"Naturally."

"That does not answer my first question, love," she snorts. "I assume I'm following you somewhere."

He laughs again. "Yes. Come with me."

Humanwards!

Blair: is hanging out with a human at a pre-determined, picturesque location! They're having a lovely chat about life, and also some alcohol. Not that Blair can get drunk, but the booze is perfectly drinkable anyway.

Yvette stays beside James, and looks very nervous. She holds her breath until James gives her a go ahead to change that. And furthermore she'd like to hold his hand.

"You can breathe," he says when he notices she was in fact not doing that. "It's fine."

His wife gives a little nervous whine, but then breathes.

It is like inhaling flames. Worse, she can tell that delicious, soothing relief is right there. To call it 'unpleasant' is to say 'drinking lava is unpleasant.' Every breath is agony, and she knows deep in her very soul she could make it stop, and it'd be so easy. Some part of her notes that it probably wouldn't be, probably James would actually rip her to shreds to stop her from killing someone, but it feels like it'd be easier than just standing here, breathing in the inferno.

But she has a lot of reasons not to go kill someone just for her personal relief, and having her husband beside her makes it easy to remind herself of all of them. She has a point to prove, about how vampires do not have to kill people. She has a daughter that she needs to be a good example to. She has a husband who did several impossible things, including somehow having sex (multiple times!!!!) with her while she was human, and honestly it'd just be embarrassing if she immediately slipped after he managed that. She is who she chooses to be, and she does not choose to be a killer. She wants her family to be proud of her, to be impressed with her, and to have such an obnoxiously perfect record that she can be as smug as she wants.

The next breaths do not get easier, precisely, her tunnel vision for her potential prey and the pain she's in and the possible relief stay the same. But she does knows what to expect, and has proof that she can resist. She can keep resisting.

James looks: extremely, totally, intensely smug. That's his wife, y'all, he gots her.

She works her way up to looking away from where the delicious human is, and spots his very smug look. She snorts. Her husband being pleased with her is an appropriate distraction for breathing horrible flames.

“You look proud.”

"Oh, who, me? Don't mind me, just thinking about how I have the best wife."

She winks at him.

"You do! Okay, I think I'll go have a deer, and then we can be out of my poor brother's earshot, hm?"

"Thanks ever so," says Blair, at a pitch his human drinking buddy can't hear.

"You don't want to go meet the human?" teases her husband.

"Ha. No." She leans up and kisses her husband. "I think I'd suck at pretending to be human right now, thank you. And I don't want to risk it. Whisk me away from the terrible smell?"

"Your wish is my command, my beautiful witch."

Up she goes in a bridal carry and he can leap away.

She is perfectly cooperative, and buries her head into his chest to breathe air that smells like husband instead of like human. That is much, much nicer.

And then they can eat stuff that smells and tastes so so so much less good than humans!

It's fine! It's kind of awful, but it's fine!!

And then they can do mate activities because she's so pleased with herself.

"And you were calling me smug."

"I am extremely smug!" she confirms, without a trace of shame.

"Perfect track record. You deserve every inch of smugness."

"I will be insufferable after I've had a couple decades of practice!"

"I can't wait to see that."