"Good." Lark smiles, relieved despite not being surprised. "If she had, you and I would be having a very different conversation now. Tell me about her?"
"What else do you like about her? Things she does, skills, interests?" Which is really just a way to get Tommy talking, and to let the rest come as it may.
That-- makes the smile turn into an incredulous laugh, but it isn't disbelieving. "Bloody hell, Lark. You just say it like that, it makes me sound crazy. When the fuck were you last happy?"
"You mean before here?" He makes it sound like a joke. But honestly? It's been years. Instead of saying that, he shrugs. "You know, my country believes in the pursuit of happiness as a fundamental right. But it turns out, first you have to preserve your own life and pursue your own liberty. I only have one of those figured out."
"I'm rich," Lark shrugs, "I was born rich enough. And I can tell you we're not happy, either. Our kids scream just as loud. Our women gulp down pills, our men have tight fists looking for a small cheek to break."
It's as casually said as if he were assuring Tommy that rain falls in his world, too.
He shrugs, vaguely-- that's so normal that it doesn't even register. He doesn't know anyone who didn't grow up that way, and finds it slightly unbelievable when people say they haven't.
It's not something he would admit to most people. But he doesn't think Tommy will give a damn the way someone else might, and sometimes it's easier to talk to a wall than to share with a sympathetic ear. Lark is a miserable person if he doesn't work very hard not to be, and it completely ruins the effect if he admits that he has to work so much harder than other people just to enjoy being alive.
"No. Not really. There have been fleeting moments, but they're easy to forget." He shrugs. Lark has made himself forget most of them. "But I am here sometimes. Not all the time, you'd have to be a complete idiot to be happy more than one day a week. But it's more than I can remember being happy my whole life as a human."
He shifts in his chair and crosses his legs at the knee, considering that.
It's important. It is- to someone like Lark, who is so intrinsically against everything that the Barge stands for, who thought he'd never graduate... it sounds like he might have at least some chance, now. It's important, but Tommy tries not to get too excited just yet.
"What does that mean to you, then? That you attained that here?"
"That...I need to remember to adapt. It's the only way to keep my species from extinction." He says, but that's the easy answer, and he offers a weak smile. "And that there are people here whose example is rubbing off on me. At home, I am the example."
"Adaptation." Which is hard. Incredibly hard- Lark must know it's the only
way Tommy has been able to survive, to thrive, and he knows the toll it's
taken on him.
It hurts just to hear it. Which means it's true. "Even if you like the path you're on, the person you are. The thrill of almost having what you're fighting for?"
"We're fighting for the same thing, Tommy. Survival. Safety for ourselves, our loved ones. Dominance in our fields. You're really not that different from me." The reason Lark is an inmate and Tommy isn't comes down to sheer ruthlessness, maybe. Maybe. Lark still doesn't know.
Lark goes after revenge hard, he savors it. He enjoys it. Tommy has been willing to let things go that Lark later went in and avenged for him, so that has to be significant. And Tommy gets attached (to brothers, to his aunt, to Grace, to Rey now) far more easily than Lark gets attached to anyone; and maybe that's all it takes: to open yourself a fraction more than Lark knows how.
Or maybe Tommy's family is just easier to love than Lark's. (Part of him doubts that; Lark's family was dull and semi-rural, and predictable in their bad moods; Tommy's seems like chaos under one roof). Maybe it doesn't matter. (This is the loop Lark is always stuck in when he thinks of Tommy, when he gets close to breaking out of old thoughts.)
"We're both fighters, Lark. But you were always the leader." He shifts in his chair, leans his elbows on his knees and rubs at his mouth.
"There were always other people calling the shots, in my war. We would fight tooth and nail, we would lose men, and when were were exhausted, when we were almost there, there'd be some orders to leave. To pull out. And I got so bloody angry the first few times- what the fuck did we die for, then? There are boys now serving as fertilizer for the great country of France, who should have waited two hours- just two hours to die, and they might have been here now.
But there's no fighting orders. A strategy doesn't work, you might lose a few men, you might think back on how the initial strategy should have worked-- but in the end, you have to listen to orders. And you make the best of the next strategy."
"But that's what it is. When I want something back home, when I want it badly-- I think of my family first. I think is it worth it? And if it's going to hurt them more than it will benefit them, I don't."
"Tell me about a time you decided not to do something, because of them?" It's an honest question, because Lark? Lark never stops what he's doing for other people. Not primarily.
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"Did she understand why I--?" He frowns a little, then nods in answer.
"I don't think she knows from experience, but she understood. She didn't make me feel like I..."
Like he was weak for it.
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After a pause he shrugs helplessly and shakes his head. "I guess I just want to know we're not crazy for being able to be happy, Tommy."
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"Well, where I'm from only the rich and high-born can expect happiness," he points out. "The rest of us are smarter than that."
cw: vague mention of child abuse
It's as casually said as if he were assuring Tommy that rain falls in his world, too.
cw: vague mention of child abuse
"So you don't think you've been happy."
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"No. Not really. There have been fleeting moments, but they're easy to forget." He shrugs. Lark has made himself forget most of them. "But I am here sometimes. Not all the time, you'd have to be a complete idiot to be happy more than one day a week. But it's more than I can remember being happy my whole life as a human."
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It's important. It is- to someone like Lark, who is so intrinsically against everything that the Barge stands for, who thought he'd never graduate... it sounds like he might have at least some chance, now. It's important, but Tommy tries not to get too excited just yet.
"What does that mean to you, then? That you attained that here?"
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"So will you go back to the way you'd been at home, because you feel you have to? Or will you just be a different example for your pack?"
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Gone. For good.
"So what does that leave me with?"
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"Adaptation." Which is hard. Incredibly hard- Lark must know it's the only way Tommy has been able to survive, to thrive, and he knows the toll it's taken on him.
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Lark goes after revenge hard, he savors it. He enjoys it. Tommy has been willing to let things go that Lark later went in and avenged for him, so that has to be significant. And Tommy gets attached (to brothers, to his aunt, to Grace, to Rey now) far more easily than Lark gets attached to anyone; and maybe that's all it takes: to open yourself a fraction more than Lark knows how.
Or maybe Tommy's family is just easier to love than Lark's. (Part of him doubts that; Lark's family was dull and semi-rural, and predictable in their bad moods; Tommy's seems like chaos under one roof). Maybe it doesn't matter. (This is the loop Lark is always stuck in when he thinks of Tommy, when he gets close to breaking out of old thoughts.)
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"There were always other people calling the shots, in my war. We would fight tooth and nail, we would lose men, and when were were exhausted, when we were almost there, there'd be some orders to leave. To pull out. And I got so bloody angry the first few times- what the fuck did we die for, then? There are boys now serving as fertilizer for the great country of France, who should have waited two hours- just two hours to die, and they might have been here now.
But there's no fighting orders. A strategy doesn't work, you might lose a few men, you might think back on how the initial strategy should have worked-- but in the end, you have to listen to orders. And you make the best of the next strategy."
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Which is why even Tati hadn't been able to hold Lark steady.
"Blue says- said. He said he stayed for the other men but I don't know if I could."
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Which is, in the end, why he's a warden.
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He can't quite remember- it's not a story he tells often, and he's told Lark quite a lot, but he's not sure.
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