A veritable deluge of affirmation spilled forth from his young companion. Paired with the expressions she'd worked through before covering her face, they did little to convince him this was going to fall out in his favor.
While giving every indication of patiently awaiting her full response, he began contemplating contingencies for the next several seconds and beyond. If this proved too much, a mistake on his part, it might be remedied by a quick suggestion. Erasing the last ten minutes of conversation could provide a convenient reset. It was hardly unprecedented, bordering on standard practice even. But, oh...
It would be dreadfully dispiriting. There was something... platonically romantic in the idea he needn't unduly adjust her perceptions. In this unexpected and oft entertaining odd couple dynamic they'd jointly bumbled into. What an unbearable loss if it were reduced to just another one-sided, manufactured, briefly amusing blip in the span of his years.
Undeniably he took some sense of pride in being, hmm, less wholeheartedly predacious than seemed the norm for his kind. Something thrown into stark relief by her myriad tales of what accostings her living friends endured. No, both for his sake and hers, if this could not survive as it was, as it had grown to be, better to let it die.
Which left him considering how very little tethered him to this region after all. He claimed no membership in any branch of vampiric society, and had found less to like than he'd expected in the local undead. What a bewildering realization to have in the moment.
But, at least for the moment, such dire eventualities needed no deeper contemplation. Thin brows arching lightly, he mirrored her painfully deliberate smile. "Indubitably," he murmured back, more out of hope for some dually amusing callback than anything.
Resuming the direction and languid pace, he wasn't quite sure where to take the conversation. "I haven't any, hmm, specific indictments to clarify, I suppose. I simply..." He'd not prepared for this conversation at all. Pity.
"In light of your recent experiences, I should very much like you to understand... Well, me. In the context of vampires as they stand. I'm afraid that, with both power and the inevitable, oh, sentimental distancing from humanity you might call it, the capacity for empathy tends to atrophy." Billy shook his head, frowning once more. "This is why such behavior as you've described is commonplace. The living are regarded as prey and playthings. I don't mean to justify this view and abhorrent behavior, or get you to sympathize with it; I offer explanation rather than excuse."
He really was trying for brevity, but it was such a complex issue to describe, to feel as though he was adequately expressing. Even now he resisted the urge to go back and clarify certain word choices. "And, I think that I was brought up in, hmm, a subculture that avoided the worst of that. Heavy investiture in the arts, performing particularly, requires a level of emotional presence that keeps the empathy muscles vigorous."
Oh, he did so wish there were deep psychological studies on the impacts of immortality on the mind. As it stood he was left with, "This is only my theory, you understand, but I can say conclusively I have no desire to be a monster."
Perhaps if he'd been more plugged into pop culture and social media, Billy'd have understood how much he tread upon the ground of "not all vampires." Alas, this was a fellow who had only in the last year or so discovered "yolo" and thought it the bleeding edge of slang.