"You got some demon showing through, there."

She looks at Sadde. "Could you maybe save it for when you two are alone and you're not recovering from having a piece of your soul torn out?"

"Sorry."

"Yeah, right, what the hell? Both at me being weirdly demonic and you getting bits of your soul gone – presumably if it exists, it's important, right? Unless the name is just... coincidentally stupid."

Sadde will let Willow answer that one.

"We're not really sure what it does but apparently vampires don't have them and that's at least part of the reason why they're all evil."

"... Rright. So they don't have souls, and they also have bits of demon, and they're all evil. Welp. Good thing I presumably have a soul, then."

"It's really the soul bit that does it. Apparently the soul is the source of all empathy and notions of right and wrong."

"Which makes no sense, I built my moral code because I care about people but it's not like I make my moral decisions based on whatever feels nice, empathy is not enough to be a good person and it makes no sense that I'd be a bad person without it."

Theo thinks for a bit, then says, "Yeah, no, I'm really glad I have empathy."

He doesn't look like he's thinking particularly happy thoughts.

"Yeah, I mean, I could be wrong, I'm not about to go looking for a vampire to be turned so I can get the nifty immortality with the not-so-nifty allergies."

"Can demons, or part-demons, even be turned into vampires? I don't even know if I should be worried about becoming one or just worried about being a snack."

"It depends on the demon, and how much of a part, and a lot of this is speculation anyway. Some demons don't have souls, or don't let the vampire-demons inhabit their bodies, so they can't be turned."

"I don't think Sadde knew my type of demon – do you have any ideas? I mean, I don't think I'd just let a vampire demon inhabit me, but if it ate my soul or if I couldn't actually stop it, then it'd be able to turn me anyway. Again, I really don't want to become an empathy-less, soulless monster."

"Well, what exactly are the symptoms of your... part-demonity?"

"Nails, teeth, weird grace... Am I forgetting something? Oh yeah, growling. ... I think that's it?"

"There was also hissing and some other noises."

"Well, that could be a lot of species."

"Yeah. At least I'm not a vampire or some sort of evil soulless demon, though."

"As far as you know."

"Okay, but if I am, I'm at least convincingly normal enough that I really don't think I have to worry. Plus I have empathy, so yeah."

"So you say, but you could be pretending."

"Okay, so admittedly it's not helpful for you, but I thought we were just talking about my peace of mind about myself, which is pretty much satisfied. For all I know, half the school might be soulless monsters playing a long con, but that's not particularly helpful."

Sadde opens his eyes to look at Theo for a bit before saying, "Can you come here a sec?"

"Uh. Okaaay?" he says tentatively, then walks slowly over to Sadde.