IC CONTACT
Leave a message, knock on his door, etc.
[After everything she's been dealing with this month, it's taken Tiffany some time to get around to contacting Lark. But she had noticed Nux's pairing announcement, and it had made her remember an earlier conversation.]
Hey.
I saw your friend got paired.
Hey.
I saw your friend got paired.
[To say that Lark feels underprepared is an understatement. But he's also resigned to the fact that there's no way to be prepared for something he is almost guaranteed to lose no matter what he learns or tries or says.]
I'll come by your cabin in a half hour.
I'll come by your cabin in a half hour.
Apparently everyone thinks I'm either cold, unsafe or deprived of colorful things in my environment.
That was quite the haul, Lark.
Thank you.
That was quite the haul, Lark.
Thank you.
There's a plan in place for after they leave the public eye, extremely publicly together; it's a delicate plan, the kind that can't be a plan, the kind that he has to rely on Lark to follow to the letter or this won't work at all. Alec knows how to get around being forced to tell the truth, and that is to make the truth work in his favor. The truth has to be that he didn't notice much of anything, really, and especially not Lark leaving - not Lark coming back.
So it's a fun night for him, enough that even he takes about an hour or so of laing around before he tries to do anything - before he rinses the worst of the two of them off in the kitchen sink, scrubs water through his hair, and then settles down in an appropriated bath robe on the couch with Lark's new laptop to investigate it.
A little later, when Lark is up and around too, Alec doesn't ask how did it go. He knows how it went. He was there for it all. That's the line he has to hold until after he's been asked to prove it - and does.
He grins instead, tapping at the keyboard, tearing it apart data point by data point to make it do what he wants. There's a bowl of the leftover olivier salad balanced on his knee.
"This crap is disgusting," he announces without much actual disgust. He's still eating it. "And I think Eggsy tried to cheat me out of a New Year's kiss." Joke's on him, though.
So it's a fun night for him, enough that even he takes about an hour or so of laing around before he tries to do anything - before he rinses the worst of the two of them off in the kitchen sink, scrubs water through his hair, and then settles down in an appropriated bath robe on the couch with Lark's new laptop to investigate it.
A little later, when Lark is up and around too, Alec doesn't ask how did it go. He knows how it went. He was there for it all. That's the line he has to hold until after he's been asked to prove it - and does.
He grins instead, tapping at the keyboard, tearing it apart data point by data point to make it do what he wants. There's a bowl of the leftover olivier salad balanced on his knee.
"This crap is disgusting," he announces without much actual disgust. He's still eating it. "And I think Eggsy tried to cheat me out of a New Year's kiss." Joke's on him, though.
Lark got back almost precisely two hours after he'd left. He went out without a word, without a sound almost, and he came back much the same way. The first thing he did was shower because although he'd cleaned his paws and fur as much as he could, he has some green still staining his skin, the scent of copper clinging to his skin.
He flops down beside Alec, damp and naked from the shower, and dips into the salad as if he's been there beside him all along. "It's not bad," says the wolf with hardly any taste buds to speak of. It really isn't, though, if you have the spartan sensibilities its creator had.
"How did Eggsy cheat you out of anything? I thought you were an inmate. I'm disappointed in you."
He flops down beside Alec, damp and naked from the shower, and dips into the salad as if he's been there beside him all along. "It's not bad," says the wolf with hardly any taste buds to speak of. It really isn't, though, if you have the spartan sensibilities its creator had.
"How did Eggsy cheat you out of anything? I thought you were an inmate. I'm disappointed in you."
Alec hadn't been lying about how much his day is filled with; it makes him feel more stable, honestly, knowing he's going to be moving from project to project to project. It's easier than staring at the same four walls for hours on end, better than having to find ways to fill his time on his own. Somewhere in the middle of the day, between delivering another near-beating to Eggsy - he's been going harder on his warden ever since the Iron Bull killed him with one well landed blow; Eggsy is no slouch, but he's only human - and reciting a list of Latin medical terms several pages long from memory for the Emperor, Alec realizes he's something very like happy.
It makes him feel immediately uneasy in a way he can't quite shake for the rest of the day, that sinks a little further into his thoughts every time he does successfully managed to distract himself from thinking about it. By the time he's collected his bright red Duke motorcycle from Iris and talked her into letting him into the Enclosure, he's still even keeled, but looking forward to and anxious about this particular trip almost in equal strength.
He still shows up. And he still immediately regrets wearing the leather jacket.
It makes him feel immediately uneasy in a way he can't quite shake for the rest of the day, that sinks a little further into his thoughts every time he does successfully managed to distract himself from thinking about it. By the time he's collected his bright red Duke motorcycle from Iris and talked her into letting him into the Enclosure, he's still even keeled, but looking forward to and anxious about this particular trip almost in equal strength.
He still shows up. And he still immediately regrets wearing the leather jacket.
Lark, who really is more accustomed to this, is still dressed in a black button-down shirt and jeans, sunglasses against the brightness, and his own leather jacket for protection against the sand just in case. (To be fair he doesn't own much else on the Barge.)
Despite the heat, he is quite plainly excited for this, has been gleefully forcing himself to be patient all day. The amount of energy that takes has him euphoric even before the familiar rush of feline pheromones hits him.
"I say we get moving," he says, "Ninety miles an hour should give us enough air to cool off in."
Despite the heat, he is quite plainly excited for this, has been gleefully forcing himself to be patient all day. The amount of energy that takes has him euphoric even before the familiar rush of feline pheromones hits him.
"I say we get moving," he says, "Ninety miles an hour should give us enough air to cool off in."
After the boxing matches end i am sorry you'll never be rid of me
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bleak_midwinter
2016-01-12 09:01 pm (UTC)(link)
I never pretended that I wasn't a warden with you. Why does it suddenly bother you?
[And why does Tommy care enough to send this message?]
[And why does Tommy care enough to send this message?]
[Lark has puzzled over this as well. It annoys him that wardens turn up to gawk at the inmates' need for diversion, but most of the wardens ended up participating. They at least gave something back.]
I don't enjoy being made a spectacle for anyone who has power over me. Even you.
I don't enjoy being made a spectacle for anyone who has power over me. Even you.
[Here Lark, have the file notes.txt. She tried so hard to make it neat and professional-looking, but enjoy her run-on sentences.]
there is a lot more, this is so complicated. but I wrote down all the ideas and rebuttals i could think of.
[She looked up the word "rebuttal" for this.]
theres other things that i know people will want if this doesnt work and people have already talked about that a lot, but i think we should talk about this big stuff too. i don't think we should ask the admiral if he WOULD do these things if somebody made a deal for them, because i think he could lie. i think somebody should get a deal and try to make it without asking his permission first. put him on the fucking spot.
1. LET EVERYBODY MAKE DEALS
PROBLEMS PEOPLE WILL HAVE:
- They could try to make deals to hurt people, but if this is a problem it's a problem with wardens right now because I don't think there's anything stopping them from doing this.
- They could try to make deals to destroy the Barge instead of fixing it. I'm worried about this a lot.
- We could say a deal has to be approved by some neutral people before somebody can ask for it, but I don't like that idea much and I don't know how anybody could enforce it anyway.
2. LET EVERYBODY WHO DOESN'T WANT TO BE HERE GO HOME
PROBLEMS PEOPLE WILL HAVE:
- If everybody came here by choice we wouldn't have wardens and inmates anymore but I don't think that's a problem. The Admiral could still pair us like he does right now, but instead of a warden and an inmate it would be a person and a person. Everybody would get the same privileges. When the Admiral was out of commission a lot of people got extra powers and privileges including inmates, and nothing terrible happened. We could get rid of files, or maybe everybody would get their own file and they would choose who gets to see it. Graduation could stay the same, because it already seems like it means something different for everybody. Even people who are wardens right now can still learn and change and grow and it's not like we don't already have a lot of messed up wardens. If somebody's life is so perfect that they don't need help with ANYTHING they wouldn't choose to come here anyway and it wouldn't be a problem.
- Last time I talked about this somebody said that some people need more help than other people, and some people aren't in a good enough place to be able to help other people. He said what would happen if two people who need more help than they can give got paired? But I think if the Admiral does one thing right, it's permanent pairings. I don't trust him with most other things but I trust him to put people who are good for each other together.
- That same guy also said some people can't get helped unless somebody else has power over them. I think that's bullshit. Sorry, I don't have anything else to say about that.
- Some of the people who left would probably be people who would go home to do a lot of killing and destruction. Lots of people are going to have a big problem with that. We have a lot of superheroes who would probably chase them down. Some people are going to say they're not our problem, they're their world's problem, and other people are going to say we have a responsibility to keep them here away from trouble now that we have them.
there is a lot more, this is so complicated. but I wrote down all the ideas and rebuttals i could think of.
[She looked up the word "rebuttal" for this.]
theres other things that i know people will want if this doesnt work and people have already talked about that a lot, but i think we should talk about this big stuff too. i don't think we should ask the admiral if he WOULD do these things if somebody made a deal for them, because i think he could lie. i think somebody should get a deal and try to make it without asking his permission first. put him on the fucking spot.
[Nina has no idea who she's actually calling right now, but for once, she's throwing caution... relatively to the wind. She sounds wound up tight as a spring, though, panicked and angry when she says:]
If you can hear me, we're locked in the Enclosure. We need to be let out.
If you can hear me, we're locked in the Enclosure. We need to be let out.
[After everything that they've talked about over the past few weeks, it's really no surprise that Lark is Tiffany's port of call after her conversations with Alfie and Nina (the former of which is visible for all to see in all its messy glory, and the latter of which she won't disclose to anyone, not even Lark). She still sounds a bit strangled when she contacts him.]
I think I need to come over right now.
I think I need to come over right now.
Of course, Nina has no idea that Tiffany was here not long ago, stressed out over the exact same situation that has Nina feeling more high-strung than usual -- if for completely different reasons and from a completely different vantage point.
What she knows is that their fight had made her very tired, but not tired enough to eliminate the tight knot of anger and fear in her chest. She had at least been able to breathe around it by the end of the episode with Tiffany, to keep it cool; now it flares hot again, making her clench her fist tight as she raps on the door.
Most days she would easily take this place over Lefortovo, just as she'd told Lark she would. On rare, rare days like this one, though, she misses the bars looking like bars, and she misses the silence.
What she knows is that their fight had made her very tired, but not tired enough to eliminate the tight knot of anger and fear in her chest. She had at least been able to breathe around it by the end of the episode with Tiffany, to keep it cool; now it flares hot again, making her clench her fist tight as she raps on the door.
Most days she would easily take this place over Lefortovo, just as she'd told Lark she would. On rare, rare days like this one, though, she misses the bars looking like bars, and she misses the silence.
[Continued from here.]
It's not that Riley doesn't understand what it means for Lark to offer to do this; she does. Both what it might ultimately cost and what it costs now, she does. She - Alec - they aren't good enough to tell him not to, to tell him to stay, and so she doesn't actually say anything else, but she makes the chirping sound again, and then twice more before she lays down, chin over top of Naki, entirely unmindful of her claws and stinger. A few minutes more will see her up and pacing again, she can't not, no part of Alec can manage to sit still while in distress, but she watches Lark go.
Back inside of hell, Alec has been moving fast: he has to battle the current of spirits this time but it's easy for him, who has a lot of training and not a lot of souls interested in him. Those that still are will drift to him eventually but if he's quick - and he is - he can beat them to his goal and back out again. With this in mind he does his best to set up a grid in his mind, to pick a square and start searching, covering ground like only an X5 on a mission really can, even when the landscape changes on him and he has to stop and get his bearings again like he would never have to in actual physical terrain.
By the time the scent Lark is following ends with him, though, he's been backed into a corner that he can't fight his way out of - or rather he can, but he hasn't gotten desperate enough to do so, not quite yet. It wasn't a cell when he wandered in here, but now that he's standing against the back wall and there's a harpy standing with her wings filling the doorway with two more crowded in the concrete hallway to either side of her, it certainly is, and it's all too familiar. Lark has seen it too. Alec's cabin door used to open on this cell, and now the X5 is there again, the front of his shirt torn and stained red where nothing else has managed to more than scrape or bruise him, his expression blank and fixed, and his arms spread ever so slightly to shield his pack sitting on the floor behind him.
"Give it to me, and you can leave, child," the creature in the doorway is hissing. She's bleeding, too, a gash across her bare chest. There's a knife in Alec's hand, the only weapon he bothered bringing with him.
"I can't leave without it, actually, so you're going to have to try again without asking nicely," he replies, his voice cool, calm and steady as his breathing.
It's not that Riley doesn't understand what it means for Lark to offer to do this; she does. Both what it might ultimately cost and what it costs now, she does. She - Alec - they aren't good enough to tell him not to, to tell him to stay, and so she doesn't actually say anything else, but she makes the chirping sound again, and then twice more before she lays down, chin over top of Naki, entirely unmindful of her claws and stinger. A few minutes more will see her up and pacing again, she can't not, no part of Alec can manage to sit still while in distress, but she watches Lark go.
Back inside of hell, Alec has been moving fast: he has to battle the current of spirits this time but it's easy for him, who has a lot of training and not a lot of souls interested in him. Those that still are will drift to him eventually but if he's quick - and he is - he can beat them to his goal and back out again. With this in mind he does his best to set up a grid in his mind, to pick a square and start searching, covering ground like only an X5 on a mission really can, even when the landscape changes on him and he has to stop and get his bearings again like he would never have to in actual physical terrain.
By the time the scent Lark is following ends with him, though, he's been backed into a corner that he can't fight his way out of - or rather he can, but he hasn't gotten desperate enough to do so, not quite yet. It wasn't a cell when he wandered in here, but now that he's standing against the back wall and there's a harpy standing with her wings filling the doorway with two more crowded in the concrete hallway to either side of her, it certainly is, and it's all too familiar. Lark has seen it too. Alec's cabin door used to open on this cell, and now the X5 is there again, the front of his shirt torn and stained red where nothing else has managed to more than scrape or bruise him, his expression blank and fixed, and his arms spread ever so slightly to shield his pack sitting on the floor behind him.
"Give it to me, and you can leave, child," the creature in the doorway is hissing. She's bleeding, too, a gash across her bare chest. There's a knife in Alec's hand, the only weapon he bothered bringing with him.
"I can't leave without it, actually, so you're going to have to try again without asking nicely," he replies, his voice cool, calm and steady as his breathing.
There are no lingering shreds of soul to guide him, but Lark isn't as withdrawn as he'd been after so long being pulled apart on the Barge. He listens to Alec and feels...nothing. He knows he normally feels a rush of something bright and chilled, like the push and pull of an early morning wave, whenever he first sees Alec.
It's a ridiculous but ultimately very powerful reaction that he dreads Alec ever noticing, but.... No issue now. Alec might die here and Lark will watch and then leave him because he feels nothing. Just resolve. Alec has something worth keeping; Lark will help keep it so they can get out of here.
He thumbs the safety off his pistol, raises it with both hands, and shoots at the Harpy, using that gash on her chest as a target.
It's a ridiculous but ultimately very powerful reaction that he dreads Alec ever noticing, but.... No issue now. Alec might die here and Lark will watch and then leave him because he feels nothing. Just resolve. Alec has something worth keeping; Lark will help keep it so they can get out of here.
He thumbs the safety off his pistol, raises it with both hands, and shoots at the Harpy, using that gash on her chest as a target.
He's observant.
[And Lark is not doing so great, though all told he's probably more "okay" than Alec is--less to slog through, less crushing him.
But that said: Lark is often with Alec and he very obviously isn't now; he's a recovered alcoholic who's just begun drinking again. The two things aren't related, Lark is not drinking out of misery or because of the relationship, but the timing is bad. It's a part of what he needs right now or he wouldn't have done it, though.]
What are you asking?
[And Lark is not doing so great, though all told he's probably more "okay" than Alec is--less to slog through, less crushing him.
But that said: Lark is often with Alec and he very obviously isn't now; he's a recovered alcoholic who's just begun drinking again. The two things aren't related, Lark is not drinking out of misery or because of the relationship, but the timing is bad. It's a part of what he needs right now or he wouldn't have done it, though.]
What are you asking?
If you don't have anything pressing going on, I would not mind you showing up tonight.
[Scott... doesn't ask Lark for things. Hell, Scott doesn't ask anyone for this kind of thing.]
[Scott... doesn't ask Lark for things. Hell, Scott doesn't ask anyone for this kind of thing.]
[He'd be there now but it's still fairly early in the evening. So a text, nothing grand, nothing to shine a spotlight on Scott asking:]
Okay. Nine o'clock.
[And he's there, a little before nine, already dressed in his favorite (his only) set of pajamas, and carrying his pink dog bed even though they both know he won't use it tonight.]
Okay. Nine o'clock.
[And he's there, a little before nine, already dressed in his favorite (his only) set of pajamas, and carrying his pink dog bed even though they both know he won't use it tonight.]
So, uh. Looks like it's you and me for the month.
[The Admiral is so fucking with him.]
I guess you know this drill better than I do.
[The Admiral is so fucking with him.]
I guess you know this drill better than I do.
It's her thought exactly: she had a permanent warden and plenty of friends, but the indignity can't always be suffered. She's glad for the proposal, and makes her way over to the library after freshening up in her cabin for a second.
She's in a dress and high healed boots, always put together, and greets him with a wave and a whispered hello.
She's in a dress and high healed boots, always put together, and greets him with a wave and a whispered hello.
He smiles and gestures her toward his favorite vantage point, which at the moment has stacks of magazines he's been browsing.
"We're alone except for whoever's on duty here," he says, very quietly. Alone is good. But they're not so alone he'll risk being overheard. "I keep thinking about what you said...about inmates getting the truth."
He pours them each a small bit of brandy and gives her an apologetic sort of smile. It's all he has left of his stash right now.
"We're alone except for whoever's on duty here," he says, very quietly. Alone is good. But they're not so alone he'll risk being overheard. "I keep thinking about what you said...about inmates getting the truth."
He pours them each a small bit of brandy and gives her an apologetic sort of smile. It's all he has left of his stash right now.
So. Uh. Holy crap.
I guess this is really happening.
[He has a file in his hands.]
I guess this is really happening.
[He has a file in his hands.]
The prodigal son, eh?
[Not that there's humor in it; as a recent return to the Barge himself, he knows how that can feel.]
[Not that there's humor in it; as a recent return to the Barge himself, he knows how that can feel.]
You didn't tell me you had Rogers wrapped around your hairy little paw.
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