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[bleak_midwinter]

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[ukan]

Maybe it is stupid, foolish at the very least, but Lark just shakes his head. He knows it's a bad idea but he made the same decision.

"Having a focal point pushes other things into perspective. Some people lose their minds over a lover, it's true. But some people burn their way to the top faster than they ever could have alone."

[bleak_midwinter]

"She's not the only thing that matters," he points out, licking his lips and shrugging one shoulder. "But if I can't have her, I'll have no one."

[ukan]

He hums; no, lovers are far from the only thing that matters. In fact, in Lark's opinion, the best lover is the one who either steps aside or helps you reach the hundred other goals.

"Then I hope you get to have her." Tommy should have that much, something that makes his eyes go so soft and focused. "If you want to keep her message and the songs, drag them down to that icon at the bottom of my screen. They'll send to you."

[bleak_midwinter]

"They're songs," he says softly, and he carefully, quickly does as Lark tells him. It'll be torture to listen to them, but this, he won't be able to resist.

He looks up when he feels his communicator buzz the arrival, and he's back in the room with Lark. "Thank you."

He's going to end up owing Lark too many favors, if things go on like this.

[ukan]

Lark is keeping track of who owes more, but the past few days he's had to admit that he feels some strange, genuine pleasure from all this.

"I hear my guest had a big mouth."

Reminding himself that Tommy may have new information to use, and Lark can't guess what it is.

[bleak_midwinter]

"Very eager to tell us all about you, your man was."

He gives a little smile. Nothing to worry about, really-- but he's settled with the knowledge, a little bit.

[ukan]

Lark groans. "He's never been like that before. He left me a note explaining, but-"

Even so Lark can't bring himself to threaten Tati, even in jest.

"What's the damage, then, what did you figure out?"

[bleak_midwinter]

"He wanted to help," he clarifies- he'd clearly liked Tati, enjoyed talking to him.

"He told me about your- culture." The wolfy bits, he means, and illustrates with a little flourish of the hand.

[ukan]

He clears his throat. Taps a finger against his knee. "Did he tell you anything you hadn't already figured out?"

Because Tommy is smart, and that's part of what made Lark wary (makes him wary still sometimes, if he's honest).

[bleak_midwinter]

He licks his lips and looks at Lark for a second, wondering- he'd learned plenty, mostly things that wouldn't have been in books, simple facts. But one thing...

"He made it quite clear he thought I would have been a wolf by now," he finally says, the question implicit but clear.

[ukan]

He bites his lower lip, working it slowly through his teeth as he thinks how to answer that.

"Well...at home, I wouldn't have spent any time getting to know you when there's no way you'd be a wolf. Our first conversation, and you and I would never have seen each other again. Think about how much you didn't trust me. You still don't; which is fine, for here. But it would put the pack at risk if I kept trying and trying and trying with someone like you."

He looks up at him, trying to read how that falls. It's true; it's not all of the truth but it's the part that Tati would know.

[bleak_midwinter]

He runs his knuckles across his jaw and thinks on that- nods, a little, but there is still something niggling at him. Perhaps it's the way Lark is looking at him, the way he's speaking, but it's not right, yet.

"That's all, then? Time and circumstance?"

[ukan]

It's one of those moments where Lark could lie or just refuse to answer. But he hasn't come this far to sabotage himself over things that Tati chose to disclose.

"It'd be nice if it was that simple." Fine: this hand on the table, see where it goes. "Actually, I would turn you if it came to it. You have family at home which would exclude you in my world, but on the Barge, it's different rules. You're...you wouldn't be subordinate. Not to me. And that would cause problems. But I'd still do it."

[bleak_midwinter]

This is one thing Tati hadn't been able to answer for him, because Tati had just assumed Lark would have wanted to. But Tommy still isn't sure, so he asks:

"Why would you want to?"

He isn't shocked by the fact. He isn't even surprised that Lark is telling him now that he would, isn't scared or intimidated, because he knows this is something that is always on Lark's mind, whether he wants it to be or not. But he doesn't understand the drive itself.

[ukan]

Lark doesn't have a family. He wasn't close to his when he was young, hasn't seen them since well before he became what he is. He considers trying to use family as a comparison, but decides he is too far removed from it to pull that off.

"Because part of me likes the thought of what you could do in Birmingham with a pack." Which isn't to say that what Tommy does now is anything to scoff at. But Lark knows the way being a wolf turns things up past what a human can do.

He doesn't shrug or try to diminish the rest of his reasoning, just lays it out to be mocked and used against him. He'll deal with the repercussions as they come. "And I suppose part of me is lonely, here. Even though I suspect you'd last two days before you tried to take over everything I'm after, I think it'd be two days that would make it worth it."

[bleak_midwinter]

Strangely enough, despite the fact that the words speak of paranoia and struggle, of plans that he files away for future examination, the knowledge settles something in Tommy. It's in knowing an enemy, even when that enemy has slowly become a friend.

"What does it feel like? Being part of a pack?" How can it be good enough that Lark can say that-- what would make it worth it?

[ukan]

The most impossible question yet. It's like someone blind asking what 'purple' is.

"You have to try to imagine it from a very...very elemental place." And he means elemental. Being in a pack sings through the most basic building blocks of existence. "When you were a little kid, maybe you remember sleeping through the night. A pack is like that: you can sleep safely. And the fears you used to have as a human, you know you can devour and that there are men and a woman who are just as dangerous who will do anything it takes to keep the group safe. No question. You all have a potential that you never could imagine as a human."

But no, even that doesn't touch on what Lark misses most.

"Do you have a place, Tommy, where you can breathe clean air and imagine yourself being free?"

[bleak_midwinter]

He leans forward as Lark speaks, and he imagines this is what Lark had felt like when Tommy had spoken of Grace: his face is full of such love and admiration and longing, but the note of loss is too strong to be ignored.

"Not anymore," he says, softly, tilting his head, "but I used to."

[ukan]

Lark watches him, setting aside his own thoughts for a moment to focus on Tommy. Which, he realizes only now, is yet another thing that would have baffled Tati. Humans aren't really worth the time it takes to empathize, not when a wolf's life is so much shorter than it should be.

"I never had it, until I became a wolf. You can feel things, like the warmth of the earth, or the smell of happiness, or how someone's body rearranges itself when they're working through something painful--it's so clear it's like a language. English may as well be my second language now, and the only way to learn mine, to speak to me the way I understand best, is to be a wolf."

He licks his lips, frustrated that it still doesn't feel like a complete overview.

"I think Tati knows I treat you like pack. And I probably shouldn't--at home, I definitely wouldn't be. I think that's the other reason he was surprised."

[bleak_midwinter]

"He said that men like me usually turn men like you into violent, slobbering idiots." He says this with the twitch of a smile- they'd both been on the edge of that. It goes both ways.

"I want to ask you something. If you don't want to answer, just say so- no lies."

[ukan]

Lark chuckles softly, and is glad all over again for his restraint, or else they might have had one violent altercation and never spoken again.

"...All right." He thinks to himself that Tommy has earned that much: honesty or else an honest withholding.

[bleak_midwinter]

"Will I regret it, letting you treat me as pack?"

The implication is obvious: are you planning something, will I be implicated? And something else- he wants to help Lark, he wants him to graduate, but if he is going to use Tommy to get worse he'll have no part in that.

[ukan]

Lark clicks his teeth together; it's not something he does often, only when he's really thinking long-term, thinking of the variables he can't even begin to prepare for yet.

"No. No, I don't think so. Unless you betray me--and don't misunderstand what that means. I know you have a job to do here. I know sometimes my goals will be contrary to yours. As long as you explain to me what you are doing, or at least why you did it after the fact, when you have to take a stand against me, I promise I won't hold it against you. A betrayal would be turning Nux or some other packmate against me. A betrayal would be...well, turning against me entirely instead of just opposing something I do here or there."

[bleak_midwinter]

He looks closely at Lark, but the answer satisfies him for now. He'd asked more after Lark's plans, but this will do for the duration.

"Very well, then. I suppose I'll have to live with it then, eh?"

[ukan]

"You make it sound like a trial."

He smiles. It fades fast.

"You aren't really worried, are you?"