ukan | IC CONTACT

"She wouldn't have left," he says. "She wouldn't have left because I would have taken care of us. Of our family the way I should have."

"I will get you any deal you want." Lark pauses. "If you want to be sent to a point where you can kill him and can have her, your family, I will do it."

But Pagan hasn't asked for that.

But then, faced with that possibility, he doesn't know if it's true. He shakes his head. "No," he says softly. "No, because I can't guarantee it."

"Then is some of this anger because you don't see a viable way for you to ever be with her?" Very quiet.

That's when Pagan's anger actually boils over. He doesn't hit him, but Pagan feels safe enough with him to try and lash out, to move to shove him away.

Bingo.

Lark is stronger than a human, barely moves at all with the push. He could take blows if Pagan gave them, he has the patience for it, but at the end of the day he's still a wolf, still wired not to back down.

So he watches Pagan, ready to react. "Is this going to help?"

He gets in his face, jaw clenched. "It might," he sings softly. "I only got to see her that once," he says softly, voice cracking. "Just for a moment. Just for a few seconds. The rest of the week was the Golden Path soldier after Golden Path soldier. Dinners with Ajay. Ishwari's fucking eyes in that boy's head."

"I would want them dead, too. If it was me, if they had taken from me what they took from you, I would kill them. I've done terrible things to the people who hurt mine, and I don't apologize for it." He holds Pagan's gaze, their faces inches apart.

"I'll never ask you to forgive them. I'll never ask you to just let them hurt you. What you choose to do with your pain is your business. And I've seen you deciding what to do with it, and I respect what you are doing with it now. So if you want to beat this out on someone for a while, do it."

"And if I want to shoot every fucking one of them?" he growls, trying to shove him back again, though he knows it's useless. It doesn't matter. It feels good to hit something. To put his hands against something.

Lark pushes back this time. "Then do it. Mow the fuckers down."

Pagan knows he's getting himself worked up, knows that he's going to getting too upset about this, but there's no going back. He's already lost it. He steps back at the push and aims a hit at him instead.

Because he knows he can't. He knows that those people are innocent. Not everyone in the Golden Path deserves it, no matter how angry he is.

But he's still angry.

Lark takes the hit. And because Pagan most likely doesn't need a warm, breathing punching bag that passively accept blow after blow, he pushes him again, advances on him.

He steps back and gets in his face again, gets against him, bows up to him, sucks in air deeply.

"I fucking hate them," he says. "I bomb their city. I shoot their soldiers. Fuck them. I won't give up my throne because it means I can't do that any longer."

"They've taken your family from you. The only thing they don't have yet, they will come for, because after everything they have, now they want to take your life." Don't let them. He knows how Pagan's life ended; he also knows how much more Pagan could do, if he can ever see his way through.

Pagan shudders at that, still in his face, but trembling a little.

"I'm so tired of it, Lark," he finally admits.

I know. Lark doesn't say it; it's in every subtle muscle movement in his body. He realizes that over time he's begun communicating to Pagan like he would another wolf; he isn't sure how much of it translates but it's also not a conscious action so he can't stop doing it.

"You don't have to give them anything more," his voice as low, intent as before. "If your life is the last thing you truly have, you decide what to do with it. It isn't theirs to take."

Pagan makes contact with him again, but it isn't to hit him. It isn't to hurt him. It's to simply rest his forehead against Lark's shoulder.

Though he doesn't communicate fully with him non-verbally, he does know what he means. What he's talking about.

There are no words of comfort for something like this. Nothing anyone could say, from Gandhi to Genghis Kahn, would have had any impact on the level of Lark's misery if he had lost what Pagan has lost. So he says nothing; he rests a hand on Pagan's shoulder, holding him close but giving the option for Pagan to stay or go as he needs.

Pagan sighs a bit and closes his eyes. He doesn't move.

"Am I supposed to be angry? What am I supposed to do?" he mutters.

"You're supposed to be feeling what you feel now. Conflicted...maybe even contradictory." There are probably more emotions coursing through Pagan's veins than either of them can even count.

"What you're supposed to do is let yourself feel them. Let them run their course. The ones that you can act on will surface."

Pagan still doesn't move. Still can't do anything but breathe through it. "I don't want it," he mutters softly.

"I want out of this bullshit."

Lark's hand is steady, no longer on the edge of Pagan's shoulder but resting over his shoulder blade. "The fact that you're feeling this means your mind is working. If you felt nothing, you would be standing still."

That old saying: when you're in Hell, keep moving.

He pulls away slowly with a haughty sort of sniff, looking away as he counts his breaths, hoping that will help him focus on something more important.

"Don't I ever get a goddamm break?"

"You're about due for one," Lark says with a small smile. "Does anything relax you or does the king in you just keep you going on all cylinders?"

"Numbing things," he says softly. Alcohol, mostly.

"Distractions. Kazuma usually helps, but not with this. This is your problem, I'm afraid."

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