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From:

It's not his best night. Make that his morning; it's probably closer to seven by the time he knocks on Tommy's door, and Lark still hasn't slept.

But he does have two coffees and it's a peace offering. Of sorts.

As annoyed as he is at the knot in his stomach from his night with Alec, he's amused that the only place he thinks of to go afterward is to see Tommy fucking Shelby.

From:

bleak_midwinter

Tommy'd tried to sleep, but he's been up for a few hours, working at the kitchen table. He's writing letters, makes notes on the other inhabitants of the Barge, he writes down what he can remember about the networks in London, the other big cities.

When there's a knock on his door he takes a minute to open, and when he does he looks a little rumpled, hair mussed, only wearing a henley and suspenders, not the whole suit.

"Morning," he says, flatly amused. "I don't recall placing an order, Mr. Tenannt."

From:

ukan

"You, too?" Lark looks rumpled from grappling, exhausted from being up too long. "Then you really need this. Here."

He offers a cup and raises an eyebrow. "Feel like a quick chat?"

From:

bleak_midwinter

"When are our chats ever quick, Lark?" But he takes the cup and steps away from the door, sitting back down at the kitchen table. He shuffles the papers into one heap, but apart from that sees no real need to hide their contents.

From:

ukan

Lark doesn't make an effort to see. He doesn't make an effort not to, either. Fortunately, his mind is fixed on two points today, and the urge to pry is less.

"I want your-" advice? No. "-Opinion on something. One. Someone. Are you sure I'm not interrupting?"

From:

bleak_midwinter

Lark is acting a little edgy, which makes Tommy both alert and calm- because it means it's probably nothing to worry about, but something that makes Lark edgy is bound to be interesting.

"At 7 in the morning, Lark? I can write letters I'll never send at any hour. Go on."

From:

ukan

Lark sometimes comes home with this energy still sizzling through him, but it's always gone by the time he runs into Tommy around the Barge. As it is he paces, sits, paces again.

Where to start? "You've met Alec?"

From:

bleak_midwinter

He nods, starts taking out a cigarette, his matches.

"I have, yes."

A strange, strong boy who spends half his time posturing, but Tommy doesn't dislike him.

From:

ukan

"He's on night patrol and sometimes I'll go out to keep him company. We talk, play pool" kind of "spar."

He turns toward the sound of a match being struck.

"When did you meet him?"

From:

bleak_midwinter

"A few days ago. Coming out of the Enclosure- I showed him the countryside, horses."

He won't say what he thinks of Alec yet, is too curious about Lark's own thoughts.

From:

ukan

"How was he with the horses?"

His interest is, as always, twofold: do horses hate transgenics like they do wolves? But, more tellingly, was Alec good with them, did they like him, what was he like?

He doesn't ask out loud, but you can't meet Lark's eyes and not realize there's something a bit- different, a bit more, to his curiosity than the usual strategy building.

From:

bleak_midwinter

"Fine," he says, around the cigarette, and then blows out a mouthful of smoke. "Tentative at first, but instinctive."

He takes the cigarette in his hand instead, jerks his chin up at Lark. "Give it to me straight, now, Lark. Why the interest in the boy?"

From:

ukan

Lark pauses, and rubs his hands over his face in a way that's weary and horrified, and probably says more than he wants.

"I think he's closer to your age than mine." Which is not the point. He tries to downplay it instead: "He's interesting. He knows plenty to keep me on my feet but what he doesn't know he picks up fast. We have the same views on...certain things."

From:

bleak_midwinter

Tommy just raises his eyebrows, gestures with the cigarette. Elaborate, please. That's not the whole story, and he won't be fooled by it.

From:

ukan

The thing is, they're from different time periods. Lark could blow this all off with easy slang, if he happened to be talking to someone else. But Tommy is the one person who tends to get the most truth out of him, because anything less can be too easily misunderstood.

"For example, there's some attraction. Mutually. We've been handling it the same way."

From:

bleak_midwinter

He doesn't smirk, but he has to fight the urge- because the circumvent way he got that out is just too much, too typical.

"You want to fuck him. But you won't...?" Because of the path, because of what Lark told him.

From:

ukan

Lark leans against the nearest surface and nods. Groans a little.

"I told him why I'd been slow to come around. I figured he should have all the cards there, just in case something on the Barge warps things. He didn't take it well."

From:

bleak_midwinter

He gestures with his cigarette, silently asking Lark if he'd like one as well-- he knows it'd help him, if he were in Lark's position.

Truthfully, he's seen that these things are far less of an issue on the Barge. It's been comfortable, actually; one less thing people get anxious about. He's a little surprised about Lark, but apart from that he won't make it any bigger than it is: a man who wants to fuck someone, and all the human troubles that come with that sort of thing.

"What did he do?"

From:

ukan

Lark starts to nod, then makes a motion at Tommy's, holds up a single finger: one puff?

"He wasn't comfortable. I don't know if he was angry--I don't know how to read him on a good day."

Which is vexing and masochistically enticing.

"The problem isn't that he knows what I told him, or that he will or won't sleep with me. Have you been with anyone since Grace?"

From:

bleak_midwinter

He leans forward, both elbows on the table, to hand the cigarette over to Lark. He's feeling out what Lark won't and will let himself have, and apparently cigarettes are part of the incomplete indulgences.

"I haven't." But Tommy's sexual history (scarce, since the war; 1 person, other than Grace, for simple physical satisfaction) isn't the point of discussion here.

"Are you afraid of what would happen if you slept with him?"

From:

ukan

"I haven't been with anyone since Lisbeth. I haven't even wanted to be." Lark says, finally going still. "Whenever I've started to feel something, it's been- uncomfortable. Look, if I actually can be with someone, it means-"

He hesitates, shakes his head. "It means she's gone, Tommy. It means there's no center to a pack here, it means there's no pack-"

From:

bleak_midwinter

The growing distress in Lark's voice makes Tommy frown, as does the fact that he's suddenly still-- and when he starts talking about pack, he stands up, makes his way over to him and puts a hand to the side of his head.

"Hey-- hey. Calm down, eh? It'll be alright." They can talk about how, later, but he needs him calm, first- which is why his voice is low, authoritative, clear.

From:

ukan

This is as close to rattled as Lark gets; not panic, but he's certainly not corralling his thoughts, and all his energy stops.

Lark looks at Tommy, who may not understand what the status of coyote is to Lark's kind, but who understands at least what it's like to need a group for survival. Soldiers or siblings, Tommy's needed one or the other as much as Lark has.

"I've been- going at this all the wrong way," he says softly, as if by voicing his mistakes he can purge them and start over. "I never should have let myself think she'd be coming back. I should have been focusing on rebuilding."

From:

bleak_midwinter

"There's time yet, Lark," he says. "No one can blame you for waiting for her."

No one, perhaps, will understand this better than Tommy. What he doesn't know for a fact yet, but what he feels, somewhere inside of him, is that he'll never truly let go of Grace- that he'll always hold out for her, will compare everyone else to her. That he won't be able to move on.

He understands. But it's easier to give advice than it is to follow it.

From:

ukan

There will never be another Lisbeth. Lark closes his eyes, buries his face in his hands, and feels his mind zigzag while he talks himself in circles.

"The thing is I don't think she'd even care if I just- if she knew about Alec. But I can't tell. She was always so free--I'm sure she had, or would have had, other people besides me." Lark had been jealous when he'd noticed those she had singled out, for whatever reason. It had been a masochistic high.

"But if she's gone, the pack-" She had never been the leader or the center. Lark had turned someone else for that. But Lark had an eye to the future, and Lisbeth would have been the most ideal (maybe because he was bonded to her, centered on her).

"I need a pack." He says it the way he'd admit, I need a new kidney. "I could wait on her forever, but if the Admiral doesn't take her soul, what good is that? The isolation will catch up."

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