Colin turned another page of the newspaper. He'd read through it all already and had made note of any current events he thought might be worth remembering. Now he was just flipping the pages every few minutes to give the appearance of reading. His roommates were none the wiser, going about their usual business in the sitting room as he analyzed every emotion they felt.

It had been a few weeks since his first lunch with Joan. They'd had lunch together every day since and he was quite content with this new routine he'd established. She'd vent about how much work she was being assigned and what a nightmare it was trying to tackle the growing mountain of papers on her desk. Apparently payroll had been in the middle of switching systems when Biff left and there'd been quite a bit of data loss during the change. The recovery was time-consuming, and while he could tell she should have been more worried, she wasn't. A little bit frustrated maybe, but not overwhelmed or upset. He wondered what it would take to set her off-balance.

Since they'd been having lunch, it'd been getting much easier to endure her sun-shiney emotions, but there were times he still struggled to read her. He realized that if he was going to accept her for what she was, then he was going to have to gain a better understanding of pleasant emotions. He could recognize the basic ones like joy, love, and delighted surprise. Other, more complex emotions such as gratitude, loyalty, and inquisitiveness (to name a few) were harder for him to identify without some context clues to draw on.

He'd taken to studying his roommates whenever they felt something positive. Tonight he studied Guillermo first, who was sitting on an ottoman in the corner of the room vigorously trying to get blood stains out of one of Nandor's shirts with a Tide stick. Nandor was out tonight, probably hunting. Before Nandor left, Guillermo had asked him where he was going but he had simply said "vampire things. You wouldn't understand, since… you know… you are not a vampire." Guillermo had deflated like a slashed tire. The disappointment was delicious, if a little boring. Guillermo was often disappointed and Colin was growing tired of the taste.

He stared at Guillermo and the air surrounding him intently, searching for any possible positive emotion. It wasn't easy. There was a mountain of disappointment, frustration, despair. All his emotions were all twisted and bundled up together like a ball of knotted wires. Untangling it was really annoying, but Colin kept at it, and before he knew it he'd reached the center of Guillermo's awful, convoluted knot of negativity. Inside it there was something… warm. And bright. And shiny. It was unwavering and dense, but somehow brittle, too? It tasted like something that was left in the oven a little too long and had become burnt around the edges. After some thought, Colin eventually identified it as adoration. Obsession. Infatuation. Passion. It didn't take being an energy vampire to figure out who all of that was directed toward.

Colin scoffed, then coughed a little to cover it. He'd assumed Guillermo had feelings for Nandor long before having confirmation of it. Why else would he stick with Nandor so long, despite the awful treatment familiars always received? Why else would he look after him through all his depressive spells? Most familiars did house chores, lured in victims, and not much beyond that.

Colin turned his attention away from Guillermo, feeling proud for having successfully identified some complex positive emotions. His body rejected it, his stomach aching. He ignored it. He was going to have to build a tolerance to this if he wanted to keep having lunch with Joan.

He focused on Laszlo, who was softly playing a meandering tune on the piano. There was a lot of positive emotion there to read, most of it simple but strong. The most prominent one was a deep, abiding love for Nadja. It hovered around him in a hazy cloud, mixed with a healthy dose of lust and attraction.

There was also something that kept appearing and disappearing so quickly that Colin struggled to discern it. It came in short, rhythmic bursts, floating in and out like a twinkling star. It was a few moments before Colin realized the bursts aligned perfectly with the melody Laszlo was improvising. Inspiration! That's what it was.

Eventually the little bursts of inspiration stopped appearing as Laszlo began playing a song he announced he had written decades prior. It was slow, melancholic, and it sounded remarkably familiar.

Laszlo began singing.

"I heard a man made a bulb in seventy nine

Working late, intent at turning it on bright

If it blew, didn't stop him trying to get it right-"

"Wait, is that Video Killed the Radio Star?" Guillermo interrupted.

Laszlo's gaze didn't stray from the piano keys as he continued playing. "I don't know what that is so kindly shut the fuck up."

He continued singing.

"He took the credit for your gaslit city streets

Rewritten by machine on electricity

And now I understand the problems you can see

Oh oh

I met your children

Oh oh

What did you tell them?

Edison killed the lamplighters

Edison killed the lamplighters-"

"Okay, yeah, that is definitely Video Killed the Radio Star."

Laszlo slammed the keys and turned to face Guillermo. "All right, what is this thing that makes you think it's acceptable to interrupt my elegy about how Thomas Edison's invention tragically ended the lamplighter profession? It was a heavy blow for all their families, people starved!"

Guillermo nervously looked to Colin for support. He held the newspaper up higher and pretended they didn't make eye contact.

Seeing that Colin would be no help, Guillermo cleared his throat and summoned up some courage. It was faint, but there.

"You know? 'Video Killed the Radio Star'? It was a famous song from, like, the 80s."

Laszlo scoffed. "You need to check your ears because this is a Cravensworth original! I once knew a retired lamplighter by the name of Charles Umbridge and he revealed to me all the lesser-known troubles wrought by the invention of the lightbulb, which inspired me to write the song you just interrupted."

Guillermo looked like he wanted to fight him on it, maybe play the song for him, but decided it'd be more trouble than it was worth. His courage disappeared.

"Okay, then I guess I was wrong," he said as he went back to scrubbing Nandor's shirt.

Laszlo huffed with exasperation. "You're damn right you're wrong. Contradicting a vampire!"

Laszlo shook his head and began playing a different song on the piano, something a little discordant. Irritation clouded his positive emotions, even the brief bursts of inspiration, making them more difficult to study independently. Colin spent a few more minutes trying to examine them but gave up as his own exhaustion finally hit him. Positive emotions were tiring.

He folded up his newspaper and set it on the arm of his chair. He'd done enough emotion-studying tonight anyway. He left the room without a word and headed to his room. They didn't acknowledge him, Laszlo too focused on his song and Guillermo too focused on the bloodstain. A clap of thunder sounded as he crawled into bed.

It had started sprinkling outside by the time Colin reached the office. The sky was dark and ominous, making the office look even more gray and washed out than it normally did. His coworkers moved listlessly, as if they could sense the impending storm and already dreaded it.

He basked in the malaise as he checked his email. Rainy days were usually slow days, and slow days meant there'd be plenty of boredom to harvest. It'd take very little effort on his part to drain his colleagues today.

He'd been about to "accidentally" forward a spam email to the entire office when Val briskly walked past his desk with a hostile energy about her. He'd been savoring the lethargic atmosphere so much her brief presence actually startled him.

It took him a few seconds, but he recognized that energy she had - she always felt it when she was about to ream someone out. He usually drained the embarrassment and shame afterward from whichever poor soul she verbally assaulted. It was convenient not having to do the dirty work.

Silently getting up from his desk, he stepped behind her and maintained enough distance that she wouldn't notice. He quickly hid behind the water cooler as Val suddenly stopped. He peaked around to see who Val had decided to target this time and grimaced as he saw. It was Joan. Of course it had to be Joan.

Sensing the foreboding presence beside her, Joan swiveled her chair to face her and bristled immediately. Val must have had an especially severe look on her face. Colin couldn't see it as she had her back turned to him, but he could imagine it easily.

Val said something to Joan that Colin, tragically, could not hear. He could still see their energies from here, though. He flinched as he saw Joan was practically getting pelted with Val's frenzied energies, her stress and insecurity coming down in large hail-like spikes. Val gestured to the paperwork on Joan's desk. Ah. That's what it was about. She'd noticed the backlog.

Joe suddenly appeared next to Colin and filled his bottle with water. He followed Colin's gaze to Val. He grimaced.

"Val's going in on the new girl, huh?"

He glanced at Joe. "Uh, yeah."

"It's a shame," he continued, "I fucked up my direct deposit after I changed banks and she was really nice about helping me fix it. Way nicer than she needed to be."

Colin gave Joe a look that one might give a fly incessantly buzzing near your ear, then turned back.

Joe didn't take the hint. "Looks like Joan's taking it pretty well, though."

To an outside observer, yes, it looked like she was taking it well. Her face was blank, almost bored looking. But Colin knew better. He saw a great surge of defiance roar to life around her. It moved restlessly, desperately seeking to smother Val, but something suddenly pulled it back. Joan tensed up, then all the defiance and anger she felt folded in on itself, compacted and contained in a thick wall separating the two of them. She'd tamped it all down, somehow. Made a barrier.

Joan said something he couldn't hear as she finally responded to Val's reprimand. Her face still looked blank and disaffected, but it was genuine this time. She was as unbothered by Val's attempts to demean her as she was by all of his own previous attempts to annoy her. It gratified him to see someone else become subject to one of Joan's strange emotional powers. At least this time he was just a spectator.

Whatever Joan said to Val was not well-received. Val spit back a retort, her anger spiraling in Joan's direction, but with a wall between them, any emotional attack against her made no contact. She'd sheltered herself. Colin had never seen anything like it.

That's not to say he'd never seen a human manipulate their own emotions before. Some humans, on a subconscious level, were capable of using their own energy as a weapon and inflicting it on others. It was never done with any sort of sophistication, as humans had little control or awareness of their own feelings, but it did happen. Val herself weaponized her anger quite often, especially when she wanted to undermine a subordinate.

But he had never seen a human use their emotions defensively. At least not with any success. Her wall was impenetrable, built on bricks of contempt and rebellion. Any attack on it bounced back. It didn't so much as shudder, even as Val's frustration turned to rage.

Joe stepped closer. "Woah. I have never seen Val look that pissed before. What do you think she said to her?"

Joan said something else, a slight twist to her lips. She was trying not to smirk. Val must have noticed because she stormed off afterward in the direction of Greg's office, briefly glaring at Colin and Joe as she walked past. Joe scurried away.

He headed toward Joan, trying and failing to wipe the grin off his face. Joan saw him and - incredibly - the wall she'd built crumbled, beams of pleasant energies bursting through it and annihilating every last bit of anger and righteous indignation. He squinted at the brightness.

Before Colin could even get a word out, Joan had placed her hand on his arm, grinning conspiratorially. "I think Val's still watching me from George's office, but I promise I'll tell you everything at lunch."

He looked at her hand on his arm and froze. He swallowed once and tried to find his words.

She noticed him tense and pulled her hand away. A few puffs of embarrassment appeared. She felt like she'd overstepped her bounds again.

Finally able to move again, he looked over at George's office and sure enough, through the glass window he could see Val, emphatically gesturing in their direction as she spoke with him. She was right, they couldn't talk now.

Still, though. He couldn't just leave it at this.

He bent down and leaned in closer, disrupting the small clouds of embarrassment. "Okay, but you should know that Val can't stand bad grammar. Just in case you want to make her even angrier."

She beamed. He didn't wince at the brightness of her smile, not even a little. "I'll keep that in mind, for all intensive purposes."

He chuckled, then made his way back to his desk, basking in the trail of irritation Val had left behind. It tasted like defeat.

Lunchtime couldn't seem to come soon enough. He swore it seemed like time was actually moving slower than it normally did just to spite him. He tried boring the other workers to pass the time, but his heart wasn't in it. They were already so lethargic from the rainy-day atmosphere that trying to drain them any more felt almost greedy.

Nothing new had happened with Val since the confrontation with Joan. After half an hour in George's office she'd finally left it and retreated to hers, still cloaked in anger. It had been hours since then and she'd yet to emerge. George hadn't come out of his office yet, either, so it was anyone's guess what the consequences for inciting Val's rage might be.

A rumble of thunder sounded just as 12:30 hit. He rushed to the break room and sat in the same chair he always did. His foot tapped impatiently as he waited for Joan to arrive. It was weird, being excited about something that didn't involve draining someone. A good weird, he thought. Like her.

He felt her come in before he saw her. The temperature of the room suddenly went up and the air grew dense. He took a few deep breaths as she grabbed her lunch from the fridge and took her seat in front of him.

She laid her hands flat on the table. "Okay," she said, "you ready?"

He leaned back in his chair and took a dry sip from his mug. "I guess."

She rolled her eyes. "I appreciate the enthusiasm."

He grinned against his mug. She started unpacking her lunch and rolled up her sleeves, which revealed a large number of band-aids covering her right arm.

"I was working on running my reports when Val came up and immediately started complaining about the work on my desk. There wasn't even any small talk, she just went straight into how I 'wasn't meeting deadlines' and if it continued like this she'd have to 'reevaluate my role in the company.'

"So I told her very clearly that I was working as fast as one person possibly could under the circumstances and she was welcome to let me go if she thought she could find a better fit. Which she can't, of course, because I'm good at what I do and anybody else would have taken one look at that ridiculous pile of work on my desk and ran.

"And then she said something about how maybe if I 'had a better work ethic none of this would be an issue.' So I told her I would love to know what I could do to improve my work ethic and if she could please put it in writing and include the part where she said my job was at risk if I didn't comply. That sent her over the edge and she walked off.."

Joan shrugged and took a bite of her meal. "I don't know why mid-level managers always feel like they have to make power plays. I mean, it's an office job. It's not like we're dealing with life and death here. "

Throughout her story he'd sensed nothing but calm from her. She was only telling him all this because he wanted to know.

He swirled his mug, trying to put on a disaffected air. "But doesn't it bother you being talked to like that? Didn't it make you feel angry? Or humiliated?"

She snorted. "Humiliated? No. Why would I ever let her make me feel humiliated?"

She took another bite. "I was kind of angry at first, sure. Anyone would be if someone came at them that hard for no reason, but there's no point letting yourself get worked up over somebody who wouldn't care if you died tomorrow, you know? It's just a job. I can always get another one."

He imagined Joan packing her things and leaving, putting her plastic orchid back in her purse and never coming back again. Taking down all her sticky notes. Setting Chestnut's photo face down. It bothered him how much that thought bothered him.

"Not that I plan on leaving anytime soon," she hurriedly said. "But if Val were to actually make good on her threats, I wouldn't let it bother me."

And there it was, the crux of everything. She "wouldn't let it bother her." But how? How could a person consciously manage their own emotions, let alone in the face of an emotionally charged situation? She talked about it so casually that he wondered if she had any idea how impressive it really was.

"You're actually the first person in this office to ever stand up to her. I don't think anybody else here could just choose not to be upset about it."

She hummed. "Then it was a long time coming, I guess." She cocked her head. "You never stood up to her? You seemed to me like you wouldn't let her bother you, either."

"Besides purposely using bad grammar around her, not really. She doesn't discipline me, though. I've pissed her off enough that she tries to keep her interactions with me to a minimum."

She smiled. "That's a good strategy, actually. You think if I drop the word 'ain't' into my vocabulary the next time I see her she'll have an aneurysm?"

"We can hope."

She laughed. It still strained his eyes when he looked at the blinding glow she had whenever she laughed, but there were no spots in his vision and his head wasn't pounding.

He tried to turn the conversation back to the confrontation with Val before they inevitably got sidetracked. "Still, I don't think I understand how you can handle someone insulting you to your face and just… taking it. How do you not care?"

"Well, for one, I didn't just take it, I called her bluff. And secondly…"

Her eyes dimmed. He couldn't read thoughts, of course, but he could tell she was reliving a memory. "It wasn't always that easy. I actually used to be really sensitive to stuff like that. But then I just - I decided - see, something happened and-"

She circled her hands in the air uselessly. There was something else there - something secret and dark and locked away. She wanted to tell him, but she didn't want him to know.

She sighed. "Basically, in college I had a friend who turned out to be… not really a friend at all. After that I didn't see any point in letting somebody get under my skin. Especially not someone who didn't have my best interests at heart."

It was killing him not to pry. He could tell that whatever story this was held the secret to her drain-resistant powers. But he could sense how tentatively she'd shared this information with him. If he kept pushing for more now she could block him out again and he still remembered just how unpleasant that had been the first time. He'd be patient, and he'd wait, and he'd eventually gain enough of her trust that she might tell him the rest of this story and he could finally have the answers he was so desperate for.

As difficult as it was, he changed the subject. "That was a double negative. If Val had heard that she would have stroked out."

Joan's shoulders sunk in relief. She appreciated the subject change. "Don't you mean would of?"

He snorted, but didn't comment. She finished her lunch in silence as he studied each little emotion of hers he could identify. There was a hollow and brittle vulnerability. There was gratitude, which swelled with warmth like a hot air balloon. There was still some left over spite from her conversation with Val, but just as she said, there were no longer any traces of anger. There was a sadness, too, at having mentioned her old friend, but that was quickly relegating itself to the background. Overall there was mostly just light - an easy calmness she wrapped herself in like a blanket. He wondered if she'd be surprised to know she did that.

When she finally finished her meal, he looked at the clock and noticed they had much more time left than he'd expected. He'd even have enough time to start another conversation.

"Hey, Joan?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you know that Edison's invention of the lightbulb actually destroyed the lamplighting business?"

"No, I did not." She leaned forward. "Tell me more."

It was pouring outside by the time he clocked out. The sky was incredibly dark and thunder came every few minutes. Colin grabbed his umbrella and headed for the elevators, wishing he'd brought a rain jacket or something. He wouldn't get sick, but that still didn't mean he enjoyed getting rained on.

Joan stepped up next to him, a red polka-dotted umbrella in her hand. The elevator had already filled up by the time they got there, so they waited for the next one. Normally Colin would try to squeeze his way in and create as much discomfort as possible, but Joan probably wouldn't appreciate getting left behind and skipping a snack wouldn't kill him, anyway.

"George called me into his office after lunch to hear my side of things, in case you were curious. He didn't have much to say about it, but I don't think anything's going to come of this."

Sounded about right. Nothing ever changed here. The same meetings, same arguments, same useless emails. It was comforting. Familiar.

He scratched at his cheek. "Probably not. She'll fume for a while but she'll eventually find some new favorite to single out and you won't have to worry about it."

The elevator door opened and they stepped inside. "Not that you'd worry anyway," he said as he pressed the button for the ground floor.

She smiled, then itched at the bandages under her sleeve. She tried to be discreet about it, but he noticed.

"What happened?" he asked casually, nodding his head toward her arm.

"Oh, you know, bug bites."

The air wavered. She was lying.

"Really?"

"Yeah, I went for a walk and got totally eaten alive."

Somehow that was true, but also… not. He raised a brow and stared at her, his skepticism palpable. She looked away after a few moments and fiddled with her sleeve. He turned back toward the elevator doors. She'd called herself his friend, once, in an email. Friends let friends have secrets, right?

Hell, he was an energy vampire. Not even human. Whatever she felt like she had to hide couldn't compare.

The elevator doors opened and they stepped out. Just as they reached the front doors there was a violent clap of thunder and a few streaks of lightning appeared.

"It's getting pretty bad out there," she said. She looked at him, then outside, then at him again. "You take the bus, right?"

"Yup. Experts say that riding the bus can greatly reduce your carbon footprint."

She made an expression that made it clear she didn't believe for a second that he cared about his carbon footprint. He mostly rode the bus for the social aspect. Driving alone could mean driving hungry. Not to mention he didn't have a license, but he wasn't about to tell her that.

"What do experts say the risk of getting struck by lightning is while waiting for the bus?"

"Less than one in a million."

She shook her head. "I don't like those odds."

She stepped outside, opened her umbrella, then gestured toward the parking lot. "C'mon, I'm driving you home. It's too scary out here to wait for the bus."

He always took the bus home. Always. She'd already disrupted his old routine in the office - this was too much. He held up his hands. "N-No, no - it's fine, you don't have to do that."

More thunder began rumbling ominously. She rolled her eyes. "See, that's the universe telling you to take the offer."

She started slowly walking away and motioned for him to follow, but he didn't move. He was tired of change. Sure, not all of it was bad - he really liked having lunch with Joan - but it was exhausting trying to keep up with her. He felt drained.

There was another rumble of thunder, as if God himself was laughing at the irony of it. He looked up at the sky and glared. Joan's car chirped as she unlocked it. She looked back at him, waiting. Her patience and welcoming energy lazily swam toward him, twisting in a way he interpreted as coaxing him to come. He sighed and acquiesced.

As soon as he sat in the car, claustrophobia set in. She was excited that he'd accepted her offer and her aura was overwhelming. There was no escape in here - nothing but light and warmth. It felt like he was sitting inside of the sun. It didn't matter how much of a tolerance he'd built over the past few weeks. This was far too much too soon. He groaned.

Joan frowned. "Colin?"

He rubbed at his head with his palm. It was pounding. "Could you crack a window?"

She did, then turned the air conditioning on to full blast. It helped a little.

"What's wrong?"

"I just get car sick easily."

"We haven't started moving."

"Really easily."

Her confusion coupled with her concern dimmed her energy. He took a few deep breaths, trying to soak in the discomfort she felt without draining her. The atmosphere of the car was bearable now so he didn't feel like he was going to puke anymore, thankfully. He wasn't totally sure he was capable of vomiting but he really did not want to find out.

When he finally felt like himself again, he said nonchalantly, "Okay, let's get going."

"You're sure? I don't want you to get sick."

"Just keep worrying about it and I won't."

Instead of questioning what that possibly could have meant, she handed her phone over to him to type his address into her gps app. He did and then they were on their way. She drove slowly and went easy on the turns for his benefit most likely. He kept his face close to the window and breathed as much fresh air as he could. He still wasn't comfortable, but it was getting easier as they continued their ride.

She saw him leaning away from her against the window. "Sorry if I came off as pushy earlier. I didn't think you could get carsick and it seemed wrong to let you sit in the rain when I could just drive you."

"It's fine."

"I meant what I said a few weeks ago. If I'm too much, tell me. I can back off."

It was a tempting offer. But … no. As much as his head ached and his stomach turned, he wasn't going to let one bout of "car sickness" get the better of him and this weird little friendship they were developing.

"Really, you're fine. I'm just … not used to having a work friend."

"That's a shame. You make a great lunch buddy."

He laughed weakly. They finally pulled up to his house.

Joan's eyes widened when she saw it. "This is your house?"

"Yup, that's mi casa."

She kept staring. He'd expected her to be a little impressed at its size, but instead she felt… dread. Fear, too. Her cheeks were flushed and her breathing quickened. There was a sense of urgency within her, but what she was so urgent to do, he couldn't puzzle out.

"Are you okay?"

She swallowed. "I'm fine." She wasn't. "It's just not what I was expecting. I imagined your house being a lot more understated. Not some giant, spooky Victorian mansion."

"It's Edwardian, actually."

"Sorry, a giant, spooky, Edwardian mansion."

"It's a lot less spooky on the inside." That wasn't true. If anything, it was spookier. Despite Guillermo's best efforts, dust and dried blood caked most of the walls and floors.

She didn't know that though, so he didn't understand where the hell her fear was coming from. She wasn't scared of Val, but she was scared of his house? It could maybe be classified as a little creepy, sure, especially in this weather, but she wasn't just uncomfortable. She was genuinely afraid.

He didn't like it. He didn't like how much his roommates' fear of the Baron plagued the house and he definitely didn't like the taste of her fear now. He rolled up his window and unlocked the passenger door, ready to leave. If he left now then she could go home. Hopefully the distance would make her feel like herself again and there wouldn't be any trace of fear when she came into work tomorrow.

"I think I'm gonna head inside now. Thanks for the ride."

"Of course. Anytime. See you tomorrow, Colin."

Despite how scared she was, he could tell she actually meant it. He stepped out of the car, opened his umbrella, and walked to his front door. He looked up at his house before he stepped inside. It wasn't really that scary, was it?

Guillermo was sweeping the foyer when he entered. He checked his watch. "You're home early."

"I got a ride."

Guillermo grinned. "Oh yeah? From who?" he asked.

"You know who," he groaned.

He'd told his roommates one day that he'd taken to having lunch with Joan. They were mostly apathetic to this development, but still vaguely supportive. Except for Laszlo, who'd assumed "having lunch" was just a euphemism for other activities and was immensely proud. Colin had initially tried correcting him but gave up when it became clear there was no convincing him that their relationship was strictly platonic. Colin tried savoring Laszlo's pride, anyway.

Colin walked past Guillermo, intending to go to his room to decompress before his roommates woke up, but he paused a moment.

"Guillermo, is this house scary to humans?"

He paused his sweeping. "Maybe kind of ominous but not scary. Why?"

He shrugged. "It's nothing, just thought I'd ask."

Guillermo could tell it was more than "nothing" but it wasn't his place to ask, so he didn't. Colin went to his room, sat on his bed, and stared at the wall for a while. He thought about what Joan's house might look like. Or apartment, since he didn't actually know what kind of place Joan lived in. He imagined she kept a lot of plants. She seemed the nurturing type. Maybe she even had a cat, one that looked like Chestnut. The walls were a warm cream color and the drapes were polka-dotted. She had a welcome mat in front of her door.

He looked at his gray walls, his filing cabinet, and the sterile mirror and sink in the corner. Sometimes he wondered what it'd be like to host a human here. How would Joan fit in? Even in his imagination she seemed out of place, too cheery for the dingy basement he lived in.

He laid down. His head still pulsed painfully. Despite how fearful and uncomfortable she'd been by the end of the ride, he was still reeling from being so surrounded by her glowing, excited emotions. She was like … well, she was like a lightbulb. An obnoxiously bright one. So bright she could light up a whole street on her own. And he was a lamplighter, and someday she was going to kill him.

Except no, because dying was a stupid thing humans like Charles Umbridge did because they couldn't adapt and he was better than that. He was going to come out of this stronger and more prepared for whatever Joan threw at him. He'd just gone through the worst of it and come out fine - nauseous and achy, but fine.

If I'm too much, tell me. I'll back off.

He didn't want her to back off. He liked his mug and their lunches and how she cared enough about his well being to drive him home, even though he didn't think even lightning could hurt him. As gross as her kindness was, not experiencing it was worse. He let out a shaky breath.

Maybe he wasn't a lamplighter at all. Maybe he was a moth.