Kerr looked from Vincent to Owen also, noting the young blond's fierce blush.
"Fuck," Owen muttered beneath his breath - though of course it was heard by all of them - shooting Vincent an embarrassed glare for laughing at him. The bastard knew how much Digital had freaked him out! He felt the weight of the other two vampires' stares and was compelled to explain, directing it at Ben because he was the one who'd made the comment.
"Ignore him," he began, sounding rather disgusted by Vincent's good humour, "he thinks it's funny that Digital called me that when I left him and stayed in the abandoned Oligarchy Chambers for a while. In your building, downstairs. He called me Turkish Delight because he somehow knew I'd been to Turkey and, uh, fooled around with a Turkish prince. Turkish prince vampire, I guess. He's so freaky - Digital, that is, not Sabri. It gives me the creeps how he just knows stuff," Owen made a show of shuddering and rubbing his arms, as if they were coated in goosebumps.
"I dunno' how you guys work so closely with him. Don't his insane predictions make you nervous?" he asked, well aware what a vital role Digital played in the maintenance of the Academy and Ben and Kerr's Luminary businesses. He knew he couldn't do it, if asked, and he was glad that security and I.T. had managed to stay apart most of the time - or, rather, that he'd managed to delegate other security members to work alongside Digital when it was necessary their departments collude. Sam had always run pretty good interference, too. Owen thought he was sleeping with Digital but that was neither here nor there.
Kerr gave a wry smile and answered, even though Owen had spoken to Ben. "Well, once I got past the fact that he murdered my sire and fledgelings because he predicted that they would cause desperate trouble for Ben and I in the future, working closely with him was pretty easy."
Owen's jaw dropped at the very calm way Kerr had spoken, though he sounded anything but when he replied. "He murdered your sire and fledgelings?" Owen screeched his disbelief.
Kerr nodded.
"How many fledgelings?!"
"Well, that's an interesting question, and not an easy one to answer," Kerr laughed affably. He grinned at Owen's baffled look - mirrored on his sire's face. "You'd say two, though they were conjoined twins so, sort of one as well. They were Sawyl's - my younger sire's - biological mothers. Well, one of them was," Kerr pulled a face, chuckled again and shook his head dismissively. "It doesn't matter. The point is, Digital set fire to my house with the three of them in it and killed them - plus destroyed a lot of my priceless antiques, including the most beautiful royal tapestry. Ugh. All because of a vision he had, that he was never able to fully explain."
"And you forgave him?" Owen asked in wonder.
Kerr shrugged. "It took me a while but, after I lost eighteen months in eighteen minutes, it sort of threw what was important into better perspective. My family was gone, nothing was going to bring them back and Digital was desperately sorry. His voices just got the better of him, he hadn't meant to hurt me. And the world really is a better place without them," Kerr conceded with another chuckle and a shrug, glancing down at his fingers as they traced a smoothing line along his unused napkin compulsively. He looked up at Owen. "Count yourself lucky you got away with a cute nickname," he winked.
Owen blinked owlishly at him as he gave a bewildered nod and then looked at Vincent. What the fuck was he supposed to say to that? It wasn't funny. He felt completely out of his depth that Kerr would trump his discomfort with the world's most awkward death anecdote and turn it into something he should be grateful about.