He smiles, remembering, and cuddles her. "It's a lot of fun. You're so pretty when you're desperately struggling to escape." Snuggle. "I look forward to doing it again sometime."

...okay, so she doesn't have to worry about it now, at least. She tells herself not to be disappointed, because being disappointed that he independently decided not to rape her just as she was gearing up to try to figure out how to tell him she might not want him to would be so stupid. She actually doesn't want to be fucked by an unstoppably powerful vampire right now, even though being fucked by an unstoppably powerful vampire is really hot and arguably even hotter when she's not sure she wants it.

"...yeah," she says, after an awkwardly long pause. "I'd - I'd like that. Sometime." Oh for fuck's sake, now she sounds like she's trying to politely tell him never to do it again. Why is she such a mess and so bad at everything. What idiot would think bringing her back to life was a good idea.

The idiot in question pets her hair and holds her and doesn't do anything overtly or even covertly sexual, although the lap she's snuggled up in does at this point have... certain attributes.

It's a very nice lap. Boner and all. Actually it's oddly flattering that he's turned on right now, and oddly comforting that he's not doing anything about it. She feels desirable but not oppressively desired.

He stays like that for a while. The sun sinks into view in the sky beyond the balcony. It's not quite the right sun - a little too big, a little too pale - but it's definitely an example of the type.

"Does sunlight on random planets do the thing to vampires?" she wonders. "And why does starlight not, if so?"

"I haven't gotten around to confirming this, but I think it has to be a mostly-Earthlike sun with inhabited planets. Or maybe one that's ever had inhabited planets, or that has planets that have ever been inhabited? There aren't so many inhabited systems floating around that I could do much investigating, and I've only actually been to two of them. Anyway, this one counts, but I am very magic and don't need to worry about it."

...she makes it almost all the way through listening to that incredible paragraph without bursting out laughing, but 'only actually been to two of them' does her in. She hugs his arm and giggles uproariously.

He laughs, too, hugging her. "What? What'd I say?"

"You just—" Giggle. "You. I don't know. The way you say things. It's—it's good."

"Thanks!" He nuzzles her hair affectionately. "I like the way you say things too."

"The way I say things is dumb and bad," she says without even really thinking about it, and then winces because, case in point, that came out so stark and depressing and not-even-funny and sounding like a transparent fishing expedition—

"Is not," he says playfully, and beeps her nose.

—and she bursts out laughing again. "What! You! What!"

Tas giggles triumphantly.

"You're ridiculous," she says, splutter-giggling. "You—this is not appropriate vampire behaviour and I demand my money back."

"Nope," he says, nuzzling her. "I'm adorable, and you're just gonna have to live with that until you decide to stop."

She hugs his arm tighter, feeling giddy and bubbly and kind of overhelmed. She hasn't felt this happy, or this safe, in... she can't even remember. It's really good. She wants to cuddle this bizarrely dorky, possibly all-powerful magical vampire for the entire rest of time, so that nothing bad ever happens again and the only flaw in her otherwise perfect existence is the occasional mediocre space fruit.

And that seems... almost plausible, actually? He's bound to have other things to do with his time, but... he's immortal. He can raise the dead and has demonstrated a willingness to do so. She could just... snuggle him a lot, and then maybe die again for a while if he gets too busy for cuddles, and then come back and snuggle him some more, forever.

She takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and curls up comfortably in his lap. He's really very cozy for such a room-temperature person.

He pets her hair and cuddles her.

"I—I'm glad you brought me back," she murmurs shyly.

...He squeezes her shoulder, just a little too tightly, like what he really wanted to do was scoop her up and hug her with all his strength but he noticed that that would be a bad idea and is imperfectly restraining himself.

"Good."

...aww. Aww. She shrugs her shoulder out of his bruising grip after a moment, but hugs his knee to let him know she's not mad. They're cute bruises.

"Sorry," he says wryly, and kisses the affected shoulder. "I just—I want to keep you forever and I'm going to be so, so glad of however much time I get."

He sounds so breathtakingly genuine that she has to hug his knee much harder and press her face against it, overcome by emotion.

The way he hugs her, gentle but with a kind of tension to it, feels pretty emotional too.