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."
Alec wheels the bike to a solid patch of ground before getting g them both settled. He decides immediately he doesn't like this as well as when Lark has two functional arms but keeps it to himself for now.
He goes only fast enough back the way they came to keep them upright; while he knows Lark could hold on at higher speeds, he isn't interested in complicating matters by unexpectedly fishtailing and throwing them both.
"Little donkeys, huh? Might be a hard sell for ingredients, but alright. You're the one who fell off a cliff."
"Is that what that means? I've been speaking Spanish half my life and I didn't know that," Lark chuckles. He doesn't sound like he's in pain, but after a long turn he rests his head against Alec's back to steady himself, gather himself.
This is how Alec realizes that yes, he may be alone on the Barge, possibly in any world he could go to after it, but with Lark sometimes he feels that a little less. Lycanthrope and transgenic are two entirely different worlds but sometimes they overlap; sometimes a feral creature in a man's skin has the same mentality as a soldier, silently swallowing back pain, healing in plain sight.
Which is all to say that Alec doesn't call him on the pressure he feels between his shoulderblades and doesn't dislodge him. In fact he focuses on keeping them moving, lets it seem to distract him until the incongruous door and stairs in the middle of the landscape shows itself ahead.
Then and only then: "If I swing by the infirmary after I get my bike and tell them I need something stronger than aspirin for this," he says, holding up his bloodied hand; it aches from the throttle and the brake and the vibrations, but he, too, sounds normal. "Will you take it off me?" Or should he not bother?
He licks his lips uncertainly, but he reaches a decision fast. "If you stay around after I do."
Lark hasn't taken anything at all for pain since he quit drinking. He doesn't like who he is when he's too relaxed, when there are too many chemicals in his system, and most wolves become lethal when they take anything.
But the pain is just as likely to make him wild, and at least if the pain killers do affect him badly, Alec will be there. He does trust Alec with that.
He can't see Lark's expression behind him, of course, but he can hear his voice when he answers. Alec isn't sure what he was expecting as an answer but it wasn't exactly that.
Still, he'd already been intending to hang around after everything gets sorted. It's easy to nod.
"Then go ahead. I'll get the bikes sorted, grab a shower, stop by the infirmary, and then I'll be up." Give them both time to sort themselves out, but not enough time for anything to happen unless the Admiral intervenes.
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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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He goes only fast enough back the way they came to keep them upright; while he knows Lark could hold on at higher speeds, he isn't interested in complicating matters by unexpectedly fishtailing and throwing them both.
"Little donkeys, huh? Might be a hard sell for ingredients, but alright. You're the one who fell off a cliff."
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Which is all to say that Alec doesn't call him on the pressure he feels between his shoulderblades and doesn't dislodge him. In fact he focuses on keeping them moving, lets it seem to distract him until the incongruous door and stairs in the middle of the landscape shows itself ahead.
Then and only then: "If I swing by the infirmary after I get my bike and tell them I need something stronger than aspirin for this," he says, holding up his bloodied hand; it aches from the throttle and the brake and the vibrations, but he, too, sounds normal. "Will you take it off me?" Or should he not bother?
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Lark hasn't taken anything at all for pain since he quit drinking. He doesn't like who he is when he's too relaxed, when there are too many chemicals in his system, and most wolves become lethal when they take anything.
But the pain is just as likely to make him wild, and at least if the pain killers do affect him badly, Alec will be there. He does trust Alec with that.
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Still, he'd already been intending to hang around after everything gets sorted. It's easy to nod.
"Then go ahead. I'll get the bikes sorted, grab a shower, stop by the infirmary, and then I'll be up." Give them both time to sort themselves out, but not enough time for anything to happen unless the Admiral intervenes.
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