"—once again? And you skip meals???" Scorpius practically hisses. "Higgins what the fuck," he says, although he does make sure to say it in a low enough volume that no one else heard it. This was a situation that called for a last name.

"Eat when hungry," Lex says. "Shockingly, my appetite increases when I have been bled. The system maintains itself."

He narrows his eyes at Lex for a second or two before shaking his head and starting on his own assignment. "Whatever you say."

"Not going to force your blood on me like some kind of deranged reverse-vampire? I'm disappointed, they'll decanonize you."

"No, I am instead going to take this excuse to sit with you at lunch and make sure you're good on your word," he says, primly.

"Bastard."

Ingredients ingredients ingredients. "Ugh, it wants aconite. You'd think someone would have a hydroponics lab for it at the rate it's called for..."

"...gonna let you try to guess how often it's called for in other kids' projects, given that I just said this."

"Shit, really? Ugh. I should've been trading for it this whole time. Maybe I should have you look over the whole list."

He offers his right hand, using the left one to stir and keeping an eye on his own project. He's at a bit of a sensitive part on his assignment.

Lex hands it over once he's determined that the sensitive part is over, thank you very much.

"You may be a killing machine but I'm reasonably sure you're still capable of losing a hand in a lab accident," he observes. "I don't care that you're a god among men, you don't stir one-handed."

"Aww, you care about my wellbeing, I'm touched," he says, and even though it's kind of a mocking sentence all over he still sounds... genuine? "Anyway, this one's playing all the way into my affinity, Lex. Surely you also have your instincts kicking in when you get all of those tools of mass destruction?"

"I suppose. Anyway, go ahead and look over my recipe of mass destruction and I'll... twiddle my thumbs, I suppose, I so rarely get a chance to actually twiddle my thumbs."

This boy is extremely cute and he is feeling like kissing him an unreasonable amount.

He will read the recipe instead.

The Flaym of Purgeing

Whenn ye Plage fyrst strukk ye publick, I myself had liwed hardely three and tenn Yearf...

"I don't know why alchemists always think you want to know their life story," Lex observes. "I could not possibly care less about this asshole. Ingredients start on the fourth page."

1 (One) Skull of childe

2 (Two) pynch saltes of Sulphurick Acid and Bitter Lye

3 (Three) Aconite bloomes, powdered

4 (Four) graines Burnt Lime

5 (Five) scruples good Wine

6 (Six) pyntes purest Water

7 (Seven) drachm Vyrgin's Blodd

"The child skull thing is another bit I'm assuming isn't widespread. I've got one from a veal calf that works fine."

"Sulfur and lye see uses, mostly for stuff with fire and explosives, everything else seems mostly normal, except obviously for the blood. And I could definitely not offer my blood, here," and he looks at Lex for a split second from the corner of his eyes before saying, "and maybe I'll manage to get your blood to stop counting before the end of term."

"You know as well as I do that virgin's blood is chemically identical to nonvirgin, that he meant a female virgin above the age of mense anyway, and that I will shove my steel-toed boot straight up your arse if you don't shut up."

"If that's what rocks your boat," he says, sliding the slip of parchment back over, "although I can think of better things for you to shove up my ass than your boot."

Lex looks like he is very close to biting Lake's nose off. He snatches the paper and stomps towards the supply closet.

On the way over he inhales deeply and manages to say something very polite to...

...a mousy-looking East Asian girl, who smiles at him and asks something of her lab partner, who reluctantly comes up with a small jar of powder.

Lex looks - very surprised by this. He removes something from his pocket and hands it to the girl, who facilitates the exchange.

When he gets to the supply closet, he's careful, but still comes away with the materials he needs. He comes back to the table and nods at Scorpius.

"It'll still have to wait for me to get the skull for mixing the reactant, but - apparently Sophie's lab partner did have some powdered aconite. And he only wanted a couple of snack tokens for it, he'd been trying to offload it for ages."

"Well, lucky for you, then. I bet I could have grabbed some off New York if push came to shove but I don't think it would have, that would've taken a lot of time and the Scholomance wouldn't just give you an assignment you could not actually complete in time, like that."

"My freshman year it asked four liters of blood for a potion. I had to get a dose of liquid expander from a senior, traded him ten Radiant Mind crystals for it, and bled myself dry for a week. It doesn't just give you assignments you can't complete, but it will absolutely fuck you over."

"...well you did complete it, didn't you? Sorry, I'm not trying to be a bitch. I just have the impression the school... won't literally try to kill you. Not like that. Even if it will force you to trade away your crystals and bleed a lot."

"...felt like it was. But I guess maybe it was just trying to make me feel like it was."

"Not gonna go as far as saying it's tough love, it's a school not a person, but it is trying to prepare us for survival. One way or another. All wise-gifted children..."