"We owe each other certain things and I won't ever be the sort of person who says we don't." So Alec isn't wrong there.
"Some debts you go after. Others, there's no point. With as much as I'm doing here, maybe I don't want to go after everything you owe me. If I did, certain things would lose their value--like this. I don't bring debt collectors to my home." He kills them.
"That's all I meant," Alec says after a moment, after reminding himself of the way other people talk about home. He's still standing and now he glances out over what he can see of the landscape which is, from here, most of it. His expression is blank.
He should go, he thinks. He wants to, not because he'd rather be somewhere else but because it would be easier, it would be safer than staying. He could easily make it back to the bikers before Lark could physically stop him.
"I know. Now." Lark sits up, then stands. "Look, I don't know why this is different. And I don't know if I want to pick it apart to find out why."
He does know that he doesn't really want Alec to vanish like he has other times they've strayed too far into...something. And he does know that he has no idea how to convey that in a way that won't make Alec want to run more.
The thing is, Alec knows that, as much as he can know that just now; there is a solid disconnect, one that Alec can't be sure who placed there in him or if it was just always there and always will be, between knowing something to be true and believing that it is true. In giving it the kind of weight that he sees other people relying on and has never understood, because he's never been in a position to do anything other than observe.
He doesn't honestly think Lark wants him to go anywhere, and he doesn't honestly want to go. He still thinks he should. He still thinks staying is a terrible idea, that it will backfire on them both, that it will hurt. He presses his teeth together, not really grinding, but a tensing of the muscles in his jaw, release, tense, his arms folded. He barely hears the question. He can't not pick this apart.
But he can do that alone. "What happens if I say yes?"
He only realizes now that he had fully expected Alec to say 'no', for that to be the end of the night for them: Lark offering and left a little confused, hat in hand, while Alec...well he doesn't know what Alec does. Gathers himself, fortifies himself.
"We go to my place, I make us dinner." He says. He was always providing food back home, but he never cooked for any of them. He does it here because he prefers that measure of control over his food; he does it for Alec because Alec seems to like it sometimes.
And the unspoken part is that over dinner, Lark talks. Always. It's a key part of eating for him, often the only time he has to catch up with pack. Often it's the only time he's truly relaxed enough to talk about himself.
Refocuses. While Alec refocuses on who he is, what he wants, why he's here and how he gets out again. He can only do that alone, and he knows that.
But he's not alone here, unless he wants to be; for now, he doesn't. He's quiet a moment more, considering how much weight that puts in one column over the other because he meant it. He views the world in how uneven the scales are.
Then he cracks a smile. "I was half afraid it would mean I'd be building a fire and you'd be turning back up naked with a rabbit in your mouth," he admits, only partially serious. (He wouldn't mind that as much as he'd pretend to, either.)
Lark grins. "You make it sound like that's not something I'm going to do." Just not here in the Enclosure. He doesn't trust the idea of eating something that isn't real.
"Think you can get me down from here without a trip to the infirmary after?" He isn't opposed to being injured, actually, as long as he isn't bedridden.
"You mean you make a habit of following people into corners you can't get back out of?" Yes, he's sure he can, at least as long as whoever is with him is equal to the task and Lark is. Alec eases closer to the edge to peer over and yeah, it's just as he thought: he could probably survive a fall from here himself but not without permanent injury or a lot of dumb, stupid luck.
He tries not to rely on the latter while he has other options which, just now, he does. He moves a few feet along the edge to a shallower place to ease back out than they originally came over, then crouches and looks back at Lark.
"Can you see well enough to follow me down or do we turn the lights back on?"
"Alright but if you end up in a heap at the bottom, don't come crying to me," he shoots back, and then disappears over the side.
Down is harder than up because he keeps having to lean back so he can scout out footholds rather than merely clamoribg up on the strength of handholds, but not remotely difficult enough to faze him. There's more back and forth in his path this time, and he keeps a closer eye on what Lark is doing above him, but doesn't offer to help more than leading the way without being asked.
"No such luck. If I fall, I'll make you fix dinner instead." Lark is an okay climber. He's out of practice, and it is dark, so he goes slower than Alec, focusing intently on whether or not each foothold is able to hold him.
Thirty feet from the ground he finds one that isn't, discovers too late that it's sandy and slick and he slides right off of it, scraping his hands and fingers bloody in the process. Thirty feet is not enough to kill him, but falling is very near the bottom of his list of things he enjoys doing.
Alec hears it happen above him, and when he glances up he has plenty of time to register what's happened. He has plenty of time to react. The problem is that without any gear there's not much he can do.
He doesn't say anything, he just moves, blurring as much out of reflex to save himself as to try to help Lark: he anchors himself more soundly with his own three point contact, wedging one hand sideways into the crack he'd just been hanging onto. His other hand flashes out, grabbing for Lark's falling form, well aware that he's not anchored securely enough to stop him entirely. He does it anyway: Lark is at thirty feet when he slips, Alec is eight feet below that when his fingers close in his shirt.
The X5 is yanked half off his position when Lark's weight hits the end of Alec's arm, but he doesn't cry out or swar. He bears his teeth instead, pain ripping through his hand, and lets go. Slowing Lark's momentum is the best he could have hoped for without being dislodged entirely himself, and then he's distracted with scrambling to catch himself against the cliff side.
Only once he has again, a few feet below where he started and fresh blood running down his own arm where his anchoring hand was forced free past the rock, does he twist to look below him and call, his voice a bark of sound, "Lark!"
Alec has seen Lark in a fight (having been the other party to it), and he's seen Lark a few hours after the initial pain, when Lark grumbles and swears because it's what goes over best here. When he's actually hurt, when he's first hurt, he's just very quiet, alert to further danger while he figures out if he's capable of protecting himself.
His shoulder is bad, though he can't tell yet how bad. But the stars aren't swimming and he hears Alec and knows whose voice it is, so that's good.
"I'm here," is what he calls back. Another one of those most-truthful-answers.
They have similar instincts in this: Alec stays where he is while he waits for a response, and even once he has it his first instinct is to look out from his higher vantage point for any movement in the canyon they're in, for any sign that they've attracted notice. Only once he's sure that they're still alone and relatively safe does he clear the rest of the distance to the ground, much more quickly now that he's not leading someone else.
He lands neatly, nearly silent, in a crouch beside Lark, shaking his hand out without further acknowledgement, stopping just shy of touching him.
"What did I literally just say," he hisses, and it has the snap of a military reprimand, not the kind of chastisement between friends or even acquaintances. "Anything broken?"
"No. Just sprained." By then, Lark has sat up and has some confidence in his own assessment. There's a good chance it's also fractured, he's never fallen from any sort of height since becoming wolf, but a fracture is like a sprain in that Lark can mend it alone.
"I'm fine," he says, his voice low and firm and very calm for someone who slid off a cliff face. He looks at Alec intently. "Still hungry?"
But Alec isn't ready to let it go yet, doesn't move from where he is; it isn't fretting, per se. It's something else, an urgent kind of foundation that states that injured unitmates can't perform at peak efficiency. And that, of course, spells trouble for the entire unit.
It's the closest he has to what passes in others for concern. (And, now that Lark is sitting up and calmly talking to him, there's purely logical assessment in the mix as well.)
Being injured has a tendency to make lycanthropes lash out. After all, being injured usually means you're about to be torn into pieces.
Alec doesn't ask exactly but he doesn't reach, either, and that's what allows Lark to grab hold of his instincts and fight them down. He turns so Alec can see. "Right shoulder. I landed at an angle on it."
It's different sides to them both, and Alec is aware on an instinctive level that he's treading dangerous ground - moreso than usual, anyway, which is why he stays still. He can handle being lashed out at. He isn't afraid.
He isn't prepared to take no for an answer, either, but he only reaches when Lark gives ground; when he does, though, he moves with a professional kind of efficiency that doesn't really allow for bedside manner. He doesn't warn or explain, but instead feels his way along the bones that make up Lark's shoulder, intent even in the dark to make sure of what he's been told, asking as he does: "Can you lift the arm?"
It's just as well that Alec doesn't try to soften what he's doing. Anything that isn't going to have this over quick, anything that doesn't make immediate physical sense, is unwelcome.
He lifts his arm, but only halfway, only with enough pain to make him not want to do it again until after he's iced it. "Fracture or sprain?" He asks, sounding like he'll be just fine either way, like he'll take the news home and mull it over a bit.
Alec keeps waiting to be struck at, and waiting, and waiting; it doesn't change anything at all about his behavior, but he's ready. He also doesn't answer right away, making sure of his answer.
"Fracture," he says at last, settling back in his crouch. He sounds a little relieved, although he doesn't elaborate on why just now. "Here," he adds, pointing but not touching again. He's already unbuckling his belt, sliding it loose of his belt loops, though his attention is on Lark's face now.
"You won't be able to ride like that - I mean, there's no reason to." If they were in danger it wouldn't matter, but they're not. He speaks rationally rather than reassuringly. "I can set it, unless you'll heal quick enough to make it obsolete. Tell me what you want."
Alec won't forget, of course, but for now he just nods and sets his knee to the ground for stability, reaches to begin working. He sets up the belt first with the kind of smooth thoughtlessness that speaks to experience more than training, a sling at wrist and elbow and around the back of Lark's neck to take the weight off his shoulder. Then he turns his attention to aligning the bones again, and tightening the sling.
"Then," he says as he works, "We get you back to the door. Walk if we have to, ride double if you can. I come back for the other bike, get them both stashed."
No other alternative, really. There's no way to get both bikes in one trip.
"We can ride." Lark is determined to at least try. "Saving my bike for me means I'm at least cooking dessert."
He wouldn't mind doing dinner, earlier joke aside. Alec, it turns out, is not the only one who still keeps score between them after all, and all of this plus Alec taking the kitchen feels too lopsided.
So he asks another one of those questions that's solely about Alec's tastes. "What are you in the mood for?"
Alec doesn't really coddle - so Lark says he's going to ride and the X5 nods, double checks his handiwork. Satisfied, he sits back on his heels again and checks around them one more time with the kind of habitual idleness that marks it as just that.
"Please," he says dismissively, beginning to ease back from professional soldier to someone the Barge overall would find more familiar. "I'm not asking for another one until next December, and I'm invested in this one now. Trust me: you'll be sorry you let me near the kitchen."
No one will die from eating Alec's cooking, but no one really asks him to try it twice. He's already eyeing the two bikes before deciding Lark's Ninja will do better for double. "Give me your keys. I'm in the mood to get moving."
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"Some debts you go after. Others, there's no point. With as much as I'm doing here, maybe I don't want to go after everything you owe me. If I did, certain things would lose their value--like this. I don't bring debt collectors to my home." He kills them.
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He should go, he thinks. He wants to, not because he'd rather be somewhere else but because it would be easier, it would be safer than staying. He could easily make it back to the bikers before Lark could physically stop him.
He doesn't move. "I wasn't serious."
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He does know that he doesn't really want Alec to vanish like he has other times they've strayed too far into...something. And he does know that he has no idea how to convey that in a way that won't make Alec want to run more.
"Hungry?"
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He doesn't honestly think Lark wants him to go anywhere, and he doesn't honestly want to go. He still thinks he should. He still thinks staying is a terrible idea, that it will backfire on them both, that it will hurt. He presses his teeth together, not really grinding, but a tensing of the muscles in his jaw, release, tense, his arms folded. He barely hears the question. He can't not pick this apart.
But he can do that alone. "What happens if I say yes?"
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"We go to my place, I make us dinner." He says. He was always providing food back home, but he never cooked for any of them. He does it here because he prefers that measure of control over his food; he does it for Alec because Alec seems to like it sometimes.
And the unspoken part is that over dinner, Lark talks. Always. It's a key part of eating for him, often the only time he has to catch up with pack. Often it's the only time he's truly relaxed enough to talk about himself.
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But he's not alone here, unless he wants to be; for now, he doesn't. He's quiet a moment more, considering how much weight that puts in one column over the other because he meant it. He views the world in how uneven the scales are.
Then he cracks a smile. "I was half afraid it would mean I'd be building a fire and you'd be turning back up naked with a rabbit in your mouth," he admits, only partially serious. (He wouldn't mind that as much as he'd pretend to, either.)
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"Think you can get me down from here without a trip to the infirmary after?" He isn't opposed to being injured, actually, as long as he isn't bedridden.
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He tries not to rely on the latter while he has other options which, just now, he does. He moves a few feet along the edge to a shallower place to ease back out than they originally came over, then crouches and looks back at Lark.
"Can you see well enough to follow me down or do we turn the lights back on?"
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"I can see." His sight is nowhere near as good as Alec's but he's better off than he ever was as a human, at least.
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Down is harder than up because he keeps having to lean back so he can scout out footholds rather than merely clamoribg up on the strength of handholds, but not remotely difficult enough to faze him. There's more back and forth in his path this time, and he keeps a closer eye on what Lark is doing above him, but doesn't offer to help more than leading the way without being asked.
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Thirty feet from the ground he finds one that isn't, discovers too late that it's sandy and slick and he slides right off of it, scraping his hands and fingers bloody in the process. Thirty feet is not enough to kill him, but falling is very near the bottom of his list of things he enjoys doing.
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He doesn't say anything, he just moves, blurring as much out of reflex to save himself as to try to help Lark: he anchors himself more soundly with his own three point contact, wedging one hand sideways into the crack he'd just been hanging onto. His other hand flashes out, grabbing for Lark's falling form, well aware that he's not anchored securely enough to stop him entirely. He does it anyway: Lark is at thirty feet when he slips, Alec is eight feet below that when his fingers close in his shirt.
The X5 is yanked half off his position when Lark's weight hits the end of Alec's arm, but he doesn't cry out or swar. He bears his teeth instead, pain ripping through his hand, and lets go. Slowing Lark's momentum is the best he could have hoped for without being dislodged entirely himself, and then he's distracted with scrambling to catch himself against the cliff side.
Only once he has again, a few feet below where he started and fresh blood running down his own arm where his anchoring hand was forced free past the rock, does he twist to look below him and call, his voice a bark of sound, "Lark!"
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His shoulder is bad, though he can't tell yet how bad. But the stars aren't swimming and he hears Alec and knows whose voice it is, so that's good.
"I'm here," is what he calls back. Another one of those most-truthful-answers.
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He lands neatly, nearly silent, in a crouch beside Lark, shaking his hand out without further acknowledgement, stopping just shy of touching him.
"What did I literally just say," he hisses, and it has the snap of a military reprimand, not the kind of chastisement between friends or even acquaintances. "Anything broken?"
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"I'm fine," he says, his voice low and firm and very calm for someone who slid off a cliff face. He looks at Alec intently. "Still hungry?"
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It's the closest he has to what passes in others for concern. (And, now that Lark is sitting up and calmly talking to him, there's purely logical assessment in the mix as well.)
"What's just sprained? Let me check."
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Alec doesn't ask exactly but he doesn't reach, either, and that's what allows Lark to grab hold of his instincts and fight them down. He turns so Alec can see. "Right shoulder. I landed at an angle on it."
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He isn't prepared to take no for an answer, either, but he only reaches when Lark gives ground; when he does, though, he moves with a professional kind of efficiency that doesn't really allow for bedside manner. He doesn't warn or explain, but instead feels his way along the bones that make up Lark's shoulder, intent even in the dark to make sure of what he's been told, asking as he does: "Can you lift the arm?"
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He lifts his arm, but only halfway, only with enough pain to make him not want to do it again until after he's iced it. "Fracture or sprain?" He asks, sounding like he'll be just fine either way, like he'll take the news home and mull it over a bit.
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"Fracture," he says at last, settling back in his crouch. He sounds a little relieved, although he doesn't elaborate on why just now. "Here," he adds, pointing but not touching again. He's already unbuckling his belt, sliding it loose of his belt loops, though his attention is on Lark's face now.
"You won't be able to ride like that - I mean, there's no reason to." If they were in danger it wouldn't matter, but they're not. He speaks rationally rather than reassuringly. "I can set it, unless you'll heal quick enough to make it obsolete. Tell me what you want."
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"Set it." He says, knowing what that says about his abilities. "Then what?"
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"Then," he says as he works, "We get you back to the door. Walk if we have to, ride double if you can. I come back for the other bike, get them both stashed."
No other alternative, really. There's no way to get both bikes in one trip.
"Then I guess I'm cooking dinner."
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He wouldn't mind doing dinner, earlier joke aside. Alec, it turns out, is not the only one who still keeps score between them after all, and all of this plus Alec taking the kitchen feels too lopsided.
So he asks another one of those questions that's solely about Alec's tastes. "What are you in the mood for?"
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"Please," he says dismissively, beginning to ease back from professional soldier to someone the Barge overall would find more familiar. "I'm not asking for another one until next December, and I'm invested in this one now. Trust me: you'll be sorry you let me near the kitchen."
No one will die from eating Alec's cooking, but no one really asks him to try it twice. He's already eyeing the two bikes before deciding Lark's Ninja will do better for double. "Give me your keys. I'm in the mood to get moving."
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"Burritos," he murmurs as they get settled on the Ninja. He could almost be manning a phone sex line the way he says it. "Steak burritos tonight."
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