#[ alex04 ]

[lina-delgado]

@alexlwoo enlists Lina’s help to snoop through @kazxraval‘s grotto home to find anything that could be worth taking for themselves. Easily getting themselves caught, the pair use their endless abilities to be annoying charming to get them out without much consequence (for now).

"I'm telling you, he's not here, it's fine. Have an air-listen if you don't believe my scouting skills."

In all actuality it probably would be prudent of Lina to double-check Alex's work, so to speak, but he really was fairly confident that the resident of this out-of-the-way grotto wasn't there. As much as Alex wanted to be a burr in Kaz's side, he didn't relish actual physical confrontation. Something more sneaky-deaky was the better option. Kaz looked like one of those guys who'd be all cool in a fight, maybe get beat on for a while, and then make a dramatic comeback in the last round and stroll off like nothing had happened. JGL in 'Brick', yep, that was the vibe. Alex had no intention of finding out if his supposition was true or not.

Nope, much more fun to just break into Kaz's house and take a look around. What was the harm, right? He turned to look at Lina as they stood on the threshold of Kaz's home, one last moment where they could turn back and still be completely innocent. But what fun was that? "You ready?" Alex asked Lina. "If he catches us remember our story. Somebody told us that he had the, um, the doohickey that Dr. Nesh needs. What was the doohickey again? It's been so long since I watched a primetime medical drama. I can't remember anything except suppositories, my mind's totally blanking."

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"I trust your scouting skills, ok? He'd probably be harder to find just by listening anyway, even with my incredible hearing." Lina knew that Kaz was air attuned as well so she knew how easy it was to stay silent if hidden. Plus it wasn't like she had any stakes in this hunt of theirs. She really appreciated Alex having her back when Jupiter came around and told him she owed him one. He seemed to have an idea for that favor very quick.

But she agreed because her encounters with Kaz were so brief, back in the world and here too so what was the harm of doing a little snooping? Clearly it was a compliment, she just wanted to get to know him!

"Let's go." She said as she took the first step across the threshold, as if she was expecting some elaborate boobytrap to go off once she did. But when nothing happened she happily skipped around the place looking around the rocks and crevices to see if anything caught her eye. "You think I know anything about doctor doohickies? The only thing I can think of is a stethoscope. So if we want to say that, otherwise you could throw any wild claim and I'll agree with you. Oh! Look at this!" She cooed excitedly, walking over to a rocky area where in the holes and gaps she started pulling out multiple pairs of sunglasses. "Holy shit, do you see how many he has? No wonder I haven't found any for myself he's hoarding them all!" She complained before putting a pair of pink heart shaped sunglasses on. "How do I look?"

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Lina's clear hesitation as she took that first step only validated Alex's own concern that the place would be rigged or trapped somehow, but it seemed that he hadn't had the time to set up a whole Holy Grail situation for them to Indiana Jones through. He followed her eagerly, looking around at the grotto with a long whistle. The sound got chewed up by the rockface, eaten instead of echoing, but that wasn't of much interest to Alex. Yet. He'd ponder the peculiarity of acoustics later. 

"I think you wanna know about doctor doohickies," Alex said teasingly. "Little birdies told me that you made passes at both the hot doctor guys. Did either of 'em bite yet? They seem like they might need some extra coaxing." But Lina had found something interesting, and as much as Alex loved gossip he loved the idea of pawing at Kaz's treasured belongings more. Kaz seemed like that kind of guy who lived a minimalist existence but had a few Pieces that had been carefully curated. 

And as Alex watched Lina excavating the sunglasses stash, he practically reeled in delight. "What a bitch!" he agreed, breathlessly, hopping over to poke through the collection and popping on a non-heart pink-framed pair to match her. "You look maaaahvelous, dahling! Not hard to do but those sunnies really bring out the--" Alex kissed his fingers, making a ping! sound, "--heart in your heart-eyes!" He idly tucked another pair (mirrored) into his pocket and kept scouting around. There wasn't much. "Either he hasn't been living here or it's routine for him to pack up and hide all his stuff," Alex said. "What a freak."

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Lina threw a glare Alex's way at his innocuous, playful remark. She was sure his little birdy was just him eavesdropping and while she respected the nosiness she wasn't in the mood to talk about her failed attempt to seduce the doctors of the island. "I don't think that's really important right now. Don't you have some junk to find?" She obviously deflected trying to shoo him off to look around the place some more. She didn't care what they were looking for or what was being found but for once she didn't want the conversation topic to be on her.

But the sunglasses were a good distraction. It felt like it would never end the amount that kept being revealed. She flashed a wide smile, placing her hand under her chin and tilting her head up to strike a little pose at the compliment. She didn't plan on taking the pair she had off but did admire a few other options while Alex continued to look around. "Honestly, like, paranoid much?" She snorted, as the person sitting in his place invading his privacy. "What exactly did he do again? Called you a hack or something? Did he use his air powers to slap you across the face? Cause I can tell you that shit hurts."

Lina didn't feel like moving from her spot but sat up again anyway with a couple sunglasses in her pocket and the heart shaped shades now resting on her head. "Tell me if you find anything good. See if he's one of those who keeps a diary or something to share all of his feelings that he doesn't tell anyone about so he can keep up the sexy, mysterious, brooding guy act."

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Ooooh, that irritation was very interesting. Alex's tally of Lina's success rate around the island was an informal one at best, whenever he happened to stumble upon some new information -- it was nowhere near as comprehensive as one might think. But clearly Lina was smarting about her failures, and clearly she thought that he knew about it and was itching to poke fun at her. Alex might have, if he thought he could get away with it. But they were already in the middle of a delicate situation, so he just shrugged and said, "Win some lose some, right? Besides, we all have an eternity of looking exactly as hot as we are right now. You'll get 'em in time."

Alex was pleased with how selfless and encouraging he was, and with the stash of sunglasses that just made it feel even better. Especially when he and Lina could bond on scoffing at the way Kaz chose to live his life. He bristled a little when Lina asked to be reminded of why Alex had beef with Kaz, and he said with only the tiniest bit of sourness, "I told him about the Netflix miniseries, how I was gonna play him in it, I was gonna be -- well, they changed his name to Kenzie Royal, I guess for legal purposes -- but yeah, I was gonna play the Kaz role. And he was such a dick about it! He said I was sure to suck and he said -- he said I wasn't hot enough to play him."

Even the memory was irksome, and Alex suddenly was smarting from it just as much as Lina was feeling slighted. He picked up the pace in hunting around, finally finding some kind of bag. It only had a few meagre items in it, but Alex brought it over for Lina to hold while he sifted the contents. Phone, iPod, boring; notepad, more interesting; zippo lighter, best of all.

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Lina wasn't sure how reassured she felt by Alex's encouragement. It took a bit longer than an instant for her to start thinking to herself, yeah! We're gonna be this hot forever! This is just a bit of unfortunate luck that will pass. And even then, she was really forcing herself to believe that. "You're right, you are just so right. Can't win them all! And getting worked up about it isn't gonna do me any favors. Besides we have possibly important things to find."

At Alex's explanation of why they were doing this, Lina knew to expect something petty. That was what they were, completely underhanded for the most unnecessary reasons. But when Alex told her what Kaz said, she snorted in amusement before immediately backpedaling. "Sorry, sorry, no that's not funny! That's such a conceited asshole thing to say! You're not hot enough,  you're plenty hot. If you couldn't pull off Kenzie Royal they wouldn't have hired you! What a tool." There, bring supportive was easy. 

She held onto the bag Alex found, peeking in as he rummaged through it, pulling out a few things, tossing them back in if he wasn't interested. "Hey, hey, pass me that, I wanna see that." She told him before he put the ipod back into the bag. It wasn't like there would be anything of note on there but Lina was really hoping to find some sort of hilarious showtunes or boy bands on his playlists. But before there was any time to even turn the thing on let alone snoop through the artists, something in the air felt off. She wondered if this was the soft, nearly impossible to pick up sound of an air attuned's natural gift of stealth. "I think he's back." Lina whispered so softly it might have been barely audible to Alex.

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Another sleepless night, but nothing unusual about it. Kaz waited for daylight to trek down the beach and set up fishing lines in the lazier spots of the tide. Eventually habit had Kaz checking on the surroundings and further afield with his hearing. 

He picked up on the two. Slagging him off, when they barely knew him-- but alright. Whatever. Then he realized exactly where they were sharing insults. 

Those motherfuckers. He began a quick glide back, even though Lina's air would likely sense Kaz was on his way. He slipped up the steep slope to the entrance of his hideaway and saw them. Helping themselves. Going through his shit. Like Kaz having net zero wasn't low enough for anyone, they had to root around for more. 

He leaned in the doorway and crossed his arms, attempting to keep a combustible anger from exploding. The hinge of his jaw locked tight. "Anything I can help you two find?" A pause. "Trespassing, stealing-- an interesting trajectory happening here." His attunement yanked at the dry bag to bring it to him, same with the glasses Lina wore. How deeply, inherently fucked up they were. "What the fuck are you doing?"

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Alex scoffed at Lina for a moment, clicking the zippo open and closed in rapid succession. "How could he be back? He's been off wherever it is he goes for ages. He's not even interested in being here anymore." All of this was wild speculation, considering Alex wasn't anywhere near knowing what Kaz's schedule and priorities were. And especially since Lina was air attuned and would know with far more certainty than he did -- in fact, the only reason he even knew she'd said anything was because he happened to look at her and see her lips moving.

So when Kaz's actual voice spoke up from the doorway, Alex jumped, dropping the lighter. He bent to scoop it up again immediately, using that moment to gather his composure again and decide on which way to play this. "We're not trespassing," Alex said, as he straightened up again, zippo tight in his palm. "This place is abandoned! We're canvassing to see if it's suitable for somebody to live in. Since you left it. And left all your crap, too--" Alex swiveled around, gesturing at nothing. "Nobody's a mind reader, Kaz. You keep disappearing and reappearing and expecting everything to be the same? Come onnnnnn."

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Lina expected Alex to have some faith in her as she quietly alerted him of Kaz's presence. Unfortunately it was harder to pick up his movements from further away so it kind of made things pointless. She knew he was here but there was no way to make an escape. So they just had to think on their toes.

At the sound of Kaz's voice, Lina raised her eyebrows at Alex as an 'i told you so' while he bounced around at the surprise of being caught. She tried to turn around with a smile on her face, but as she did the air snatched up her sunglasses from her and she watched them get sent straight into Kaz's hands. "Yeah, we were just having a look around! Alex mentioned this cool place that could have been a step up from our current place. It's so hard to tell when things have been left behind for good or not, how are we supposed to know?"

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These two were fucking children, and he was far from being a babysitter. Alex played it perhaps a little better than Lina. The overconfidence of an actor almost hitting their mark while ensuring their good side was towards the camera. (Tough, the guy really didn't have a good side at all).

Lina gave some bullshit excuse. "Oh? Most wouldn't consider this to be a step up from an actual building. How interesting..." He pocketed the sunglasses taken from her. And then, to answer both of them. "If all my 'crap' is still here, obviously I am too."

"But, since you two dipshits don't have a brain cell to spare between each other, I'll make this crystal clear: I. Live. Here. Easy, hm?" 

Alex had swept something off the floor as Kaz stepped through the door. Too clever in the scoop, too quick to rigidly stand back up... Kaz craned to see a tightly fisted hand at Alex's side. "The hell do you have?"

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Alex wasn't dissatisfied with his own fire attunement, not really, but -- knowing that Lina's air let her pick up on what everyone was saying even when they didn't want her to, and now seeing Kaz whisk things away from them with his air? He was feeling a considerable amount of envy. "You can't spare even one pair of your hoarded sunglasses for Lina? Not cool, man. Other people have eyes that need protection from the sun too and I bet you don't even wear half of these. It's just sheer meanness not to let her have one measly pair to stop her from having eyestrain or getting eye cancer." 

Alex sidled over to stand next to Lina, putting his hand protectively in the small of her back. Or rather: 'protectively', because he took that opportunity to slide Kaz's lighter down the back of her panties. "I don't have anything and I don't see why you're accusing me! I told you why we're here. It didn't seem like anybody lived here because you don't even HAVE much crap. So we can leave if you wanna keep squatting on this URL instead of letting other people use it."

Hopefully Lina knew how to walk with something concealed in her underwear. She seemed like that kind of girl. Alex huffed, nose in the air, and started edging towards the door. "Selfish," he chided Kaz again.

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"If you saw how tiny our place was, you'd understand." Lina replied back to Kaz's suspicion. She didn't even need to lie about that one! It wasn't that the place was bad, they definitely made it work but it could have been completely plausible that they'd take a nice wide open cavernous grotto over their little shack. Even she could admit that they gave off the vibes of a spoiled heir and heiress who needed more space for their big egos.

Crossing her arms across her chest, Lina nodded along as Alex reprimanded Kaz for his 'meanness' of not sharing even a single pair of sunglasses with her. She didn't realize that this show of support was to slip whatever Kaz saw him grab in her underwear but, okay, sure, fine, she could work with this. "Okay, look, how about a trade off? Those cute heart shaped sunglasses for your ipod that I have, and our total disappearance from here. That's like, such an easy deal for you. Getting us out of your hair and never coming back here for one pair of sunglasses? Come on."

She held out her free hand to Kaz with a smile on her face looking like she was already waiting expectantly for the swap. "Or, if you want just one of us back, I can always come back and sweeten the deal for you. Make up for the opportunity we missed at that music festival forever ago." She offered, having never been above offering up sex as a distraction and this seemed like as good a time as any if it meant they got out of here with minimal berating.

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Kaz recognized inane prattling to buy time when heard it. Why, though, was the question. What the hell were they up to? It certainly wasn't measuring windows for curtains, as they claimed. 

So he wouldn't entertain too much more of the talk. "Uh, if Lina had asked for a pair like a normal fucking person, if she decided not to be a fucking thief. Then yeah, maybe I would've given her a pair. I don't have much 'crap' but you sure as hell wanted to dig through it." To Lina, he feigned seriousness. "So sorry about the potential eye cancer." 

He scoffed at Lina's 'traded off' with a slow blink. "No, I'm not interested in anyone 'trading' for my own possessions." The fucking balls on this one. Lina's allusion to sex, well. He did stop to think about it ahhh... but no, no. 

"I want you both out. With empty pockets and empty hands--" said pointedly, "Alex." For fuck's sake, it really was exasperating. Anger barely covered. "Both of you. Show me."

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Alex had to admit, it was fascinating watching the two of them exchange their distinct brands of audacity. Lina, convinced that anybody in the world would be swayed by an offer of her body to the point where she would trade Kaz his own items for his own items; Kaz countering with mights and maybes as if those should be taken as a sure thing, just because he said so. 

If he wasn't wanting to escape this unscathed, Alex might have been tempted to just sic them on each other and enjoy the show.

But no, that lighter was in Lina's underwear and he wanted to fish it out as soon as possible so Kaz couldn't catch them in an act of bizarre theft, so Alex pushed himself bodily forward to turn out the pockets of his shorts, unbutton his tropical shirt, kick off his flip-flops. "You wanna inspect closer?" he asked Kaz cheerfully, reaching up to fold his ears over and turn his head each way. "I got no secrets! You can look all you want, Kaz, though I have to say--" Alex made a sad face, puppy dog eyes. "It's sad that you suspect your fellow islanders this way. Did somebody hurt your trust when you were little? It's okay. Your feelings are valid. But it's not healthy to live like this."

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"Well how was I supposed to ask when I didn't know you had them up until now? They were practically hidden that's not my fault!" She complained even though they all knew that it very much was. Well, it was more Alex's fault if anything since he's the one who wanted to come here but Alex wouldn't appreciate being thrown under the bus and Kaz wouldn't care whose idea it was so she kept it to herself.

As Alex put on his little show of showing off how he has absolutely nothing on him, Lina just meandered over considering she had something pressed against the small of her back, held there by the waistband of her underwear. She handed over the ipod in her hand to Kaz and then took the extra pair of sunglasses she had out of her pocket and handed that over as well before holding her hands up and walking backward as she moved away from him. "That's all I've got. Enjoy your monopoly on sunglasses, I guess." 

It didn't really matter what they said in their defense, Kaz was obviously pissed but Alex seemed to have gotten what he wanted out of this since it was hidden away on her. The plan now seemed to be just hit Kaz with whatever nonsense they could think of so that he would just shoo them out instead of searching any further. "Should we get you set up for a therapy session once you kick us out? It's nothing to be ashamed of, and I'm sure there's someone on the island that would be willing to analyze why you're so secretive and suspicious of people. I'll make sure to look into that for you, no need to thank me."

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The goal was not a strip search (unless absolutely necessary). Not interested in checking coin slots. The manner in which Alex flung off those flip flops felt particularly aggravating to Kaz. Other than a clench of a fist, he kept it to himself. 

All a big fucking act with Alex. With the both of them. He wanted them out. Without resorting to using his air-- no reason in giving these assholes more to gripe about, not if it wasn't needed. "Yeah. Trust broken, but didn't fling myself off a cliff about it." They threw plenty of jabs to get a rise out of him, so only fair Kaz do the same. Alex would probably return with how he flew like a dove or something equally dramatic. 

Lina lodged empty complaints, but did return what he thought to be the most important item, the ipod he pocketed. He popped the sunglasses on his head. "I will enjoy my monopoly, so very kind of you to say." 

His lips formed a flat line to match his expression, with all the heat at a boil in his eyes. He scanned them each over again. Lina tossed another remark out. "Mm, therapy would serve kleptos better, I think. Now fuck off." 

Kaz moved away from the door and to the contents of his bag spilled on his bedding. Scattered, disregarded, their grubby hands had been over it all. He frowned for a moment. There was something else important gone. It was possible he'd left it at his other camp. Unlikely, but possible. His mouth turned into a tight grin. "If I find anything else missing, like say... a Zippo. I'll be in touch."

END.

[palexbloodxpride-blog]

Summer Sun [Greta & You]

alexandermoreau liked your photo:In the Summer Time

nomadicshewolf liked your photo:In the Summer Time

 [If you wish to jump in feel free]

[Greta picked her sunglasses up from her towel, about to head in to the water when she noticed the other body and her gaze turned to it, a smile gracing her pale features.]

“Come for a swim?”