"If I'd run." There are so many forks in the road that lead to here, where everything Alec had been intended to be should have taken him one direction, and everything he is took him the other.
"If I'd killed that X6 instead of trying to save him. Hell, if I'd killed Max to save myself. If I'd stayed in Seattle. If I'd chosen a different strategy on the Barge. If I hadn't taken that security shift. If I hadn't brought you that frisbee, or said yes."
"If you had said 'no'," his gaze flits briefly to Alec's ring finger. "I would have stayed however you'd let me."
But it wouldn't have been the same. It would have damaged the relationship, and Lark is too pragmatic to think that they would have survived in the long run. He had certainly never intended the offer of marriage to be an ultimatum (hell, it had honestly begun as a legal tactic and nothing romantic), but he can see now that it would have turned that way.
Alec does, too. Sometimes while he sits awake and listens to the sound of Lark breathing alongside him, he thinks about how narrow that miss was, even though -
"We fought to be where we are." So it wasn't so much a narrow miss as a deliberate, relentless campaign. "And I wouldn't trade that for anything. I wouldn't change it."
He offers his hand; he saw that glance. "I'm learning to be more rational about the pack. It's easier, here, now that I can see it doesn't always have to be just wolves. It's more that pack was here before me - it's part of how I came to know you, and I know exactly how you would feel if you didn't have other wolves around you to understand the things only wolves can."
"I wish sometimes there were other transgenics for you. Even just every now and then. For a holiday." He hates the thought of Alec never having anyone who understands the things Lark can't understand.
He straightens up from the counter, raising his hands free so he can move them, and hesitates again. They have multiple silent signals between them, not just a formal language but an evolving system for communication for just the two of them to add onto the universal cues, so it's not like it's new. But this is something else, something from the vault that is Alec's heart.
The signal he shows Lark is not one that has ever turned up before; like everything about the transgenics under scrutiny, it's subtle, not much, a hooking, twisting motion with a finger as it disappears into the palm.
Alec watches himself do it, a little halting at first like he has to remember how, although he doesn't; it's smoother when he repeats it, and smoother still a third time before he looks up at Lark again, lips quirked.
"You and I use some wolf signals. I thought - if you wanted. This is something we used to do."
Lark mimics it, has to mimic it again three or four times before it feels smooth. Yeah, this can work. He looks up at Alec with a little smile. "What does it mean?"
"It means -" He's never had to explain this out loud before and, like his own name, the one at the heart of him, the one he first answered to, it takes some work to believe it's okay to try now. He licks his lips, tries again.
"I see you. I've got you. Encouragement, and affirmation." It can be done at attention, mid-spar, in the night all unobtrusively. "Just... anything, between us in that moment. Something just for us. A question, or an answer, or a way to be together when someone else is watching, or you can't reach or be heard."
Wolf signals are strict, one thing means one thing, no matter how subtly different those codes are. There isn't one as open-ended as this, which makes it feel more theirs.
He looks at the colors around his husband's body and looks at him, in the eyes, and makes the gesture.
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"If I'd killed that X6 instead of trying to save him. Hell, if I'd killed Max to save myself. If I'd stayed in Seattle. If I'd chosen a different strategy on the Barge. If I hadn't taken that security shift. If I hadn't brought you that frisbee, or said yes."
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But it wouldn't have been the same. It would have damaged the relationship, and Lark is too pragmatic to think that they would have survived in the long run. He had certainly never intended the offer of marriage to be an ultimatum (hell, it had honestly begun as a legal tactic and nothing romantic), but he can see now that it would have turned that way.
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"We fought to be where we are." So it wasn't so much a narrow miss as a deliberate, relentless campaign. "And I wouldn't trade that for anything. I wouldn't change it."
He offers his hand; he saw that glance. "I'm learning to be more rational about the pack. It's easier, here, now that I can see it doesn't always have to be just wolves. It's more that pack was here before me - it's part of how I came to know you, and I know exactly how you would feel if you didn't have other wolves around you to understand the things only wolves can."
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But yes, he does think about the barracks at night a lot, too. About Rhys, and Joshua. The green is back, the red subdued again by the blue.
"Could I - there is something."
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The signal he shows Lark is not one that has ever turned up before; like everything about the transgenics under scrutiny, it's subtle, not much, a hooking, twisting motion with a finger as it disappears into the palm.
Alec watches himself do it, a little halting at first like he has to remember how, although he doesn't; it's smoother when he repeats it, and smoother still a third time before he looks up at Lark again, lips quirked.
"You and I use some wolf signals. I thought - if you wanted. This is something we used to do."
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"I see you. I've got you. Encouragement, and affirmation." It can be done at attention, mid-spar, in the night all unobtrusively. "Just... anything, between us in that moment. Something just for us. A question, or an answer, or a way to be together when someone else is watching, or you can't reach or be heard."
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He looks at the colors around his husband's body and looks at him, in the eyes, and makes the gesture.