"...You okay?" 

"...yeah? Mostly? I guess? I dunno. It's complicated." He gives her a squeeze and a kiss on the cheek.

"Is it about me biting you?"

"Mmm, not exactly."

"Then what is it?"

...he sighs.

"Oh, fuck it. Okay. There's—a thing I've been scared to tell you because if you decide to stop being my friend I might die, but I hate lying even by omission, I hate—feeling like somebody only likes me because they don't know me well enough, like if they had the full story they'd feel differently—so whatever, I guess I'll just say it and see what happens. The other thing my parents are bribing me to stop doing, besides shit like lighting teachers on fire, is raping people."

"I gotta admit, I didn't know that one could be an impulse control thing." 

"...I mean, isn't it? Or—I don't know, like, if I'd cared I probably could've tried a lot harder to make sure I didn't get to the point where impulse control was the last thing between me and hurting someone, but—I've had close calls even when I'm actively trying not to, it's not just that I don't care because if it was then when I cared I'd just stop."

"You have the weirdest problems. Every case of rape I'd ever heard of was, like, premeditated, or at least committed in a context where the guy didn't think it was rape or just didn't give a shit or whatever." She snuggles him some more. "Is it going to sound horribly patronizing if I say I think I see why they decided to let you come here now?"

"...I mean I don't... see how they could've known that about me...? It's not like my parents would've told them."

"I mean, magic." 

"And so then, what, they figure if I don't end up getting eaten maybe I'll learn something?" He contemplates this. "Well, I guess technically they're not wrong. I'm already trying a lot harder than usual to make sure I don't mess up with you, cause if I do I might die. But that's... not exactly... the same thing... as the school helping."

"We haven't actually had any classes yet," she points out. "I mean, I sure hope they've got some way of actually teaching people to behave themselves in human society, I can't imagine they haven't noticed how many of Snakebites there are in the monster population." 

"I dunno, I feel like that guy and me have very different problems."

"Fair. I dunno, then, it's just a guess." Snuggle. She is sooooo cozy. 

She is! She's very cozy! It's good.

"Anyway I'm trying to think of a less patronizing way to say 'well, don't do that,' but, uh, I had any idea what I was getting into when I decided not to attend human college, you're surprising but unless you've actually killed anyone you're still beating out the worst-case scenario I was expecting to make friends with. Like, I am probably going to end up with multiple friends, I'm still not ruling out making friends with someone who's eaten people." 

"I haven't killed anyone," he confirms. "Although that's not really... like, it's not a principle I have, it just hasn't come up."

"I mean, I'd kill someone if I had to, and it's likelier to come up for me than for you." 

"...you're maybe giving me too much credit with the 'had to' part."

"Meh. Everyone you haven't killed is someone who isn't dead, and that's what matters in my book." 

"Fair enough, I guess."

"Being not dead is great. Dead people don't get cuddles." 

"Cuddles seem to be pretty nice!"

"Yeah. --Seem to be?"