#tomas3

[dreams-of-a-lark]

Date: A week AM Time: Late evening Location: Meridium Farm Closed Starter: @sagetomashardy​​

Following the horrors of the fog, Lark had retreated to his shanty like a dog to lick his wounds, both mental and physical. He’d gotten into more altercations that night than he had in a long while. In one night so many bonds Lark thought he had were fractured and, as a result, recovery seemed like something that needed to be done alone and in the relative comfort of his own home. In fact, he’d holed himself up so much that news of Matthew’s death hadn’t reached him until he overheard passerby's talking about it outside. That brought about a whole new set of scars that needed to be seen to, involving a lot of curling up and shaking himself to sleep with staggered tears.

He’d been living off a hoard of carefully rationed dried foods he kept for emergencies (this certainly seemed like a reasonable application), however, this morning he’d checked his stores to find his supply running dangerously low. This could only mean one thing and it was about the last thing he wanted. He’d have to go to the farm. Goddammit. After their little stint in the corn field, Lark found it near impossible to imagine facing Tomas... possibly ever again. So, instead of doing the mature thing and sucking it up for the sake of feeding himself, he decided to go the day without food and wait until long past nightfall to sneak onto the farm and gather necessities.

The day passed and his stomach began to scream at him with growing intensity. Lack of sustenance also didn’t help the torturous body aches from still healing injuries. It felt like forever before the light seeping into his hut started to dim. He peered through a makeshift window facing the ocean and waited for the the sun to languorously dip below the horizon. Never in his life had a sunset felt so excruciating to watch. 

Finally, the sky grew dark enough for him to feel comfortable slipping outside. He shrugged on a large, frayed, black blanket in the hopes it would further cloak him from view, grabbed his pack, and headed out. When he reached the farm, the coast seemed clear, which came as a great relief. Still, something told him he needed to make quick work of this little visit, just in case. He crouched and scurried over to the field to gather whatever fruits and vegetables he could get his hands on, it was too dark and he was in too much of a hurry to be selective.

Just as he’d gathered enough to keep him going for a few more days he heard a rustling in the distance. Fuck fuck fuck. He looked around frantically and decided his best move would be to try to blend in with one of the trees in the orchard and hope that whoever was nearby would pass without suspecting anything. However, as he was trying to fumble his way to the nearest tree, his foot slammed hard against a rock and he impulsively cried out, “Ow! Bollocks!” before tumbling to the ground, losing grasp of his pack, and spilling his haul every which way.

[dreams-of-a-lark]

sagetomashardy​:

“Wait.” Tomas squinted at Lark, as if appearances meant anything on the island when it came to telling age. “You’re forty? I thought for sure you were in your twenties from how you…” He trailed off. ‘From the way you behave’ didn’t exactly sound too flattering and Lark would probably feel like he was being kicked while he was down, so Tomas limped to a different conclusion, “…you’re very, uh … youthful.”

Lark turned his attention back to the bruises and Tomas latched onto that, more easily-navigable territory, tending to people’s injuries. “No, it looks fine,” he said honestly. And considering so many of them were banged and bruised up post-fog, Tomas figured it wouldn’t much stand out to anyone else to invite comment.

But Lark seemed quite self-conscious about his bruises, what with the cloak and all, so Tomas continued, “If your throat’s sore on the inside, I mean, and lime and honey tastes pretty nice anyhow so it’s not even much like taking your medicine. A scarf could help with the bruises, though, or something with a high neck? Comes in handy being air attuned that way, huh – us being climate-controlled naturally.” Tomas himself liked it a lot, never really feeling too hot or too cold. It opened up a world of wardrobe possibilities, for one, unlike those poor bastards who always felt too much one way or the other.

After what seemed like a herculean effort, Lark finally spilled what had been troubling him so deeply, and Tomas rubbed his thumb against the bridge of his nose for a moment to digest it. “You think we kissed,” he repeated. “Okay. Well – if you’re not sure, then I suggest you don’t think about it any more. I’m not going to.”

Especially as the thought made Tomas feel decidedly green around the gills. What he’d thought had been an entirely solitary experience, his stupid botched fantasy attempt at an affair with a woman he’d never much cared for, had in fact possibly been some entirely real and equally entirely pointless kiss with Lark while they were both out of their heads with fog-madness? It was awful. He didn’t want to kiss anybody other than his wife – hadn’t that been the case for thirty fucking years? – and certainly not Lark. “Don’t tell me who you thought I was,” Tomas said hurriedly. “I mean, talk about it with whoever you need to, but I don’t need to hear it.”  Tomas turned, but didn’t actually walk away, instead just looking around at the farm. “If you’re gonna disappear again,” he said, “let me know, okay? So I can get somebody else to tend to the drying shed.”

☁︎︎☽☀︎︎☾☁︎︎

Tomas’s surprise at Lark’s age was amusing especially considering he himself had to be in at least his 70s by now. To be fair, Lark didn’t exactly act his age and he knew it. Was this a fact he was proud of? Only sometimes — it was a slippery slope from youthfulness to immaturity. He nodded graciously and shrugged, “Meridium magic I guess. You’re one to talk, yourself.”

He swallowed, testing to see if his throat was sore, he hadn’t really thought much about it. It wasn’t. “It doesn’t feel too bad, I think I’ll be alright. No need to put you out for nothing, right?” Compared to the other’s, the abilities of the air attuned were often subtle or rather passive in a way that at least fire and water simply weren’t. Lark actually liked it that way, it had always been something that felt so natural to him, he imagined that wasn’t a universal experience among the islanders. “Honestly, sometimes I forget the weather on this island isn’t actually as temperate as it feels. I probably do have something to cover them up, just... didn’t think I’d be running into anyone tonight.”

It seemed like Tomas was being deliberately obtuse. Not that Lark could blame him, he didn’t exactly want to know that information either. But, the fact of the matter was that he did know even if he’d said ‘I think’. Was it worth pressing the point, though? Decidedly not. It would do nothing, but make them both more uncomfortable with each other. Anyway, it wasn’t like either of them knew what was actually happening in the moment, nor was it ever something they would have done in their right minds.

So, even though Tomas’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’-adjacent approach didn’t seem very healthy either, perhaps it was best. After all, Lark liked their dynamic before all this and wanted nothing more than for things to go back to normal. If that was at all possible. However, despite Tomas’s words, his body language indicated it wouldn’t be all that easy.

Surely in time they would forget, they had all the time in the world to. So, for now, Lark just adjusted his pack and blanket and spoke to Tomas’s back, “Works for me. I’ll be back in the drying shed tomorrow. Probably in a turtleneck, looking like some sort of discount Bond villain.” He joked, turning to leave, adding over his shoulder, “Sorry for going AWOL on you. Have a nice night.” With that, he disappeared into the dark, back to his hut for one last night of solitude. There was no point in waiting for a response. There was nothing more to say. They were fine on the surface and that would have to do until they could fake the rest into reality.

[dreams-of-a-lark]

sagetomashardy​:

“No real timeline on sorting out your own shit, though, is there?” Especially not here on Meridium, where time was a loosey-goosey thing in the best case scenarios. “You’re young, Lark. There’s no rush. Do it, but take the time to do it right.”

Lark extended his sympathies over what Tomas had gone through, and he shrugged a shoulder, discomfort starting to set in for even having said anything in the first place. Tomas wasn’t much for talking to people who weren’t in his inner circle about his feelings, much less the things he’d been through in life that had brought him to this place, so even though Lark’s intention was kind, he didn’t exactly like��it. 

Once things were said, there was an expectation of acknowledgement, in one fashion or another. And Tomas’ various compartments and rooms were locked up too tight and soundly for that.

So he just gave that one-shouldered shrug and then said, “It sounds like it was much worse for you. Looks it, too. Are you sure I can’t give those bruises a quick check? Do you want some honey and lime for your throat or anything?”

It seemed, though, that Lark had something else that was nagging at him more than his bruised throat – or at least, something that more directly involved Tomas. He frowned, one hand propped against his hip as he rubbed the back of his other hand against the underside of his stubbly chin. “Okay,” he said, casting his mind back over the people he’d seen. The multiple Libbys had been Libby, that was easy enough; from what Rebecca had said, that was when he’d seen Miriam, which left only two other possibilities.

Which of those would be harrowing enough for Lark to stay away from the farm? Tomas’ frown grew deeper as he considered. “Okay,” he said again, “so you … I thought you were my mother? Did I call you Lucie?” The thought made him almost nauseated; he didn’t think he’d confessed anything untoward to that hallucination, but perhaps he had? Maybe he’d berated her for her drinking, for her illness, for the things she’d said to him and called him when she was out of her mind in her final ugly days in hospital? “It’s either that or – or I think I saw somebody I knew from work. Abigail. Was it something like that?” 

Tomas rubbed at his throat. “I don’t remember who it was you might have seen, I’m sorry. It’s all so swizzled up, now. After everything.”

☁︎︎☽☀︎︎☾☁︎︎

Tomas’s wisdom was something Lark had always appreciated about him. He’d always viewed him as a kind of role model, probably attributed to some combination of their shared attunement and Tomas’s fatherly nature. As a result, he usually put great stock in the things the farmer had to say. However, this time his body immediately wanted to reject the offered advice. 

He just wanted to have his shit sorted out already. Of course this was an unrealistic ideal, but Lark’s handle on realism was flimsy at the best of times. There was nothing appealing in the idea of his problems sitting with him, with no end in sight, while he tried to figure out how to fix them the “right” way. Still, Tomas did have a point, as much as he wished otherwise. So he just nodded, “Feels like there’s a rush, though, doesn’t it? Is 40 young now? I suppose it is around these parts...”

There was no question that Tomas was diverting attention from his own experience, but Lark couldn’t blame him for that. He figured maybe Tomas just had trouble showing weakness, being the pillar of support that he was in the community. Either way, both of them were dancing around their traumas in their own ways. When attention was brought back to the bruises, Lark had to actively fight the urge to send them into a spiral of mutual deflection. 

“Does it really look that bad?” His fingers lifted to trace the lines of his neck. It was a bit sensitive still, honey and lime could help. But was Lark in a place to ask for help? That was a whole other beast entirely. “I rather thought it was getting much better, but if it still looks pretty gnarly...” he didn’t concede to needing help explicitly, but he did his best to reign back his defenses, so Tomas could get a better look if he wanted to.

Thomas’s guesses at who he saw Lark as in the cornfield elicited a snorted laugh. “I don’t remember if you called me by any name, but... I highly doubt you thought I was your mother, given that um...” It sent a nauseating shiver down his spine imagining what kind of relationship Tomas would have to have had with his mother to lead to that sort of interaction —hallucinated or not.

He inhaled deeply, preparing to exhale the truth he could no longer avoid addressing, “Tomas... I think we kissed.” It was finally out, there was no going back now. He squinched his face and braced for the worst.

[dreams-of-a-lark]

sagetomashardy​:

“It’s all right. It’s understandable that we want to talk about it, hmm? I mean … it’s fucking big, Matthew not being here anymore.” Tomas gave Lark a look of commiseration. “I expect it’s going to loom large for a while yet. Whether or not anybody’s going to step into that place with him gone, or if we’ll leave it as it is. I honestly couldn’t say. I just run the fuckin’ farm, man.”

He didn’t say that last part defensively; his voice sort of ran down into it, depleted, like a wind-up toy that had no more go. “Esther or Seamus would know. Although they’re probably caught up in other things for the next little while, you know what I mean.” Seamus investigating Matthew’s death, Esther mourning the man he’d been. 

Lark’s question about how Tomas had felt during the most potentially harmful of his fog experiences caught him off-balance; he’d thought, really, that Lark might side-step it entirely, and found himself oddly thankful for the opportunity to talk about it. “You know what?” Tomas said, rubbing the side of his face. “Now that you mention it, Lark – I wasn’t scared. It hurt, it was uncomfortable, I felt …” His brows pinched together. “I wondered if maybe it was what I deserved. If it was symbolic, y’know? For me being a smothering sort of person, so that was what I got back.”

He shuddered, although the remembered experience wasn’t enough to keep him from hearing what Lark was saying, turning the words over to compare to his own feelings. “Yeah,” Tomas said slowly. “It was kind of like that. Feeling sad for the person doing it. I know they were just re-enacting their own trauma.” He was careful not to spill too many details; Lark probably could figure out Libby, but it wasn’t his to tell. “Though I knew I wasn’t going to die, since you can’t kill air attuned that way, so it wasn’t quite what you went through. Fuckin’ sucks, huh?”

Lark circled back to the cornfield, and Tomas shrugged. “Every minute out, it fades a little more,” he said. “I just remember seeing people from my past, I don’t know if I was hallucinating real people into them or if it was all figments in the smoke.” He peered up at Lark. “Is that what you’re dancing around? Did we meet and I thought you were somebody else?”

☁︎︎☽☀︎︎☾☁︎︎

‘I just run the fuckin’ farm, man.’ The fatigued acquiescence in his tone was palpable and all too relatable. Nothing was known and there was nothing to be done about it. All that existed now were a million questions that would sooner gather dust than answers. Unfortunately for Tomas, and the other more seasoned Meridiumers, more of that burden rested on the shoulders of the elders here.

He nodded solemnly, “You’re right, I won’t go bothering Esther and Seamus just yet. Not like rushing them for answers changes anything. Anyway, probably best if I sort out my own shit first, yeah?”

It would be incorrect to say that Tomas’s answer was necessarily expected, but it did corroborate a theory Lark was forming about love and death. “Exactly, I wasn’t even entirely sure what trauma sparked it, but it felt familiar. Yeah, it fucking sucks, but not in the ways I thought it would—not that I thought something like that was going to happen, just...” he trailed off, unsure where exactly he was going with the thought, “Yeah. It sucks. I’m sorry you felt like it was some sort of karmic retribution for you.”  

Tomas really didn’t remember—something that had such a mental impact on Lark, and Tomas was wholly oblivious to it happening at all. It made him wonder if it was even worth talking about. What good would it do, really? At least, with the way it was now, only Lark had to bear that memory. If he told Tomas, then Tomas would have to decide whether or not to tell Libby, and then what? If she found out, would Lark have to prepare himself for yet another black eye? So many possibilities. Almost none of them seemed favorable. 

And yet... staying silent felt wrong too. “I think so.” He finally admitted, after letting a cold silence percolate between them, “I think we both thought we were other people, Tomas. It’s... well, it’s sort of part of the reason I haven’t been back here since then.”

[dreams-of-a-lark]

sagetomashardy​:

Tomas winced slightly, reflexively, when Lark mentioned that he hadn’t seen the body; it was ridiculous, really, that he should be having such a strong reaction to those words, considering he’d autopsied that body and prepared it for the pyre, but there you were. The human system for processing grief was an unpredictable one, an inconvenient one. 

“Somebody attacked him,” Tomas explained. “Wounded him in the chest–” he ran his fingers down the middle of his own, to demonstrate, “–and left him there to die. We don’t know who did it, yet, or really the particulars. There was a funeral. I’m not…” he shook his head. “Don’t think there’s a marker or anything up yet. It’s probably too soon. Should look into that.”

Should look into something else too, in fact, was the thought starting to coagulate in Tomas’ mind as Lark spoke about what had happened to him. “Something along those lines happened to me, too, during the fog,” Tomas offered. “Somebody I love trying to kill me. I think – I hope it won’t cause them too much guilt, you can’t ever be assured of that, but talking helped, I think. If you’re worried about this person blaming themself then finding them and talking might be the best way forward with preventing that.”

Tomas thought maybe some of this would help settle whatever it was that had holed Lark up so tight he didn’t even know about the funeral, or whatever he was struggling with regarding this person who’d choked him, but it seemed there was something more. “Okay,” he said when Lark firmly said that those things weren’t what he wanted to talk about. “Well, I–”

Lark brought it around again to them, the two of them specifically on the night of the fog and the murder, and Tomas frowned, moving a little closer to try and get a better look at Lark’s expression by the torchlight. “What are you getting at?” he asked. “So many things happened all that day and night, Lark, I saw so many things, it’s all a fucking jumble at this point. What was me hallucinating other people into being, what was just my mind conjuring up bullshit out of thin air, I don’t know. But clearly something about it’s bothering you and now it’s gonna bother me and I can’t handle people being upset with me without me knowing why so please, just – tell me what happened, that you remember. We can sort it out, I’m sure.”

He sighed and rubbed his forehead, hoping Lark would help him out. “I really can’t recall the details of anything specific. We both got turned around here, right? On the farm?”

☁︎︎☽☀︎︎☾☁︎︎

Lark’s fingers curled into a fist hearing about Matthew’s death. Its gruesome nature was perhaps less unsettling than the understanding that he’d never see him again. “I’m sorry. We don’t need to dwell on it.” Talking about it still seemed to disturb Tomas, understandably. So he figured it was best to cut that discussion short. But Lark, rambler as he was, wasn’t the best at cutting things short. “I just... mainly wanted to know if there was somewhere I could say goodbye. But it’s fine, I suppose. After all, Matthew was the heart of this place, to tie him to one spot on this island forever... it feels wrong, doesn’t it?” 

"Who-” maybe best not to ask, actually. It’s none of his business who tried to kill Tomas and anyway it’s not too hard to deduce that ‘someone he loves’ means Libby. Plus, if he asked there was the danger of the question being turned on him again. Instead he asks something that’s been on his mind ever since, “Were you scared? When it was happening? I’ve been trying to figure out if I was, but every time I think about it I just remember feeling sad and helpless. Not even about dying, just... like I was on the outside watching them break down and there was nothing I could say or do to ease the burden. And then sort of... accepting that I might be a casualty as a result. You know?”

As much as he didn’t want to talk about Luke with Tomas he wasn’t sure he’d find someone who he could commiserate on this with and he was curious to know Tomas’s experience. How many others? He wondered. How many others nearly died at the hands of family, friends and lovers as a result of that fog? How many did die? Matthew couldn’t have been the only one.

Tomas drawing nearer made him nervous as conversation turned back on them. ‘Just – tell me what happened’ Honesty. Right. It must have been an easy thing to ask for when he didn’t know what came with it. “Well, yes. You got lost in the cornfield and I came to find you. And—you don’t remember seeing anything... or doing anything? You know, before we got out.”

Yes, it was easier to conceptualize the truth than to speak it now. “Really, I’m not entirely clear about some of it myself, which is why I ask.” Lark added, a truth stretched like too little butter on too much bread—sufficient, but unsatisfactory.

[dreams-of-a-lark]

sagetomashardy​:

===***===

Tomas’ schedule, on the whole, had included the farm for much of it in the thirty years he’d been on the island. He was there before sunup every day, often returning to it throughout the afternoon and evening and sometimes into the night if there were certain projects he was working on, or if a medical emergency arose; but he’d been erratic, of late. Having your long-lost, deeply-grieved wife turn up and therefore revitalize your entire reason for living tended to do that to a man.

But despite their seemingly being joined at the hip, in truth Tomas had plenty to do, and Libby had her own things to do, so they met and re-met in little dots of time during each day rather than spending the swaths of uninterrupted hours they’d taken, without regret, when they’d first been reunited. And so here Tomas was at an ungodly hour of the night, grumbling over a couple of the path-lighting flambeaux torches having gone out and re-lighting them only to hear somebody exclaim in the dark.

“Hello?” Tomas called, and then looked down as a grapefruit rolled and bumped his foot. He stooped to pick it up, then finished lighting the torch, visibility bringing into view a huddled person on the ground near the orchard. “Hey, pal,” Tomas said as he went over, reaching down to help the person up. “Oh – it’s you, Lark. What on earth are you sneaking around for?”

Tomas waved the grapefruit back towards the path. “I put some kid on making sure the flambeaux are properly wound and fueled but I guess they’ve been slacking on the job. I don’t know why people ask for tasks to do if they’re not gonna even do ‘em right. It’s not like I give out fucking merit badges for effort.” He held out the grapefruit. “Haven’t seen you around much. Fog got you down?”

☁︎︎☽☀︎︎☾☁︎︎

Of course it was fucking Tomas of all people. It would be Lark’s luck that the main person he was explicitly trying to avoid would be the one to find him here. He really shouldn’t have been surprised, given that he’d come to the farm, but that didn’t ease the sinking feeling in his stomach at hearing Tomas’s voice.  Lark gathered all he could reach back into his bag and scrambled to his feet. 

“Sneaking? I — What makes you think I’m sneaking?” He said, not sounding suspicious at all, “Yeah, not sneaking, just uh —” He couldn’t think of any better explanation so he just looked toward the torches, “Yeah, uh, falmbeaux... it’s quite dark, night and all that. Hard not to look like you’re not sneaking when there’s, uh... no light.” Truly the most bang up job of not sounding suspicious.

Hesitantly, he reached out to take the grapefruit from Tomas’s hand, taking extra care not to make any contact with his hand. “Thanks.” An awkward silence dangled between them before Lark realized Tomas had asked him a question. His hand instinctively drifted to his neck where the bruises were almost fully healed, but the memory remained vivid as if it happened yesterday.

To say the ‘fog got him down’ was the understatement of the century, but he couldn’t exactly say, “Well, Tomas, that night started out with me accidentally kissing you and ended with my best friend damn near killing me. So, yeah, I guess you could say the fog’s go me down.” 

So, instead, he just traced his hand up from his neck to scratch his head and mumbled, “Uh... yeah, I guess. Just needed some time to recoup. Sorry. I should uh... probably be getting back.” With a torch now lit, it was easier to see the remaining vegetables he’d dropped and he knelt down to pick them back up, hoping Tomas would think nothing more of this strange little encounter.

[dreams-of-a-lark]

sagetomashardy​:

===***===

“What bruises,” Tomas repeated bemusedly as Lark tried to hide exactly those bruises, but then the younger man was continuing to babble and brush him off, so Tomas mumbled, “okay, then,” and was about to continue on his way when Lark started talking again.

As it so happened Tomas was feeling restless, sleepless, so he had the patience to stand and wait as Lark got himself together enough to ask a more direct question. “That night?” he repeated with a slight frown. Obviously Tomas had had a number of nights during which interesting things had happened, but he figured Lark meant the last time they’d seen each other. The fog – and the night of Matthew’s death. Ahhhh. So that was it.

“It’s not a stupid thing to ask,” he said, with a sympathetic look. “And I don’t blame you for still trying to make sense of it. I’m trying, too.” Tomas rumpled the back of his head with a sigh, glancing up the path to the apothecary where he and Libby had performed the autopsy. “I’ve seen a lot of terrible deaths in this place, Lark, horrible heart-wrenching things, but this is different. There haven’t been a whole lot of sinister deaths on the island. Finding Matthew dead like that? Murdered with nobody even coming forward to say it might have been an accident? It’s weighing on my mind.”

He looked back at Lark, giving a sidelong, uneven smile. It was intended to be bolstering but the rippling dark of the night didn’t allow for much of a sense of comfort. “Is that what’s been worrying you, kid?” Tomas asked, more gently. “Seeing that kind of violence?” He nodded his chin upwards at Lark’s huddling in his blanket. “Do you know who it is who did that to you? And do they know what they did?” 

Probably Tomas could’ve stopped there, but he felt compelled to say, “–it’s all right to be confused about it. If it’s somebody you love who did that to you. We were all fucked up in our heads during that fog. However you’re feeling, it’s … it’s all right. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

☁︎︎☽☀︎︎☾☁︎︎

Matthew. Lark had been so caught up in trying to broach the subject of the kiss with Tomas that he’d almost forgotten the disturbing nature of Matthew’s death. Regret cast a shadow over the other questions plaguing Lark’s mind. “I meant more like what you experienced, but now that you mention it...” he sniffled as breathing got just the slightest bit harder. When Lark was still new, Matthew had saved his life on multiple occasions, helped talk down the panic of possibly never making it home. He may not have known Matthew as long as some of the others, but it would be an egregious lie to say he only had a minor impact on Lark’s life.

Now he was dead and Lark hadn’t even spoken to anyone about it yet, only heard whisperings through the slats in his hut. His heart sank at the mention of murder. Who would want to murder Matthew? Surely it must have been an accident and the killer was just keeping quiet for fear of repercussions, right? “...I um... I don’t even really know what happened to him. I’ve been sort of holed up since that night. I never saw the body or anything. How bad was it? Was... was there a funeral?” He didn’t want to ask, but he did want to know, “Is there somewhere I could visit him?”

Damn Tomas and his concern derailing the whole reason Lark had chosen to linger on the farm. Lark curled his hand tighter around the blanket where it covered his neck. Tomas’s question about the bruises felt like some sort of trick, though Lark didn’t entirely see the harm in simply admitting he knew who it was, it felt wrong to answer honestly. 

‘If it’s somebody you love who did that to you.’ The last three words Lark spoke to Luke shook in his chest.

He focused his eyes on the ground, “I’m not confused about it. I don’t blame the person who did it, either. I’m just worried that, if they know the truth, they might be somewhere out there blaming themselves. And I can’t—” A part of him broke at the thought of Luke building all his walls back up and reinforcing them tenfold, but that was an issue for another time with another person.

Perhaps Tomas’s prying was helpful after all, the words were coming more freely now. The older man’s assumptions had also brought up a list of things Lark would rather think about less in this moment than one awkward kiss. “—But actually, Tomas, I didn’t mean to ask for your help processing any of that. It’s all heavy and all on my list of things I know I need to deal with separately. I guess I was more specifically wondering what you remember from that night... and the last time we saw each other. Do you remember much of that?”

[dreams-of-a-lark]

sagetomashardy​:

Tomas looked at Lark with slightly raised eyebrows as the younger man made a hash out of whatever it was he’d been trying to do – be inconspicuous, Tomas supposed. Although he wasn’t entirely sure why Lark had decided on draping himself in a cape and trying to forage the fields when he could’ve just slipped into the warehouse and grabbed things more quickly and unobtrusively.

From the nervous babbling, a clear head to take the more obvious route probably hadn’t been an option. 

Still, whatever was going on was Lark’s business, and Tomas had clearly startled him. For all Tomas knew, this might be some game to entertain himself – Lord knew they all came up with odd little personal habits to keep the Meridium life from getting on top of them. “Very dark night, yes,” he said as Lark accepted the grapefruit back, as gingerly as if he was playing a variant of The Floor is Lava or something. The Farmer is Lava. 

Lark continued to be vague and discombobulated, apologizing needlessly and begging off of any more conversation, so Tomas shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “I could take a look at those bruises if you want, before you head back.”

☁︎︎☽☀︎︎☾☁︎︎

“What bruises?” Lark said, maybe too defensively, pulling the the blanket to cover his neck. When everything was back in his pack again, he shook his head, “I mean... um... they’re practically gone anyway, I’m sure I’ll be fine. Been doing fine taking care of myself since—well... Anyway, take care, Tomas.”

He turned to leave, but his feet didn’t seem to let him. God, he had to address it, didn’t he? Did he? He weighed the pros and cons in his head and, even though everything tipped in the favor of never talking about what happened ever, he still turned back.

“Actually... um... I was just curious...” Shut up Lark, just shut up and leave. What in God’s name do you think you’re doing? “Uh... what do you remember? From that night, I mean. Like... you know. What—? Ah, never mind, it’s a stupid thing to ask.” He sighed. Shoulda just gone hunting like a normal fucking avoidant person. 

“It was a bad night for everyone...” he said, taking some steps back, “very confusing and all. I guess I’m still trying to make sense of it. But it’s late and I’m sure you have other things to worry about.”