fandomhigh | Paranormal Activity 101, Tuesday, January 11th

When the students came into the room on Tuesday they might have noticed that it smelled strongly of old lady (or like a bunch of dried out flowers, rather), but Alaric was acting like he didn't notice anything. If you thought it smelled like old lady now, just wait until later.

"Okay, guys, today we're going to be covering vampires. I'm sure you all know what vampires are, but we're gonna go over the basics anyway for sake of easy test questions when the final comes," Alaric said with a smile. "I realize there are a few vampires in the room, but I promise to be as unbiased as possible. I know you're good people."

You know, when you're not killing innocent carnival workers or biting your golden retriever-like boyfriend, Caroline.

"Right, so, the word vampire usually refers to anything that gains it's life essence through the drinking of blood," Alaric said. "The word vampire wasn't really used until the early 18th century, but many cultures have had myths referring to human-like creatures that drank blood to live for hundreds of years before that. It's a popular myth to fall back on when you want to scare your kids, I think."

Now that the lame attempt of humor was done, Alaric quickly launched into a lecture about vampires, first going over the historical background of vampires in popular culture and then ditching the whole "myth" aspect and talking about the more scientific facts. What they looked like, where you're most likely to find them and the special abilities some of them possessed, such as mind control and (at least from what his research in Fandom's library told him) flying. When he got to weaknesses and how to kill a vampire he tried to cover all the ways you could kill a vampire in every universe he researched, making a point to tell everyone that your mileage may vary depending on what universe's vampire you were dealing with. But chopping off someone's head is usually a sure thing.

Then, yes, he talked about how some vampires were good and you should make sure that they were really trying to kill you and not just getting fuzz out of your hair before throwing holy water on them.

"Sorry if your wrists hurt from all that writing," Alaric said when he was finally finished. "The activity today will be relaxing. Or you'll burn yourself. Then you can relax after class."

He pointed to the tables in the back where there were tea kettles, hot plates, cups and that dried out purple flowers spread out among them. "Today we're all going to be making tea out of vervain. If you were paying attention in lecture you'll recall that where I'm from vervain and vampires don't mix well. Their skin'll start burning off if they touch it and if they ingest it they get quite sick. Humans that ingest vervain will be protected from vampires since one sip of your blood will have them on the ground wishing they were dead in the more traditional sense. If you choose to wear vervain on you, you'll also be protected from vampiric mind control."

"So today we're going to be making tea from vervain. It's not the tastiest thing in the world, but it's better than dying, right? I recommend you add a lot of sugar," Alaric said. "And, of course, vampires are exempt from the activity. Or if you just don't like tea. Then you don't have to do it either."

[OCD up]

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Caroline was totally taken aback. Her mood about the vervain shifted and she nearly snorted in amusement. "You made a list?"

She probably wasn't supposed to find this concept hilarious.

"Well, you seemed very adamant," Bod replied, shrugging, "so I thought I'd try to change your mind. I like lists."

Hey, people usually found him hilarious for a variety of reasons. He didn't much mind. He knew he was different.

"So what is on this list exactly?" Caroline asked. Her interest was taken with this concept, strange as it might seem.

Shut up, she was not going to bite him just because he was kind of like that golden retriever boyfriend.

"Right, of course."

He unfolded the piece of paper and looked over it, double checking to make sure he hadn't written anything embarrassing.

"Well, I'm British and the British were a bit rude during the Revolutionary War so obviously that should be held against me."

Somehow. He didn't know. Still, he kept going with his list.

"I burn soup all the time thus causing my dormitory room to smell. I like to spend time in graveyards. Some people find that a little strange despite my good reasons. I don't always remember how to recycle. I'm prone to doing things that are dangerous just because I want to try everything once. I can speak Latin, which seems to be the tool of most villains in horror movies. I'm an awful shopper and a mediocre carrier of the bags. I sometimes curse. And -- "

He shook the piece of paper a bit and shrugged.

" -- that's all."

Such a puppy. How did this boy not have a girlfriend stalking him like a hawk and stopping him from being eaten alive?

"But see, then you ruin all those dangerous things by making cute lists and telling girls you were thinking about what they said, which is either scary or totally adorable depending on the motives," Caroline replied.

"Motives?" he asked, not really understanding what she meant by that. Some of his innocence was still around even if he'd shed a lot of it. "I don't really have any motives save for the desire to prove that I'm not overly sweet and just because I am sweet sometimes, I'm not strange."

Well, he had to amend that.

"No, I am strange but I'm harmless," he added after a moment. "And you seemed to genuinely think I was going to do something dangerously strange and I wanted to assure you I wasn't. And I try to listen whenever someone talks to me. I just put extra thought into your words."

"So you just wanted to prove you're not sweet?" Caroline checked. "I think the only way to do that would be to treat me terribly. Which is, last time I checked, not my favorite method of making friends though I can't say it's never happened." Or that it didn't seem to happen frequently.

"But it's almost aww-worthy that you were concerned I thought you too sweet. Seriously, where is your girlfriend? Because there is no way you don't have one."

Bod laughed quietly, keeping his eyes down. He wasn't going to mention that his ex-girlfriend was sitting a few feet away because that wasn't important. Instead, he was going to blush at the compliment while folding up his list and offering it to her as a souvenir.

"I don't have one," he confirmed, shaking his head and looking back up, cheeks still red. "Thank you for thinking that but no, it's just me. And, well, my two fish but they were inherited from a friend that's passed on. I'm the adopted owner, I suppose."

Anyway, that was off topic and he shook his head. "So, I suppose there is a way I don't have one. Maybe I'm a little too unusual for that."

Caroline took the paper with a grin. "You keep a dead person's fish for them? Seriously, I don't know how you haven't won like, nicest guy of the year awards. Do they have those awards here? We could start them!"

"I...haven't heard of them, no," he said, shaking his head and laughing. "I don't even know how someone would start those awards but really, I don't need recognition. I don't do things to be recognized. I just do them because people deserve to smile."

"That's it, I am so claiming you. You do stuff just to make people smile? This is completely killing me here. Can I take your picture?" Caroline dug her phone out of her pocket. "Bonnie won't believe me if I tell her all of this without photographic proof."

"All right," he said and laughed, looking a little...unsure about how to have his picture taken. The only one who'd ever done it was Kate and he was sure those pictures had been trashed by now.

"Should I...do anything?" he asked, crossing and then uncrossing his arms like he couldn't decide what to do with them.

"Drink some nasty tea," Caroline suggested, holding her phone up and watching him on the screen. "The face will be epic." Also, it would keep him safe, which Bod deserved.

"Right, the tea," he said, reaching for his cup and giving it a sniff. It still smelled awful but she'd asked him to drink the tea so he would. "Cheers."

With that, he toasted it and took a sip. His face scrunched up all at once, eyes closed and lips thinned into a tight line. It wasn't so much bad as surprising. He swallowed and had to shake his head and lick his hips to try and get the taste out.

"How was that?" he eventually asked, sounding slightly strained.

Caroline made sure to just keep taking pictures, hoping at least one would turn out as he made faces at the tea. She giggled uncontrollably at his reaction and reached out to pat his shoulder delicately. "Perfect, Bod. Now I'll have a visual to help my tale of how I met the scariest sweet boy ever."

"Glad I could help," he said, coughing a few times. "I'm not scary, I promise, and I hope I can prove that one day but I'm glad I could help."

That tea was going to stick with him the rest of the day, he was sure.

Paranormal Activity 101, Tuesday, January 11th

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