Lark is not as fast as Alec. He's made for other things, for living in the desert and hunting in the city, but not for climbing. But he's doing well, he's doing much better than a human as rusty as he is would be doing.
And he's enjoying it. He grins up at Alec. "Yeah I'm fine. I'm enjoying the view." Because he can't not throw in a sassy flirt when they're out here because Lark likes it out here, and Alec is above him doing one of the things Alec does best.
He flashes another grin, the kind that is quick and thin and shows the expression he hands out the rest of the time for the pleasant lie that it is, the only thing that really can; there's a pulse of something hot and heady and bittersweet on the back of his tongue, the feeling he gets every now and again when he looks at Lark, really looks at him, and knows for a fact that they see each other.
It's the kind of thought that could easily turn into love if he let it; he doesn't, but he could. He sees how he very easily could, and if Lark were close enough he'd probably risk shoving at him even this high up. The fall wouldn't kill either of them at this point unless they landed very badly, but that's part of it, too. That's part of love.
A few feet later they're high enough that the shadow from the opposing rock wall is left behind them and they're out into direct sunlight, the sandstone beneath Alec's hands hot with it, scalding if he lingers too long. Anticipating it, he takes them up a slightly steeper but ultimately shorter path, leaning far out to catch hold of the final edge, arms shaking as he pulls himself up over the lip and rolls onto the top.
Despite his obsession with observing all the things he wants and then systematically holding them back, Lark has not let himself look too closely at what he feels around Alec. He doesn't give it a name, and it's too complicated to be sorted into 'positive' and 'negative'. It's too complicated to even pick apart pieces that could be labeled positive or negative. It's both. It's both and it's more, all the time, swirling constantly together.
Lark growls a little as he hauls himself up that last bit, and he sprawls on his back to catch his breath when he's there. The sky overhead is dizzying in how vast and how close it seems.
"This is a good perch," he decides, with a lazy grin.
Alec is doing the same beside him, their legs touching where they both rolled to a stop; the rock under his shoulders and spine feels good against his muscles and he has his eyes closed against the light and the sky. He won't last long up here but for now, he can't stop grinning as he catches his breath, lets the uneasy feeling that lives in his gut sink beneath the easy, simple pleasure of satisfaction.
"Up is easy," he replies, voice bright. "Down is harder without the abrupt stop at the end."
Lark chuckles, kicks his heel against the stone gently. "I want to avoid the quick way down, take the scenic route, anyway. The one that doesn't end in the infirmary."
He squints up at the utterly cloudless sky. "We should have come up here at night."
"Oh sure, now he wants something that won't bake our brains out," he tells the sky plaintively, but he's still too glutted on exertion to make a real go of bitching about it.
Alec squints an eye open so he can look right back at him, smug and self satisfied as you please.
Very clearly, loud but not shouting: "Hey Enclosure: let's have a night scene instead."
It takes a moment, but then the sun goes out like someone found the light switch, and the blinding cloud less stretch of sky is replaced by indigo black and a shockwave of clear, bright stars. The heat lingers yet, but Alec stretches with a loud such if relief.
If Lark was built for living in the desert, Alec was made for living in the dark; he'd be able to see perfectly well with considerably less light than the stars reflect, and he feels safe in a way he can't explain and can't replicate otherwise. Humans are afraid of the dark. It holds no threat to him, however.
He raises his head enough to glance down at where their knees bump together as they both settle more comfortably, remembering for a moment that they're both filthy, that they're lying on their backs in the dirt and on otherwise solid rock, that there are fresh scrapes and cuts on his hands from climbing. And he breathes out.
"If I'm wrong, and I never graduate - there are worse places to spend a life until you disappear."
Lark nods, although he isn't sure Alec can see the movement. But it's a thought he has as well, one that he's been trying to examine and trying to kill, because if he gets comfortable, if he's happy then what is there to go home for? But at the same time he's struggling to do as Alec said and just live moment by moment, and honestly, a lot of his moments here are good.
Especially these. And that's what scares him.
"I'm willing to stick it out if I have to," Lark says, playfully adding a note of long-suffering. His knee knocks against Alec's; there are much worse places to be right now. "You know, there are other places I could show you sometime. And they're indoors."
Living moment by moment, being happy in them, is exactly what Alec had both advised and what that particular strategy is designed to do; it's for people, one of which Alec has always been, who have no choice in how to proceed, who have no future and no guarantees at all. It's a way not to go mad waiting for a sliver of an opportunity, and it is working.
Eventually, Alec will get restless, will get impatient, will get bored. That is not now, however.
"Yeah? Like what?" he asks, instead of pointing out that much more easily than actually going to those places, the Enclosure can take them anywhere in any world.
"Oh, like Rodeo Drive where I buy my best costumes. You have to see the rich and famous there to get the full effect. I'd love to see the way those people respond to you, versus the way they react to me." That's the thing about the Barge: most people here are either so used to weird, or so damaged, that they don't notice how wrong it is to be around Lark. Their instincts would be crying out to fight, if they were as safely sheltered their whole lives as most people are.
"And the Smithsonian, which is obviously not in my neighborhood. But there are things there that I want you to see." (Why does it matter if Alec sees them? He could call it a cultural excursion, but it's not. He knows it's not.)
Deep beneath the sated, energy-burnt pleasure of being alive and being here, stirs the uneasiness that sits at the very back of his gut, right against his spine where it's safe and too vital to dig out; the vast majority of the time, Alec is more than equal to the task of not understanding a single thing most other people do about the world around him. He lives for challenges, he thrives on adaptation, he makes it up as he goes along if he has to but he never stops.
Every now and again, usually dead silent, usually subtle but always impossible to entirely shake off, he runs headlong into the shackles Manticore always intended to place on him and his own paranoid, wary reaction to them, and he remembers that he's utterly alone in a world that hates him and that he doesn't understand. That he's less than those around him, that they would turn on him if they knew, that they couldn't view him as an equal because he isn't one.
So he hears Lark saying he'd like to see people reacting to Alec, would like to show him the Smithsonian, and wonders what else Lark would do with a pet transgenic. He quashes it, though - that isn't it, he knows it's not - and his lazy smirk doesn't falter despite the way his gut turns.
"They'd love me, of course. I'd make them love me. The easiest way into the richest neighborhoods is always right through the front door," he offers by way of reply instead, and he means it. He only had a week free from Manticore, but he made them count, from basement bareknuckle cage fights in the working slums to the gated communities he showed Lark in his Seattle.
It's probably a good thing that Alec doesn't say it, and doesn't know that it would have cut Lark deeply to hear it. That is not the sort of thing he could ever be okay with someone else being able to use against him.
Lark chuckles and kicks his foot against Alec's. "I know. You'd charm them senseless. And then they'd clam up when they saw me, throw us out. It'd be a challenge for both of us."
"Oh they wouldn't throw us out. I already know how to use appearances versus reality against those that think appearances are all that matter," he replies, truthfully. If he knew the reaction was coming he could compensate for it, he thinks, be ready to head it off at the pass, be ready to shame them into accepting Lark against their own instincts. Smile extra pretty.
(The rest is the truly insidious part of what Manticore did, the traitorous bricks amongst the foundation of who Alec is, that he never got a chance to avoid having placed there and cemented into place; that he's still rooting out, but can only discover by tripping over them.)
He nudges Lark's foot back, almost idly. "Eggsy invited me back to his world, too."
"I didn't even know he liked you." Lark snorts, but he's actually impressed. "You'll be an intergalactic traveler after you're done here, then?"
The idea has an appeal, even if Lark wouldn't want it. He has too much at home, too much to focus on doing, and he's biologically wired to conquer rather than tour.
"Nah, that's Iris - who invited me along, too, by the way," he admits, eyes tracing pathways through the stars overhead. He could navigate by them. He never once dreamed of visiting them - or indeed that if he did, they would be interesting at all.
"I think Eggsy's was an attempt at getting me thinking about the future, but he doesn't bluff like that, either."
"No, he doesn't." Lark looks over at him, seeing him only through starlight, reading him only be scent and sound. "Did it work? Did he make you think about the future?"
If Eggsy did, Lark can't imagine it lasted more than a second or two. Not with Alec's control, not with his practice and experience at facing the moment.
Alec has caught his breath by now, of course, and the night air is cooling but still comfortable for him; he's relaxed now, in that lull of time just after physical exertion where his inherent restlessness is quelled, where he can sit still without having to think about it.
And he snorts. "You're kidding, right?" He rolls his head over, raises an eyebrow when his eyes meet Lark's unerringly. "How much do you know about where he's from?"
"That English is a language there. I've spoken to him once, and it was just pleasantries." Lark had formed loose ideas for what Eggsy might be useful for based on that one meeting, sure, but he'd let them go when Alec was paired with him. Then he'd let them go further when he began smelling Furiosa's pet on Eggsy's clothes. He steers clear of her close friends as best he can--call it a courtesy.
"He bathes and he wears new shoes, so it can't be as bad as some of the worlds we've grabbed people off of."
"Mm," Alec allows, although he does cover for the moment it takes him to consider what to say next by glancing pointedly down at the current state of the two of them, letting it twist his lips into a coy smile.
It fades, though, when he shakes his head and shifts his attention back up. "Let's just say that we've talked a bit, and from what I know, there are people in his world that I wouldn't trust to keep their hands off me."
Kingsman might have the kind of resources it would take to fight back against the likes of Manticore, but they're far more likely to make a lone transgenic disappear to find out what makes him tick, by Alec's estimation.
"Everywhere that isn't chock full of power hungry people like us is like that." Lark says, and chuckled because yeah there's no megalomania in him, nope.
But that is the problem: there is nowhere Lark knows where he and Alec wouldn't be preyed upon. Sure, Alec could lay low, could hide what he is. But that's just another kind of prison.
...people in his world I wouldn't trust to keep their hands off me. Alec could be very useful in Lark's upcoming war. Of course he's considered that. But there has lately been the thinnest thread of doubt, as faint as a mote of dust seen from the corner of his eye. There and gone.
But when it's there, his mind is almost changed. He's almost, not quite but almost, tempted to tell Alec not to consider himself invited until after Lark has secured a few borders. He doesn't need Lark to protect him; and strangely, that's not what the impulse is about. (He can't identify yet what it is.)
Alec isn't especially power hungry; he is insatiable for options, to give himself as much leverage as he can to keep himself out from under the sway of other people, but he mostly just wants to be left alone. To that end, he is especially useful. He has always been useful, was designed to be, made himself even moreso, and he does not need protection.
He has not considered Eggsy's invitation; he has not considered Lark's, or Iris's, or Furiosa's. He won't, not until it would do him an ounce of good, not until any of them were even an option. They're not. They're just not.
So he huffs out of a breath and lets the first statement linger, until the second one lets him smirk with the side of his mouth Lark can't see.
"And now there's a tone." Alec is smirking. Lark is grinning up at what he's fairly sure is the Seven Sisters constellation (cluster? It's been years since Astronomy 101). "The innocent act doesn't fly with me."
He's looking at the stars but every other sense is trained on Alec, ready to pounce or run or chase or play.
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And he's enjoying it. He grins up at Alec. "Yeah I'm fine. I'm enjoying the view." Because he can't not throw in a sassy flirt when they're out here because Lark likes it out here, and Alec is above him doing one of the things Alec does best.
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It's the kind of thought that could easily turn into love if he let it; he doesn't, but he could. He sees how he very easily could, and if Lark were close enough he'd probably risk shoving at him even this high up. The fall wouldn't kill either of them at this point unless they landed very badly, but that's part of it, too. That's part of love.
A few feet later they're high enough that the shadow from the opposing rock wall is left behind them and they're out into direct sunlight, the sandstone beneath Alec's hands hot with it, scalding if he lingers too long. Anticipating it, he takes them up a slightly steeper but ultimately shorter path, leaning far out to catch hold of the final edge, arms shaking as he pulls himself up over the lip and rolls onto the top.
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Lark growls a little as he hauls himself up that last bit, and he sprawls on his back to catch his breath when he's there. The sky overhead is dizzying in how vast and how close it seems.
"This is a good perch," he decides, with a lazy grin.
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"Up is easy," he replies, voice bright. "Down is harder without the abrupt stop at the end."
He doesn't hate it out here.
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He squints up at the utterly cloudless sky. "We should have come up here at night."
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Instead: "Want to see a neat trick?"
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"Yeah, let's see it."
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Very clearly, loud but not shouting: "Hey Enclosure: let's have a night scene instead."
It takes a moment, but then the sun goes out like someone found the light switch, and the blinding cloud less stretch of sky is replaced by indigo black and a shockwave of clear, bright stars. The heat lingers yet, but Alec stretches with a loud such if relief.
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The stars overhead, even if they aren't real, are absolutely mindblowing.
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He raises his head enough to glance down at where their knees bump together as they both settle more comfortably, remembering for a moment that they're both filthy, that they're lying on their backs in the dirt and on otherwise solid rock, that there are fresh scrapes and cuts on his hands from climbing. And he breathes out.
"If I'm wrong, and I never graduate - there are worse places to spend a life until you disappear."
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Especially these. And that's what scares him.
"I'm willing to stick it out if I have to," Lark says, playfully adding a note of long-suffering. His knee knocks against Alec's; there are much worse places to be right now. "You know, there are other places I could show you sometime. And they're indoors."
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Eventually, Alec will get restless, will get impatient, will get bored. That is not now, however.
"Yeah? Like what?" he asks, instead of pointing out that much more easily than actually going to those places, the Enclosure can take them anywhere in any world.
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"And the Smithsonian, which is obviously not in my neighborhood. But there are things there that I want you to see." (Why does it matter if Alec sees them? He could call it a cultural excursion, but it's not. He knows it's not.)
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Every now and again, usually dead silent, usually subtle but always impossible to entirely shake off, he runs headlong into the shackles Manticore always intended to place on him and his own paranoid, wary reaction to them, and he remembers that he's utterly alone in a world that hates him and that he doesn't understand. That he's less than those around him, that they would turn on him if they knew, that they couldn't view him as an equal because he isn't one.
So he hears Lark saying he'd like to see people reacting to Alec, would like to show him the Smithsonian, and wonders what else Lark would do with a pet transgenic. He quashes it, though - that isn't it, he knows it's not - and his lazy smirk doesn't falter despite the way his gut turns.
"They'd love me, of course. I'd make them love me. The easiest way into the richest neighborhoods is always right through the front door," he offers by way of reply instead, and he means it. He only had a week free from Manticore, but he made them count, from basement bareknuckle cage fights in the working slums to the gated communities he showed Lark in his Seattle.
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Lark chuckles and kicks his foot against Alec's. "I know. You'd charm them senseless. And then they'd clam up when they saw me, throw us out. It'd be a challenge for both of us."
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(The rest is the truly insidious part of what Manticore did, the traitorous bricks amongst the foundation of who Alec is, that he never got a chance to avoid having placed there and cemented into place; that he's still rooting out, but can only discover by tripping over them.)
He nudges Lark's foot back, almost idly. "Eggsy invited me back to his world, too."
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The idea has an appeal, even if Lark wouldn't want it. He has too much at home, too much to focus on doing, and he's biologically wired to conquer rather than tour.
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"I think Eggsy's was an attempt at getting me thinking about the future, but he doesn't bluff like that, either."
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If Eggsy did, Lark can't imagine it lasted more than a second or two. Not with Alec's control, not with his practice and experience at facing the moment.
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And he snorts. "You're kidding, right?" He rolls his head over, raises an eyebrow when his eyes meet Lark's unerringly. "How much do you know about where he's from?"
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"He bathes and he wears new shoes, so it can't be as bad as some of the worlds we've grabbed people off of."
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It fades, though, when he shakes his head and shifts his attention back up. "Let's just say that we've talked a bit, and from what I know, there are people in his world that I wouldn't trust to keep their hands off me."
Kingsman might have the kind of resources it would take to fight back against the likes of Manticore, but they're far more likely to make a lone transgenic disappear to find out what makes him tick, by Alec's estimation.
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But that is the problem: there is nowhere Lark knows where he and Alec wouldn't be preyed upon. Sure, Alec could lay low, could hide what he is. But that's just another kind of prison.
...people in his world I wouldn't trust to keep their hands off me. Alec could be very useful in Lark's upcoming war. Of course he's considered that. But there has lately been the thinnest thread of doubt, as faint as a mote of dust seen from the corner of his eye. There and gone.
But when it's there, his mind is almost changed. He's almost, not quite but almost, tempted to tell Alec not to consider himself invited until after Lark has secured a few borders. He doesn't need Lark to protect him; and strangely, that's not what the impulse is about. (He can't identify yet what it is.)
"I saw that look." By the way.
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He has not considered Eggsy's invitation; he has not considered Lark's, or Iris's, or Furiosa's. He won't, not until it would do him an ounce of good, not until any of them were even an option. They're not. They're just not.
So he huffs out of a breath and lets the first statement linger, until the second one lets him smirk with the side of his mouth Lark can't see.
"Was there a look?"
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He's looking at the stars but every other sense is trained on Alec, ready to pounce or run or chase or play.
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