ukan | IC CONTACT

Alec is on high alert as they approach, wary of what the camp holds and what they'll find. Lark would have warned him about anything he needed to know but it doesn't change old habits, and it doesn't mean he has all the details by a long shot.

Which means he shows absolutely nothing as they walk up, which means he takes the canteen and takes only a mouthful before he'll toss it to Ulla, and he shakes his head.

"No. Just like old times, except I'm taller," Alec smirks, eyes still wary. "We didn't have any trouble, but we saw... signs that that wasn't the case for everyone. Are you good?"

"I'm fine. Come inside." There aren't many blankets, but Lark has deliberately been using one so he can set it aside for whoever walks into camp and needs to warm up.

"We'll need to start gathering bodies as well as people. We don't have a head count and I haven't figured out the best way to do it yet--I'm useless out there, it's better that I stay here to hold things down. You aren't going out until you've warmed up and eaten."

He eyes Alec's attire and raises one teasing eyebrow. "For the record, you were wearing clothes when we got here, so you can't blame me for the cold."

"She wasn't," he answers, shrugging, because he did the best with what he had. It's the most he's capable of teasing at the moment, and he nods to the rest.

"I know where two are," he answers. It'll be a bit longer to get Ulla settled, to get her a place to rest and something to wear and food and water, but then he'll finally let Lark lead him somewhere more private before he lets down his guard enough that his whole body starts shaking enough that he has trouble unlacing his boots.

"Sit back," Lark says, soft but it's unmistakably and order. He unlaces Alec's boots, he gives him the blanket, he gets him the meager broth he's made and kept warm by a fire.

Alec is hungry, he's dehydrated, but not ravenous like he would normally be. Not only is his metabolism much slower without his transgenic abilities, but he's not unskilled at surviving in this terrain and circumstance. He was able to find them water, to hunt a small bit, to gather as they went. If he'd been by himself, he would have barely noticed.

But he wasn't, so he sits back when Lark tells him to, he huddles into that blanket, and he doesn't try to say anything until he's finished the broth - largely because he's not interested in talking past chattering teeth.

"I'm okay," he insists again. Although: "Another night out there was going to be a problem, so I pushed us today."

"You're okay," Lark agrees. If both their assessments are that Alec isn't going to die right here, then it's accurate. "But you'll be more okay once we warm you up. Tell me what's out there--animals, people?"

"Just us as far as people go," he answers, meaning barge passengers. He sets the bowl aside and huddles more tightly into the blanket.

"Plenty of animals. I'd have been fine if I had either my speed or more time to set trap lines, but we couldn't stop. There's something wrong out there though. Some of the people I saw weren't... Acting right."

"Aggressive?" It's going to take a few hours, he thinks, to stop speaking in the radio-induced staccato.

"Mm," Alec stalls, because it's not wrong, but for the encounter he's thinking of, not right either.

"Yes. But not like people are aggressive. Not quite." Honestly it reminded him of the anomalies, but he doesn't ever bring that up lightly, and he hates what it probably means if he's right.

Lark gives him a long look. "Meaning they can't be reasoned with?"

"Like they were sizing me up and decided I wasn't worth the effort." Humans as predators think differently than oh, say, wolves as predators. Real wolves.

"Like maybe they weren't desperate enough yet to try me but might if I stuck around."

"Wild animals, then." He closes his eyes, just for a second dreading things and gathering himself. "All right. We've got a fence, we have people on patrol. For the moment things are steady here."

"What is here?" Alec asks, because if anyone could get people back to camp alive without supplies it's Alec, but if anyone can figure out what the purpose of an abandoned camp in the Arctic wilderness is, it's Lark.

He massages his feet while he listens, checking like he has been obsessively for any signs of frostbite. His boots are sturdy and well made but they're not insulated for these temperatures.

He gestures around them. "Basically what you can see from right here. Shelter is the most important thing. I haven't been able to make heads or tails of what they were doing here."

Alec gives him a look.

"So what have you been doing for three days? Knitting an afghan?"

"Pining for you, obviously," he says, dripping sarcasm, his tone sharper than he'd meant it to be.

"Well obviously," Alec returns, but flat, because he's terrible at flirting like this.

But he does look up and tips his head.

"I just mean I know you. I know you were doing something. So what's been going on?"

"I've been taking shifts securing the perimeter. We have a fence and so far it's kept things at bay. I'm trying to keep a fire going, I've gathered whatever I know isn't poison," which would have been so much easier with his nose. "and making weapons. I've been treading water, basically."

Out of all of which Alec's take away is -

"So there's been trouble?"

"Not here. But people who have come in have said there are people from the Barge who are acting like wild animals."

"Great," Alec mutters, and he reaches for his boots again, straightening up without shrugging off the blanket. Yet.

"No rest for the wicked then. That must have been what the Admiral meant."

Lark holds up a hand; stay here.

"I have several concerns about the Admiral but we don't have time right now to go into them. After you've rested, do you think you can find more people? Take down any 'wild' ones to get them here?"

"I'm depowered, not fucking helpless," Alec... Doesn't quite snap, but doesn't quite not, and he ignores the silent order.

"I mapped the way in. I can start fanning out in a grid if there's anything at all like a map here."

Coupled with the way Lark had snapped at him just a few moments ago, Lark takes a moment to breathe in, breathe out. There's still a raw tension in his voice, though. "And I've actually lived depowered for most of my life. I'm not asking you to rest because I'm trying to baby you, Alec. I need you fed and rested before you go out again."

"Oh?" Alec presses, even though the rational, logical part of his brain knows this is true. Alec was without most of his abilities for only a week. Lark was born human and stayed on the Barge much longer.

But that's not the party of his brain governing his mouth right now. "Well last I checked I've been me all my life and I know what I can and can't do. We're here. We have a job to do, and not a lot of time to do it in."

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