Blessed by Night

"Alright, babe, time for a refresher! What is the first law of thermodynamics?"

"I know this has nothing to do with learning, but what do you think it's like to be inside a cartoon?"

"Babe!"

"Sorry, sorry. Energy can change forms but cannot be created or destroyed, entropy of an isolated system always increases and entropy of a system approaches a constant as temperature approaches absolute zero."

"That's my boy~!"

Currently, Malachi was sitting at an all black desk in the open practice room beside Bianca.

Over the past month that they had been here, Malachi had been receiving lessons to help him understand his power of absolute force manipulation.

Because the power relied on a fundamental understanding of the basic laws that make up reality, Bianca had been teaching Malachi physics for an entire month.

Malachi often joked that he was a psychology major because he was bad at every other subject, especially ones centered around math and sciences.

Now it no longer felt like a joke.

For lack of a better description, Bianca was a genius.

While he knew that before, now he was really getting to see it firsthand.

Every time that she cracked open the textbook to teach him some new information, he felt like his mind was going to explode by the end of their session.

He couldn't believe that she could actually grasp it all and rather firmly for that matter.

But the bright side was that he finally started to understand different concepts and he no longer had a constant headache at every waking hour of the day.

So far, he had only learned how to influence sound waves and small amounts of kinetic energy, leading to his third lesson of the course : thermodynamics.

But there was a problem.

Like any good teacher, Bianca was fully capable of recognizing when her student was feeling burned out.

So now, her challenge lie in finding a good way to motivate her boyfriend so that he was still learning efficiently.

And as of now, she believed that she might have found the way.

Bianca closed the book on the table and pulled out Malachi's chair just a bit.

She peeled off her jacket and placed it aside before she straddled him and wrapped her hands around his neck.

"What's this for, B?"

"I can tell you're feeling a bit exhausted from all of the nonstop tutoring so I wanted to make this lesson a little more personal. Are you alright with that?"

Bianca's voice was slightly raspy and soft, both of which were terribly alluring to Mal.

He didn't know what exactly this lesson was going to be like, but he was absolutely sure that he wasn't going to be bored.

"Of course I am... But this might make it a little bit harder for me to focus."

"Well let's try to keep this strictly educational for now, shall we?"

Bianca held out her hand and produced a small ball of orange flame that was more warm and inviting than smoldering.

"Just like we've been practicing, try to take control of it, hm? Even though I used my own abilities to ignite it, it still functions the same as a normal heat source. Show me something cool."

"Ha! I'll do my best."

Malachi stared hard at the flame dancing around in Biancas palm and focused on the signals he was receiving from it while keeping in mind everything that he had learned about heat and it's relation to energy so far.

First, he opted to funnel air more oxygen into the flame, making them bigger and a bit warmer too.

"You're doing good, babe... Keep going." Bianca encouraged softly.

Smiling slightly as he concentrated, Malachi mapped out a path for the flames to follow in the corners of the room where the air was the densest.

Like a serpent, the flames rose up towards the ceiling and wrapped around every corner until it looked like the room itself was on fire.

Bianca was clearly mesmerized, but Mal wasn't done yet.

He held out his hand to catch the row of flames that had been dispersed throughout the room, and started to absorb the heat from them.

Unsurprisingly, the flames disappeared not long afterwards with no more heat to keep them going.

Malachi placed the pads of his fingers across Bianca's lips and she shivered as she felt a wave of pleasant warmth travel to every corner of her body.

"I think I got the hang of it." He said pretty proudly.

"So do I.. Do you want your reward now or later?"

"What do you think?"

As Bianca brought her face closer to Malachi's, the door suddenly opened and Anna poked her head inside.

She didn't have any interest in physics either, but it wasn't uncommon for her to stop by and observe when Mal was testing his powers for the first time.

She just liked to see him doing cool stuff sometimes without sitting in for all of the extra lectures and stuff like that.

But when she saw Bianca sitting on top of Malachi and clearly about to kiss him, she thought that maybe she should come to observe these lessons more often.

"Hey, what are you guys doing?"

"Studying!"

"Very intimately."

Anna's eyes narrowed in suspicion and she entered the room fully before sitting on the desk and crossing her legs.

"Alright, tell me what kind of lesson could have led to this scenario."

Bianca's eyes immediately lit up.

"Thermodynamics! See, our boyfriend can use his powers to manipulate the energy produced by fire and heat sources for a wide range of-"

"Okay, okay I believe you!"

-

After his lesson was over, Mal sent Anna and Bianca up to their room before he scoured the house to find Nadine.

Unsurprisingly, he found her in the living room of the mansion; staring out the large glass window in the center of their home and drinking a cup of tea with blood mixed in.

A delicacy that had been generously donated by one of the girls.

"You actually came." She said, still trying to uphold her aloof and uninterested attitude from before.

"Don't tell me you thought I wouldn't?"

Malachi sat down beside her and raised a brow when she immediately scooted away from him.

"..." Stubbornly, he closed the distance between the two of them again.

"...!" With a growl, Nadine moved away once more before grabbing a random pillow and placing it between them like a wall.

"Nadine..."

"Hmph!"

Rolling his eyes, Malachi snatched the vampire up before she knew what was happening and pulled her into his lap.

He thought for a moment that he may have seen a happy smirk on her face, but it disappeared before he could confirm.

"...What's with the sudden affection...?"

"I owe you at least this much after you stuck by me like you have, don't I?"

"...Maybe."

Judging by how hard she was fighting to remain indifferent, Mal figured that she clearly did not dislike it.

Before he could figure out how to get the conversation underway, Nadine beat him to it.

"I need to know... Has everything that I've done to earn your attraction been in vain..? When you look at me, do you feel... anything?" She asked hollowly.

After hearing the normally always cheerful Nadine sound so fragile, Malachi finally realized just how much he'd been inadvertently hurting her.

He also didn't realize just how much he had grown attached to her usual personality and antics.

"When I look at you... I feel guilty." He finally said.