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[ukan]

This is Lark Tennant, leave a message.

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[ukan]

Lark nods as he pictures what that could do. "I think I've told you some of what it takes to change a person into a wolf. It means we get to leave so much of our human trauma behind," even though no person survives a change without having suffered as a human. "I can't imagine the damage the wrong person with the wrong wound opened could do."

Blood baths, if it was a wolf. Massacres.

[epistemological]

"Precisely," he says with a low nod. "Besides the fact that it's deeeeeeeply unethical and, well, I've found I rather hate myself when I, er, indulge in that manner."

[ukan]

Lark isn't prone to guilt. He has exactly two instances in his whole life where he can honestly say he's experienced it. But that doesn't mean he has no sympathy for friends who do live with it.

"Even when it does help someone?"

[epistemological]

"The problem is," he says, leaning back against the couch a little more as Sasha the cat decides to take up his lap, "that I've no way of knowing whether it'll hurt or harm. Meaning: I made that decision for me not for them. Any help I provided was purely happenstance."

He breathes out and lets his hand settle on the back of the cat.

"I can use my abilities in small ways, little doses, without much trouble. But anything like taking a proper statement... I would rather wait until I've figured something out than risk someone's health or sanity."

[ukan]

He nods. He can accept that, support it, even if he has no frame of reference for it in his own life. He's offered changes to people who would otherwise be trapped, and he's done it for himself first and their benefit second. But it's not the same as what Jon is describing.

"If you ever do figure something out..." A slow, careful breath. He's not even sure he should say this, but Jon is his friend, and he trusts him, and he wants him to know it. "I have things I've never resolved. Not much; I know myself and my path very well. But the things I can't reconcile about how I've behaved, I don't know how to shake."

[epistemological]

That has him sitting up a little, and Sasha, sensing the seriousness, decides to retreat to her spot in the bedroom. Jon, however, is focused on Lark, enough that Lark might feel the extra eyes a little more than usual.

"If there's a question you want me to ask you, Lark, I- that's very much within the bounds of things I'm comfortable with."

[ukan]

There is guess usual, constant wariness about giving away any information about himself. It's present even with Alec.

But there is also a small hope of relief.

"Walk me through how this works."

[epistemological]

Jon nods, and looks Lark up and down.

"It's relatively simple: in this case, you tell me what question you want me to ask. I ask it... without holding back on my abilities. You'll feel it, the difference, when I do that. And you'll feel compelled to answer, perhaps even in ways you didn't realize you knew."

He turns a hand.

"You can't give me answers you don't have. But if it's in there, I can pull it out. It just might not be... pleasant. Especially if something in you fights me. But if it works... it works."

[ukan]

"Unpleasant usually comes before growth," Lark notes, searching his own mind to be sure this is what he wants to do.

The risks are worth it, it doesn't take him long to decide.

"Ask me about the mutiny."

[epistemological]

He breathes in deep, breathes out slow. Then he looks at Lark with an unnerving amount of focus, with more eyes than just the two on his face, and the air will wobble with the force of it.

He's so much stronger than he was before. Even this has a potency to it he never intends.

"Tell me about the mutiny."

[ukan]

Even the man who knows Lark best knows so little about Lark's life before the moment they met. Even when Lark wants to talk about himself, it fails in the face of letting people talk to him instead. He doesn't mind; he has ugly swaths of history in him that are easy to judge, and he'd rather learn about someone else than rehash his own life.

But Jon. Jon says that and the ancient, iron grip he's always had on his introspection eases. It isn't terrifying like he'd thought it would be. If Jon had simply dropped this on him without Lark's permission he would be panicking, but he wants this. It is simply a relief, a touch of cool water on skin that has been too long in the sun.

"Steve saved my life. The first moment I met him it was like with you; an instant connection I'd never had before. Someone whose opinions were so unlike mine and so honest that I could trust them. He was the first warden I ever believed in.

"And I repaid him by manipulating his view of the Admiral. He denies it to this day, but I spent a year pushing a view on him to make him hate this place as much as I did."

He wants to say more. The words want to tumble out but he pauses, watching Jon.

[epistemological]

Jon’s always very careful with what he Asks, which is why he’s glad he Knows there’s more.

”What aren’t you saying?”

He’ll pull a little more, less like yanking a chain and more like tugging at a rotted tooth.

[ukan]

This hurts, like he knew it would. Like he wanted it to, because if it didn't it would mean he no longer felt guilt over it.

"There were only two people I would have compromised for. And I threw them both aside to go at the Admiral. Not to get out of the Barge anymore, like I keep telling people it was." A sharp breath through his teeth like there's a knife in his side. "Because I was curious. That's all. I shattered the two most important relationships I've ever had because I wanted to see what was behind a curtain."

[epistemological]

Shit.

There’s been so many moments where the two of them have just… understood one another and this is the most painful, and fitting, of them all. He knows and he Knows and Christ, his heart bleeds with how much he understands that. He’s here, now, with a bite mark on his leg, barely human anymore and starving to hear people’s traumatic experiences fresh from their mouths because He Had To Know.

Hearing Lark admit to that same hunger is heartbreaking. And it’s why he asks just one more question.

Quietly.

Gently.

”Why did you need to know?”

[ukan]

He closes his eyes. This is such a complicated answer with such a simple core to it. It's the reason Lark is alive at all.

"Because I needed to know how the Admiral does it. What he is. What the power really is. What he gets from us."

But that's just the surface, specific to this situation. The why applies to everything Lark has ever done.

"If I can't know something a part of me stays behind with it, always.. I am always gnawing on it no matter what else I do. Breaking my teeth on it if I have to, until I figure it out."

[epistemological]

Jon has an itch, but he doesn't know if it's his itch... or something else. He can't trust himself, not with this, which is why he reins in his power before he asks another question.

"...do you want me to tug here, Lark? We can. But only if you want to."

[ukan]

He doesn't know what he needs to say, only that there is still a sense that his feet haven't found solid ground. As much as he wants to push away from this, to go back to trying to ignore it the way one might ignore a broken toe, he can't.

"Yes."

[epistemological]

"All right."

Which is when he breathes out and that feeling, those eyes on him, are almost overwhelming. The feeling of the air is charged, electric, like sparks could fly off of nothing any minute.

"Why do you need to figure it out, Lark? Tell me."

[ukan]

"Because." This does hurt. This hurts in such a physical way it reminds him of when his sternum cracks to rearrange itself to become a wolf's, and it has nothing to do with Jon pulling it out of him.

"Because no matter what I do I can never set it right. If I can't control whatever it is in me that puts curiosity ahead of everything, I will lose everything. And even if I control it I can't help them, I can't repair it."

[epistemological]

"Do you know what that thing is?"

No power behind it. There's something to be said for letting people come to their own conclusions. And maybe, hopefully, Lark's heard a few things that might help him.

[ukan]

"No." A slow, shaky breath. "So I blame it on instinct. Everything I don't understand and can't control about myself, I blame on instinct, because I know how to combat that. Except it doesn't work against this...whatever it is."

[epistemological]

"...do you want to know if that's what it is?" And he's watching Lark, trying to get a gauge of how he's doing, whether he's doing any real damage. This is a little more in depth than he'd thought at first, but he won't give up now. Lark had helped him, had helped him so many times. He could hardly fail him.

[ukan]

He wouldn't have guessed that he would hesitate if given the chance to know something about himself that has been hidden. But he does, because Jon hadn't been exaggerating when he said this was hard. Painful.

He nods anyway. "I need to know." A need, like he'd told Jon. An inescapable need to know whatever secrets are in his reach.

[epistemological]

"All right."

So very gentle.

He breathes in deep and slow and breathe out and he's going to pull in earnest now, knows how deep this is and knows just as well that Lark needs it. Like his own teeth in soft muscle, he tears.

"What is it that makes you need to know, Lark?"

[ukan]

"Because it's the only thing that makes life." Not life worth living; that's too subjective. "I refuse to be stagnant. I refuse to stop. Knowledge makes change and change makes life evolve and I refuse to stand aside and not be part of it."