"Which way, Lark?" she asks, pausing briefly in her licking to do so, though even now she's still purring deep and low by way of soothing both herself and Alec.
Her fur is illogically cool to the touch, but other than that there's no surprises there: her coat is thick and glossy and vibrant, her frame light and her muscles lean and hard beneath her unmarred pelt. Whatever damage Alec carries with him - and to be sure, there is a lot - it hasn't touched her at all.
He licks his lips because he's not sure how to say what he means. "This way. Here." Being together but also, the moment they get on the Barge, falling apart.
How they ended up in a frame of mind where Alec would ever fall asleep on him, even though not an hour ago they decided that for the moment they're "done". How Lark ended up being willing to see where this goes, if it can be salvaged, even though smart and safe money says he ought to run.
"It's not obvious?" she asks, honestly surprised. Then, of course, she realizes it's Alec; just because nothing he does surprises her doesn't mean he doesn't intentionally obfuscate his behavior and motivations to others.
Lark is so good at, if not seeing through it than realizing there's always something going on under the surface of her boy, that she just thought he already knew.
"The Barge is a prison and, on board it, he is a prisoner. Out here - temporary as it may be, but the Carnation? Ankh-Morpork? Here? Here he's free."
"Yeah- I mean, I suppose I understand myself less than I understand him when we're like this." When they're well and truly attached. He didn't even see it coming. "I know or can at the very least imagine why he does some of the things he does, just like he seems to understand me. But it's harder to...to pull myself apart in the context of being with him. It's just murkier."
"Because you're enjoying yourself," Naki says dryly. "You aren't analyzing yourself because you like what you're doing. Or you did." Right up until the decision to back off.
Riley drops her head a little, brushes Naki with her chin; goes back to what she was doing with Lark, giving him a few moments to process what his own daemon has said to him.
Then, quietly enough to get lost in the sound of her purring, "Neither of you are very practiced at happy. Not really. So it feels strange and, when you notice it, uncomfortable. It feels temporary."
It's true enough to strike a chord in him. "Isn't it? No matter how good we are at surviving, no matter how well we get through the Barge, when we graduate I'm still going to California and he's still going his own way."
"Lark," she says in quiet admonishment. "I may be the most intelligent parts of him, but neither of us are philosophers. So when I tell you that maybe you're right but that's no reason on its own to make this even more temporary..."
She sighs, butts her head against him, the scent glands at the corners of her mouth against his chest.
"You are both so difficult for such good and silly reasons."
He knows enough about cats to know what she's doing and it gives him a pang of relief and sorrow at once, because dammit, he does love her, too. While they're being honest about that word, he can admit it to himself.
"It's not that I expect anything to be permanent. I usually don't want permanence of any kind, it leads to stagnation and decay, but.... But on the Barge, I'm actually in a position to want things. I'm encouraged to think past the wall. And I try not to because I believe he's right: thinking of the future while in a prison with no set release day, that's just going to make it worse. But I want this, and..."
And that's dangerous because he'll never recover.
"Wolves mate for life," he says absently, and then scoffs and focuses. "It's such a fucking cliche and it's not as literal as people think. If I'd wanted to, I'd have had three 'mates' by now, not even counting Violet. It's only literal when it grabs you by the feet and yanks you under before you can scream."
"Paint it as black as you want," Naki drawls, "But this is the first time you've tried to fight being pulled 'under' with him. You should think about that. I'll make sure you think about that."
Riley has, in her time separate from Alec, taken great delight in short cutting past a lot of his games and kneejerk insecurities by just saying whatever he's thinking. She's translated for him directly when he would have preferred to be circumspect. But she would never actually betray him - herself - by giving away his secrets.
So even though she desperately wants to tell Lark how often he wonders about if he could truly build a life among wolves, to reassure Lark who she loves because her boy does that it likely won't be as temporary as they both insist on thinking, she doesn't. Instead: "Is there truly a place for us there? Once you have your pack again, your new girls and your new structure and your kingdom. There's always a place for a soldier like him, but is there space for him who will never be a wolf?"
She doesn't, won't say this is the main reason, the main fear that makes Alec dismiss the idea on those many occasions he considers it in silence. She fears it too.
Lark looks down at her, glances down a little more at Alec. "There's space for him even if he stops being a soldier. I can picture it sometimes; he'd have to knock some heads together to get respect. He smells like a cat--well, obviously. It would make my pack foolish at first. But they'd learn the hierarchy. They'd play with him, they'd listen to him."
And that's all without them having any idea what Lark's feelings are. Alec wouldn't need anything from Lark in order to find his place.
Riley listens, of course, transferring her attention back to Alec, to cleaning some of the grime from his skin, to soothing some of the minor abrasions into numbness with her tongue. She doesn't care about harpy residue or anything else clinging to him from out there in the waste - it's already in his blood, and she'll disappear.
She - like Alec himself - is confident in his ability to make himself an asset, a part of any group, to hold his own even among wolves; that much isn't in question, if he chose to do so. Or if nothing else, Alec doesn't need the pack the way Lark does, only acknowledges that it's part and parcel.
There are things he would tell her because he feels safer with her than he does with anyone else, because she is Alec, but that's also why he can't tell her certain things. Like what life without Alec would be like.
"With a new girl, with a large pack, with California under my control...there would still always be a place for him. There will be a place for him," will be he almost doesn't mean to say but doesn't take it back, "Even if he never comes for it. I don't expect him to. I'm not telling you that to try to push him one way or the other."
Riley doesn't miss it, of course. And though she might be the most trusting part of Alec, it's also true that there just isn't much in them at all; she has to digest it, has to turn it over in her thoughts until it sinks in, until she can see it for what it is. For honesty, not manipulation, not a ploy. It's a language she speaks, of course. Manipulation. And this isn't it.
So: "Maybe I just won't tell him," she says instead. "Maybe I'll just keep it and if he wants to know it, he'll find it." A notion sitting in the deepest parts of his subconscious, a truth alongside half a dozen other truths that he can choose to believe if he finds the courage, or ignores if it costs too much.
"You know what's best for him." His hand hasn't moved on Alec at all really, but his thumb does now, just a light stroke that manages to be completely protective. "But if it ever came up I might tell him. I think I would."
Hale and hearty and conscious, of course, Alec wouldn't stand for the gesture; at peak health he doesn't need anyone to protect him, at least not physically. Even now if there was an attack he would be in the top percentile for surviving it, one way or another. It's both a fact and what he's built his own self worth on, literally.
"And if neither of you have learned more common sense by then, he'll pick a fight, you'll meet him there, and maybe a week later you'll actually talk about it," she replies, but fondly. She's noticed the pattern, too, of course. Even though she wasn't obviously there for it.
"I'm sorry I can't be there to trip him at the door."
"Is it bad-" No that's not the word he wants. "Is it damaging that we do things that way? Fight over something that we actually care about, make up later and talk like we should have talked to begin with?"
"I don't think it matters," Riley admits. "He's read some psychology books, you know. He's read how trained professionals describe healthy, stable relationships." She doesn't say why; Lark can fill it in on his own whether he thinks it's because he's trying to learn how to fake it, or whether he's actually trying to learn how to make smoother progress. This is one of those secrets she won't betray on the back side of one she will.
"But you're both starting so much further behind, or - to one side. Who ever knew what a fight between a transgenic and a werewolf should look like, if not a bloodbath?"
He smiles thinly and nods. "We've only had one bloodbath so far. Not bad, considering what we're both trained to do."
The psychology books linger in his mind, though. "I suppose it makes sense that a relationship for a transgenic or a werewolf would be different from the healthy, human models. And a relationship between a transgenic and a werewolf...there's no guide for that, is there?"
Riley doesn't snort, but she makes a soft scoffing sound in the back of her throat, her whiskers pulling back. "Professionals know better. You'd be in worse trouble if either of you were any closer to amateurs," she points out with no small amount of disdain for the kind of novice that accidentally bites off more than he can chew, that breaks something without meaning to do it. No, Lark and Alec are, perhaps, safest when they're fighting with teeth and with fists.
It's everything else they're still learning. "There isn't. So if this seems to be working, well..." Then it's what works.
That pang again. This time, though, it causes him to look down at Alec. And looking down at him causes him to smile.
Especially because if Riley knows this, Alec does, too.
"It's never been worth it to me to stay away from him for long. I've never needed the space like I do now, but-"
But he won't be able to give this up easily.
"If there was ever a time when leaving him for good would have been easy, it was months ago. It was the day we first met."
Naki hums and nudges Riley with a claw, co-conspirator that she is. "It wouldn't have been easy then, either. He was so wound up when he went home he didn't sleep."
Riley, who is calmer now but still quietly distressed in a way that won't let her stop telegraphing it, switches for a moment to licking at Naki's back; even if she ends up accidentally stung, she doesn't even care. There's not enough time.
She knows it wouldn't have; her boy had known it then too. Like everyone who instinctively collects openings to manipulate others, he'd known, and it had taken longer on his side. Alec is very, very good at holding himself separate.
And very, very bad at letting them go once they're in as deep as Lark is now, but he'll still do it if he thinks he has to.
"He expects everything - everyone - good in his life to hurt him," she says at last, a carefully chosen truth for truth. "Happy has never been anything he can just have, like others expect. It's something he's taken, and stolen, and carved out and kept hidden for himself. It's only ever been used to control him and punish him when others know about it. So he's learned to cut it off like you can cut off a finger and still live, still use your hand - but not as well."
"I know." He stays still, resisting the urge to let his thumb run idle, slow circles on Alec's skin. "I can't say I'm good at happiness, either. But there's a reason I'm the one who comes back."
Every time but one, really, it's been Lark who's come to Alec's door. And it's because Lark is still less afraid of happiness than Alec is, even if the percentage points are neck and neck sometimes.
He's waiting for the day you aren't, she doesn't say. For one, she'd be very surprised if Lark didn't already know. For two, it feels like dirty pool for her to confirm it and she's not above that any more than her boy is, but not here. Not now.
"He doesn't understand that," she says instead. "But it's one of the reasons he'd forgive you almost anything."
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Her fur is illogically cool to the touch, but other than that there's no surprises there: her coat is thick and glossy and vibrant, her frame light and her muscles lean and hard beneath her unmarred pelt. Whatever damage Alec carries with him - and to be sure, there is a lot - it hasn't touched her at all.
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How they ended up in a frame of mind where Alec would ever fall asleep on him, even though not an hour ago they decided that for the moment they're "done". How Lark ended up being willing to see where this goes, if it can be salvaged, even though smart and safe money says he ought to run.
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Lark is so good at, if not seeing through it than realizing there's always something going on under the surface of her boy, that she just thought he already knew.
"The Barge is a prison and, on board it, he is a prisoner. Out here - temporary as it may be, but the Carnation? Ankh-Morpork? Here? Here he's free."
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"Because you're enjoying yourself," Naki says dryly. "You aren't analyzing yourself because you like what you're doing. Or you did." Right up until the decision to back off.
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Then, quietly enough to get lost in the sound of her purring, "Neither of you are very practiced at happy. Not really. So it feels strange and, when you notice it, uncomfortable. It feels temporary."
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She sighs, butts her head against him, the scent glands at the corners of her mouth against his chest.
"You are both so difficult for such good and silly reasons."
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"It's not that I expect anything to be permanent. I usually don't want permanence of any kind, it leads to stagnation and decay, but.... But on the Barge, I'm actually in a position to want things. I'm encouraged to think past the wall. And I try not to because I believe he's right: thinking of the future while in a prison with no set release day, that's just going to make it worse. But I want this, and..."
And that's dangerous because he'll never recover.
"Wolves mate for life," he says absently, and then scoffs and focuses. "It's such a fucking cliche and it's not as literal as people think. If I'd wanted to, I'd have had three 'mates' by now, not even counting Violet. It's only literal when it grabs you by the feet and yanks you under before you can scream."
"Paint it as black as you want," Naki drawls, "But this is the first time you've tried to fight being pulled 'under' with him. You should think about that. I'll make sure you think about that."
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So even though she desperately wants to tell Lark how often he wonders about if he could truly build a life among wolves, to reassure Lark who she loves because her boy does that it likely won't be as temporary as they both insist on thinking, she doesn't. Instead: "Is there truly a place for us there? Once you have your pack again, your new girls and your new structure and your kingdom. There's always a place for a soldier like him, but is there space for him who will never be a wolf?"
She doesn't, won't say this is the main reason, the main fear that makes Alec dismiss the idea on those many occasions he considers it in silence. She fears it too.
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And that's all without them having any idea what Lark's feelings are. Alec wouldn't need anything from Lark in order to find his place.
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She - like Alec himself - is confident in his ability to make himself an asset, a part of any group, to hold his own even among wolves; that much isn't in question, if he chose to do so. Or if nothing else, Alec doesn't need the pack the way Lark does, only acknowledges that it's part and parcel.
Alec would be there for Lark.
"That isn't what I meant."
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"With a new girl, with a large pack, with California under my control...there would still always be a place for him. There will be a place for him," will be he almost doesn't mean to say but doesn't take it back, "Even if he never comes for it. I don't expect him to. I'm not telling you that to try to push him one way or the other."
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So: "Maybe I just won't tell him," she says instead. "Maybe I'll just keep it and if he wants to know it, he'll find it." A notion sitting in the deepest parts of his subconscious, a truth alongside half a dozen other truths that he can choose to believe if he finds the courage, or ignores if it costs too much.
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"And if neither of you have learned more common sense by then, he'll pick a fight, you'll meet him there, and maybe a week later you'll actually talk about it," she replies, but fondly. She's noticed the pattern, too, of course. Even though she wasn't obviously there for it.
"I'm sorry I can't be there to trip him at the door."
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"But you're both starting so much further behind, or - to one side. Who ever knew what a fight between a transgenic and a werewolf should look like, if not a bloodbath?"
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The psychology books linger in his mind, though. "I suppose it makes sense that a relationship for a transgenic or a werewolf would be different from the healthy, human models. And a relationship between a transgenic and a werewolf...there's no guide for that, is there?"
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It's everything else they're still learning. "There isn't. So if this seems to be working, well..." Then it's what works.
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"Do you think it works?"
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The way she chooses is: "How often have you seen him sleep?"
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Especially because if Riley knows this, Alec does, too.
"It's never been worth it to me to stay away from him for long. I've never needed the space like I do now, but-"
But he won't be able to give this up easily.
"If there was ever a time when leaving him for good would have been easy, it was months ago. It was the day we first met."
Naki hums and nudges Riley with a claw, co-conspirator that she is. "It wouldn't have been easy then, either. He was so wound up when he went home he didn't sleep."
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She knows it wouldn't have; her boy had known it then too. Like everyone who instinctively collects openings to manipulate others, he'd known, and it had taken longer on his side. Alec is very, very good at holding himself separate.
And very, very bad at letting them go once they're in as deep as Lark is now, but he'll still do it if he thinks he has to.
"He expects everything - everyone - good in his life to hurt him," she says at last, a carefully chosen truth for truth. "Happy has never been anything he can just have, like others expect. It's something he's taken, and stolen, and carved out and kept hidden for himself. It's only ever been used to control him and punish him when others know about it. So he's learned to cut it off like you can cut off a finger and still live, still use your hand - but not as well."
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Every time but one, really, it's been Lark who's come to Alec's door. And it's because Lark is still less afraid of happiness than Alec is, even if the percentage points are neck and neck sometimes.
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"He doesn't understand that," she says instead. "But it's one of the reasons he'd forgive you almost anything."
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