm, interesting. "What did it feel like for you? No one else has ever done that, when they touched it."

"I'm not sure I was really concentrating so much on how it felt," Damon answered wryly. "I was more concentrating on the fact that I wanted to drain every last morsel. Whatever it is, my brain craves it."

"It is light. And light is electromagnetic energy." Mr. Lensherr had made sure she understood that. Of course, Jeanne-Marie did realize that this was an odd thing for Damon to say, and it did give her pause, but it was a thoughtful sort of pause. She knew well by now that just because Damon wanted to do something, it did not mean he would; that didn't deserve a second thought. "How does it work, for you? Your craving?"

She had known about his darkness from the beginning, of course, but she hadn't asked for specifics. Still, she felt she knew him well enough--and he knew her well enough, now, that even if he didn't want to give her details, he would probably not take offense at her asking.

"How does it work?" Damon repeated, his lips twisting up. "Seriously? Do you think, if I knew how it worked, I would still be bothering with it? How should I know? I crave. It's a cross between hunger and thirst and some kind of fucked up drug addiction."

Jeanne-Marie nodded thoughtfully. That wasn't so much what she'd wanted to know, and she had the feeling he realized that. It was telling, she thought, that in a house with Simon and Tessa--with Tessa on his squad even--he wasn't quite sure of the mechanics of his vampirism.

Not odd. Not even surprising. Simply telling.

What it told her was precisely what made her say, not even as a question, "But you can stop, once you start. You don't drain a person completely."

Damon narrowed a look at her. "I can control it. Yes."

She met his look straight on, her chin lifting slightly. "Do you want to see if you can take some? Or would you rather not know?"

He shook his head slightly in disbelief. "Why do people always think I'm actually going to say no to them offering themselves up on a silver platter?"

"I can't say why other people might think that. I don't think I expected you to, but I wanted to make certain because of the way you talk about it." She didn't want to spell it out--Damon didn't need her to tell him that he sounded like he hated the power, the need itself, at least as much as he loved the effect it had on him. That was what she felt he'd told her, been telling her, from the beginning. "If for any reason you would rather not, I don't want to wave it in front of your face."

She moved on quickly, purposefully, "I have been testing how my powers affect people for months now. I don't want to use you as a guinea pig, but at least there will be some fair trade here, no?"

"If anyone is the guinea pig here, sweetheart, it's you," Damon drawled, holding his hand out expectantly for hers.

"However you prefer to think of it," she said flippantly, with a little smile. She took his hand again, lacing her fingers through his. "Just try to think about how it feels this time, sil vous plait."

The light began somewhere inside her, that place where she reached for it--but it was not really light in there. Between Mr. Lensherr's careful instruction, classes, and her own extensive studies over the last few months, Jeanne-Marie knew that it was a slightly different manifestation of EM energy, just like every other human being produced--no, converted--with their every electrical and chemical reaction, particularly in the brain. And yet, she still pictured it as such: a warm, glowing place deep inside her, and the light racing to her fingertips.

She was uncertain if she was drawing on potential energy from the environment to tap into her own through her skin or some other apparatus. She did know that the light around her skin was simply one effect of it that she could put more or less into; it was electromagnetic energy on a visible wavelength, as opposed to ultraviolet, infrared--even radio waves.

What she was actually producing went beyond that, as evidenced by its felt-effect on everyone who touched it.

Damon didn't hesitate when he felt that all-too-familiar hunger lance through him. You could call it siphoning, or draining, but Damon preferred to think of what he did as drinking. Maybe it was part and parcel with the vampire metaphor. Hell, if he could have used his mouth, he would have. It didn't matter how he touched her in the end, though. He could strain the energy away with a fingertip just as easily as with his lips.

As he began to focus more intently on the satisfying buzz suddenly humming through his brain, he realized that the light from their hands was growing dimmer, but he could feel; he knew somehow, that it wasn't actually the light he was feeding off of at all. It was something else, something deeper, that generated the light. He didn't know if he was feeding off of electromagnetic energy, or chi, or her psyche. Maybe, in a sense, they were all the same when it came to actually understanding how the brain worked. Damon didn't, but just then, he thought it might be time he started to understand his power a little better. Sure, he had perfect control. Understanding was another thing altogether.

But mostly what he was thinking, as he gorged himself on her well of light, was that he could live on her forever.

Jeanne-Marie studied the renewed tugging at her powers with a kind of fascination she'd never felt for them before--not since they'd first manifested, and even then, she'd been too afraid.

Though she consciously worked harder to convert and emit--she wasn't sure how, again, but she felt the effort that went into it--her light diminished into a white glow that clung to her hand. She felt it up her arm, beneath her sweatshirt, even saw it under there, but didn't push. She wasn't sure what it would do to Damon.

He looked... happy wasn't the word. Most people told her it felt like slipping into a warm bath, the kind of energizing that involved heavy-lidded eyes and reinvigorated muscles more than running in circles. That was there, in his face, in his body language, too. But also that dark thing; she decided that was what it must be, that hunger, pulling at her light. She studied it, wondered at it, wanted to cause it to react to learn more about it.

Now it edged on the longest she had kept her light alive, without her brother's power to augment, and there was a sort of tired urge to shut it down. Instead, she pushed, covering his hand with her free one, attempting to brighten the glow again, but not all at once. She wanted a reaction, not to damage or overexert either of them, after all.

With the renewed swell of energy, Damon finally had to pull back, gasping, letting his fingers slide from hers as the buzz cranked up through his skull. He'd never felt so much of it before. He didn't know whether he wanted to laugh, or cry, but whatever it was, he felt like he could fly right up into the atmosphere. It was...strength, but not a physical strength. It was energy, but not speed. He felt alive.

And as she let the glow die completely, Jeanne-Marie felt... tired, yes, of course. Drained, as she did after a long session with Jean-Paul, pushing their limits--but even that wasn't quite the same. There was a sort of energy-tired combined with a physical-tired, but in a deep, heavy relaxation sense more than that of exhaustion.

She leaned back into the tree and to the side into him. And all she could think to say was, "Well."

"So..." Damon breathed out, pushing to his feet and arching his back in a stretch that felt amazing. "That happened."

Jeanne-Marie reached into the front pocket of her hoodie for her phone, then opened her notes app. With her other hand, she reached up for Damon to pull her to her feet. "I didn't know what to expect, but that was certainly... something. Can you tell me how it felt?"

Damon started to take her hand, then stopped before their hands touched, a disbelieving look on his face. "Are you kidding me? You're actually taking notes?"

"You thought I was joking? I have pages of notes from others who've let my light touch them." Though she could've got to her feet perfectly well on her own, it was the principle of the thing now. Jeanne-Marie wiggled her fingers at him expectantly.

He folded his arms over his chest. "Why you manipulative little mad scientist. You weren't kidding about the guinea pig part, were you? Why the hell do you need to record what my reaction was?"

"Ah, no, you simply did not believe!" She smirked and stood, not the least bit guilty (for once). She brushed off any potentially clinging grass from her backside. "I told you I have been testing it--I don't know why it makes people feel a certain way, but it seems like something I should know, yes? With you, though..."

She tucked the book under one arm and set to typing her own reaction, in French, into her app. Perhaps she might have phrased it differently had she not been so distracted, but: "I have never felt anything like you, before."

Dark eyebrows rose at the comment. "I get that a lot."

"Hmm?" Jeanne-Marie finished typing and looked up at his face again, only then realizing. She flushed, but laughed and managed, "I'm sure you do."

"Not generally after I suck out their soul, but there's a first time for everything," Damon smirked.

She returned the expression once more, though she was still a little hot in the cheeks. "Lucky for both of us, I have access to extra." Which, of course, Jeanne-Marie did not believe. Yes, some said the soul was energy, electromagnetic or otherwise a thing that could not be destroyed or created. But to her, it was nothing that could be explained so easily. It was holy and immutable. Perhaps her light was an expression of hers, but it was not the thing itself any more than Damon's powers were his. And whether they used it for good or bad was wholly up to them, as God intended.

And though the smirk still clung, she was a little more serious when she said, "But you can tell me things no one else can about it, I think. Will you help me?"

Damon shrugged slightly and turned back toward the lake, crouching down to grab one of the small stones nestled in the bank. "Tell you what, exactlythat, at least. "Wanna go again?"

She grinned and nodded, putting her phone back into her pocket. Not just happy to try for more information, to study the effects further, but that he didn't seem to mind so much, after all.