IC Inbox III

[ukan]

This is Lark, leave a message.

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[ukan]

"Or," his gaze intent, worried. "What were you thinking just now?"

[kissthatgoodbye]

"You realize I'm thinking about anywhere from four to five things at any given time, right?" That's part of why he's turned into a fucking kaleidoscope.

"Are we starting?"

[ukan]

"Yes, we're starting." He drags his eyes from the aura to the man. "When I laughed it changed color."

[kissthatgoodbye]

"I didn't expect you to laugh," he says after a moment. He's incredibly self aware compared to most, but words for it are still sometimes harder than they should be.

And Alec is still typically dual natured: "I liked it."

[ukan]

That ripple of light blue again, accompanied by a familiar grin. "Which is funny because you make me laugh a lot."

[kissthatgoodbye]

"Well, I'm very amusing, so that makes sense doesn't it?" He scoops his orange back up.

"And you like me, so you're easy." This is not an insult.

[ukan]

"You're the only person who ever uses easy to describe me." Nothing about Lark is: he's complicated, he's manipulative, he has rules no one else follows.

He reaches out to take some of the orange. There's a hint of it in his aura: a playful tinge of tangerine to the gold.

[kissthatgoodbye]

"Yeah well, I'm me and you're you."

Alec understands him far more easily than most people he's met.

He pulls the orange out of his reach, reconsiders, and tosses it to him, his aura blending like an oil slick.

"Finish peeling it and you can have half. This is your chance to ask anything you've ever really wanted the truth on."

[ukan]

"I think I know the truth about everything important." He peels it slowly, and offers Alec his half. "It's all the minute to minute truths I don't know."

[kissthatgoodbye]

"So, what, your ideal use of time is us sticking together for the next few days so you can stare at my emotions hitting the air?" He's teasing, but also watchful as he accepts the fruit and starts breaking off segments.

"You can finally know my favorite color, and how I feel about cioppino."

[ukan]

"Is it red?" A grin. "Can you show me with your aura?"

[kissthatgoodbye]

He closes his eyes for a moment, although this is mainly for effect. He pulls up a few select memories he never lets himself think about around others.

Biggs swinging over the bridge. Renfro's voice saying his designation. Steve Rogers telling him this is all for his own good. Fives throwing a tantrum.

His aura roils red, the lightest shade a brilliant ruby, all the way to deep blood black.

[ukan]

"Has that color always reminded you of anger?" because he can smell that much, he knows Alec well enough to read it in him.

[kissthatgoodbye]

And this is the advantage to being what, being who he is: he breathes and pushes it all back again and the rest of the colors can break through again, the red dispersing like storm clouds even if they linger a bit thicker than before.

He sounds as calm as his shrug though.

"I guess. But it was also the color of the exit signs in the compound."

[ukan]

"And now your motorcycle. Which is another sort of exit." He watches those colors. "Remember the first time we went to Rome?"

[kissthatgoodbye]

He loves that motorcycle - loves how flashy and eye catching the candy apple red of it is - and it combines with Lark bringing up Rome to make him smile.

Alec's happiness shows up as veins of pale violet, and that opalescent quality.

"Any part in particular?"

[ukan]

"The time we ordered everything on the menu in Botacelli's," which was a restaurant that charged $400 for a six course tasting menu. The chef had been dismayed to learn that no, they weren't joking, and yes, they wanted everything.

[kissthatgoodbye]

Alec sighs wistfully, looking at the last piece of orange in his hand.

"I miss Italy," he doesn't mind admitting. (The blue becomes more detailed the longer he thinks of it.) "That's where I want to go first when we leave here."

[ukan]

"We will," he says, in that I will do anything you want tone he sometimes gets, whenever Alec actually asks for something. Even when Alec says 'no'.

Maybe especially then.

[kissthatgoodbye]

He pops the rest of the orange in his mouth, watches Lark while he chews and savors the tangy sweetness of it.

"Are you liking your trip on the Barge more this time around?"

[ukan]

"I feel like I'm getting more done." There's a complicated mix of color: the forest green that just watching Alec can arouse, a violet ribbon with jagged edges, a muted blue that borders on grey.

[kissthatgoodbye]

Alec watches, his own aura - not muted, he can't hide it at will, but the flow of it steady.

"So it's been worth coming back to you?"

[ukan]

He hates that question. He hates the dark colors in his aura, the shock of ugly brown mustard that dirties the gold. "If it hadn't hurt you it would have been."

[kissthatgoodbye]

Alec can make himself feel nothing, can turn everything off and lock it away from himself. He's done it before, but because he sincerely hopes he never has to do it again, he doesn't clamp down on that now.

The visceral, dark red is back, little fingers of it snaking through everything else at the reminder; plus a new color, yellow the color of infection, so faint the rest drowns it out nearly immediately but stubborn nonetheless.

"Did I tell you that Jon and I spoke?" he offers, instead of coming directly at that topic. "And it didn't end in a threat."

[ukan]

"No," he can't hide the concern he feels seeing those colors: it comes as a jet black streaked over all the others. "No, you didn't. What did he say?"