(no subject)

[takecourage]

She's danced on her own tonight but now she's ready to go again and, this time, it's going to be her and Kavinsky together. When they've done this before they've cleaned up and Alex doesn't expect this to be any exception. They're starting to ramp up the content of the dances, starting to play a little bit more to the crowd and Alex is finding that she enjoys that. It makes her feel so deeply in control when she sees the way men look at her right before they throw their money at her.

She preens a little in a mirror backstage, fluffing her hair, adjusting the ties of her top, the flare of her skirt over fishnets and tall, tall boots. Her tits are riding high in a bandeau bikini top and she's got her g-string under her panties. She's ready to go.

Comments

[mitsubishievo]

"Christ, is it that kind of a night?" he laughed. He was never really a fan of being that kind of person on stage, that shitty guy he'd been back in Henrietta. He was good at it, and they both knew he was never going to cross any lines, but that didn't make him like it any more.

"I was thinking," he said, and pulled out his phone to show her the music he had queued, to give her something to pick. "Of all the stage slaps and hair pulling we could probably get up to, you know?"

[takecourage]

"It might be that kind of a night," she says, thumbing through his playlist and picking a song. "But at least they've been to the ATM. What kind of scene are you thinking?"

[mitsubishievo]

"I mean, besides shoving you around and pulling on your hair and tearing all your clothes off?" He was going to need to channel some serious Skov for something like this, but even a couple years distant from the other boy, he knew he could pull it off. Especially with someone that he was pretty sure could kick his ass, and wouldn't have a single problem with it either.

"I can definitely get you some vertical movement too, make sure you get on the pole some more." He thought about it for a second. "Think they'd holler if I pulled you off the pole? And I mean, some fake fucking, by the end of the set."

As he spoke, he was changing out of his street clothes into something he could strip out of a little more easily. Almost everything was different except for the easy, flimsy shirt.

[takecourage]

"Sounds good to me," says Alex, leaning in to the mirror to fix her makeup. "I don't think they'd holler. I could start on the pole and you could pull me off and we could go from there?" She glances at him. "You can strip me down to my g string and I can get Van Nuys on your ass and fight you on it a little?"

[mitsubishievo]

Her calling it Van Nuys made him snort--he would have called it Shore, himself, but it just showed where they were from, more than anything else, and definitely colored how they were thinking about it the same way.

"Just don't give me a real black eye," he said. "Newt'll kick my ass."

He shrugged his jacket back on. The outfit for stripping didn't look a whole lot different than what he'd come in wearing, but different enough. Tighter, more vulgar, more suggestive. And, except for the jacket, easy to tear away from his body. That was part of the fun. Him pulling hers off, her physically tearing his. It was great fun for the both of them.

"C'mon," he said. "You pick something? Let's get out there before they cool off."

[takecourage]

Alex hands him his phone back, a track selected and combs her fingers through her hair, hikes her tits a little bit higher in her top and then gives his ass a smart slap before she grins and walks past him out onto the stage. A moment later a filthy beat kicks in and Alex makes her way to the pole, wrapping herself around it, grinding her hips in time to the music as she waits for him to come up behind her

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky gave it a couple beats before he made his way out behind her, to the stage they rented for their shows. Alex was making good work up the pole, and Kavinsky swung and gyrated along the bottom as well.

Occasionally, in those first moments, he reached up and touched a leg. It took a moment, before he knew they were both ready, before he gripped at her and tore her town from her grip on the pole and back onto the stage.

[takecourage]

The way he touches her, pulls at her, is rough but Alex had known that it would be, and she resists for just a beat before she lets go of the pole and lets him pull her where he wants her. She's dimly aware of a few whoops and hollers, evidence that she judged the crowd right tonight.

[mitsubishievo]

It was easy to get into it from there. They were never truly rough, not in ways that would leave a mark afterward. It was like stage fighting, more than anything. But it was a nice little show.

Hands on arms, in hair, bodies close. Swaying to the music, but also moving more aggressively, more suggestively. Kavinsky pulled her top off like it was offensive and cast it aside, spun her around with a fist in her hair.

[takecourage]

He spins her around so that her back's to him and she struggles a little bit, plays at it, back into him until her back is against his chest, her ass pressed into the cradle of his hips. She hears wolf-whistles over the throb of the music.

[mitsubishievo]

For a moment it was just that, their bodies pressed together, giving the audience something to admire: her body raggedly half-stripped and held restrictively close to him, both of them moving to the music. When he moved her next, it was to shove her face forward, from the waist, and keep them moving still, now with his head back.

Vulgarity, suggestion, an undercurrent of possession and ownership. The crowd was cheering, shouting things that made Kavinsky want to roll his eyes. He slapped Alex's ass and stepped away from her to work the pole for a moment, working some of his own layers off.

[takecourage]

She bends from the waist, aware of the sway of her tits in the skimpy fabric of her bikini, and then Kavinsky starts to move, his hips rolling against hers and Alex responds by bracing her hands against her thighs and rocking back to meet him, her head forward, her hair veiling her face. When he steps away from her she straightens up, hooking her thumbs under the waistband of her skirt and stating to wiggle it down over her hips, revealling lace panties over the g-string underneath.

[mitsubishievo]

With the separation, there were a few tips tossed up on the stage. Not nearly as many as there ought to have been, by Kavinsky's estimations. He stayed away from her for a moment, letting her have her space and time, lure the attention as she stripped out of her skirt and showed off those panties.

He came down off the pole and slapped her ass. Not just slap. It was a groping, filthy thing, dragging her ass back to the cradle of his hips.

There was some hooting and hollering in the crowd. Take her top off they shouted, and Pull her hair, Slap that bitch!

[takecourage]

It's pretty clear what kind of crowd it is, what kind of night, and just how nasty they're going to have to get to get the tips that they definitely deserve. She leans back against Kavinsky and reaches to squeeze his thigh, reassuring him, giving him permission.

Go for it.

[mitsubishievo]

The subtle touch was enough to have him following requests and commands from the crowd. He didn't rip any of her clothes, but he did yank things off, vicious, possessive. He did grab her by the hair and push her against the pole and take a moment to circle around behind her, behind the pole, and hold her in a possessive, vulnerable way around the neck.

That got some tips. Fives and tens flying onto the stage, even, and a couple guys lewdly adjusting themselves in the front row. Kavinsky shoved Alex away from the pole, and onto her knees, foot against her ass to force her onto the ground as he mirrored the lewd adjustment of his crotch.

He, of course, wasn't hard. But they didn't need to know that.

[takecourage]

Topless now, dressed in nothing but the doubled up panties, lace and her g-string underneath, Alex answers the press of his boot against her ass and rocks onto all fours on the floor, giving the front row an excellent view of the sway of her tits, her hair spilling forward over her shoulders. She looks back at Kavinsky, shuffling her knees wider apart, putting herself more thoroughly on display. Money flies onto the stage, brushing her bare skin.

[mitsubishievo]

Another brief, square tap to the ass with his boot, and then he grabbed her by the hair and hauled her back. The crowd hooted and hollered. Kavinsky groped at her breasts, slapped and jiggled them. A man from the crowd reached out to touch, and Kavinsky swatted his hand away.

"Mine," he snarled with possessive authority. The man deposited two fifties on the stage. Kavinsky felt a little sick with glee.

He turned Alex around, on her knees and gave her a brief, confirming look as he opened his jeans and drew her close to his crotch. She, of course, could tell he was soft but the crowd couldn't. And they were going to get a lovely show of simulated oral, Kavinsky's hands wrapped in her hair like he intended to be cruel about it.

[takecourage]

His hands are warm and Alex leans back against him as he plays with her tits, slaps hard enough to make her tits bounce but not enough to actually hurt. When he pushes her down onto her knees she goes willingly, giving him a wink when he checks in with her. Her back to a lot of the crowd, she arches her back, sticking her ass out. She struggles against Kavinsky's hold in her hair; no need to make it look too easy.

[mitsubishievo]

With her on her knees, on display, Kavinsky roughly rubbed and thrust against her face. It was a lewd display that had the crowd making a ruckus. She struggled, and that just made him keep it up, which made the crowd go wilder.

He could see their manager watching, keeping an eye on the crowd more than them. Their song was winding down. He had to make a big finish.

Kavinsky yanked Alex back by her hair, until she was nearly bowed into an arch. With a grin at the crowd, he slapped across her tit, and then across her face, and then spat on her.

[takecourage]

She's so distracted by the sting of the slaps (not entirely unpleasant), that she doesn't register the spitting until after it's already happened. It's something that she'd okayed in theory and then completely forgotten about. Be careful in the throes, she hears him say, and then her tattoos are spilling down her arms, a grand finish.

"Fuck," she breathes, but the word is lost under the pound of the music and the noise from the crowd.

[mitsubishievo]

The music winds down to cheers and hollering. Kavinsky hauled Alex up, holding her close and kissing her cheek. When he pulled away, he started to grab the tips they'd collected. That was it, fellas, that was the show for now.

They might come back out later, but for now they were done. And they had an impressive haul to go split, and Kavinsky was curious about those tattoos. That was a trick he hadn't seen before. He had questions.

[takecourage]

Alex bends to grab some more of the notes on the floor, giving the assembled crowd another few glimpse of her tits before she gathers up her clothes and stalks off the stage.

"Shit," she says, dumping her stuff, still topless, and examining her bare arms and chest. "Fuck."

[mitsubishievo]

When they're behind closed doors and the masks fall, Kavinsky gave Alex her space for a moment. She clearly needed to get the frustration of the moment out of her system, and him butting in and asking what the hell had just happened wasn't going to help too much.

He was an impatient bastard, though, and it only lasted probably thirty seconds or a minute.

"You gonna explain the ink, or do I get to make up some really cool story for myself? 'cause man, I can come up with some stories, lemme tell you."

[takecourage]

Alex pulls on a t-shirt with her panties and turns back towards him.

"They're my tattoos. Always were. Darlington used address moths to hide them when I first met him. I was looking to be more incognito as a daughter of Lethe."

[mitsubishievo]

"No, I can see they're tattoos." Kavinsky pointed at his own: the tribal newt, the crowned heart, the word art, the organic and chaotic sleeve of colorful flowers. He was covered in ink and metal these days.

"What I meant was, why did it show up when I spit on you? Because you seem pissed about that, and I know we talked about that being on the level, so I'm missing...a lot of shit here, Alex."

Nevermind that those sure were some words, and he was sure that they meant something, but not to him. He ignored the uncomfortable shiver that was involved in anything called address moths, because maybe it wasn't an actual moth, but who knew?

[takecourage]

"The spell is reversed by human saliva," she says. "The moths hold onto the ink until then. Darlington told me to be careful in the throes, but I...am an idiot, and completely forgot about that. Or didn't connect what was going on. I don't know." She rubs her hands over her face. "Basically, I forgot that you spitting on me during a dance would be, y'know. Human saliva. Because I'm a fucking dumbass."

[mitsubishievo]

Human saliva. With the unstated implication that she was something other than.

Kavinsky had a curious, backwards sensation of remembering a conversation with Alec Lightwood on the beach and learning about Downworlders, those not-quite and semi-human creatures that, sometimes, could do things like Kavinsky could. It wasn't that he didn't think of himself as human. It was more that he still, years later, still thought of himself as a monster, and sometimes, he forgot that the monster was held in the body of a young man.

"Do we need to...put it back?" He thought about it for a second, arms across over his chest, hip jut out. "Do I need to get you something to cover up? Might even hold up to your boyfriend being weirdly controlling about it."

And then he was quiet a moment before he smirked, sort of shittily. "Is Darlington gonna give me a hard time for bringing your ink out?"

[takecourage]

"Darlington is one hundred percent going to think that we're fucking," says Alex, because she shows no point in being a pussy about it. She sighs, pushing her straight heri back from her face. "No, I don't want you to get me something to hide them. I missed them. We're barely speaking anyway. It's fine."

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky barked a laugh, because the idea was, frankly, absurd. Well, maybe it was just absurd because he knew Alex now, and Alex knew him. Hell, she'd seen Newt in the crowd; he'd pointed his husband out to her while they were dancing. It was probably the only time he'd gotten even a little bit hard while they were dancing.

"Okay," he said, and nodded. "Guess I'll keep an eye out for someone who I can imagine being named Darlington--gotta tell you, I went to a private boys school, so I already got a mental image for this guy."

He shook his head a little bit. "So...what's a Lethe?"

[takecourage]

"He probably looks exactly like you're picturing," says Alex, perching on the edge of the counter. She's not self-conscious about sitting there in panties and a t-shirt in front of him; he's seen her in a lot less, after all. "Lethe is the ninth house of Yale," she says. "We are the shepherds." She rolls her eyes. "Basically, the societies are into all kinds of arcane shit and its our job to keep them on the straight and narrow."

[mitsubishievo]

"...you're sure sayin' words, man," Kavinsky said, giving her a bit of a look. He knew what Yale was. He knew what arcane shit was. What did shepherds have to do with that? How did any of this have to do with Yale? Were they talking about the same Yale?

Did it matter?

He rubbed his forehead a little bit. "Look, if it's one of those shit things you just can't talk about, I get that. Like, it doesn't really matter here, you know? But I get it."

[takecourage]

"You know the societies? You're a rich kid back home - you must have heard of Skull and Bones, though I think Manuscript is more your style. Anyway, they're all into magic - mostly transactional. And Lethe is a society that is supposed to...monitor all of the shit that they're doing and make sure they stick to the rules and that nobody gets hurt. They recruit someone new every three years." She tilts her head, dark hair tumbling over her shoulder. "Darlington. Me."

[mitsubishievo]

"I've literally never heard of any of that shit, Alex," Kavinsky said with a bit of a laugh. Now he was interested, though, what it was about him that read like these Manuscript guys. Sure, he was some rich kid, but he was also some rich immigrant kid, some Bulgarian mobster's son, not even born in the country, and certainly not about to go to Yale, assuming that he'd even lived to see college applications.

But even in thinking about it, he couldn't think of doing dealings with anyone that did go to Yale who might have mentioned something like that. It was the sort of thing that would have stuck out. He didn't even think he'd heard about something like all this when he'd been selling at Markets, and that seems like the perfect place for something like this to crop up.

"So you're the magic police," he summarized blandly. "And you're...not human? Boy, I need to introduce you to a guy sometime."

[takecourage]

"Yeah, kind of like the magic police" says Alex, huffing a laugh at the way he says it. Her ink dark eyes widen a little bit. "Definitely human though. What the fuck?"

[mitsubishievo]

"Look, you were the one that said shit about human saliva. And forgetting that I had it!" It was Kavinsky's turn to laugh, and he was smiling a little bit. He didn't think he was that far in left field for the guess.

If he ever met Darlington, he was absolutely going to dig in on that one. It would be hilarious, probably.

"Besides, there's been plenty of folk in Darrow that looked human enough and weren't. I try not to assume anymore. I'm just not normally spitting on those people."

[takecourage]

"It's just a turn of phrase. A dog licking my elbow wouldn't have set it off either." She rolls her eyes and laughs. "As far as I know, I'm one hundred percent human. I just, you know. Had an ability that made me interesting to Lethe. Have. An ability."

[mitsubishievo]

"I mean, I would call it slobber or drool if it were a dog, but hey, maybe that's just me." At least they were laughing, and Alex seemed more eased now than when they'd gotten off the stage in the first place.

"Someday, we'll get wasted together, and you can try to explain why my rich, drop out ass would know shit about magical bullshit in Yale."

[takecourage]

"I don't think Darlington has ever used either of those words in his life," says Alex, laughing a little, idly trailing her fingers over the line of the wheel tattooed on her forearm. "I don't know, man. I'm from fucking LA." She rolls her eyes. "He is one hundred percent going to think I'm fucking someone."

[mitsubishievo]

"You say that like there aren't rich drop outs in LA or something," Kavinsky said with another exaggerated eye roll of his own. Then he paused a little bit, considered the last of it, really looked at her for a second.

"He's not gonna think we're fucking, is he? I mean, that's hilarious, but also. You've told him I'm a faggot, right?" He laughed about it. "That doesn't matter to the guys out there but I feel like that should probably matter to this kid, you know? I mean, it's none of his business, I think, since you're not his fucking property, you can fuck whoever you want. But I know some people are into the monogamy thing."

He was, ostensibly, these days. At least from his end of things. No trust in a boy with poor behaviors. Newt was a well behaved little mongrel that knew how to screw around on the side. Kavinsky made it messy with emotions, so he just didn't these days. No sense when he had a good deal at home.

[takecourage]

"I told him that you're married to a dude but that doesn't mean he'll believe me," says Alex, rolling her eyes. "Whatever. It'll just confirm what he's thought about me all along probably."

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky frowned in a way that might have wanted to be a sneer at some point in its life. He'd fucked plenty of guys like that. He'd spent a lot of time thinking that was the only type of guy that he was worth, or that was worthy of him. People had made him believe it, too.

"Why stick around with someone that treats you like that?" It was Newt speaking through him, maybe, a concern for the way that Kavinsky sometimes liked to idolize men that thought he was garbage despite that it made him slide back into poor behavior. Advising someone else was easier than taking the advice himself.

[takecourage]

"Because it's not him," she says, rubbing her hand over her face. "Not all of him, anyway. He's...got this massive stick up his ass, but it's a stick that his grandfather and New Haven and Lethe put there and, underneath it all?" She shrugs. "But he is never going to see me as anything other than a piece of shit from Van Nuys. We fucked at New Year, and it was...Great. But it hasn't happened since because I imagine that he pretty much exclusively dates athletic girls named Ashley with shiny blonde ponytails. So."

[mitsubishievo]

It's not him sounded just as much like the bullshit that Kavinsky used to say about guys as anything else in this conversation, but Kavinsky didn't push it. Instead, he rolled his eyes expansively, like that meant anything at all, and reached out to scrub his fingers through her hair.

"Come on," he said. "There's a twenty-four hour diner. Let's get breakfast. Do you do dope?"

[takecourage]

"Not for a while," she says, meaning not since I got to Yale and tried to become a different sort of girl. She picks up a pair of jeans, tugging them on and then grabs her hoodie and her leather jacket. "Sounds good right about now, though."

[mitsubishievo]

"You're in luck, I got the best shit. Only one around that can get that good shit."

He laughed and got his clothes all straightened out and pulled on neatly. From a pocket, he pulled out a little dime bag, scooping out a bump on the edge of one of his credit cards. He didn't do coke so much any more, but it was a night for it, that was for sure.

He did his bump, and then got another one out, holding the card out for her as the burning buzz laced through him. It would take a few minutes to hit, but not as long as coke normally took. This was, after all, his stuff.

"C'mon, I'll drive."

[takecourage]

Alex's hesitates for a split second but, honestly, it'll be good to not see them for a while, to have a night where she can pretend she's normal, for at least as long as the high lasts. She bends her head and takes the hit, her eyelashes fluttering as she straightens up. Muscle memory.

"Sounds good to me," she says, grabbing her satchel and slinging it across her chest.