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[mdjonah]

[mdjonah]

alchemistowen‌:

Owen hadn’t felt such an instant connection since he had first run into Nyx. What a wild thought. Perhaps familiars came in the form of people now, the next evolution of magic. The last few years, he had been getting…restless. He’d always been a little boring from an outsider’s perspective, but his life had still been fulfilling. Now when he saw couples in the park, he didn’t feel above it. He felt an ache of longing. And here, in an unkind place, was a spark. “I like helping people. I like doing good. I like feeling like I can cancel out a little of the awful in the world,” he explained, so his weird offer didn’t feel like it came out of nowhere. “If you stop feeding from patients, or at least try. Then I could try. Letting you. Feed from me. If you wanted. I mean if that was something that would. That you’d want.” The words came in short burst, little pauses as he tried to figure out how to phrase it in a way that didn’t make it sound like he was just trying to be a good Samaritan, taking a bullet for people he didn’t even know. He was pretty sure he failed. “You don’t have to. I just want to help you, in any way I can. I think the good in you is worth protecting. I’ve seen how fast slipping can turn into a very dark path.” It had taken most of his family, after all. Dark magic was as alluring as fully giving in to the darker side of the vampiric nature.

Owen groaned, ducking his head when Jonah asked what he had been looking for. “Don’t make me say it out loud,” he begged, his head falling forward briefly to rest on the taller man’s chest. “Ummm. Technically. The-holy-grail.” He blurted the words out quickly, with a chuckle. Or something with similar capabilities, rumored from translated Mayan texts to be located within and guarded by magic. Just a whole lot of traps. Three people almost died. It was foolish.” There had been a lot of that, chasing treasure, so desperate to find things that had never been found before. “It’s ridiculous. Witches, we get this entire other level of abilities that ordinary humans could never dream of. And it’s never enough. Half of my paycheck is for research into theoretical magic: to find new things. To find bigger and better magic. Like this isn’t enough. We’re never satisfied. Just once, I’d like to be able to say this. This is enough.”

Like clay, he had slowly warmed under Jonah’s touch all night, fitting to the shape of him and he answered finally without even thinking. “I’m an alchemist. Metal is the easiest to change, takes almost no effort. So if you ever need a stash of gold to fund something, I’m your guy. It makes brewing easier, too. Just add whatever,” he shrugged, since he could turn that into most of the liquid ingredients called for in brewing. “There are laws. It gets tricky, close to physics sometimes. Mass just has to stay the same.”

A soft gasp escaped him when Jonah grabbed his hand, the movement too fast for his eyes to even track. Such strange waters, getting used to a vampire. He knew he had been harsh, that his sudden anger and protectiveness had soured whatever moment had just happened, the perfect kiss to end a night he had really enjoyed, but he couldn’t help it. Yet Jonah wasn’t turning away. Instead he was drawing the witch closer, cupping his face, kissing him softly. At the command to unclench, he surprisingly did, relaxing under his touch as his brow unfurrowed. “I’m sorry. It’s just… you’re so young. There are so many ways you could get killed here. My family being one of them. I’d never forgive myself.”

Jonah had said a lot of things and he was suddenly confused as to what Owen was remarking on. But Owen was confusing, at least so far, and that was something that Jonah found oddly appealing. Most people were easy to figure out fairly quickly, but Owen was constantly surprising him in unexpected ways. He almost expected to be chastised for admitting to feeding on people when Owen talked about always trying to do the right thing, trying to balance out the evil in the world - especially considering Jonah was very much that evil. The stilted offer for feeding caught him off guard and while the offer itself was surprising, he found that he was more interested in the way it was presented. How did Owen manage to pass off everything he said as so damn charming? He felt his fangs start to press forward at the thought of feeding from him and he took a deep breath to try to center himself. The idea of feeding from Owen was incredible, but he wasn’t sure Owen knew the levels to which it was. Feeding from someone who was actually offering was a sexual, sensual experience, much different from the experience of just needing food and having a source. “I think you need to be really sure about that before you offer it,” he said. Not that he thought Owen wouldn’t have thought an offer like that out, but it was a lot to offer to someone he’d literally just met. 

God, Jonah wanted to taste Owen more than anything else. He wanted the other man beneath him, submissive to him. Wanted to taste and take and take care of. His entire body ached with his need for Owen and it was taking every ounce of the control he’d learned to have to not act on it. He laughed softly at the answer to what Owen had been looking for. “Like Monty Python?” he couldn’t help but ask. Surely the Holy Grail wasn’t a real thing, but if Owen had been looking for it...maybe it was. “Did you ever find it?” he asked curiously. His nose crinkled softly at the part about Witches always searching for more, never having had that drive being described.  “What’s enough for you, Owen? What would satisfy you?” he asked curiously. The other had made it clear that he wasn’t satisfied and Jonah couldn’t help but wonder what was missing from a life of knowledge and magic. Jonah had never felt particularly satisfied in life, but that lack of completeness had never really bothered him either. Being satisfied with immortality seemed like a big ask anyway. 

“Who couldn’t use some gold?” he asked, warming slightly at the thought of Owen being an alchemist. It wasn’t the most exciting of magic, but it fit Owen somehow. Jonah could always use extra money, but he wasn’t going to use a witch for it. “People must flock to you once they find out what you do,” he commented. People were selfish and wanted to be well off and Owen offered that. And as tempting as it was to want to ask for some gold, Owen was more than his abilities. “I was shit at Physics in school,” he admitted. It had been a mandatory class for applying to medical schools and it had almost cost him his career. Physics and magic together just seemed like a nightmare combo. 

“Don’t be sorry,” he said softly when the other apologized. His sudden anger had been surprising, but not out of nowhere. “I’m older than you,” he pointed out when Owen said he was young, though he knew what he meant. For a vampire, he was definitely on the young side of things, but that didn’t mean he was an idiot. “Trust me, I know how dangerous your kind can be. I won’t do anything stupid,” he promised. He wasn’t there to make enemies - he just wanted to be around Owen. He didn’t mean any harm, not at that moment anyway. “And if your people do kill me, that’s not on you.” Unless Owen gave the killing order, it wouldn’t be his fault. Shit  happened, especially in the world of the supernatural, and he didn’t want Owen blaming himself for anything that he wasn’t a part of. “Also this is really morbid talk when all I want to do is keep kissing you,” he added on. 

[mdjonah]

alchemistowen‌:

Owen watched in pure fascination as Jonah dragged cold fingers over his pulse point, as if he were trying to make his heartbeat race. He kept his breathing even, treating it as a meditative exercise, as though he was about to do complex magic, and soon his heart found a steady rhythm again. Not that he really minded giving Jonah the satisfaction, but it was good to know he still had a loose grasp on control. His brow furrowed, shaking his head at the comment, unable to just accept a good thing as it passed by without also commenting on it. Witches weren’t given a supernatural edge, and Owen had never considered himself very aesthetically pleasing. As he got older, it was a thing he cared less about. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Humans don’t really stand a chance, do they?” It wasn’t said maliciously, but with a casual reverence to the wonder of nature, the same way he would talk about the colors of a poisonous flower.

“Of course it’s a thing,” he shrugged, repeating back his words from earlier. At the mention of pinning him to the bar, something less innocent stirred in his gut, dark and hungry. Why couldn’t he be wired like everyone else in the city? It would feel so good to let a strange vampire come back to the Academy and pin him to a bookshelf. He had tried to play his question cool, but he could tell by the careful selection of words that he hadn’t done a very good job. His intitial judgement, his attempts to brush Jonah off….would they ever be forgotten. Guilt rose up at the back of his throat again. Unconsciously, or perhaps to distract and get a more honest answer, he pressed a kiss to the corner of Jonah’s mouth in reassurance. “I think trying at all is noble. Any way you can manage. It doesn’t seem to be just to get closer to blood, and that’s kind of a common move for your kind, from what I’ve heard. How often do you need to feed?” If it was daily, or three times a day like a human needed to eat, it seemed impossible to stay on top of. “Is your diet exclusively human?” There was fake blood from Takedo, but he had chosen his words very carefully. There was witch blood too.

He shook his head, trying to explain a little better. “Maybe not like you’re picturing. Definitely not Atlantis, not a city that just off and sank down into the water. It was a very small underground city, used mostly for ceremonial things, and the sea levels rose over the years and gradually flooded it. The ocean took it back, basically.” Explaining why he had gone to all those dangerous places seemed so foolish now. Like so many alchemists, he and a team had searched for years for some non vampiric way to extend life. It was only three years, but he had wanted them back so bitterly that he had let it consume him.

Jonah’s bond with his sire sounded like an old wound not healed over, left to rot. For now, he put away his questions. “Elemental magic seems to have an ancestral link, no one knows why. A little bit for telekinesis too. Everything else seems random as other personality traits.” The vampire hadn’t asked what kind of magic he did, so Owen didn’t offer it up. Once people found out, it sometimes tapped into something dark inside of them. If his energy stores were high, it meant unlimited access to money in the form of gold. At least that was all uncreative minds could picture.

Outside in the unseasonably warm air, Jonah’s hands on his face felt perfect. He tried to take a preparatory breath, but how did one prepare for the intensity of such a kiss? It was a desperate press of skin, movements that felt as natural as breathing as Jonah pushed into his space, moving and taking and leaving Owen utterly ruined. His eyes were a little unfocused when the vampire finally pulled backed. “Sorry,” was the first word he muttered, sheepish, when he glanced down and realized the bit of accidental magic he had done. The metals of antiquity took no effort for him to change between, and what once was a silver ring on Jonah’s hand shone bright copper. He covered the band from view with his hand, then dropped away and it was back to normal. Jonah’s words finally registered, and something akin to anger tightened inside Owen. Or maybe it was closer to protective instincts. “Do not try to track me down. Understand?” He knew he was being a little patronizing, but the idea of Jonah showing up snooping around the Academy and getting himself killed was unacceptable. “There are witches that dedicate their whole lives to killing vampires. Promise me you’ll never try to find me. I’ll come to you.” Not wanting to end the night on such a paranoid and sour note, Owen stood on tiptoes again, pressing a lingering kiss to Jonah’s mouth. “This is the very edge of witch territory. Go left, you’ll be fine.”

He smirked when his touch didn’t seem to have any effect on Owen’s pulse and heartbeat and he wondered if it was because Owen was trying hard to stay in control or if Jonah just didn’t have an effect on him. Given everything else that night, however, he knew it wasn’t the latter. “Is that what we’re doing? Throwing compliments back and forth until we die?” he couldn’t help but ask with a soft laugh when Owen turned the attention back onto him. “I have what I am on my side to make me look like this. You, though? That’s all you,” he said. Not that Jonah had been an ugly human - he’d always been on the more attractive side of things, but vampires got a special edge - biology was a wonderful thing and because of it, his kind were prettier than any human could be, but only to help them hunt, to bring in prey. But Owen was just....gorgeous. Maybe not a classically sort of handsome, but Jonah found that he liked this more. 

“Maybe it’s less of a librarian kink for more and more of a....you kink,” Jonah shrugged. He hadn’t even looked at who had been next to him when he’d offered the shot, so looks and outfits had had very little to do with it all.

 He waited nervously to see exactly where his words landed about his eating habits at the hospital, needing to know if he’d already admitted to too much or not before saying anything more. This was still new and Owen could paint Jonah as a monster within a manner of seconds if Jonah said the wrong thing. He smiled softly at the sudden and warm kiss to the corner of his mouth, relaxing slightly at that reaction. Much better than a glare or a slap or a storm out. “I usually eat once a day. Sometimes I can skip a day but my control starts to slip if I do,” he answered honestly. “I’ve worked hard to get myself under control, but I’m still young. And it’s....hard.” Nature versus nurture and all that crap. He could train himself to be a certain way all he wanted, but sometimes, his nature took over without his permission and that was just something he’d accepted. It wasn’t like he felt that guilty when it happened - a lion didn’t feel guilt over killing a gazelle to survive - but part of him hated that he didn’t feel guilty and if he didn’t try to push back at least a little, it would be a quick downward slope into giving into the monster completely. “Yes. The fake stuff is fine in an emergency but it doesn’t keep you full for long. Never forced myself to try animal blood.” And then there were witches but he’d never let himself get close enough to one to try it. Seemed problematic to try to feed from someone who could kill you without putting forth much effort. 

Jonah was a little disappointed to find out this underwater city wasn’t like Atlantis, but it wasn’t like he was really invested in the idea anyway. “What were you looking for?” he asked curiously. He had this sudden image of Owen as Indiana Jones and he had to stop himself from laughing at the absurdity and strange hotness of the mental image of Owen in an outfit like that. Though the leather might have been nice. 

Jonah nodded when Owen explained where the different magical talents did or didn’t come from. Jonah hadn’t even known until fairly recently that witches had specializations, similar to doctors, rather than being able to just do everything like the ones in Harry Potter could. And he realized, not for the first time in his life, that he really needed to stop trying to compare the real world to fiction because it rarely matched up. “What kind of magic do you do?” he finally asked, wondering if Owen would even tell him. He seemed fairly secretive and less willing to expand on things when it came to magic and there was a chance that Owen didn’t trust him enough yet to tell him what kind of magic he did. What if it was something useful that other creatures had tried to use him for? Jonah didn’t want Owen thinking that was his intent so he quickly added on, “You don’t have to tell me, obviously, if you don’t want.” There was no pressure and Jonah wanted Owen to make sure he knew that he wasn’t just trying to use him for the magic he could offer. Hopefully it was something boring anyway, something Jonah would never actually have a use for. 

The kiss was everything that Jonah could have wanted in that moment. Although, the more the warmth of Owen was pressed against him, the further Jonah wanted to keep pushing, keep taking. He blinked, a little dazed, a little confused, when the first thing Owen said once they broke for air was ‘sorry’, but he looked down at where Owen was focused, letting out a soft laugh at the sudden change in his ring. He watched as Owen’s hands covered his own and then pulled away, his ring normal. But Jonah reached forward inhumanly quickly to grab Owen’s hand, not wanting to have to let go just yet. Though, he was taken aback at the sudden anger thrown his direction. He was shocked, at first. He couldn’t help but wonder when Owen would decide to just trust him, but after a moment, he left out a soft laugh before reaching up with both hands to cup Owen’s face, pulling him in for a soft kiss. “Unclench,” he said when he pulled back just barely, his lips still brushing over Owen’s as they moved. “It was a joke. If I did get desperate enough, I’d try to find you out in public. I wouldn’t just show up to wherever it is you live, I promise.” Jonah wasn’t an idiot - a witch had been the one who killed his Sire. And that fear aside, he wanted Owen to want to spend time with him - stalking him to his safe space wasn’t the best idea for that. 

[mdjonah]

[mdjonah]

wiccapediaowen‌:

Owen was used to a lot of academic and theoretical magic, testing the limits of what it was and using it to strengthen young witches. Magic during his daily life always had a purpose. It was good to be reminded that sometimes magic could just be….nice. It could be hedonistic and warm and fun. Obviously a daylight ring would be practical and serve the very real purpose of protection, but the end goal was to feel the sun and something about that was so pure and simple that it stole the air out of his lungs. There was so much humanity left to protect in Jonah. Many witches were happy to destroy other species and build defenses against them, and Owen had done plenty of the latter. But why had he never focused more on this part? Protecting the goodness before immortality burned it away for good. He sensed that it would take more work than getting the vampire tipsy and letting himself be kissed under streetlights in a dangerous city. You should have let me leave when you had the chance. I’ll keep tabs on you until the end of time now. “I’m offering. But it will take time. Be patient with me.” Because he had changed his mind already - there was no way he was outsourcing this job. He’d just have to do the research and do the magic himself. It was a skill he should already have mastered, he just didn’t interact with enough vampires to ever practice, and he didn’t need to worry about selling the expensive items for money when he could make literal gold out of most of the base metals. This wasn’t a task he could trust anyone else with anymore. “I want to be there, the first time you use it. In case the enchantment goes wrong. Amongst other reasons.”

Jonah turned his palm to link their fingers and Owen was entranced by the sight. Such a simple and intimate romantic thing, yet something he never indulged in. And nothing he would have expected from someone he assumed was looking for a hookup in a bar. Who went from seeking a nameless fuck to looking for excuses to hold hands? He had severely misjudged Jonah. That or Owen was just an easy mark. He wanted to rip the doubts out of his head and full on commit to trusting him, but he didn’t really know how. The witch had told him too much about magic, promised him something worth a small fortune, and almost let him come close to the Academy. “Stop,” he groaned, half teasing and half serious as his looked up at the ceiling to get himself under control. What was he supposed to do? Jonah had just told him he could hear his heartbeat, the very thing that kept him alive, and it was so shockingly personal that his heart stuttered in its rhythm. Not to mention he kept dropping the word sexy around like it applied, like it wasn’t out of place.

“It’s complicated,” he shrugged off the question about why he left the leak where it was. Unless Jonah wanted a lecture on the properties of rain water versus naturally occurring groundwater versus water in constant motion through metal man made pipes. There was no middle ground for him, it was all or nothing. It wasn’t like he just had a metal bucket shoved under there either - now it had turned more into a small pond in the floor he had to figure out magical drainage for. He blinked blankly at Jonah when he painted a pretty accurate picture of Owen in wool in front of a fire when it rained, curled up with a book. ““Forget vampire kinks, I think you might have a librarian kink. That initial drink makes so much more sense now. What would have happened if I had worn a sweater with elbow pads?” Now it was his turn to study, to judge Jonah based on what he did when it rained. He loved the smell too, all versions of it. “Petrichor. It’s one of my favorite words. The smell of the earth when it rains after a long time of warm dry weather.” The thought of Jonah at work was equally endearing, helping those that lost control of their cars in the rain. A dark thought crossed him, and he asked the question as casually as possible in the hopes of getting the real answer. If Jonah was attacking patients, he didn’t know how he’d handle it. “Does your control ever slip around patients? Being around all that blood must be hard.”

“There was this underwater Mayan city, once. I barely got to go in, I was there more for historical references and emergency backup in case anything was booby trapped with protection spells. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Most beautiful place he’d ever seen, he mentally corrected as he watched Jonah talk about his sire. Fuck, he was pretty. It must be a vampire thing, something about the transformation that made people more attractive so hunting was easier. “So it’s a chemical thing? That bond. I’ve heard of it, but I didn’t realize how strong it was. To block out hate like that.” Owen shrugged. He was revealing too much about magic. He was putting other witches at risk because he missed being looked at the way Jonah was looking at him. Owen tried to keep it as brief as possible. “You choose what you want to study, but every witch has a primary strength and a secondary. Some have a third or a fourth natural talent. You can improve in any area of magic with time and practice, though.”

His hands flew to his lips when he was back in his seat, the same feeling tingly feeling there that he got in his fingertips when he did any sort of casting. Owen shook his head, endlessly amused by how eager Jonah was to walk him in the direction of the Academy. He was ready to turn him down - and then a hand was being offered up, the perfect mirror image to what he had done earlier. Do you trust him? It was such a small moment, thoroughly unimportant to an outsider, but he knew he had come to an internal breaking point. All in or all out. “Okay.” His hand slipped in Jonah’s, using the leverage to get up from the small table. The night air felt good on his flushed skin when they made it outside. He linked arms, steering them both in the right direction. His whole body was tense with anticipation by the time they made it to the end of the block, turning to face Jonah with his heart beating out of his chest. “I have to go. For real this time. Be safe, okay? Don’t hang around witch territory too long.”

If Jonah had had a heart that actually, truly, worked, it would have skipped a half dozen beats when Owen said that he was offering to make the ring, like that was some small thing to offer instead of the literal life changing thing it actually was. He’d never been more thankful that Owen couldn’t hear Jonah’s heart like Jonah could hear Owen’s. “I can be patient. I have all the time in the world,” he practically breathed out, afraid if he was too loud, it might ruin the moment and make Owen change his mind. “Besides, that just means I get to see you for longer and that’s more than a win in my book,” he admitted. If Owen was promising this huge thing, it meant he wasn’t going to just up and ghost Jonah. The longer it took, the more time Jonah could try to spend with the nerdy witch and that was almost as exciting as the thought of getting the sun back. Almost.  But to be fair, the sun had had longer to win Jonah over, it had had longer for Jonah to pine after it. He smiled softly when Owen said he wanted to be there the first time he used the ring, not doubting for a second that Owen was interested to make sure the thing worked, but also glad he backed up Jonah’s suspicion that maybe it was about a little more than that. “You can do or have whatever you want if you can make me that ring,” he said honestly. That was the sort of thing Jonah would never truly be able to repay him for. 

Jonah had never really been much of a handholder. It was such a weirdly intimate gesture and he’d never really seen the appeal of it. But now he couldn’t stop from wondering why he hadn’t tried it earlier. It felt amazing and warm and sensual - but maybe that was less about holding hands and more about it being Owen that he was holding hands with. He couldn’t help but grin at the groaned ‘stop’ from Owen and the sudden falter in his heartbeat. It was nice, being able to hear the effect he had on the other considering how cool he seemed to try to stay on the outside. He unlinked their fingers so that he could drag the tips of his own along the pulse point of Owen’s wrist, the rushing warmth of the flowing blood warming his own touch. This hadn’t been what he’d sought out for the evening, but this sudden connection he felt to this man was better than anything he could have hoped for for the evening. Even if things didn’t pan out, if Owen got home and decided a vampire wasn’t his style, at least Jonah had realized that maybe this was something he wanted, that not every connection had to be forged in death and control and abuse and blood. “Is it the magic? I thought only vampires got to be this supernaturally pretty,” he couldn’t help but muse. 

“A librarian kink? Is that even a thing?” he couldn’t help but ask with a laugh. “Oh, baby, I’d have had you pinned to the bar,” he teased playfully at the mention of elbow pads, moaning softly. He was joking, of course. He was pretty sure he’d never found elbow pads sexy, but there was a very good chance that Owen would be the one person on the planet who could pull the look off. It wasn’t really Jonah’s type, this whole bossy nerd vibe that Owen had going on, but that was one of the things that made all of this so much interesting. It wouldn’t have taken much to pick up some handsome human at the bar, but this? This was so much more fun and rewarding. There was a time and place for  cheap and fast to satisfy a surface itch, but this? This was satisfying something deep and visceral that Jonah hadn’t even realized was there.  He paused, thinking over the question about losing control with patients, knowing the answer Owen wanted, knowing the truth, and wondering how to satisfy both of those things. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I like a challenge,” he commented. Of course being constantly surrounded by blood wasn’t easy, but he’d worked hard to control himself, to get a system going. “Even the most noble of Physicians loses patients,” he added on. It was an Emergency Room, people died all the time. But he suspected that answer wasn’t going to be enough for Owen and instead of leaving blanks for Owen to incorrectly fill in himself, he expanded. “I’m better at keeping control than I used to be. I chose Emergency Medicine because if an extra liter of blood goes missing, no one’s going to measure what’s on the floor to make sure it adds up. It’s been a long time since I’ve lost control enough that I’ve killed someone. And when it does happen, I always have the bags ready for a transfusion. Bagged blood is easier for their body to use than it is for mine,” he said, keeping his voice low so that no one else could overhear what he was saying. He hoped there was enough white in the grey area that Jonah had just presented that Owen didn’t write him off instantly. 

“An underwater city?” he repeated. “I thought those were only in movies,” he added on, thinking about things like Atlantis that only existed in fantasies and stories. But here was Owen, saying he’d actually been to one. “I can’t imagine the things you must have seen in the world. Can’t believe you choose to set roots in this place.” It wasn’t like this city had anything going for it, not like some underwater city or historical ruin would. “I guess,” he shrugged when Owen asked if the bond with his Sire was a chemical thing. Jonah didn’t really know the mechanism through which it happened, and he didn’t care enough to look into it. “It doesn’t block out the hate, though. The two things both take up residence, constantly at war. It’s hell,” he corrected. To have to stay with the person who killed you, who stole everything from you, was one thing. To then be forced to care deeply for them? It was a new kind of hell, one that had made Jonah wish for actual hell on more than one occasion. But any suicide attempts he’d made had quickly been thwarted by his sire - fucking bond. Jonah nodded when Owen gave a little more detail about how magic and the specialities worked and he wondered what Owen had chosen for himself and where his natural talents fell. “Are the more natural talents passed down through families?” he asked, suddenly desperately curious as to how genetics worked and were altered when magic was involved. 

He held his hand out for the other and while he waited nervously to be turned down again, it reminded him of a scene from a Disney movie. Out of the two of them, Jonah was definitely the street rat to Owen’s independent Princess and he couldn’t help but smile softly at the thought. Idiot. He let out a breath he hadn’t needed to hold or even take when Owen finally agreed and took Jonah’s hand and the other eagerly walked with him out towards the street, though he was sure to take his time with it. He only had until the end of the street and he didn’t want to rush getting there. But it came too soon and as Owen turned to face him, Jonah’s hands reached up to grasp Owen’s face before pulling him in for an almost desperate kiss. If holding Owen’s hand made Jonah feel warm, his lips sliding against the other practically set him on fire and he pushed in closer, wanting to absorb as much of this moment as inhumanly possible. When he finally did pull back, he was grinning like an idiot. He’d never had much of a poker face. “Promise I’m going to see you again? Without me having to track you down,” he said, hoping that Owen wasn’t going to go home and somehow talk himself out of wanting to see Jonah. If it happened, Jonah could find him easily enough, but he wanted this to be something Owen wanted too.