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.
Pleiades cluster, Alec would tell him. And he is indeed smirking, visible now as he intentionally lets the tone in question slow to a lazy, arch drawl.
"And now you're accusing me of being not innocent, but in fact a liar. Scandalous." He'd raised his hands at some point to pillow his head on, but now he stretches his arms back over his head, draws his spine up a bit off the ground just so with a slow, luxurious inhale.
"Go on then. What am I, if not pure of intention and virtuous of character?"
"Well, obviously you corrupted me. Everyone thought I was a warden before you showed up." He teases, and he probably wouldn't be eyeing that slow stretch quite so lasciviously if he knew how well Alec sees in the dark.
(It's there again, the doubt that could take hold and run off with him during a less stable moment; of course it's his fault. It would have to be. Alec pushes the thought aside like an overly affectionate puppy or an amateur defense.)
"So? With the way everyone talks about wardens around here, why would you want to be one? Much more fun on this side of the fence," he teases, and maybe Lark doesn't know that this cliff top is lit like daylight for Alec, and maybe Alec has no intention of pointing it out, but he shifts his hips a little to better stretch first one side of his torso, then the other, taking his time.
He knows exactly what he's doing, letting his breath out as slowly as he gathered it to him.
"People don't look at us and think inept, Lark. It just doesn't work that way."
"...Yeah, you're right," he waves a hand dismissively. "Thank you for hauling me away from their side. God knows who I'd be if I'd kept that up."
Lark, watching him in what is dimly blue twilight for his eyes, is plainly enjoying what he's seeing. But more than that, more frightening for Lark, is how much he feels. It's not just feeling for Alec; it's feeling in general, when he's become so used to having a say in what emotions trickled in.
It's been flash floods lately. That they've been pleasant is not the point.
His usual response is to just throw himself into something else, something far from whatever end of the ship Alec is on at the time. But this is his favorite place in the world and it has a soothing, grounding effect on him, even if it's just a room on the ship. (Or maybe it's just the heat.)
As slowly as Alec was breathing in and out, Lark's hand brushes against his side, reminding himself that Alec is the most real thing here. And yeah, maybe taking advantage of the way Alec's shirt has ridden up ever so slightly.
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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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"And now you're accusing me of being not innocent, but in fact a liar. Scandalous." He'd raised his hands at some point to pillow his head on, but now he stretches his arms back over his head, draws his spine up a bit off the ground just so with a slow, luxurious inhale.
"Go on then. What am I, if not pure of intention and virtuous of character?"
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"So? With the way everyone talks about wardens around here, why would you want to be one? Much more fun on this side of the fence," he teases, and maybe Lark doesn't know that this cliff top is lit like daylight for Alec, and maybe Alec has no intention of pointing it out, but he shifts his hips a little to better stretch first one side of his torso, then the other, taking his time.
He knows exactly what he's doing, letting his breath out as slowly as he gathered it to him.
"People don't look at us and think inept, Lark. It just doesn't work that way."
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Lark, watching him in what is dimly blue twilight for his eyes, is plainly enjoying what he's seeing. But more than that, more frightening for Lark, is how much he feels. It's not just feeling for Alec; it's feeling in general, when he's become so used to having a say in what emotions trickled in.
It's been flash floods lately. That they've been pleasant is not the point.
His usual response is to just throw himself into something else, something far from whatever end of the ship Alec is on at the time. But this is his favorite place in the world and it has a soothing, grounding effect on him, even if it's just a room on the ship. (Or maybe it's just the heat.)
As slowly as Alec was breathing in and out, Lark's hand brushes against his side, reminding himself that Alec is the most real thing here. And yeah, maybe taking advantage of the way Alec's shirt has ridden up ever so slightly.
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