(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

[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.