Fade me out

At Margo's assessment of Julian, Clair let out a quiet laugh and dropped back onto the bed. He reached out for her arm to pull her down beside him.

"Dunno where he's been," he said. "Ambiguous sexuality's been cool for ages."

"Thing is, though, Jules is kinda cool," Clair asserted. "His brand of uncoolness is cool. It's so genuine and being genuine is really cool. It's like, yeah, he's desperate, we all know that, but he never tries to make it look like something else. He's not some hipster prat who tries to tell you he was being ironic when people laugh at him."

"And he laughs with them," he pointed out. Being able to laugh at yourself was a big indicator of worth, so far as Clair was concerned.

"He does it even when they're actually laughing at him. That's gotta be hard."

He paused.

"Am I making sense or am I just blinded by lust?"

Clair was laughing and Margo grinned. At his tug, she set the bottle of gin on the bedside table and flopped down next to Clair, turning on her side and tucking her hair behind her ear.

Margo could be clueless, but she did know that people tended to like in others what they wished to have more of. It was why she had always looked up to Molly, who kept everyone guessing and seemed inherently interesting without trying. No one questioned whether or not Molly was clever, or had something interesting to say when she did speak.

These days, though, Molly seemed less interesting to her. Some days, Margo didn't buy into the view that her cold exterior hid a heart of gold. Some days, it was easy to think that her friend just didn't have a heart.

"Could be both," she said, smirking. "But you are right. It's hard not to root for him. You just know that he'll one day catch up to himself and grow into something even better than he wants for himself - and it's exciting to watch it happen." Her eyebrows twitched and she rolled her lips inward. "Maybe you just really want to be apart of that. Want to claim your place in the story."

Clair groaned and rolled his eyes.

"Oh," he said accusingly.  "Oh, my place in The Julian Kapur Story?"

"You stole my place in The Julian Kapur Story.  If The Julian Kapur Story is a story of sexual awakening, I should get to be the mentor, and you-" he reached over to poke Margo's shoulder "You upstaged me, missy!"

"Is he any good?" he asked before following it up quickly with: "No, I take it back, don't tell me."

Clair jammed his fingers in his ears.

"I don't wanna know while you can't lie!"

For a second, her eyes widened in surprise, but there was a lightness to the accusation that caused a smirk to take the place of her look of surprise, and she caught her tongue playfully between her teeth. A wide look of innocence took over her features and said, "It was a dare! I was sort of angling to snap up one of the Yaxley twins but they were dedicated to being buzzkills."

She paused, remembering the question that had been sent their way right before she left. That was a question she'd like to hear the answer too. She'd bet anything they have the boring answer.

"I thought about daring him to kiss you," Margo said. "You know - being a pal. But with the Violet weirdness, and him being uptight, I didn't want to make a scene." She tilted her head thoughtfully. "I usually don't mind making a scene."

"Ew, Yaxleys," Clair said. "Don't you think there's something weird about them and Freyja and Hit, though? They're always trailing around after one another. It's like some incestuous little club."

He smiled affectionately at her confession.

"Naw, Margo, you getting soft in your old age?" he said. "Don't wanna upset your two best boys?"

"I would've refused anyway. After our talk, I kinda thought you might have been planning something like that, so I figured if you did it, I'd just make it look like we were both disgusted by the whole idea."

"Speaking of scenes," he tried to change the subject, "what happened after I left? Did Ace really go tattle on you?"

Margo rolled her eyes. "That's the point? I get in there, get one of the boys realizing there's a whole world of people outside their little commune. Also-" She lifted her shoulder to touch her chin. "Why not?"

She grinned at his words, catching a laugh in her throat as she reached out to rub his arm fondly. "I've got your back, Sauvage."

Oh, interesting. She wondered briefly if she could have said that under truth serum the day before. Was this turning into a full fledged friendship?

They had passed on a shag to have a tête-à-tête centered on Julian Kapur. A show of friendship if ever she knew one.

"Man with a plan," she hummed thoughtfully, lifting her head to look up at the canopy.

His question brought a full-bellied laugh to her lips and she reached up to stifle it, shaking her head. "You missed out. That first year, Driscoll, lifted off a roll call of questions you would have never expected. Asked the twins if they'd be up for a threesome. Asked Lux what she knew about veelas. A f-ck, marry, kill, and asked Levski if he believed he could turn lesbians straight. It's always the quiet ones."

She tilted her head to regard him. "I didn't think Ace was ever going to tattle. Too many of her almost-friends were there. And if she was, I think Christian took care of it for us."

"Because they're Yaxleys," Clair said, as if he answer was obvious. "Freyja's almost fun, and Hit's okay but they both need personality transplants."

She said something about him being a man with a plan, or at least, he assumed it was about him. Clair didn't feel like a man with a plan. He felt like a guy with a vague idea. But Margo didn't sound like she was really talking to him, so he let it go. What she said about the first year was more interesting, anyway.

"Mmm, I don't think that's so weird," he said. "Eleven year olds are obsessed with sex, aren't they? And she is a Ravenclaw, she's probably just been reading something."

"I didn't know Ace had friends other than Christian," he said idly.

Margo flicked her eyes skyward, still smirking to herself. "Right. Well. It's not their personalities I was interested in."

That was the problem, though. The pair of them had the twin thing going for them, but their refusal to loosen up was more than a bit of a drag.

"None of my friends in first year seemed interested. Everyone always looked at me like I was crazy," she commented. "I mean, I still get that sometimes but... But yeah, maybe that's it."

She turned her head, saying, "That's why I said almost-friends. She sort of tolerates Molly and Apollo sometimes. And with her little mission to get people to join her club, she can't exactly go around getting everyone mad at her."

"I didn't mean it like that," Clair said.

He might have been looking at her like she was crazy right now, a bit. What was Margo thinking, when she was a first year? Had she really? Gosh.

"I more meant they're obsessed with thinking about it," he amended. "And talking about it. And pretending they know way more than they really do."

Clair's lip curled at the idea of Ace having a club. That girl was so hostile. Unless she was running a fight club as well, he doubted she'd have much luck.

"Geeze. Apollo, Ace and Molly. Can't imagine why she'd have trouble getting people to join."

Margo barked a laugh at his words, shaking her head. "Neither did I, you goof. I mean I'd bring up stuff I'd heard or try to have girl talk and I’d get looks like I was crazy. Maybe the Ravenclaws my year were just conservative – they certainly aren’t now.” She hummed thoughtfully. “I haven’t always been a deviant, y’know. Am I deviant? I must think I am – I said it.”

Oh boy, she was beginning to talk to herself. She looked up at the canopy again, tossing an arm across her forehead as her eyes screwed up in concentration. Maybe the shots were catching up to her. She hadn’t had much – she had mixed beverages however. It wasn’t a great idea, but her throat felt dry, so she reached for the bottle of gin, unscrewing it while he spoke. She tilted her head to take a drink, wincing before she capped it again.

As she exhaled, she said, “Apollo’s not as he acts, I think. Molly might be worse.”

She felt her blood run cold. She knew she and Molly hadn’t been getting on so well. She knew that there was some sort of change occurring between the two of them, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. But there was a difference between having her own petty little internal jabs towards her friend and bringing someone else into it.

And there was something much worse about doing it while she couldn’t lie.

What she wanted to say was ”Ignore me, I’m stupid and drunk. I don’t know what I’m saying.” And that's what she tried to say. But that's not what came out. “I’m barely drunk and I totally meant that– f-ck. Stupid verita- I don’t want to talk about this. I’m sorry. Here – want some gin?” She held the bottle out for him.