He nods. "I think that's all for perks. There are some ambiguous things—my eyes are red when I'm fed, black when I'm hungry, and golden when I'm fed on animal blood. Sunlight makes me glitter like gemstones. The mate bond."

"... Wait, hold on, what was that one about the eyes? Red when you're fed on... what, exactly?"

"Human blood," he says, tilting his head.

"James. James do you leave the humans alive after you've had their blood."

"...no, but, but I've only been eating terrible people! Blair told me to."

Her hands go to her mouth and she stares at him.

"... that... is better than the alternative. Were you not. Not picky before?"

"I wasn't—but I am now."

...and he's gonna be picky forever if that's the sort of reaction she's gonna have, he doesn't want to ever see her feeling like that again.

"Oh. Do you. Do you need to eat people, you said there were gold eyes from animal blood, why. Would you not have that. Instead of people."

He frowns. "It is very, very hard to control myself while feeding. It is not just senses, but also instincts that are enhanced, and there is an extremely strong instinct towards eating humans. I don't remember what human food used to taste like, but human blood tastes better than sex feels, and animal blood tastes worse than feces, to create an analogy. Your brother also eats people, and he does not trust himself to be around you without being tempted into eating you, if that gives you a better idea?"

"I'll stop. Eating people. I will only eat animals, I, it's not that tempting anyway—"

She does not actually have any ability to reply right now, and instead buries her face in her hands and whines.

He aborts a comforting gesture and put his hands between his knees. There's a rock-scraping sound coming from there.

"Okay so how. Likely. Is it. That if I become a vampire I will eat a person."

"I have never heard of a vampire who didn't... but I have also never heard of a vampire who knew about it beforehand. And I could keep animals around you instead of people. I have not felt any ill effects from eating animals, it is probably safe."

"You've eaten animals before? From the, the description of the taste I got the impression that you mostly didn't."

"I have. Most vampires don't even try, they don't smell like food, but I've been to Antarctica and there are no humans there."

"Oh," she says. She looks a little like she'd like to hide under a blanket and never come out again. "Okay. Um. Go. Go on with the vampire explanation then, please?"

"Now there are the drawbacks. The near-irresistibility of human blood—the smell is also very good, and even just hearing or seeing a heartbeat is very tempting—all of that is coupled with a feeling of thirst that never goes away, only gets weaker or stronger, and is strong enough to count as torture to humans. The process of turning takes three days of increasing agony, and it is not uncommon for newborns to beg for death during it. For the first year after turning you are stronger and faster than a mature vampire, but it is also much more difficult to control—your brother was actually very, very good at control for a newborn. And vampires are sterile.

"I think that is all."

"Ah. Thank you," she says, a little faintly.

He rubs his hands together between their knees again and the scraping sound can be heard again.

"Um—what's...? Is that you?"

He nods then shows his hands rubbing together and making that sound.

She looks at him, clearly confused.

"Why...?"

"Because I want you to become a vampire for entirely selfish reasons but I don't want to force you or try to coerce you but now the idea of letting you grow old and die or worse is unbearable. So I'm fidgeting."