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Alec has made no secret of how harsh he means for their training sessions to be, and also no secret of his fear that he'll click back into soldier mode at some point throughout them. So far, his fears have proven blessedly, mostly unfounded: he's watchful for it, and so he's careful to toe the line between pushing for results and cutting off every part of himself but the serial number. The mood changes ever so slightly depending on what's going on for the day - playful when they're both in good moods, focused when they don't have much time between obligations, instructive when they uncover a gap in knowledge for one or the other, more intense when one or the other needs a bit more distraction for the day - and that's good. Inconsistency, in this regard, is good. Lark is improving. Alec is improving. They're not at each other's throats, literally or figuratively. It's working.

Alec is a little in his head when they start today, but he evades every opportunity to talk about it and just wants to run. "Run," in this instance, means rough terrain and he's taken to throwing loaded packs onto both of them, though the weight in them isn't any real challenge yet. He is meticulous about increasing at an appropriate rate, normally. Today, though, he hits a stride unprecedented in previous sessions, and though his body reacts like it normally does - his heartrate is up, his breathing is harsh by the point they would normally stop, he's sweating through his PT gear, his muscles are vibrating with exertion - it simply doesn't seem to register.

And when they would normally stop, even though he has to genuinely pant around the words, what he says is, "I'm going to keep going," his eyes set on one last rock wall in front of them, shaking hair out of his eyes, wiping his palms down his pants before setting off again without more than a mouthful of water.

He's always been best at focusing when he's ignoring something else.

Lark isn't sweating, can't sweat, and has greater endurance than Alec anyway but this doesn't feel like regular training and part of him wants to stop and assess. He follows Alec instead, follows silently, drinking in the scent of stress in Alec's sweat and racking his brain to figure out what might have caused it.

He'll run as long as Alec does, and he'll wait until they stop before he tries again to get him to talk.

Alec told Lark at the start of all this to always push him for 5% more than what he's giving; he promised that he would always find it. He always has. This goes beyond that, goes to a point where Alec's body may as well be a machine, something he's steering but not attached to, not affected by, not experiencing.

When he stops, when he goes to his knees by a frost-crusted stream, it's not because he can't continue. It's that he's come back to himself enough to recognize that he shouldn't, that he's risking unnecessary damage, that he needs to save enough to deal with whatever comes next on the Barge.

He's not surprised that Lark is still with him. He can't talk yet, though, so he just half-closes his eyes and drops his head back enough to facilitate recovering his breath, shrugging his pack off to the ground.

Lark is panting in a way that's not canine but not quite human, either; it's a disconcerting sort of breathing that only Alec has seen, only Alec and the pack.

He wets his mouth in the stream and lets the water soak the front of his shirt, and he keeps an eye on Alec and waits.

It's quite a few minutes before Alec can safely drink, but he knows his body well, he knows how it behaves under duress, he knows to take the time; he isn't in any real danger. Not, at least, until his breathing pattern is more or less back to normal and he realizes he still feels that buzz that had driven him forward to begin with, that urges him to get back to his feet and continue now. He can still think. Keep going.

He shakes his head to clear it and bends forward to cup several palmfuls of water into his mouth, aware of Lark's attention and presence the entire time. It was a comfort, at first, like it has been for some time now: Lark is at his back, and he's at Lark's. No one can walk up on them like this. No one can take them unawares, even while they're both recovering for a given value of.

But he doesn't say anything, and Alec knows he's noticed, supposes he can't not have. "What?" he grates, shaking his hand out, wiping it back through his hair.

It's always a toss up in moments like this one: will Alec surface with that calm, professional detachment that can make Lark hurt? Or will he come up like this, claws out and teeth bared?

"You're asking me?" Lark returns, which is probably not the best way to react, but he's been gnawing on concern for the past three hours.

Alec, of course, prefers the detachment; he learned a long time ago it's a good way to keep distance for himself, to keep himself from being hurt. Generally speaking, it also leaves him with more options moving forward.

But now he shoots Lark a sharp look in return, and then pushes... Alec is never unsteady, but he's appropriately exhausted now, and it shows in how unusually heavy he is as he stands. "I don't see anyone else," he snipes. "And you're the one looking at me like there's a countdown on my forehead."

"You're the one running yourself to rags. You're the one tasting like stress." He stands more slowly, his gaze unwavering. "What happened?"

"It's training," he snaps, too quick to have thought anything about it. "It's supposed to be stressful."

As for the rags comment, he pointedly shoulders his pack again, heaving it up off the ground because he knows how to do this, he knows how to push through anything, he's been doing it all his life.

"Just because -" And maybe it's a blessing that it is training, that Alec has been watching himself so closely in this particular context, that he has layers on layers of discipline because some of them fray and he was once in a no tolerance environment for such things, because he catches the warning flag before he can finish the sentence and he bites it off.

Alec stops himself, but that almost makes it worse, from the way Lark's expression turns ever so slightly from wary concern to defense. "Just because what? Say it."

Alec's expression isn't wary. It isn't detached. It's cautious, although his adrenaline is up from the run, although there's the constant push in the back of his thoughts that he needs to be better, that the shaking in his body is unacceptable and that makes him angry. Everything leads back to anger with Alec. It always has.

He wouldn't have thought twice about lashing out before. Now, he says flatly, "I don't want to fight with you Lark. We should keep going or we should stop. That's it."

"We should stop," Lark says, without anger now. Neither of them needs to get hurt. "Whatever you're running off, running isn't helping. We should figure that out."

He doesn't actually want to stop, although he doesn't want to keep going either; if they physically fought right now, Lark could do him serious harm if he wanted to and there wouldn't be much he could do about it. He's let training alongside someone he trusts push him past what he would normally allow. It's still not enough.

A muscle in his jaw tenses but he nods, accepting as gracefully as he can. "I'm always better after a shower anyway," he tries without much belief or weight.

"I like you fine this way," Lark says with a smirk, though he doesn't feel the same wild-eyed full-on euphoria he usually gets when Alec is so worked up he's sweating. (It must be love if even pheromones can't affect Lark's concern for Alec.)

When they get to the cabin he asks, "Do you want me to shower with you?"

Alec is shivering by the time they get there, faint tremors that are perfectly reasonable given the givens but he reminds himself to take a hoodie next time if this is how the weather is going to be about it.

He doesn't even hesitate: "Yes," he replies, immediately, even emphatically, enough that he looks up slightly guiltily. "Yes," he says again more reasonably, finishing stripping off his shirt and boots, a familiar, routine motion by now.

Lark sheds fast (he always does; years and years of having to strip naked before changing shapes), and has the water running warm and already steaming up the glass by the time Alec is ready to step in.

He wants to ask. They're alone now, in a small space, an intimate space. This is where he asks so many things. But he makes himself wait. He offers soap, offers hands to massage the suds into Alec's muscles if he'll let Lark.

Alec is very blunt about accepting that offer: Lark offers shampoo and Alec coats his hand in it and then tangles their fingers together and pushes his into Lark's hair. Lark holds put soap and Alec pulls Lark's hand across his torso without trying to take it from him.

He leans back against Lark, mostly back to front, eyes closed against the spray and hanging onto Lark's arm loosely so he's wrapped up close but not tight, letting the water and steam run over them long after the soap is gone. It's not an apology, like he sometimes uses contact for when he's been an ass. More like relearning something by feel; more like memorizing.

"Talk to me," Lark whispers, holding Alec in that loose but very present embrace. He'd meant for it to be a longer sentence, Talk to me when you can, but instead it's just three quietly pleading words.

"It's so stupid," Alec mumbles under his breath, clearly not to Lark at all but he can't do anything against lycanthrope hearing this close. He does shift a little so it's his cheek laying against the front of Lark's shoulder, neck bent to accommodate the fact that he's shorter than his lover but not by that much.

Louder, though not loud, and not opening his eyes, "It's just all a bit much today. It's just... A lot. Today."

Sometimes it's like this, or seems to be. The saying 'woke up on the wrong side of the bed' doesn't quite fit--Alec doesn't sleep, and his moods are not as shallow as that--but it's close. Sometimes, things just feel worse.

But Lark likes to exhaust all reason before he believes it's just something that happens. "Even running didn't help."

"It might have. I didn't go far enough," he admits. He doesn't just mean endurance wise: he didn't sink far enough into the current of it, didn't let it pull him far enough under to get away from the pressure and crackle and weight.

"I'd be in the gym now if I weren't here." A beat. "It's nothing new."

"But you do know what this is?" Lark smoothes his hands over Alec's abdomen, rinsing off lingering suds. "If it's not new?"

"I know what I want it to be."

For once Alec doesn't even remotely respond to the touch of Lark's hand in a sexual way. Later he'll be amazed by this but for now he just breathes out and mirrors the motion over Lark's arm.

"I used to be able to outrun everything for years, you know. Nothing could catch me. Nothing at all."

"I know." In the literal sense, Alec is extremely fast. In the figurative sense, he's very good at maneuvering out of situations that could hurt him.

And he's willing to let Alec talk, but he nudges the conversation again toward something like a direction. "What do you want it to be?"

For a moment it doesn't seem like Alec is going to let him. For a moment Alec doesn't want to. He threads his arm around Lark's waist while he considers, turns his head just far enough that he can find Lark's mouth with his.

The kiss is the same as Alec's hands on Lark's skin had been: attentive, thorough, almost exploratory. Like he intends to write a report. Like he wants to be able to remind himself later.

"I want it to just be a bad day," he says when he breaks off and breathes out.

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