[He marks it as a tell, of course, habitually and thoughtlessly; so too the hitch in her breath. Alec has made his living - literally hinged his survival - on reading other people, on relying on his instincts for knowing truth from lie, and he sees no reason to go against it now.

But she finishes up as honest as she started, and that much he understands. He shakes his head, a long blink buried in the motion, an admission of a tell of his own if it isn't quite clear what the admission is exactly.]

Nothing gentle survives. Maybe that's all it means. [This is not optimism, but a twisted, practical sort of realism; if it cannot be understood, if it bites back, if it ruins, maybe it is real. Alec knows nothing else for truth in his own life and if whoever she came to get - whoever she lost - is from Manticore originally, then certainly it applies to both of them as well.]

I see now why we get along. Tell your boy careful, or I might come looking to steal your heart. [He smiles, makes it a flirtatious jest with an effortless twist of his expression and his eyes, but it's true: not that he is capable of any of the things she's talking about, of loving that deeply, of being excessive and careful and stupidly brave. But he is intimately, starkly familiar with the worst parts of himself, doesn't flinch from them or from using them when it is necessary.

It's how people like them survive.]