ukan | IC CONTACT

"You're ignoring the experience that I have with being human because you don't like being told to rest," Lark snaps. "And in doing so you're endangering yourself and everyone out there. But fine, you don't want to listen to reason?"

He stands up, fucking do it.

"So it's reason now," Alec bites off, but his momentum doesn't slow down. Lark stands up. Alec steps back, which is where he shrugs the blanket off down onto the cot where he was sitting.

"Don't worry, I won't endanger anyone else if I find out I need something."

"For fuck's sake," he mutters. "Yes it's reason, I'm sorry your pride is wounded by being merely human. Go ahead, go out there with no rest, no food, and no warmth just so you can try to prove you don't need me."

He knows it's not pride at work here. He knows Alec is probably scared, certainly angry. But Lark is too, and he doesn't have enough patience to go around.

For Alec's part, he's exhausted, which ties directly to fear for him, even now; he's hungry, he's thirsty, he's cold, and he feels half dead. He doesn't have enough information, and he's worried. On top of that, Lark has managed to hit every single angle just slightly wrong enough that Alec's patience is shot, too, even if it weren't on top of three of the most frustrating days he's had in a while escorting Ulla back.

There's nothing to slam which is good. He does duck out of the sleep area, does head straight for the equipment room to do his own inventory, to find a backpack to carry supplies in so he has a bit more leeway when he heads back out.

Lark lets him go. He has too much else to do, and he clearly doesn't have the brain power, the energy, or the words to get through to Alec right now.

Instead he goes out to check in with Alejandro, then Franky, then does his own rounds and scavenging.

Usually when Alec is angry, especially these days, especially with Lark, he can rein it in fairly quickly. He's always burned hot but quick, and never lets it get the better of him for too long. They're on a mission right now. There's no room for emotion.

He goes out for a short distance recon trip, comes back even more tired than before, but it still doesn't occur to him to do more than sit down. (It never occurs to him to sleep. Sleep is not for him.) He's not shivering this time but his feet ache - he's never had to deal with blisters for more than an hour before and he hates it, thanks - and he's too worn out for emotions. He picks up his walkie talkie, turns it over to Lark's number, and hits the talk button so that static runs across the line in their silent code: Where are you?

It's probably a good thing the radios aren't useful for conversation, because Lark can't snap at him again.

Where are you?

Good thing they're not communicators, either, because Alec can't roll his eyes back through a screen.

Costa Rica.

Did you leave?

He's busy elsewhere, and isn't willing to tear himself away just to check.

Third bunk, Alec answers instead of trying to do anything else more specific, then drops the walkie talkie onto the ground by his nest of sleeping bags and sits back against the support of the tent.

Fuck it.

It's an hour before Lark makes his way there, not out of spite but because there's so much to be done.

"Hey."

He was sleeping, having drifted off at some point, angry and hurt and scared and annoyed with himself and half a dozen other things less readily identifiable, but he jerks awake again the second there's movement.

It feels like dragging himself one-armed up a vertical wall, but he makes it, voice a bit slurred as he asks, "Everything alright?" Because business always comes first.

"Yeah." He looks more rested than Alec, at least. He sits next to Alec's bunk. "Alejandro's taken the watch, Franky has the radios, and supplies are secure. So I'm here."

To guard Alec's sleep.

It rankles. It feels like weight crushing down against his chest to not be in the rotation. It feels like it could be panic if he let it.

A sarcastic comment floats up in his mind but he breathes through it instead, and shakes his head.

"I don't want to sleep, Lark." Even when he needs it - especially when he needs it - he wants nothing to do with it. He fears it. There's nothing for that. "I scouted a few miles up the river, but I had to come back. I was getting too cold. I do know my limits."

He knows. And if this was anywhere else he'd have the patience to talk it through. But he's still frustrated, and hurt, and angry.

"Why do you think you should be running at your limit right now? Why is that better than having you rested so you're at an advantage?"

"What makes you think you know better than I do what's an advantage for me?" he presses, but it's not sharp this time. Not yet.

"I get it. You were human. But I've performed under duress just as much of my life. I'm not going to be able to sleep either way. Not long enough to matter. And then I'll feel like shit on top of wasting time."

"Either you trust me to know how human brains work, or you don't," he finally snaps. "Neither of us has time to sit down and dissect this. It's not about how tough you are or how much duress you can take, this is not a fucking test, it's about finding what advantages we can, and if you want to push back on this, fine. Go ahead. I don't have time to argue about this."

"Fine," Alec snaps, glad for the blanket that masks how his hands are shaking by the time Lark is done. It's not cold this time.

Lark is right about one thing anyway: they don't have time for this.

"You can go. And the next time you feel the need to talk to me like that, don't."

It manages to shake Lark out of the anger, but he only has a few seconds to start to say something--to apologize--when he hears a second radio crackling and Franky still on another. So he gets up and has to answer, has to put the fight away from his mind and work.

Alec is angry, always, in the quiet moments between thoughts and at the core of his bones; but it's been years since he was so angry he could feel it on his skin. He stays absolutely still until he's sure Lark is gone, even now a little amazed that it worked, but he shuts that out mercilessly and stands. He's wide awake now, anyway. He heads out again.

He stays away from the camp after that except when he absolutely has to return for supplies or to rest, or to bring someone else in. He doesn't try to have another conversation with Lark, limiting their interaction to strictly business or strictly checking in: he's mad, he knows Lark is mad, but that doesn't mean either of them wants the other dead.

It also means it's best that they don't try to work together right now, so that's where it stays. And, after everyone is back on the Barge and Alec has checked in one more time that Lark made it on board, that's where it ends.

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