"I knew that. If a bear tried to maul you you'd think it was flirting."

"I try to keep only to human beings. Also, people who aren't flirting are usually pretty swift in saying so when it might look that way, in my experience." Unsaid: Lex did not do this.

"Fuck you." Unsaid: fuck you twice.

"I really should have poked you out of your shell earlier, you are a lot of fun."

"You know, I've never had much of a thick skin, myself, but you bring it to a whole new level. Mithridates, he died old... and all that shit."

He blinks twice, slowly. "Who?"

"Oh. Uh. Old poem about - well it's the story of Mithridates, this ancient king who took controlled doses of poison to develop an immunity, and he recognized the taste so any time somebody tried to poison him he had them executed. But it's really about - what doesn't kill you makes you stronger? I think? Honestly it just popped into my head."

"Who's the one poisoning whom, here, because I could see a case for either."

"I assumed I was poisoning you since I mentioned poisoning you earlier, but now I'm kind of curious how you're poisoning me."

"That's the straightforward reading, yeah, but I'm the one prodding at your weaknesses and making you angry and making you too distracted to notice that on s'est fait brûler," which with a closed fist pointed just above Lex's head sets the crawler that had tried to sneak up on him on fire, "so yeah."

"Goddammit. It's a good thing you can't count or this would be very embarrassing."

"I can, I just don't."

"I know you don't count, isn't that your whole thing? People should stay safe but you don't count. People should live but you don't count. People can't be perfect - but you don't count."

"You read me like a book," he says, though he's reeling a bit. "And if you read me so well you know how perfect—or not—I am."

Here's alchemy lab, half their classmates already there. They look up at the noise, and many of them perk up at seeing Scorpius there and try to scuttle to give him space and look invitingly. Scorpius is so seldom alone when he comes to class!

(Of course Lex doesn't count. Scorpius wouldn't sit with Lex, that would be preposterous.)

"Shove off, we're having a perfectly lovely conversation," Lex says to the assorted hangers-on. "Lake, usually I'd be sensible but I'm guessing you want to sit under a vent, smile winningly if I have you to rights."

"I just want to sit with you, so if under a vent is where you want to be then that's where I'll go."

He has enough ranged spells he can probably deal with whatever comes out of any vents any time.

"Don't want to per se but I do not observe better seating that isn't infested with cheering fans."

Lex prods a nearby chair and checks over its environs. Satisfied of the absence of mals, he takes a seat.

"Don't be mean," he says, taking the seat next to Lex.

Then frowning, standing up, climbing on top of his seat, and sending a gust of frigid air up the vent. Satisfied that that has dealt with whatever was there, he lowers back down to his seat.

"If I can't be mean what in the living breathing fuck do you want from me," Lex mutters, snatching his assignment slip out of the air. He scans it distractedly, making noises of disgust with increasing frequency. 

"Be mean to me instead!" he says brightly, standing up again when he notices he actually sat on his assignment slip. "What horrors has the school bestowed upon you this time?"

"Take a look."

In lieu of the standard lead-to-gold potion, a concoction that will convert a human being injected to a golden statue. An alchemical accelerant which burns through flesh and leaves a perfectly bleached skeleton behind. A potion which, flung like a grenade, emits fumes in a fifty-foot radius that cause horrific, bone-snapping convulsions.

He wrinkles his nose. "Does that first one only work on humans? And what does the second one do to mals?"

"The first one looks rather human-specific, and the second one I imagine would do to mals exactly what it does to humans, namely incinerate the fleshy or gooey bits and leave potentially useful bones behind, which means -" he circles it "- that it will be this week's project."

The slip vanishes, replaced by a stack of yellowing parchment. "Oh, and fuck you too, madame Schol," he says, reaching out to start leafing carefully through the sheaf.

Scorpius grins and shakes his head, patting Lex's thigh as he circles his own choice: a molotov cocktail potion of sorts, except instead of 'set on fire and explode' it's 'imbue with mana, choose a damage type, and then explode'.

"Don't you have enough ways to - oh, the hypocrisy would kill me," Lex mutters, perusing the ingredient list. "It looks like once again I will be bleeding for my art, though this one only wants seven drams."