Yay, second chapter! Sorry if the characters are a bit OOC, I'm not used to writing them.
R&R, please :)
Jamie Scarlett xx

Disclaimer: Still not mine? Damn.


Claire slept fitfully that night. She'd gone to bed earlier than usual to make up for the sleep she'd missed the night before: twice, she'd woken up from a particularly vivid dream involving her and Myrnin's vampire bunny slippers; they had been trying to eat her, for some reason. One of them leapt up and bit her, and refused to let go until she told it a story. Dream Claire named the slipper Plot, recited something about Plot falling in love with Plimb (the other slipper) and the Plot bunny slipper let go of her arm.

Now it was morning, and the only thing she could remember was the bunny slipper attacking her. Claire swore never to work so late again, certain that this was the cause of her erratic nightmare, and rested her head on her arms. Her crazy dream made her think of Myrnin, and Claire soon found herself once again wondering what she should do, and whether or not she had actually dreamed up considering feeling something for her boss. Hey, she had just dreamt of vampire slippers attacking her – anything was possible.

Her alarm beeped at her and she shut it off, grateful for the distraction of the morning routine and the day ahead, because her thoughts? They weren't someplace anyone wanted to be.

Claire's mind wasn't with her at all that day; instead of listening to her professor talk about physics it was replaying the events of yesterday evening, and Claire found herself unable to focus on anything but that sudden rush of desire that she still didn't understand.

Classes were over as quickly as they had begun, and she wasn't sure when they had begun, so Claire considered heading to Common Grounds. However, she soon realised that Eve would still be at work and, for some reason, she wanted to avoid any questions about hers and Shane's break up. Her only other choice for coffee was the University Centre, and Claire decided that overpriced, low-quality coffee was better than no coffee at all.

She placed her order to go: a mocha for herself, and of course, coffee for Myrnin; if she was going to the lab, there was no way she would dare go without a drink for him. Paying the required amount, Claire took a sip of her mocha, careful to keep the other cup clutched safely in her hand: the deranged vampire not getting his coffee would be a definite issue.

The walk to Myrnin's lab seemed to take longer than normal. All the way there, Claire was switching between dreading whatever they were going to do, and looking forward to it, and by the time she had reached the Day House, neither side had won. But maybe she was looking forward to it just a little more than she was dreading it. And that scared her more than she wanted to admit.

Myrnin did not retrieve his coffee and retreat back to the shadows as he had the previous day; he waited for her to pass him at the door and followed her down the stairs into the lab, which was back to the state it was always in: organised chaos.

Instead, he approached her slowly, at an almost human pace, and carefully took his coffee out of her hand. He mock-bowed to her, lifted the hand he had just freed and kissed it gently, offering Claire a small smile of gratitude before returning to whatever it was he had been doing before she arrived. That was the most thanks she had ever received for getting him coffee before, and out of her budget, she thought.

Claire tried to ignore the tingling of her hand where his lips had touched it – easier said than done - and attempted to break herself out of her reverie by taking a large mouthful of her mocha – though there wasn't much left, since she'd drank most of it on the way over, but she decided to have it before it went cold. Hot drinks went cold remarkably quickly in the lab for some reason… something she always wanted to investigate, but then could never be bothered.

The intake of copious amounts of caffeine worked, until she realised she'd swallowed too much; the coffee burned on its way down, scorching her throat and causing her to splutter uncontrollably for a few minutes, during which time Myrnin didn't even look up.

"Do try not to choke, Claire, it's supposed to be bad for your health." Something about his voice suggested sarcasm, but there was an undercurrent that Claire just couldn't understand.

Claire frowned. Any more of this and his mood swings were going to give her whiplash.

He was like that almost all evening, being nice to her one minute and then not caring the next. He was full of energy (perhaps that coffee had been a bad idea) and was pacing back and forth in front of Claire, who was sat on the sofa unable to do anything other than listen, talking about Fleming and his left hand rule, before then moving onto supernovas, gesturing wildly as he did so. He hadn't noticed, but his jerky movements were sending stuff flying off of the lab tables as he moved past them, creating more chaos than there already was.

Though today, Claire thought, Myrnin himself was chaos personified. It was interesting to see him like this, speaking so... passionately to her. It could also be dangerous; he had a tendency to snap after a manic phase like this.

'But you don't care about that, do you, Claire?' whispered a little voice in her head. 'Because you wouldn't love him any other way.'

Every time she had an argument with herself, that little voice always turned out to be right. This time, she was telling it that it was wrong. She did not love Myrnin; he was her boss, for starters, he was a vampire and he was over nine hundred years older than her. Conversely, Claire could not deny that Myrnin cared about her, nor could she ignore that little voice, which was getting louder and louder with every step Myrnin took towards her, insisting that Claire really did care about him, that she did love him, and she just refused to accept it.

It began to point out all the things Claire had noticed about Myrnin that she wished not to be reminded about, like how she wanted to run her hands through his dark curls, how his big brown eyes sparkled when he was talking to her about science or one of his experiments and how his enthusiasm made him seem a lot younger than his 900 plus years. There was something about him that was bright, shining, and despite how much she tried to ignore it, it was always there! And whenever she did succeed in ignoring it, even for a second, it seemed to grow in intensity, to replace itself in her thoughts.

As Myrnin continued to pace in front of her, she thought of all these things and noticed even more…something that she knew she really didn't want to be doing.

He stopped pacing to grin at her, darted over to the bookshelves Claire had spent hours rearranging yesterday and paused, looking for a particular book.

The suddenness of the smile distracted her from her inner musings. He handed the book to her and Claire quickly realised that she had no idea what he had been talking about for the past few minutes. She snuck a look at the cover, which contained a small illustration of a tornado and nothing else. Not really helpful. She frowned, confused, and looked from the book to Myrnin in the hope of some clarification.

He sighed, apparently realising that she hadn't been paying attention to him, so he took the book back and sat down beside her.

"Do you know anything about the chaos theory?" He asked.

Claire shook her head.

"It can be anything, a series of seemingly random events that are all part of a larger equation," he explained, flipping through the book to find a specific page. When he turned it to her, it wasn't anything special, or exciting – literally just a piece of paper with a simple diagram on it – but it made sense to her analytical mind.

"Ah... so like a butterfly flaps its wings in China and creates a tornado halfway around the world?" said Claire, beginning to understand – she thought, anyway.

"Exactly!" Myrnin seemed pleased that she had grasped this concept so quickly, and he returned to his ridiculously cheerful self, the one that Claire knew could burn away at any point.

"So what am I?" Claire asked. "The butterfly or the tornado?"

He smiled at her, and a touch of melancholy seemed to appear in the movement, for a reason Claire couldn't understand. "No, you're chaos in general."

Claire laughed. "I think that applies to the both of us."

"You're not tired, I hope? This next experiment may take a few hours."

And take a few hours it did. Claire looked up at the clock - it was nearly nine o'clock already! Almost five hours had passed in no time at all.

The second time Claire looked at the time, it was just past ten. But her swift glance had not gone unnoticed.

"Is there somewhere more important you need to be?" Myrnin asked, the same edge as she had heard earlier returning to his voice.

No. "At home, in bed would be nice." She grinned as she spoke, trying to alleviate whatever was going on his mind, and she knew that speaking like this would help – at least a bit.

He smiled. "I may be able to grant you that request, we're almost finished."

As he spoke, he added the final reactant to the flask in front of him, clearly expecting something to happen.

When nothing did after several minutes, Myrnin was not pleased.

"What! That should have worked perfectly! Why didn't it?" Claire was sure that these, like his last question, were rhetorical but she answered him anyway.

"Maybe you didn't use enough acid at the beginning? That might have affected it." But she wasn't sure, and the spark in Myrnin's eyes made her sure that she was wishing that the experiment had worked.

He looked from the flask to the reactant to Claire, and back to the flask.

"No." His voice had a deadly undercurrent to it and the word came out almost a snarl. "Everything was measured and combined correctly, so why didn't it work?" His tone calmed again and he turned to her, picking up the flask and holding it out to her. Claire wasn't sure whether he meant for her to take it or not.

"This experiment was key to what I have been trying to teach you these past couple of days, Claire. It was supposed to work! This is crucial in your understanding of the sheer complexity of the workings of the universe - in part, anyway - why didn't it work?"

Claire saw his eyes flash dangerously and she knew the high was over. Now for the fall.

With a snarl of pure frustration, Myrnin hurled the flask at the wall opposite with an overly dramatic movement (even for him) that allowed Claire to step out of the way. She ducked as the glass shattered from the force and was sent ricocheting across the room, the fragments narrowly missing her, the mixture inside dripping harmlessly, uselessly down the wall.

Myrnin's near silent exclamation of... pain? had Claire raising from her crouch to stare at him. He was paying no attention to her; his gaze was focused on the too thick trail of blood that was seeping from a cut below his wrist.

"You're hurt." There was no surprise in her voice, just a hint of concern.

"It's nothing, Claire. It'll heal - ow!" Myrnin brushed one finger over the wound and suddenly jerked it away again. A bead of blood formed on his fingertip, leading Claire to the conclusion that there was glass in the cut.

With a sudden flash of inspiration, Claire dug through various drawers and cupboards until she found what she was searching for: the first aid kit that she had insisted he buy, in case of emergencies. Myrnin had argued with her about its necessity, but today he had no valid argument against it at all.

Placing the kit on the table, she opened it and retrieved a pair of tweezers from inside.

Claire held out one hand, palm up, and looked over at Myrnin expectantly. He looked back at her, mildly curious as to what she meant, and she sighed. Taking a few steps towards him, she slid her hand under his and held it there, her thumb resting in the middle of his palm. Both sets of hands were steady, Claire's especially so as she glanced at him, and saw nothing but trust reflected in his eyes. He trusted her enough to let her do this, to let her help him. Emboldened by this, she pulled his hand towards her and opened a small alcohol wipe, cleaning any blood from the wound. Once this was done, Claire picked up the tweezers again and set about carefully removing the shard of glass from his wrist.

He sucked in an unneeded breath as she pulled too hard; one final tug and the small fragment was out.

Claire held it up to the light. "It's weird that something so small can cause so much pain." She shook her head as she placed the glass onto the table next to them.

Myrnin cleared his throat; the cut had healed and he'd turned her palm so that she was now holding his hand. Claire knew she should let go and step away from him, but as Myrnin's free hand covered hers, she realised she didn't want to. The voice in her head was gloating silently as that same hand moved to trace a path along her cheek.
His brown eyes were soft as they locked into hers, showing trust and just a hint of vulnerability as his hand stilled on her face, cupping her cheek.

Myrnin brought their clasped hands to rest against his chest, and Claire was once again hit by a desire to kiss him. Determined to follow it through this time, she raised herself up on her toes and leaned towards him. Myrnin smiled at her, whispered his thanks in her ear, and kissed her.

Claire froze briefly as her mind tried to process what was happening. Myrnin was kissing her! Her cheeks warmed despite the fact that Myrnin's cool hand was still on her skin. Even with the fact that a vampire's core temperature was several degrees lower than a human's, Myrnin felt warm against her. One of his arms went around her waist as the hand that had been on her cheek moved to tangle in her hair. Claire moved closer into him, twining her arms around his neck to do so.

The sensation was unlike anything she'd felt with Shane; it was so much better. It was as if she was hyper-aware of everything and yet completely oblivious at the same time. Her world at that moment came down to the feel of his shirt as it brushed against her skin, the strands of hair against her fingers and the pressure of his lips on hers.

They were so wrapped up in each other that even Myrnin didn't hear the portal snap open, but it had.

"Well well well. This is an interesting development, very interesting..."


Looks like this will be 3 chapters after all :)
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