"I'm just stating facts." Simon's mouth twitched, and Charlie realized with shock that he was fighting not to laugh.
"This isn't funny!"
"It's a little funny." Simon reached out, and Charlie thought he was going to touch the tail, which would have beenmortifying, but instead his fingers found Charlie's wrist, pulling his hands away from their futile hiding attempt. "Stop that. You're making it worse."
"How could this possibly get worse?" Charlie could feel the tail twitching with his agitation, completely outside his control. "I'm a vampire with a prey animal form who just sprouted a tail because someone kissed me. I'm like the universe's idea of a joke."
"You're not a joke." Simon's voice went serious again, thumb brushing over Charlie's pulse point. "You're just... unprecedented."
"That's a nice way of saying 'weird.'"
"I don't do nice." Simon tugged him closer, and Charlie went despite the humiliation of the tail situation. "I mean what I say. You're unprecedented. Do you think there's any other vampire who literally couldn't hurt people? Who apologizes to doors? Who gets stuck in rabbit form because they can only think rabbit thoughts?"
"Those aren't good things!"
"They'reyouthings." Simon's other hand came up to Charlie's face, tilting his chin up. "And I happen to find them just as adorable as I find them exasperating."
Charlie's breath caught. The tail gave an involuntary twitch of what might have been happiness, which was so mortifying he wanted to sink through the floor.
"It moved," Simon observed.
"Please don't narrate my tail movements."
"It's responding to your emotions."
"Simon, I'm begging you?—"
Simon grinned. "Maybe I like it when you beg."
Charlie's brain short-circuited and his tail, his traitorous, horrible tail, twitched so hard it was basically wagging.
"I—you can't just—" Words failed him completely. His face felt like it was on fire, and he was pretty sure vampires weren't supposed to blush this much. Or at all. "That's not fair."
"Fair?" Simon's thumb traced along Charlie's jaw, and his grin shifted into something darker, more dangerous. "Nothing about this is fair. You think it's fair that you exist? That you're everything I was taught was impossible?"
Charlie couldn't look away from Simon's eyes. "I don't mean to be impossible."
"I know." Simon's voice dropped lower. "That makes it worse."
Viktor's bedroom door opened.
"Are you two done having your moment, or…" Viktor stopped, taking in the scene. Charlie on the floor with a rabbit tail. Simon's hands on his face. The general atmosphere of tension thick enough to cut. "Oh my God, is that a tail?"
Charlie wanted to die. Fully die. Not vampire die, but actually cease existing.
"It just happened!" he protested, trying to twist away from Simon to hide the tail again, but Simon's grip kept him in place.
"That's incredible." Viktor sounded genuinely delighted. "It takes most vampires years of practice to partially shift."
"Can we stop talking about this?" Charlie pleaded.
Viktor laughed. "Oh, I'm not nearly done talking about it." He circled Charlie. "Can you control it? Make it go away?"
Charlie closed his eyes, face scrunched in concentration. The tail remained stubbornly present. "This is a nightmare."
A buzzing noise made him open his eyes again. Simon's phone.
Simon seemed to ignore it, but Charlie felt him tense, his fingers tightening almost imperceptibly Charlie's wrist.
