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[ukan]

This is Lark Tennant, leave a message.

[Or a note, or a drop-by]

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[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.

[ukan]

He smirks. "Seems like a good person to be, as far as any of our breach selves are. Easier to enjoy than the one you just were?"

[crab_rangoon]

"I prefer having something to do," he insists. "These sorts of fake family, fake friends, all get along sorts of things don't sit right with me."

[ukan]

"It's the fake families that annoy me most." A small bit of contempt. "At least this time my family members were my actual pack members, but I've never been that lucky before. A lot of people here cling to those attachments after the breach... Which is odd. It's like being in a play, and then trying to drag those characters' fictional relationships into the real world."

[crab_rangoon]

He frowns. "I've only had one relationship from the breach that stuck. Rawne. He wasn't a brother, but I took care of him on the train. But that wasn't an attachment carried over so much as it was an interest in someone who turned out to be not so terrible in real life."

He sits back. "The only attachments that don't seem contrived are the ones that are already there. If you and I had been brothers or related or what-the-fuck ever, I wouldn't have such a problem."

[ukan]

He grins. "Well, if I'd ended up having a crush on you instead of Anita, and was too shy to say or do anything about it, I'd have an issue with that. Not having the crush, just being too chickenshit to act."

[crab_rangoon]

"Hm. It wouldn't make it awkward coming back and seeing my handsome face?" he wonders with a grin, because Pagan likes to play with fire.

[ukan]

"We're too close in age," Lark quips. "I'm a cradle robber, haven't you seen Alec?"

[crab_rangoon]

"So am I," he points out. "At least with men," he laughs. "That's been my normal type. Men that look young and act like selfish brats. But have adorable faces." Which has not served him well and probably is something that needs to change one day. "Women are different."

[ukan]

"They are for me, too. My taste in women is nothing like my taste in men." He has a few guesses as to why, but no idea what it is for Pagan.

[crab_rangoon]

"Well, you picked a fine one in Alec," he assures him. "I suppose it doesn't matter now, does it?"

[ukan]

"Not for me, no." He rubs his thumb along his wedding band. "I did love a woman here, though. Before I met him."

[crab_rangoon]

"Really?"

Pagan looks skeptical. "I thought you said that females in the pack only make things-- complicated." He remembers the story that he told him when Pagan was complaining about Shen Wei. It wasn't a good one.

"Who was she?"