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[ukan]

This is Lark Tennant, leave a message.

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[crab_rangoon]

"That fucking weird guy? Yeah. I'd rather not get stabbed. And I won't shoot Misty. God, my stock is already low enough. You think I want it in a free-fall?"

He finishes his tea and sets it aside. "Give me more credit than that."

[ukan]

He raises an eyebrow. "You passed a pop quiz."

Not really, of course. He said he'd change the gun and he will; he's been thinking about those 'training wheels' and when to take them off since a little before Pagan met Kiryu. He sips his tea, circles back to an earlier topic.

"Were you really worried the breach was trying to tell you something?"

[crab_rangoon]

"No," he assures him. "I don't assign meaning to them. I don't like the fucking feeling afterward, but it's not something I can fight. It's just something I have to wait on."

He laughs. "Like a really fucking terrible hangover."

[ukan]

"That's what I used to call it," Lark grimaces. "Only I would have taken the worst hangover I had when I was a drinker over this. I get that there are lessons you can take from them--for me, I've learned to be grateful I was never a simpering small town lawyer. But I don't think the lessons are useful."

[crab_rangoon]

"No, the lessons aren't useful. And I don't intend on taking a goddamn one of them. Unless there's something you see that I don't."

He leans forward. "Which I highly doubt."

[ukan]

"Not in this breach, no. Just like feel-good movies don't come with deep meanings." But there have certainly been others where he'd discovered something new. "Who were you in it? A visitor?"

[crab_rangoon]

"A visitor," he adds unhelpfully. "Well, I had been born in the town, moved to the city and was corrupted by power and money, and then came home and was transformed by love."

He rolls his eyes. "I jumped in the water. In a Givenchy."

[ukan]

"What, you were so in love you tried to drown yourself?" He scoffs.

[crab_rangoon]

"Oh god no!" he laughs. "Don't be so dramatic. It was a fun frolic while I was getting back to my small town roots. Shedding my propriety or something like that. Showing that I didn't care about material things."

He rolls his eyes.

"Ridiculous."

[ukan]

"And do you appreciate your clothes more now, or are you prepared to ruin them?" Trying not to laugh.

[crab_rangoon]

Pagan actually sits back.

"Go ahead, go on. Laugh if you like. Laugh at my misery!"

[ukan]

He sobers immediately and gives it a second. "You haven't told me why you're miserable."

[crab_rangoon]

He manages a smile. "It's the absurdity of it, Lark. That's all. You worry too much. It will pass, like I said. I just need to act out a bit. Shoot something. Hit something. And I intend on doing just that."

[ukan]

"Well, if it doesn't pass or you get drunk and decide to tell me, I'll be here. Waiting."

[crab_rangoon]

"Well, not here in my room." He rolls his eyes. "Though I suppose you'll be bothering me more now that you brought the kettle, hm?"

[ukan]

"Constantly," he agrees. "It's better than how I could show up."

[crab_rangoon]

"Why didn't I get a less nosy warden?" he huffs. "Don't you have your own shit to sort through now?"

[ukan]

"What, about the breach? If I don't die it kill anyone in them I don't have much of a breach hangover anymore."

[crab_rangoon]

"How many have you even been through?" he wonders, standing up to pour another cup of the tea. He's glad he taught himself to perfect it; it's coming in handy now.

"Well, what's a more memorable one that doesn't come with a sob story I have to suffer through?"

[ukan]

"Twenty, maybe more. They aren't all memorable." It's one of the biggest reasons Lark no longer has a firm grasp of time or years. "But yeah, they usually have us all living sad lives. That last one was probably the softest one in a long time."

[crab_rangoon]

He looks over his shoulder. "I didn't mind the train one. Yunlan and I bashed a few guards' heads in. I learned how to be a proper government protester. It was great fun."

[ukan]

"I have a hard time picturing you as a protestor when you were the government," he muses. "How did you reconcile that later?"

[crab_rangoon]

"It wasn't my government. It wasn't anything like my regime," he points out. This is a lie he has told himself that is so deeply entrenched, because it was his first breach, that he refuses to let it go.

"I was pissed at first, but the man on the train was nothing like the radicals in blue shooting up my palace."

[ukan]

Lark can hear the insistence, and he decides not to argue. This time. He'll wait for there to be a thread he can pick at stop Pagan can unravel it himself.

"Who was Yunlan to you then?"

[crab_rangoon]

He struggles to think back that far. It was less than a year, but breaches are so vague, and those memories are tricky. He remembers the actions. The rush. The fury. "Friends," he decides. "We were angry together. Angry at the guards who mistreated the prisoners. That sort of thing."

He returns to the couch, settling down, legs crossed.