konstant | . .. IC Contact

I'm really starting to wonder if the people who run these cities need some other hobbies.

Probably.

Evidence?

[ This is not a username that he would be surprised at from Majima. So he doesn't even notice. ]

The constant fixation.

[ Does he need to say on what? He hopes not. ]

I thought maybe it was just the city we were in but this place seems practically the same.

They explained the fixation.

It's an experiment.

Is that really an explanation?

They had to decide on the experiment.

You doubt their sincerity.

[ Okay, that was a little odd as a response. But he sent this to Majima, didn't he? ]

Maybe. But that's normal.

People in power don't feel like they have to be honest.

They do have to produce the results they've promised or they don't stay in power for long.

Unless they can blame their lack of results on someone else.

Who else is there?

Us?

[ He's a little confused he has to explain this.

Also Majima's being very succinct. ]

Is something wrong?

[K knows all of this, all the answers he's been given to the questions he's asking. What he doesn't know is who this is talking to him.

For all he knows, it's one of the SIN guards doing loyalty tests. That, he's familiar with.

So:] Why would anything be wrong?

You just sound a lot more formal than you usually do.

And you haven't cursed once.

This is text-based communication. It could be considered a legal, binding document if collected as evidence, so any good officer keeps correspondence formal.

And language civil.

[ There's a loooooong pause. ]

You're a cop?

[ And obviously not Majima Goro. Very very obviously. ]

I was a blade runner.

Not anymore. Not who you expected?

No.

You ran around with knives?

My friend also does that. It's why I was confused.

No. It's just the job title. And someone having fun with my user name.

Your friend should be safer.

The knives are to keep him safe. He knows what he's doing with them. Or it. He's usually only got one knife.

[ Beat. ]

Who did you think I was?

Maybe start with telling me who you are?

[He'll give his information the way that this guy gave his.]

I'm a former orphanage caretaker. I also spent some time working in the Tojo Clan in Tokyo.

Not anymore, obviously.

[To be fair, you texted him.]

And now?

[ Well, he didn't mean to! ]

I'm working at a clothing shop and my

Dominant's batting cages. You?

I don't know.

Lifting weights, apparently.

You’re working at the gym?

No. They entered me in the games.

I'm KD6-3.7.

Oh! I’m doing that too.

Kiryu Kazuma.

…I’m not sure how to send pictures on this.

[K fixes that for them by switching to video.]

Did you choose to?

[His voice is naturally low, naturally quiet, but clear nonetheless.]

[ Oh. Yeah, that is an option, isn’t it? Well, he’s not really the best with tech.

His own voice is accented, soft and steady.

Now that he sees him, he thinks he recognizes him from the competitions. That’s comforting.]

No. But I don’t mind. It’s not the kind of choice that bothers me.

[He hadn't been happy then and he's not smiling now, but there is at least a very clear black mark down his throat, disappearing under his shirt.]

There are categories?

Of choices?

I think so.

[ Your mileage might vary, but- ]

…at least this didn’t involve being drugged.

I suppose.

[He's just glad he didn't end up in a different event, honestly.]

I'm a good shot. They could have put me in archery, and that did involve being drugged.

I’ve never used a bow. Lots of guns but never a bow.

[ Also a cannon but that was 1. Years ago and 2. During a very odd time in his life. He doesn’t even remember where he got it from.

Wait, wasn’t it a Chinese restaurant? Yeah, now that he thinks about it…

Anyway. ]

Is it hard?

I've never tried. I understand the mechanics.

Firearms aren't, but you know that already.

I've used a lot of other weapons that're older but I guess a bow isn't really useful in most cities.

Have they given you a bow to work with?

Good news and bad news. I have your firearm. It's pink leopard print.

Is the leopard print the bad news?

Yes, and I'm making an educated guess on color.

I don't mind about the color. I only care that it fires, mostly accurately.

I haven't tested it, but it should be reliable enough.

I can test it. Where and when?

I don't use guns; the nearest thing to one I have is in my face, and a rage won't cut it for that.

Best I can do for place worth testing is the beach and firing into the ocean. There's probably somewhere else, but I don't know where.

If you just mean handoff, I'm in 1a in the up. You can come here or meet me at the gym again.

I'll figure out where to test it. I'm familiar with firearms.

I'll come now, if that's okay.

It's fine. Door's unlocked, don't mind the unicorn mural on the living room wall.

He does. It takes a while, he gets harassed briefly at the checkpoint mostly because he doesn't like to answer rude questions, but he does turn up.

He also knocks, and makes sure to wipe his feet before he does anything like stepping into a personal space.

"Hello?" he calls. He doesn't mind the unicorn mural. He probably likes it.

It's a unicorn vomiting a rainbow, because his submissive is Deadpool and that's just part of the territory (Scott all but dared him to do it, but he'll never admit it).

He pulls the door open at the knock and gives K a slight nod. "Gun's in the kitchen. Do you want coffee?"

He does like the mural. He doesn't understand it, but he doesn't have to.

K already liked coffee in Los Angeles; here, it tastes significantly better than anything he had back home, so he's quick to nod.

"Please." He steps politely inside, offers as politely, "Thank you. I appreciate this, especially for a stranger."

He pours a second cup of coffee and holds it out, handle free for K to take more easily. "Cream's in the fridge, sugar's on the counter if you want either." He's drinking his black, but leaves it sitting on the counter since he's going to need to go get the gun.

That thanks gets a faint smile out of him. "I'll either have done something good and feel good about that or made a terrible mistake and have an excuse to wallow in guilt for a while. I think it'll be okay, though."

K used to take his black, too, because any additives he could afford or were available to him otherwise only made the taste worse. Here, though, he's quick to add a few spoonfuls of sugar, and he smiles at the response.

"I'll do my best not to make you regret it. I don't actually want to be any trouble."

"I didn't think you did." That's said easily enough. "How's your hand?"

He holds his hand up to show him - the bandage is gone, the edges are closed, just a healing pink scar.

"All I have to do is keep it that way." Harder to accomplish than one might think for someone who genuinely doesn't like to get into fights. "How'd the games go for you?"

He should get up and go get that gun, but he's enjoying the conversation and company more than he expected, so.

"I didn't actually get recruited. I spent most of my time camping, and looking around the location. It wasn't terrible. You?"

K is watching for that, for discomfort or impatience, but he's committed to at least finishing the cup of coffee. He sips at it, relaxes a bit.

"I did, but I got to keep my clothes on, and they left me alone the rest of the time." So he's pretty good with it. "I think I'm starting to catch my breath a bit."

Scott leans back against the counter and picks his cup back up to drink. His coffee in particular has cooled off a lot, but it's fine. "Being left alone for a while is good. Catching your breath is better. It's easier to navigate this place when you're not reeling."

"I've been warned not to get used to it," he admits, holding his mug in both hands to feel it warm his palms.

"And I'm worried for what comes next after the calm."

Scott doesn't hesitate so much as he takes a moment to decide what words he wants to use, here. Because... this place isn't ideal, but also.

"My experience thus far is that it's a place where... on a small and personal scale a certain amount of order can be imposed on the broader chaos." Which is maybe odd, but. It's kind of what he has.

"The planet I'm from is dead," K offers. As far as broader chaos goes, it's a good example of how it can get out of the hands of the individual.

"But we still had protocols to go by for day to day life. A lot of people felt the laws were pointless, but they were still the law for a reason."

"Laws weren't exactly what I was talking about," says the man with a profound distrust of authority and government, but. "Not having to deal with total chaos here is... helpful."

K smiles a bit, self-deprecating.

"Old habit," he admits into his coffee. Cop. "It might be easier if the city itself weren't so committed to arbitrary order over more natural patterns."

tell me you did not leave immediately after you promised me you’d stay seriously, get back here K???? if you get mauled by a nightmare I am not patching you up okay fuck of course I’ll patch you up, where are you K SERIOUSLY ARE YOU DEAD fucking let me know if you’re alive, at least

I'm here.

dude what the fuck are you ok??

I'm here.

FUCKING WHERE, K

[He sends her the address to his quarters in the Down by way of response.]

[ It takes her a long damn time to get there, considering she has to angry-hobble her way to the Down on a bum leg, but she manages to lug a backpack full of medical supplies and weapons to public housing eventually.

She pounds a fist into his door, the thing shuddering in its frame at the force she gives it. ]

Orla has gone by now; he doesn't know if she's coming back. He can't remember if she told him or not, only that she was talking about moving to the Up after what happened with her leg. It gets swallowed up by other details slowly filtering back in that he doesn't really want to think about so he always stops then, but it's not like it matters. His roommate isn't here when Sara turns up. It's just K, in a room he would have said was dark before he -

He's not physically hurt anymore if he ever was, so he answers the door, flinching away from the light in the hallway. He stays behind the door and tries again a moment later, squinting.

"Sara?" His voice is always quiet but it's rough just now too, and he steps out of the way, motioning her in past him.

The door opens a crack and she pushes her way inside, immediately looking him over for any injuries. He's... fine. Normal, if not a little hungover looking, which would be a relief if it weren't so damn infuriating.

"Well, I guess we can add lying to the list of things replicants are good at."

Sara herself looks like she's been pushed through a meat grinder. Her leg's still wrapped, and she's been using her bo staff as a walking stick to help herself get around. Her face is a smattering of deep blues and purples and blacks, her arms scabbed over with cuts and scrapes.

The sound hurts a bit too, grated a bit on him, but not as much as the light. He blinks, hard, and shifts a bit further back into the room, but he does interrupt her. He doesn't argue with her.

She looks terrible and he's so sorry she came down here, but he can't focus on anything past the pound of the light straight through his eyes.

"Sara -" he starts, but this is also not a conversation for the hallway. "Come in? Please?" He makes himself reach for the bag even though the light falling across his skin starts to burn immediately, if mildly for now.

She'd had Laurel check in on his place the last few days. Had Barry doing periodic sweeps of the Up and the Down to no avail. Hurt and worry had turned to frustration, frustration into anger, and anger... anger was so much easier. Familiar. Comfortable.

So yes, she's fuming when she seems him, even if she knows damn well where he's probably been. What he's been through. Because she wasn't there to protect him.

She surrenders the bag, useless as it is, following him inside and kicking the door shut behind them.

"I need you to start talking. And it better include a damn good explanation for leaving."

The room goes blessedly dark when she closes the door, so he doesn't even mind that it slams; the only light in the room comes via the closed blinds, and he avoids where the street lights from outside fall on the floor. He sets the bag just inside the door, and stands for a moment, unsure. He should invite her further in, but she's angry - hurt - wants answers now.

The problem comes in that he has no idea where to begin.

"Barry was there," is what he ends up starting with. "He knew to wake you and to watch for anything trying to finish the fight with you. I couldn't do anything else to help, so I left."

Start there. See how much she still needs to yell at him. For his part, he starts back to find the edge of the bed with it's disrupted nest of blankets where he's clearly been spending all his time.

It takes her a eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light, her nose wrinkling as she blinks to try and reorient herself. The darkness puts her on edge, makes her prickle, her fingertips itching for the weapons stowed into her pockets, the bag that he's taken from her.

"I asked you to stay," she says lowly, the irritation wavering in her voice. She needs something, anything to take the edge off the anger, but she can't even pace it into submission without pain shooting up her leg. "You knew - you knew the danger it would put you in, and you fucking did it anyway."

"And staying put you in danger," he points out in return, folding his hands into his lap. It's not particularly forceful. It's just a fact.

So is this: "Staying put everyone else in danger while it looked for me. I couldn't do that. I know I'm not worth much now but I still wanted to protect people if I could."

Her eyes narrow at him, her blue gaze sharp even in the low light. "Staying would've kept you safe. It would've kept me safe. We could've protected ourselves together, and instead you - you, what, you choose to go out there alone? Sacrifice yourself because that thing, that fucking monster convinced you you weren't worth it?"

Her voice is wavering again, tight with the fury of it, the ache of knowing he actually believes it. She swallows, sucking in a breath.

"It killed you, didn't it? That's where you've been, right?"

"I've never been alive." Even K, in his precarious role as a replicant blade runner, had been allowed in casual conversation to refer to himself as alive, as having a life, but he is newly reminded that he is a replicant. He is a replicant, made, not born. Built, not loved. Synthetic to his core, every particle and every emotion and every thought manufactured.

"But yes, I'm sure it retired me. I expect that's where I've been." He doesn't let himself think about it too hard but he does force himself to look up, forces himself to meet her eyes.

"I'm sorry you were hurt."

"Oh, fuck off with that," she snaps, her arms crossing tightly over her chest. She's itching for a cigarette, her eyes scanning the room for a pack, because of course it's the one thing she'd forgotten in her haste to get down here.

"You're breathing, right? You have a heart, you have a brain. You think for yourself, you make shit fucking decisions for yourself, so yes. You are alive, K. Despite any attempts to the contrary."

She curses under her breath, pacing despite herself when he actually admits it. That he'd gone and done it. Gotten himself killed after she'd fought so goddamn hard to get him back. She can feel the emotion stinging at her eyes, and she can't bring herself to meet his gaze. It takes her a moment to reply, her voice tight in her throat.

"I should've been there."

The room reeks of smoke; there's a mostly empty pack on the nightstand next to the remnants of the rest of it in an ashtray, a lighter beside that.

He lets her run herself out, sitting quietly, sitting still, watching. He has no idea what to say to any of it, no one has ever felt responsible for him, has been hurt by the fact that he was hurt instead of them.

"Why?" he asks finally.

The scent goads the craving on, and the moment she sets eyes on the pack and the lighter she beelines to it. Plucks a cigarette from inside, lights it and sucks in a long, slow breath, closing her eyes a moment to allow the blissful effect of nicotine wash over her.

She's quiet when he asks his question, flicking ash into the tray at his bedside, gaze focused on the ground a moment. The next breath she takes is still shaky, jaw clenched, still unable to rein in the flurry of emotions that seem to so easily overwhelm her.

"You're a detective," she says finally, sucking in another pull of smoke, letting her words curl around the breath. "Work it out for yourself."

When Sara's emotions overwhelm her they flash outward, weaponized and powerful. When K's emotions overwhelm him he shuts down, turns inwards, hides them.

He doesn't know what's best here. He can lay out the pieces of data as he understands them but it doesn't mean he knows what to do about it. How best to comfort a friend or if it's better to just let her take her anger, her hurt out on him. How to have a friend at all.

He rubs the corners of his eyes, trying to think, trying to focus. She can have every cigarette in the pack if she wants it and he won't say word one. It's the very least he can do.

"If I try," he says slowly, "Are you going to actually talk to me, or just keep insisting the world is only one way no matter what I say?"

There’s not much power in anger that’s got nowhere to go. He doesn’t argue, doesn’t defend himself, doesn’t offer much in the way of explanation. It’d be easier if he did. If he gave her something, anything to latch onto, but instead all she can do is seek comfort in the end of a cigarette, in the tiny sense of ease it can offer.

She thinks on his words a moment, brow furrowing, exhaling the smoke out of her nose as she thinks.

“Are you?” she counters, lifting her gaze to finally meet his.

"I'm trying."

He feels a bit like he's being asked to stand on hamstrung legs at this point, but he is trying. He has so much ground to make up, his life has been so different from so many of the people here, and it's not anyone's fault but now he has no idea what's expected of him. It had gotten easier for a while, as what he was made to be became more distant from him, but it's all right back at the fore now.

"I didn't lie. I didn't sacrifice myself. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I don't know what else to tell you."

She lets out a dry laugh, wisps of smoke heavy in the air around her. She waves them away, shifting to lean back against his dresser, studying him quietly a moment.

"You promised me you'd stay. After I fought like hell to get back from that fucking thing, after we both nearly died trying to get back here. You waltzed right back out on the streets and got yourself killed, and you don't understand why that might piss me off?" She takes another deep drag, her fingers twitching as the anger starts to seize through her again. "Jesus, K, did you think I wouldn't care?"

"You weren't the only one fighting." She had hated too, he remembers now, how he had tried to handle her doppelganger. He's not sure what else he was supposed to do when he had no idea what was going on, but he hadn't just stood there and taken it.

He had left her behind even when she wanted him to.

"I stayed until someone else was with you. And you're going to tell me that if you had the option to go back out and make sure that a woman wearing your face wasn't hurting your friends, you wouldn't have taken it? You would have let them suffer while you hid?"

He's aware of how guilty answering a question with a question makes him seem. The truth is though that he is surprised that she seems to care as much as she does.

Edited 2022-08-05 06:37 (UTC)

"Is that what you call standing there and letting my nightmare try and beat the hell out of you?"

It's too sharp, too fast, and she regrets it even as it's spilling from her lips. The heat in it, the want to land in a place that stings.

Her nose wrinkles, and she stares down at the ground again.

"Oh, so you were trying to protect me? Is that it? Well guess what, K, I was trying to protect you, too, and you threw that shit right back in my face the first chance you got, didn't you?" She shakes her head, arms crossing tightly over her chest. "You're not in your fucked up version of home anymore. There are people here who give a shit whether you live or die."

K closes his eyes.

It was fucked up, but it was home, and he knew his place in it. Los Angeles was his city, even if it didn't want him. Its people were his people to protect even if they didn't want anything to do with him.

He is - was - a protector, custom made. He tried to do that here and in the end he was successful: the faceless blade runner coming for him hadn't hurt anyone else he's aware of, not in the way he'd gone out to prevent. But it has, after all, hurt Sara.

He has. I'm not alive, I can't die, the rote protest is there but he doesn't say it this time. He rubs at his eyes again, harder, until he sees the afterimages behind his eyelids and doesn't say anything then either.

"I've never had that," is what he finally offers. The rest hurts, the rest is a mix of emotion and logic, but he leaves it where she throws it between them and chooses the one solid fact he has.

It's a low blow, to go after his home. To rip and tear at him because she's the one that's hurt. She's the one who wasn't good enough, wasn't there when he needed her. She'll never understand where he comes from, all the baggage that the place has dumped on him, leaving him to soldier on without complaint. Without realizing how much more he deserves.

If he tells her he's not alive again, so help her. She is so goddamn close to blowing a gasket, if she hasn't already, and just a fraction of an excuse would be enough to set her off.

But instead, he has to show her how hard it is for him. How sad and alone and fucking tragic he is, and she snuffs her cigarette out in the ash tray, her resolve crumbling quickly with those stupid puppy dog eyes.

She considers him a moment, sighing and pushing herself onto her feet. Hobbling the few steps over to him, she perches next to him at the edge of the bed, brow furrowed down at her hands.

"Believe whatever you want. But you're alive to me. You are worth something to me. And if you ever pull that shit on me again, I swear to God, K, I will stab you in the hand myself."

He doesn't flinch when she moves closer but that's because he never really learned how. It would never have stopped anyone that wanted to hurt him. It would only ever have invited more attention. So he has no idea what to expect when she starts moving towards him but it's not like it matters: whatever she wants to do, whatever anyone has ever wanted to do with or to him, they are going to do regardless of him. He doesn't flinch.

He watches the carpet instead, her movement from the periphery of his vision, and he nods.

She sits there quietly a moment, and as hard to read as he usually is, she knows that he's struggling. That whatever the hell his nightmare had done to him, it's cut him down deep. And in all her anger, she hadn't found any way to help. Didn't know how.

So she just... sits. Doesn't reach for him, doesn't have any other words to offer for a long, long moment. But finally, she manages.

"I'm sorry," she says quietly. "I can go, if you want."

He knows she wouldn't actually stab him in the hand, probably. He knows what hyperbole is. Knows, too, that threats of violence are one of the myriad ways people say they care about another person. It's a love language, perhaps one of the very few Sara in particular feels comfortable with. He understands all of this.

But it rings just now against raw nerve and all he can do is brace under it. He thinks about the lines of his baseline script - a blood black nothingness began to spin, blood black, blood - and wonders what it means that he has a point of reference for so much of it now.

For all of that, he answers promptly: "I don't want you to go." His voice is still low, still rough, but clear for all of that. He has no idea why she'd want to be here if everything he chooses to do confuses and hurts her, if it feels like throwing her efforts back in her face to her, but he doesn't want her to go if the choice is really his.

"You don't have anything to apologize for," he adds, but hesitantly, not because he doesn't mean it but because he has no idea if it will make her angry again.

Not the hand, no. But piss her off just enough, and she'd go for just a few centimeters away from the hand, just to prove a point. Sara's never been good at finding the right outlet for her own emotions. Spent too much time burying them deep down, covering them up with violence and rage.

The fact that she's here at all, trying - really trying - to put it all into words means more than even she probably realizes. And despite herself, there's relief when he answers her quickly, when he doesn't come back with indifference or kick her out entirely.

She moves, but only to reach over to the nightstand and grab the rest of the pack and the lighter, flipping it open and offering it to him. She doesn't want to go, either. Not just yet.

"Oh, I have plenty," she chuckles dryly, pulling her legs up to cross underneath herself. "I just... you scared the shit out of me, you know. Wasn't sure if you were coming back."

He doesn't hesitate, either, to accept one of the cigarettes out of the pack. They don't have as much of a calming effect on him as they seem to do her but it's still not nothing and he wants the gesture more than anything. He still speaks mostly in action and even though they're his cigarettes, he accepts that she's offering them.

His eyes tick up at the admission, studying her face in a darkness he can see through just fine. He feels a pang of tightness in his chest and wonders what it means that she bothered to worry and that he has a reaction to her doing so.

"No, I didn't know," he says honestly, holding the cigarette out to light. "I'm sorry."

He's not quite as clammed up anymore, at least. And Sara's anger seems to diminish just as quickly as it overcomes her, a slow breath releasing from her lungs. There are still remnants of emotion in her features, concealed under the swell of the bruising. But he's alright. He's back and in one piece. And that's the most important part.

She reaches out to offer him the lighter, flicking on the flame and holding it to the end of his cigarette. It's harder for her to make out his features in the low light, but the fire illuminates his features for a brief moment, and she scans him quietly before she flips the lighter closed.

"You okay?" It's a loaded question. One she probably knows the answer to, considering he's just died and come back. But she's curious to what his answer is.

He flinches back from the flame even though he was expecting it, his eyes watering almost immediately; his hand stays steady though, and he doesn't pull back from more than the brightest, most immediate ring of light. He wonders, briefly, if this is his life now and how he's going to function if it is. It's out of his control to change, though, so he doesn't bother complaining about it.

It's comforting just to hold the cigarette, to watch the smoke trail up from the glowing ember tip, and he does so for several moments even after she asks. He's not, though. They both know he's not. He's trying, but he's not.

He shakes his head, and takes a draw off the cigarette.

He’d squinted, recoiled from the light when he’s opened the door. She realizes it now, belatedly, after the anger’s finally started to subside.

She sits quietly, unsure of how to help. Unsure of what he needs. As she watches him, her gaze lingers on his hand - the one that three days ago had been shredded by jagged metal by her own doppelgänger. Her brow furrows, fingertips reaching out to brush against the smooth skin on the back of his hand.

K sits with her in that silence, working on the cigarette slowly; at first, he's waiting for her to pick up where she left off, to keep asking him questions that less need answers than they need to be asked, to vent whatever anger is left. He stays still at first when she reaches out but, when he realizes what she's doing, he offers his hand out to her for inspection - and, if he's honest, for connection at all.

She's not sure what he needs or how to help, but those few minutes of quiet, of sitting with him and expecting nothing even if it's just the short term, helps immensely.

"I... woke up here. In the bathtub," he starts, quiet. "All the injuries were gone. I only remembered that much this morning, and the rest is still - fuzzy." Which, for a replicant with acute memory and RAM modifications and no repair facilities he's aware of for what he is, is distressing.

He has a way of depleting that rage in her more quickly than most. It's... unsatisfying, trying to stay angry with him. Like yelling at a brick wall painted with a cartoon puppy.

She can't pinpoint what it is about him. Why it seizes through her, the need to keep him safe. It's the same way with anyone she cares about, she supposes. Laurel, Barry, Donna. But it'd happened so fast with him. She doesn't even know his birthday. His favorite color. Does he have one?

He starts to speak again, without her own prompting. Without a demand from her, and she doesn't know him well, but she knows that it means something. That he's trying. Her brow furrows, attention focused on running her fingertips over his knuckles, down to the curve of his wrist bone.

"Fuzzy? Does that... happen often, for you?" She can't imagine it would, but she also doesn't have a clue how his brain works.

There's something special about hands, K has always thought; always from a distance though, at least until landing in Duplicity, where there are people willing to allow him to touch them, people he's willing to in turn. There's something about the delicate, complex assembly of tendon and ligament and bone and muscle and the skin with its web of prints, its creases, its calluses. Any marks from the confrontation with their nightmares are gone but the oldest scars, the splits in his knuckles from altercations throughout his life, are still there. The new one where Luv stabbed him through the palm, the one Sara herself inspected when they first met, is still there where it healed closed a few weeks ago.

He holds his hand out steady for her, trusting in his way, while he shakes his head.

"No. Anything even close to this has happened only once before, and it was -" He tips his head, considering. "I think the closest human equivalent would have been a traumatic brain injury. I had to go back to Wallace for repair to be cleared for duty again."

Edited 2022-08-06 03:44 (UTC)

Sara's own hands are so much smaller than his. Out in the field, she's a force of nature. Bigger than her own body, fighting like hell for the people she cares about. But up close, she's just... a girl. Only a few inches over five feet, slim, lean muscle and soft curves and scars all over.

Her fingertips linger on the scar, on how completely human it is, warped skin healed over. Faster than usual, sure, but still... odd. That they'd put so much work into the finest details. The slightest imperfections that made it all the more convincing.

She falls quiet again, the slightest furrow in her brow. It's not surprising that this place would effect him differently. It knows how to dig deep. Mess with you in the most creative of ways.

"How long have you been back?"

It's another hard question to answer just now, and he glances at the clock on the wall to answer it. Normally he could answer down to the millisecond, although his informal algorithms make sure that he doesn't outside of diagnostic mode or a direct order; most people don't talk that way and aren't comfortable around people who do. Either way, it takes him a moment to place the passage of time.

"Last night," he finally decides. He'd slept for most of that time so he doesn't remember all of it, but he thinks he remembers looking at the clock when Orla helped him out of the bathroom. "I answered your texts as soon as I could."

He's seen her fight now, seen the part of herself she's afraid is still the core of who she is; he wonders how she can think that's all there is to her when her touch is as gentle as her fingers on his skin now.

Last night. It's a hell of a lot better than thinking he'd been holed up here for days, shutting the rest of the world out. Shutting her out. She nods quietly, trying to place the pang that travels up her chest and into her throat.

It takes her a moment, swallowing heavily, his hand heavy in both of hers.

"I'm glad you're..." Okay's not the right word. He's far from that. "I'm glad you're back."

Up until now he'd just been letting Sara move his hand where she wants it, where she needs to see whatever she needs to see; she could break every bone in every finger and he wouldn't pull it back, but he knows she won't. Her hurt has turned inward. He'll think later maybe it always had, in a parabolic way. For now though, he turns his hand over so it's palm up, an offer of a different kind while he swallows in turn and reaches over to tap the ash off his cigarette.

"When I'd hit a dead end on a case," he starts, slowly, carefully, "I would always circle back through everyone I'd already talked to at least once, maybe twice."
Sometimes seeing a blade runner turning up was enough to shake something new loose. Sometimes someone simply not being around anymore was enough to tell him where he should be looking.

"They always thought I'd hurt them because other blade runners might, even though I never did." He never saw any point in taking out the things other people do on the people in front of him. "I was worried it would do the same. So I went to find it first."

Edited 2022-08-06 04:49 (UTC)

In the short time they've known each other, she's tried to be acutely aware of his choices. Of giving him an option as often as she could, because so much of his past has been spent under orders. She remembers what a relief it was, leaving the League. Daunting and terrifying and liberating all at once. She wants that for him, too.

His hand turns, offered out to her, more open in a way than she'd have expected from him. She hesitates, studying the lines of his palm, long fingers and calloused skin. Her hand slides into his, palm against palm, fingertips skimming against his own.

Is it his choice? Or something he does to offer her comfort? Is it programmed into him, and if it is, does it make a difference?

"What did it do to you?" she murmurs. He'd seen the fury, the unbridled violence that consumed her own nightmare. That it wanted to destroy, spill blood, cause pain in any way possible. But she still didn't quite understand what had happened. How he'd vanished into thin air, replaced his body when she'd destroyed it.

It's a set of questions he has spent a lot of time asking himself, a conversation he has never dared to have aloud - even with Joi. Where is the line between biological programming and synthetic programming? How much of what he is, who he is, is down to him and the choices he makes, and how much is owed to whichever programmer typed whichever keystrokes that gave him the ability to feel and choose and know?

Did he really only change, like anyone might under duress? Or is there something wrong with him now that will continue to deteriorate as he goes against his baseline?

What was your most shameful moment?

"Distinct," he whispers, but it's not to her, it's not to anyone, it's just a reflex as sure as blowing in someone's eye will make them blink. He takes a pull off his cigarette like he doesn't even know he said it, lets the smoke out on a long, shaky breath, and then he's talking to her again.

"I don't remember all of it," he says again, honestly. "But it's a blade runner. I'm a rogue replicant. There's only one way that ends." And it probably has something to do with why his right eye aches more, is less reliable, than his left just now. "And when it ended - there's. We're always told it's impossible for any of us to remember the factory, or the repair facility. We're offline. We're not aware of anything, we're so many pounds of synthetic meat and manufactured bone. But I've always thought..." He shakes his head, shivers without being able to stop it.

"Maybe I only imagine that I do remember."

Maybe for K, nature vs. nurture is simply programming vs. adaptation. Hasn't Sara been programmed by the League? Broken down and rebuilt into a weapon, someone they could point and shoot, carry out assignments and orders just like he did? Hadn't she put down people, hunted down her own kind, just like he had?

If humans had a baseline test, she would've failed hers a long time ago. She wasn't anywhere close to the girl who'd left on that boat all those years ago. Scared, selfish, innocent.

"What?" She frowns, barely catching the word under his breath. But he breezes past it before she has a chance to latch on, and when he shudders, something cold runs down her own spine, her fingers threading through his.

"Is that the first memory you have?" False memory or not, it's a horrifying one to have rattling around in your brain. "Do you... do they give you memories? A childhood?"

It's a dangerous question for him in particular, like the tumble of rocks over a dropoff edge, the splintering of cracked glass, the click of a gun safety; he hears it and his own grip tightens faintly, but he holds it off. He relaxes again.

He doesn't have to talk about that one, not really, it's only a question.

"Humans sometimes talk about us being kept in drawers, in lockers, when we're not doing our jobs. That's what I remember. A space too small to move in, that you have to push against the sides to take a deep breath. No light. No sound. Not until they open it up and let us out, wrapped up in plastic, ready to ship. I don't know if it's real or not, but when I have bad dreams, it's always that." A sense memory he can't place - not quite real, not quite not.

"They do," he says, one more pull off the cigarette and it's done, he has to put it out. "LAPD paid for twelve for me. They must have anticipated a lot of trauma, the need for a lot of stability. Some of those memories are of growing up, yes."

She can feel the tension ebb and flow in the muscles of his hand. The desire to retreat into yourself, hide away from the sharp edges, from the memories that only remind you of how broken and fractured you really are. But he keeps coming back, keeps opening up pieces of himself, and she's grateful for that. Grateful that he's seen the broken pieces of her and hasn't retreated, either.

The way he describes it makes her uneasy, wraps around her lungs and squeezes. "That's where he took you." When he'd disappeared. That's where he'd trapped him the second time. When she wasn't around to stop it.

Her fingers curl against his, like she needs the assurance that he's here. That he'd made it out of that place, made it back. Twelve memories doesn't seem like nearly enough. He deserves better. Deserves more, a hell of a lot more than most of the humans she knows.

He nods, first hesitant, then more firmly. Yes. That's where he went, that's where he was trapped, he's sure of it even if he can't remember every single detail - even if maybe he never will. He remembers suffocating alone in the dark, part of the system and no more, plastic and shipping gel pressing into his mouth and ears and nose and eyes, unable to even raise his hands to try to push his way back.

He wishes he could turn on a light, maybe he'd feel better, but even with just the window letting slivers in from the Down outside it's already more than he'd had there. He looks down at where her fingers are clasped around his, possessive almost, like she can keep him here with her. That's what it feels like to him: anchoring, to here and to now and to whatever version of being alive this is for him.

"I know - it's hard to understand." He's trying. He'll always try, it's not in him to stop, even if his determination is dead silent alongside most others. "Is there anything you just know is absolutely wrong? Something so... anathema to everything you are and everything you're supposed to be that no one needs it explained that it's shameful, and terrible, and pathetic?"

It makes her sick, turns her stomach to know that's how he died. Alone, in the dark, treated like a thing, reinforcing the absolute worst of what he's been told, over and over again. That feeling - the despair surrounding his doppelganger was overwhelming. Nearly swallowed her whole, and that's how he'd gone down. Drowning in it.

She tries to suck in a breath, the air shallow in her lungs, the darkness and the smoke thick in the air around them. If she's his anchor, he's just as much hers. She stares down at their hands, chewing at the inside of her lip as she thinks on his question. There's a dry laugh on her lips, one that doesn't have any real mirth to it.

"Shameful and terrible is pretty much where I live," she admits, the pad of her thumb tracing the curve of his wrist. "But I chose that path. You... you don't deserve that."

"I do."

His answer is immediate, not argumentative or aggressive but still firm. He might not have said it before all this, but now? Now it's hammered home to him that he's a traitor, he's dangerous, he is everything he's ever hunted and worse because he absolutely knew better and chose to do it anyway.

And he did: "I chose to go rogue. Like I know both that I was never a child but I have memories of an orphanage, I know that what I did was the right thing to do and that it was the wrong thing for me to do. I did it knowing what the consequence was. I did it knowing that it went against everything I was created to do. I'm not sorry I did it, but right now -"

His breath comes faster as he speaks, hitching with the leftovers both of what really happened and what the nightmare branded into his mind; he hadn't intended to sacrifice himself. It's only that the programming that he betrayed was stronger than the knowledge that he'd do it again exactly like he did before, and left him drowning.

"Right now I feel like I deserve worse."

It's the most she's seen him speak, the words tumbling out of him freely, tight with emotion that he's usually so good at masking. He's unraveling, fear heavy, raw in his voice, and her hand slips out of his only so she can shift in closer, take his face in both of hers.

"Stop- hey, look at me." She looks him squarely in the eyes, steady. "Just because something was programmed into you doesn't make it right. Those rules, those guidelines, they were created by people, right? Fallible, human people, and humans are shit at choosing right from wrong. So you going rogue, that was your choice to do what you thought was right. And I'd trust that judgment over any of those assholes I saw at the station."

What she doesn't realize - what he is completely uninterested in telling her - is that there's a part of him that's programmed to obey human orders, too. There's a whole subsection of his programming devoted entirely to the superiority and preservation of human life, and he is at the mercy of it still. He likes humans. He always has.

So she reaches for him and tells him to look at her and he goes still, goes quiet, and looks back. He listens, and he knows she's right, he knows he made the right call, he does. He does.

(You imagined it was you? Oh, you did.)

"That doesn't make it easy," he manages, brow furrowed, only barely managing to keep meeting her eyes.

There's so much she's missing. So many pieces to wrap her mind around, so many factors that affect how he sees the world, how his world saw him.

Her touch is light, but insistent. And when she's sure he won't fight her on that, she lets her hands slip back down into her lap, searching his features quietly.

"Nothing about where you come from is easy. But it's like I told you. You don't have to stick by those rules anymore. No one here sees you as... as they did."

When her hands fall away, he doesn't move from where she left him, still watchful, still braced for something he can't even name but that he expects will happen anyway.

Los Angeles was terrible, it was dying, but it was home; the rules he was subject to there were exacting, were harsh, but there were rules. He thinks he could like the comparative freedom, perhaps, if it didn't feel like trying to balance on a high wire without a net - and isn't that a traitorous thought, too?

"Not no one," he adds after a moment, gesturing at the black mark down his throat, at the mess that is his head. "I'm trying," he promises, a faint note of something like desperation woven through.

She knows what it's like. To seek comfort in something terrible, but familiar. The League, destructive as it was to her soul, to the person she used to be, was home for six years. Familiar. Structured. But eventually, it had all become too much.

He reminds her of the mark that signifies his standing here, arbitrary as it is. She frowns at it, gaze lingering there for a moment.

"I know you are," she concedes quietly. "But you're not alone, okay? This... this place is a mess, but it can be better than it was at home. It will be."

He is, patently, not alone; she came to find him, even angry, even hurting both physically and emotionally. Even willing to threaten him into never trying this again. And things had been better, briefly, and aimed at an upward trend at least for a bit.

He'd been warned about the ways the city, the program have of knocking its subjects down a rung. Nothing could have prepared him for this though.

He nods, even if he can't quite smile yet. He hears her. He acknowledges her. He'll do his level best to believe her.

"Will you -" He stops, licks his lips, tries again. "Can we talk about something good?"

Sara's anger may run hot, easily ignited by something that might seem trivial. But she cares deeply about the few people in her life she lets in. And K's a part of that now. She's not sure how it happened, when it happened, but it's not so easily shaken.

She studies him curiously, anticipating a request, already half agreeing to whatever the hell it is - if it'll help. If it'll cushion the below. When it actually lands, she sputters out a soft laugh, smiling down at her hands.

"That I can do," she replies, lifting her gaze to his again. "You hungry?" She slips off the bed, reclaiming the backpack she'd brought and digging around in it for a lump wrapped in foil. "Barry made... I dunno what this is. Banana bread, maybe."

Normally the answer to this question is a resounding yes; the one thing he never tries to defend about Los Angeles is the food or the drink, not in comparison to here, and he is voracious after a lifetime of grubs being the only protein in his life, of artifically flavored fruits and vegetables that no longer taste anything like the foods they're modeled after he's discovered only after coming here. He is eager to try anything and everything, and enjoys even the simplest of things.

He still nods, he still agrees that he is, but it's rote; his stomach is as unsettled as the rest of him and he honestly has no idea how this is going to go, but he'll try. For Sara, he'll try, and even he can recognize that under normal circumstances he would be enthusiastically agreeing.

"I've never had banana bread," he offers, moving to the edge of the bed himself, scrubbing his hands down his face and through his hair in hopes it will clear his mind a bit more. "The cookies were amazing." Not an uncommon review, from him.

She's seen his eyes light up at the simplest things - a mixed drink, a piece of fresh fruit, a random appetizer they serve at the bar. She's gotten into the habit of mixing up small tastes of this and that at the bar - a shot with a spice he's never tried or a juice they've just gotten in.

There's not much light in his eyes now, though. Not after that thing had gone and snuffed it out. Still, he's trying, like he said he would, and at the very least he has to be starving from everything he's just been though.

She toes off her boots, unwraps the tin foil and perches back onto the edge of the bed next to him, crossing her legs underneath herself and offering it out for him to break off a piece. "It's good. There's chocolate chips in it." She grabs a piece for herself, munching on it thoughtfully, trying hard not to keep looking over him, keep checking to make sure he's not crumbling.

"I think pretty much everything he makes is amazing. But I'm shit in the kitchen." She offers a small smile. "Do you have a favorite food?"

He does fix the contents of the package with, it must be said, a slightly confounded look. He's not sure what he would have expected banana bread to look like, but as he accepts it he points out, "It doesn't look like a banana at all." He has it on good authority now that he's seen a real one, in person.

He's still going to eat it. He's going to try anyway. But he smells it, and he looks it over, and he watches the piece Sara took as she chews on it, and he crinkles the foil thoughtfully when she asks him that. Does he have a favorite food?

"Those little - sour octopus gummies Scratch has." It's the only place he's encountered them, so that's his association for them. "And bacon. No, strawberries."

He really can't be expected to choose only one.

Edited 2022-08-07 05:42 (UTC)

That little wrinkle in his brow gets a look of concern from her, but when he explains his confusion, she blurts out a genuine laugh. "I mean... it looks like bread?" She shrugs. "It's just... it's got bananas baked into it."

She hadn't expected to have to explain the concept of banana bread to him, still smiling as she breaks off another piece and munches on it. Watching his expression curiously when he takes a bite, she nods at his list.

"They make maple bacon donuts. Sweet and salty. They're really good. Though I'd actually kill for some of those sour gummies right now."

He's cautious about it, taking a very small bite in anticipation of not being able to get or keep the food down; to his pleasant surprise, though, it's easier once he gets going. That he likes the taste, the texture, the burst of sweetness from the chocolate chips almost goes without saying and he picks up another, more normal size piece before he bothers answering.

"They'll be there when we go back, no need to kill anyone," he points out, but there's a lighter note; he's kidding, too. "I've heard of doughnuts. I haven't tried any yet, though. I used to have a whole list." And now that he actually has access to some of the things on that list, he's been wholly distracted by all the things he never imagined to put on it.

She's satisfied, at least, that he's able to keep it down. He needs something to keep him going besides cigarettes and nightmares, and if there's anything that can bring some kind of light into his life right now, she's glad for it.

His joke is surprising, welcome, though a lot of things about him are surprising. She gives him a smile, munching on another piece. "Used to?"

"There was a blackout in 2022 that wiped out most of the digital data in the world - including cultural contributions like music and movies, but some survived, and there were physical copies then. VHS tapes, records, film reels," K explains, perhaps unwittingly also explaining why he likes listening to music from 1966 and Joi displayed a lot of retro clothing in the memory. It doesn't occur to him as odd, personally. "I liked watching them but they had a lot of food in them I'd never seen and we could never have reproduced anyway. Olivier salad, spaghetti with meatballs, charlotte russe, milkshakes, boiled eggs, cannolis, sole meunière, bologna, steak and frites."

She's seen the memory, she knows where that last one comes from anyway. He takes another bite of banana bread and takes his time chewing it, too, before he speaks again. "But then I came here and I realized there's no point in having a list. There's so much I've never even heard of, let alone thought to want to try."

She listens curiously, toying with the piece of tin foil in her lap, imagining a world where whole pieces of history, culture were just... lost. Removed in chunks, along with the taste of food and drink.

"Some of that stuff I don't even think I've had," she concedes. What the hell even goes in a charlotte russe? But with all the conveniences of her own world - delivery, melting pots of culture, fast food, convenience stores - she can't imagine a world where you could conjure up a food you'd want to try and not be able to go out and get it.

"You can still have a list. Make sure you've tried the stuff you've always wanted to, on top of everything else." She chews thoughtfully a moment. "What were your favorites? From the movies you watched?

"I just don't want to get too focused on a list when there's... Toast with jelly, and corn on the cob, and cranberry juice." All things that rate five stars in K's book, things that are easy to focus on now that there's someone else here to talk with him about it rather than focusing on the menace still lurking in the back of his thoughts.

He actually leans forward a bit toward her, relaxing into the conversation, his answer ready to that question.

"Turkish delight," he answers immediately. "Or couscous. But I always thought a candy good enough to distract you from finding your family must be particularly delicious, so.
Turkish delight. Have you ever had it?"

Edited 2022-08-08 00:17 (UTC)

"God, you really do like all of it, don't you?" she chuckles. Cranberry juice was only ever good with vodka, in her opinion, but she's not here to judge. "There's so much more, though. Pizza, my god. Tell me you've had pizza."

She reaches out to brush a crumb of banana bread off the front of his shirt, brow furrowing as she remembers the flash of blood there - the bullet she'd buried into his chest - before she blinks it away, glancing back up at him.

"From the Narnia movie? God, I forgot about those." She chuckles, shaking her head. "I've had it a few times in Istanbul. It's good. Sweet, chewy. I like the ones with chopped nuts in them the best."

"I haven't had pizza," he regrets to inform her - and it is a regret if she's saying that's her critical food for him to have had. He's still while she reaches towards him, glancing down, but he doesn't stop her or pull away.

He does nod to confirm - "The book," though - before getting distracted by her answer.

"You've been to Istanbul?"

Disbelief flickers across her features - God, he hasn't lived until he's had a bite of pizza - and she gets to her feet immediately, grabbing her phone where she left it by the nightstand and tapping away at it to put in an order.

"I know it's a book," she chuckles, eyes trained on her phone a moment before she returns her attention to him. "Yeah. International assassin, remember?" Another few clicks and she tucks her phone back into her pocket. "The League was based up in the Himalayas, but I got sent all over the place."

K watches her get up, at first concerned that he said something, but she hasn't changed significantly that he can tell. She doesn't collect more of her things to leave, so he relaxes again.

And shakes his head.

"You never said international," just so they're clear. But more importantly: "I rarely left Los Angeles, let alone California. Never what used to be the United States. What was it like?"

It's a push and pull between them - tension and release, still learning the triggers, the things that set them both off, cause them to withdraw or open up at the drop of a hat.

She doesn't go far, at least, reclaiming her spot next to him at the edge of the bed, shifting a little further towards the middle to try and get comfortable.

"Oh. I guess I don't like to talk about it much." It's the understatement of the century, but he's seen it first hand now. Not much use in hiding it. "It's beautiful. Colorful, bright. Really busy, but that's true of any major city. It's right on the peninsula, so there's water all around." She leans back on both her hands. "Where have you been, besides LA? You ever go up north?"

The look he gives her is empathetic; he understands and he doesn't want to push, not when it doesn't matter right now so much as it's new information.

He tries to imagine what she's telling him and smiles faintly, an expression that vanishes when he thinks of California.

"For cases. There are protein farms a few hours flight outside the biome, but not much else. People can't live outside the megapolises anymore so it's a popular place for rogue replicants to hide."

That's how easy the push and pull is. A smile one moment, a flicker of darkness another. But that's the nature of who they are, it seems. Shrouded in that darkness and trying, stubbornly to find the light. Even if neither of them believe they deserve it.

Her brow furrows, trying to imagine it. "I grew up there. Starling City, up near San Francisco. Least that land is good for something, I guess."

Right now he especially doesn't believe in his own worth. Caught between lacking purpose and the accusations pressed into his mind by the nightmare, he doesn't believe he deserves much of anything good.

But he can talk with hera while anyway. She came all this way.

"San Francisco is gone. The ocean swallowed up most of it and the rest burned up under the sun. Los Angeles covers the southern half of the state and nearly pushed into Nevada. It's one of six megapolises left on the planet, each built around a space port."

It's been years since Sara's felt like she's deserved anything good. She doesn't need a nightmare to reinforce that much. Their doppelgangers had just reminded her of what she already knew. That feeling amplified ten fold, targeting the people close to her to show her she couldn't even take care of them.

She's good at pushing it down, though. Burying it all, putting on a smile, cracking a joke as a cherry on top. She chews at the inside of her lip, frowning at the idea of a world where her home was just... gone.

"Is there anything good about where you're from? Because honestly, everything you've ever told me about it sounds horrible."

He would never argue that his planet is... good. It's literally a dead world, the corpse of the earth that once supported life now drifting in space while its inhabitants fight to get free of it like fleas. It's actively killing those that are left, and will take billions with it in the end. Takes millions every day.

But it's still home. It's still his city, they're still his people. He presses his lips together and resists the urge to shrug.

"You're from a better planet. I'm not surprised."

She glances over at him, studying him quietly a moment.

"What were the things that made you happy? Back home?" Joi, likely. She's seen the way he changed around her. The ease in his demeanor.

And indeed he thinks immediately of Joi, of her simple pleasure to see him at the end of the day or whenever he turned up, her worry over his moods, the way she fussed when he was hurt or stuck on a case.

He talked over so many cases with her. Perhaps that was his secret after all.

"Joi," he says, delicately, a bit hollow. He remembers her, too, blinking out of thin air forever. "Flying my cruiser. Working concert security. The holo clubs, and patrol reports, the ones I could do anything about."

She's glad he had someone, at least. To get him through it. Even if she was assigned, like some kind of holographic emotional support to keep him company.

She watches him closely, the way his features change when he thinks about her. "Patrol reports made you happy?" she says it with a playful tease.

K pushes back on the bed until he can press his shoulders into the wall, lean his head back a bit to try and give his aching neck a rest.

"Patrol reports are easier than blade running, and I wasn't burned out like the regular street officers. I could help people sometimes. Missing persons, property damage, safety concerns. They liked it. So did I."

She studies him in the dim light, the way the shadows dance across his profile, the tension in his shoulders that unwinds just a fraction at a time.

Smiling a little, she glances down at her hands again.

"You're a good person, K. You should know that."

❝

DUPLICITY CITATION No. 18549
Violation: Attempting to Conceal Submissive Mark
Fine: $100 + 1 week Realignment
Payments must be received within 30 calendar days, or debts will be handed over to the Remittance Facility.

❞

When he gets out of the People Zoo, he takes a day to heal. Then he goes to K's apartment, no forewarning. He'll break in if no one answers.

It's not that K doesn't answer; it's that he doesn't answer anywhere fast enough, and the door is not remotely sturdy enough to keep Jesus from coming straight through it when he gets impatient with waiting.

He's almost to the door when it opens, and he recoils from the sudden light spilling in from the hallway with an involuntary hiss of pain - and the automatic raising of the pink leopard print but loaded gun in his hand, temporarily blinded.

"Stop," he croaks, something like an order, his voice alien even to him.

Jesus's hands are up but it's only a split decision on not going for the weapon. It is, honestly, the fact that it's pink that gives him that little break from nerves and reflexes that are apparently more on edge than he'd thought.

"Sorry," he says, but now he's four or five times more concerned than when K just hadn't answered. "I was worried something happened to you."

K has gun safety coded into him from the very start, so deeply rooted that it doesn't require conscious thought; he recognizes the voice, and the muzzle goes down, the safety goes on, his finger comes off the trigger before he can even consciously put a name to it.

"Jesus?" The apartment is completely unlit, and in it K is... not remotely put together. He's not wearing a shirt, or shoes, or his coat. His hair is rumpled and there's several days of stubble along his jaw, but there's no obvious injury for all of that.

His eyes are screwed shut, watering because he tried to get a look to confirm it is, indeed, Jesus. "Close the door?" he asks, backing up stiffly to set the gun back down on the nightstand.

He closes the door and gives himself a few seconds to adjust to the dark.

The light hadn't been good even with the door open but he hadn't seen any of the signs he normally looks for: no bruises, no bleeding, no crust of infection starting on an old wound. Nothing obviously damaging at all, except K is clearly hurting.

"What happened?"

What happened is a very good question, and one K still doesn't really have an answer to; he's uncharacteristically groggy, freshly woken from a very needed sleep, the covers half-dragged off the bed with him. He'd made an attempt at rinsing his face off in the bathroom and his hair is spiky and damp with it, but that's as far as he'd gotten before he heard the lock.

"I -" he starts, but there's nothing to follow it up with and he shakes his head. "I don't really know. Did I miss something?"

Why was Jesus already worried? And: "You're out early?" He remembers the post he saw from Jesus on the network, still.

"The sentence ended Saturday," he says, uncharacteristically evasive but only because he doesn't want Rosita's name associated with his stay. "You didn't answer the door. Before me, I mean."

He can see K a little more clearly now. "You should sit, or get back to resting--you look-" How else to put it? "like hell."

"Is it -" But it's not important right now. He does need to sit down, so when Jesus mentions it, he lowers back down to the edge of the bed and works on rubbing his eyes until they feel better.

"You can too. Wherever." His voice is starting to sound better with use, but it's still rough, and though he always keeps it low, the words run together a little bit now. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay." He knows his face says otherwise, the bruise has come in dark and he has to be careful how he eats or talks or smiles to avoid reopening the wound on his lip. It looks worse than it is, though. "Let me get you some water."

Or another blanket, or anything at all that might help.

He neither refuses nor asks for the water, or the blanket, or anything Jesus brings over at first; it takes him those moments to catch up, honestly, and then he's just thoughtlessly accepting whatever is pushed into his hands or draped over his shoulders.

"Thank you," he does finally manage, and he's able to peer through the semi dark at Jesus now - which he does. "Did someone hurt you?"

He hopes, irrationally for a moment, that it wasn't him; but he thinks he'd remember that, surely.

"A man rented me out for the night." He sits across from K then, studying him as if he might find some new way to help him recover. "It's okay. My friends got me out the day he brought me back."

His brow furrows, unhappy with that, but these things happen where he's from, and Jesus says he's okay. K puts a pin in it for now, promises himself he'll circle back to it later.

"I'm sorry," he still says, sincerely.

"I let it happen," he says reflexively. Then he looks at his hands and amends, "Which doesn't make it better. But I wanted to know how bad it is there. Now I do."

And now he knows what he can fight against. Maybe more importantly, he knows what he can help other people survive.

"Do you feel sick? Or is it just a headache?"

They talked about this before Jesus went in; not this specifically but feeling things out, getting first hand knowledge of how things work.

He watches Jesus talk, watches as closely as he can when all he wants is not to be upright anymore, but he never complains. And he does want to know even if there's nothing he can do about it.

"I -" He doesn't feel sick but he doesn't feel good. He won't say he doesn't know again though. "Things just hurt. Light hurts."

"I can go," he says softly, and he will, if K says. He doesn't want to leave K like this, though. If he was so sick, if things were so bad for him he couldn't answer doors or messages, he worries about him being alone.

(He has a weapon with him and part of him, a not entirely conscious part, thinks if K changes sometime in the night someone who cares about him should be there to put him down when he turns.)

It wouldn't have occurred to him to ask Jesus to come here or to stay, but he's here now and K hears him offer to go and something in his chest twists hard enough his breath catches.

"Can you - stay? Just a while?" He feels terrible even asking, knowing he's not very focused, not talking. But the thought of being alone again aches.

He hopes that his own relief is obvious and he hopes that K, seeing it, won't feel so compelled to be apologetic about wanting Jesus there.

"I can stay as long as you want." He relaxes and smiles as much as his torn lip allows. "Have you eaten? I can order us something."

They can't technically buy, but there are workarounds. He's found people willing.

There are signs of food around, small things Orla left for K even though she herself isn't here anymore. He tries to remember if he did eat. It doesn't matter though. Jesus is here and staying and he said us, so K nods.

"Thank you," he says to both. "Whatever you want."

He thumbs through his phone until he finds a place willing to deliver to LIERs, and he reminds himself to pick up extra shifts at Marked to make up the lost time to Vrenille. Vrenille who won't ask him for that time, who wants only for him to be safe, and the thought of that--and of what a strange community he's landed in--makes his mind falter.

Yeah, it's for the best he's staying in tonight. He would have either way but he's deeply grateful he doesn't have to do it alone.

After he hangs up he shakes his head. "I'm sorry- I didn't know the menu so I just ordered us the same thing." Number One Combos: Turkey sandwiches with sodas. "I should've asked you."

"It's okay." K is the furthest from a picky eater and nothing sounds good, so he doesn't mind. He's rubbing his temples again while he listens to the other man talk, trying to focus. "Thank you."

Trying to focus, concentrating on his breathing, and the brief flicker he saw from Jesus both when he asked him to stay and just now.

"What day is it?" How long ago was Saturday?

"Monday." The full force of his worried face is now focused on K. "How long have you been feeling like this?"

He would not have guessed Monday, and for someone with an internal clock like his, that's it's own kind of distressing.

He rubs his temples harder until he feels his headache pounding behind his eyes and has to stop.

"I woke up here. I'm not sure how long ago but the last I remember for sure - I was in the Up on my way to Scratch. Thursday?"

He gets to his feet--wincing just a little bit--and takes a step closer, then hesitates. "Can I?" Examine him.

He's aware abruptly that though he does genuinely want Jesus here, he doesn't want to be touched. His head is such a mess right now though that he doesn't know how much is real and how much is everything in him trying to curl up and heal, and anyway, he does trust Jesus.

He nods, and straightens up from where he's leaned forward on his knees, offering Jesus carte blanche. There's nothing though. He's cool to the touch even for a normal human, and he shivers occasionally, but there isn't a mark on him that explains anything.

He thinks about it while he tracks Jesus's movement around him. "I think... I thought it was a dream but I think. There was a blade runner."

There is very little touch in the exam, at least, and what there is is professional and practiced. You learn fast how to assess people in his world, to know who is worth carrying forward and who won't make it.

A blade runner.

He doesn't have to know the full scope of what they can do to be appropriately concerned. Especially when he thinks of the timing, thinks of Rosita's mangled, modified Abraham, thinks of his own shifting monster as it kept pace with him through the streets.

"They hurt you?" Is the one thing he can't put a finger on, because K appears to be completely unharmed.

Edited 2022-08-09 03:40 (UTC)

"He must have." It was a blade runner, and K is a rogue replicant. He hasn't been trying to think about it left alone in this room but now Jesus is here and K focuses on the sound of his breathing and makes himself try.

"I've been... Dreaming about one. And about -" Thinking too hard about the manufacturing line brings the sweltering darkness rushing back and he grips the edge of the bed, dizzy. "I woke up in the bathtub. Orla found me. I think he retired me."

Edited 2022-08-09 03:49 (UTC)

"It's okay," his voice is soothing, low. There's a particular pitch to Jesus's voice when he's trying to comfort someone; it's comfort offered by someone who has seen the world end and still believes what he's saying.

He sits cross-legged, not touching K or reaching for him, but there in case he loses his balance or needs to be caught.

"We were all facing things from home that week." Meaning they're gone now, and no one is going to come retire K again. And if they tried, Jesus would be there to sneak K away.

"How often do you dream about him?"

He starts to shake his head, stops when it swims; his grip stays tight on the mattress, fingers digging into the sides like a bird on a branch.

"Not before the storms. I used to -" He swallows, considers stopping, but he's come this far. All he wanted while he worked the last case for the LAPD was someone else to talk it through with and now he has that, so he tries.

"There's. When I try to remember what happened there's... A dream I've always had."

Dreams are taboo territory for a lot of people, especially people Jesus knows. But recurring ones, he's always believed, can point to things if you're willing to untangle them. K seems to want that.

"What happens?"

"It's not what happens. It's... I don't know if it's a memory. It's supposed to be impossible. Rumors."

Did they keep you in a drawer when they were building you? Dark.

And right there in his baseline script even though he agrees: it's impossible.

"When they're building us, they pull us off the line, store us on hangers. Ship us in boxes, in wrappers, when we're paid for, then install the software. Everything that makes us distinct. It's not possible for us to remember anything before we're brought online. But when I have a bad dream it's dark, and it's close, and I can't breathe, and I'm alone."

In one sense, it doesn't matter if it's a real memory or not. It's affecting K the same way a memory would.

K describes a particularly horrible iteration of dreams Jesus himself has had: being alone and trapped, moved around with no way to move himself. Being completely at the mercy of indifferent forces he could never hope to stop. And given what he knows about K... He'd be surprised if someone as compassionate as K didn't have those fears.

It doesn't make it any less terrible.

"You've had that dream before you came here?"

He nods, and convinces himself to relax his grip on the side of the bed finger by finger, muscle by muscle.

He's shivering again, faintly, but constant.

"And when I try to remember details about what happened. I think... He put me there somehow. This time." He doesn't try to explain the previous times he's had that dream.

"You don't have to remember the details." In fact he might be better off without them. God knows no one survives by remembering every scare and every drop of blood, every nearly missed fatal moment. "Not if you can keep yourself centered here instead."

"I'm missing days. Worrying people." Jesus said he didn't answer the door before, and there are messages on his phone he hasn't been able to answer; he's not good at answering any questions right now.

"I'm sorry."

"You can explain to them when you feel better." Anyone who worries will just be glad to know he came through healthy. Anyone who doesn't make allowances for illness doesn't know how lucky they are.

"Just think about where you are right now. Our food is going to be here soon," he glances at the window but the shades are drawn. "And it might help."

Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. Maybe he'll feel better or maybe he'll break down from here. He doesn't know.

He reaches behind him and pulls the blanket back up around his shoulders, tries to settle it there and think of something to say to that.

"I'm glad you're here."

"I can stay the night if you want." He won't even be breaking a law if he does. And if K allows it, maybe Jesus being here will help him rest a little easier.

He gets up when the food arrives, limping slightly and only too glad to come sit again. "I'm glad we're staying in."

K does want him to, he knows the moment he hears it. He still feels bad about it but he says, "Orla moved out."

The bed on the other side of the room, if nothing else, is open.

But he watches Jesus walking, focusing like he'd said on the here and now, flinching back from the light but settling again by the time he says, "You are hurt."

"The Dom was rougher with me than I'm used to." He gestures vaguely at his face. "He couldn't get me to fight him. So the sex was about punishment, too. I'll be okay."

But he does need time to recover, and not just physically.

K is still watching him as he settles, his eyes soft but steady, expression troubled.

He wants to say more. He can see that Jesus is placating him even if he does also believe what he's saying, and he doesn't want that; but he doesn't know how to ask for that either, so he stays silent and looks down at his hands in his lap where he's pushed back to bring his heels up onto the bed too.

Finally, quietly, "It would be okay if you're not."

He's not sure that's true. The options are simply be okay, or you don't survive.

Except here where even if you die, you don't die. It opens up a disturbing new arena he doesn't want to think about.

He gives K a small, wavering smile that doesn't last long. "I'm not."

Right now, then. Right now he's not okay.

His expression softens further, aching for his friend. He doesn't need him to talk about it, not really, not if he doesn't want to or can't. K can see everything he needs to see in a glance.

He reaches over to the blankets beside him. The bed is unmade, already slept in, so pulling the covers aside to make room isn't quite as clearcut as the gesture would be on a made bed, but he makes it all the same in invitation.

He takes off his boots (he should have earlier he thinks, chiding himself; these are the boots he was brought here with) and his jacket, and even though he doesn't want to be touched he climbs in with K because he isn't going to let anything ruin this comfort for him.

K doesn't want to be touched either, but he doesn't mind being close. He wants someone here, wants to not be alone.

Wants, if it at all can, for that to go both ways.

"I'd like it if you stayed tonight, at least," he murmurs. "I'm glad you came. I'm sorry you had to."

"When I didn't hear from you I worried you'd disappeared. Or been taken in by SIN guards." Or worse, ever worse. "I'm still sorry I broke in."

K shakes his head, slowly and shallowly but he does, until he realizes he can't guarantee any of those things. He has no idea where he was, or how he got from the Up to the bathroom here. Why he was naked, why his clothes were clean and folded on the bed, how he healed, why light burns.

Problems for later. He's here, Jesus is here, and he must admit: "I don't care about the door." There's a pack of cigarettes on the nightstand too; he pulls one, starts to offer the pack to Jesus but remembers and stops. "I'll get you a key."

He sees the lighter and picks it up, offers to light K's smoke.

"Then you'll never know when I'm going to drop in."

"I already don't, apparently," he points out, but there's no ire in it.

"At least with a key I'm less likely to point a loaded firearm at you."

Just to be sure- "You still want to spend nights together? At both our places?"

Even though it's breaking the law, and even though...

He doesn't know where he got the idea K would change his mind. He chalks it up to some emotional bruising from the Zoo, which has nothing to do with K, but he asks for the reassurance anyway.

K hasn't been sure of much since coming back to the world here, but this one is easy as long as he focuses on what he wants and not what the new laws are that they are beholden to.

He nods, craning his neck so he can peer sidelong at Jesus, so he can see his face when he asks, "Do you?" He'd understand if not, he means.

He'd understand if this one taste was enough for Jesus even though he says he'll be okay.

"Yes." More than before, more than usual, he doesn't want to be alone. He wants his people.

So he leaves it at that. K can see for himself how bad it was, he can choose the risk or not.

If someone or something came down hard enough on K's instinct to obedience right now he might disappoint them both. But there's no one else here, no one else demanding anything of him, so K can just do what it is he most wants.

And what he wants is this, so he nods, and takes a slow draw off the cigarette, blowing the smoke away from Jesus.

"Do you want Orla's bed? Or we can bring the pillow and blankets over here."

"I don't know." He doesn't trust what he wants right now, because what he wants is to recoil and nurse his wounds. But he knows how that goes: he knows how once you start cutting yourself off, it's harder every day to come back. He won't let himself do it.

So that's his answer, he supposes. "Where do you want me?"

If neither of them can trust themselves - if they both prefer to be near without being touched - if they're both asking each other, then it becomes a compromise.

"Take the bed," he decides. "I'll bring things over for the floor. We'll switch if it becomes two nights."

Near, but not sharing a bed; separate beds, but not splitting a room.

"I'll bring the mattress over," he says instead, because he's not going to kick K out of his own bed when he looks like this. "I'm used to sleeping on the floor. A mattress on the floor is gold standard."

"You're hurt," K says again, the emphasis gentle, even a bit pained. K is hurting but there's nothing actually wrong with him, and anyway, he's a replicant.

That doesn't mean anything in particular to anyone here, but it means something to K still.

It's that pain in K's voice that stops him. His friends, when they're worried about him and trying to do something nice for him, get angry with him. He's prepared for that. He's wrongfooted by such direct, empathetic kindness.

"I want you to be comfortable, too," he says, a tad helpless about it. If they're going to break the law together--and they've already agreed they will be--he wants to take care of K how he can.

The mattresses in the Down public housing are nothing fancy, well worn and broken in by dozens, maybe hundreds of bodies sleeping in them over the course of their lives.

K is still absolutely sincere when he takes another draw off his cigarette and says, "Gold standard," and smiles, just barely. "We'll switch. Or adjust when we feel different."

He looks at him and gives in. Mostly. "Eat your sandwich. I'm going to make your bed."

If he's worried about K being comfortable he is more than capable of making sure that K's space on the floor is cozy.

He will eat the sandwich; if nothing else, Jesus spent money on it, and someone else brought it here, and K never wastes food. And he doesn't argue the compromise in turn seeing as how they're making one about arrangements.

But he does raise a hand before Jesus starts to move off the bed, offering it palm up, fingers relaxed. He doesn't try to touch Jesus or block him. This is, very much, a question and a tentative offer.

He hesitates, only to look at K and make sure he's reading this offer right, and he slips his palm gently over K's. His fingers don't interlace with his; instead he touches just his fingertips to K's.

K holds steady, waiting, as long as Jesus needs - only moving to tap ash off the cigarette, to hold it out of their way.

The only thing he changes is he closes his thumb, just a bit, up over the edge of Jesus's hand; he smooths it along a short, soft line, just enough pressure to be felt, to feel in turn.

A soft touch, for the harsh ones they've both endured most recently.

If he lets go, he doesn't know when he'll get to have this again, so he stays. It chips away at the wall he's resisting being built up in him. He doesn't want to isolate himself and he doesn't want K to be alone, either, and here they both are, trying to be there for each other.

"Thank you," he murmurs. "For not shooting me."

He's said this to multiple people before, but never to anyone who wasn't a survivor of the same plague.

Whatever else K is feeling - whatever else he's expecting from the solid world around him - there is still a kind of wonder that he's allowed this. That Jesus leaves his hand, trusting, in the hand of something that could crush every bone in it without even trying. The force it would take for K to break any part of a human body is negligible.

He never forgets that, even if the people here don't seem to know it at all. He might have, before now, lifted Jesus's hand to kiss some part of it but just now he contents himself with this, with tracing something soft and good in his life and finding it not withdrawn from him.

"You're welcome."

He takes K's hand gently with his other, and trails his fingers along the lines of his palm, the creases where his fingers bend. "Is this okay?"

K blows smoke out at the wall, takes another lungful to distract himself from the complicated twist that happens somewhere under his skin, but he doesn't resist for even a moment.

He nods, letting his fingertips twitch naturally when Jesus finds a sensitive spot, brow furrowed faintly.

"What are you looking for?" he asks, ever so faintly unsure.

"You're the first person in twelve years who's touched me kindly." In a way that wasn't purely platonic. He's embraced his friends, often was the one initiating affection, was always quick to receive it back. But K broke a very long dry spell.

"I'm just...trying to feel." Period. To keep himself from numbing himself to deal with the last week, the last month, the last decade.

It's an answer that lets K relax again, as much as he can right now; an answer he can trust, one he believes. He might even have gone so far as to hope for it if he'd known it was an option.

Which doesn't mean the first part makes him happy. He rests his hand more heavily in Jesus's. "I want to help." Which isn't what he means, not really - or rather isn't what he really wants to say to that: "Choosing to feel is the harder option."

And he's glad Jesus is choosing that one.

It is. And right now, for reasons he can't understand, it's harder than he would have thought. He's survived so much worse than this stay in the Zoo.

"I've been having strange dreams since I came to the City," he says slowly, feeling it out as he says it, not certain he wants to bring this up at all. "Have you?"

No one newly arrived to the city has an easy time of it and K would never compare his arrival to anyone else's - but it's true he hasn't been very stable since they met. He thinks about it, reaching over to put out his cigarette when he catches sight of the hesitation in Jesus so he can pay better attention.

"Since coming here? No." The last week or so yes but not the first few months necessarily. "Strange how?"

Edited 2022-08-10 00:28 (UTC)

He exhales slowly. His fingers curl against K's palm, flex again so their fingertips press gently together.

"I dream this place and my home city are the same place. Certain cafes from here, some buildings from there. And everyone is dead. You're all walkers, except you just live your lives. I ride the bus, I buy a bagel, everything is normal except everyone is rotting. Sometimes I know I have to put you all down, so I'll talk for a while--we talk about the weather, or weekend plans. And then I put everyone down, one by one. No one ever reacts to me killing everyone I talk to, so I keep going. Then I just wake up."

It is, of course, horrifying. But that's not the word that Jesus used when he asked about them, he just said strange. K remembers their earliest conversations, the once or twice Jesus mentioned the walkers before, mentioned having to put them down and that everyone is infected.

It would be a stretch to say it makes sense when considered together, but he can at least see how a sleeping mind would make the jump. He watches, hand trusting between Jesus's, attentive for the most easily missed cue.

"And the dreams are new? Do they already mean anything to you?"

"I had some like it when I first joined a community. Those were more violent." These, by comparison, are almost peaceful. Unsettling instead of something that makes his heart beat so loudly it wakes him up.

"But I wake up sometimes and I can't remember who's already dead. So when you didn't answer, I thought...." Well. He broke into the apartment. It's clear what he'd thought.

"I'm sorry." He doesn't know for sure what happened to him, he doesn't know how long he laid in the bathroom before Orla found him or here in the dark before Jesus came in, but he might have tried harder to figure it out. Either way, he didn't want anyone - Jesus - to worry.

"How often are you having them?"

He shakes his head; it's fine, he didn't want to make K feel bad, he just wanted him to know that Jesus isn't usually so willing to break into his friends' homes.

"Whenever I sleep. It used to be more sporadic, but the second night in the Zoo set them off."

It hadn't occurred to K to be upset about it; he's never had a home, especially not one that was ever barred to someone else to come into on a whim.

But his focus is entirely on Jesus now.

"When was the last time you were able to sleep?"

"Last night." At Rosita's he'd been able to doze off fast. "But I didn't in the Zoo."

It was a very long week, but he knows how to handle that. He knows how to steal ten or twenty minute naps, he knows how to wake up clearly alert. It still took a toll.

"I've had nightmares for years," he says, meaning this to be comforting, because he doesn't want to worry K, either. "They can be useful. Sometimes you can figure out a blindspot by what your subconscious mind fixes on."

It's debatable, anyway. Most people disagree with him about it. "They've just been the same nightmares for so long that having them change is throwing me off. That's all."

In his downtime, with how quickly he reads and how much he likes to learn about people, K has picked up a lot of random bits and pieces of knowledge. Dreams are not one of them other than being aware of them, other than knowing it's widely accepted that they are both the mind processing and possibly messages of one kind or another. K doesn't even know if the dreams he has feel like the dreams humans have.

He knows that Jesus is trying to convince him of something that is normal for him, and K lets him try, as vigilant as he can be right now.

"Lack of sleep combined with stress can cause significant cognitive changes," K answers, slowly. "You don't need to downplay the importance of it with me. It's human."

It is. It's just that it's such a universal problem where he's from that he doesn't know how to talk about it anymore, even though he wants to explain.

But something in that statement makes him blanche a little and he's looking at their hands again instead of at K. "I'm not sure I am human anymore."

K hasn't been restless or loud, but he sees Jesus's reaction and goes a bit more still, a bit more focused. It's a statement that perhaps means a bit more to K, from Jesus, than it might otherwise.

"Jesus?" he asks, quietly.

"I'm not alive," he says, and there's a tremor in his hand. He looks up at K, choosing to let himself feel this, too. "What am I now?"

K has made this same assertion multiple times since coming to Duplicity, with mixed results; he doesn't think a single person has understood what it means to him, not really, but he's not surprised. It means that he's watching carefully and he considers, very seriously, his friend's face when he hears that sentence now.

He wipes his other palm down his thigh, drying sweat and some residual thought to rid it of lingering smoke, and holds it out for Jesus's, silently asking permission.

There is no answer to that question. Even if K had one, he doesn't have the relationship with the dead that Jesus does; his answer won't have the context Jesus needs. He can't bring himself to ask it to Rosita, not after she already had to bury him. His death is a topic they've mutually agreed to box up and move past.

It's what he'll do now that he's said it to K, too.

He grasps K's hand. If he can't pack up the emotions and the steady, invasive fears he has now, he can at least accept some comfort.

"You still haven't eaten," he points out, but he doesn't let go.

But K shakes his head, dismissing any thought of the sandwich, forgotten while he gives his attention to Jesus.

Jesus, whom he lets hang onto him as tightly as he wants to in this moment, using their clasped hands to slowly, carefully, turn Jesus's until the inside of his wrist is facing upward.

"Here," he offers, the fingertips of his other hand tracing along the physical markers until he finds Jesus's pulse nestled against the fine bone of his wrist. He reaches, then, to bring Jesus's hand up to the same place.

He complies, and he immediately counts the tiny bump of his pulse against his fingertips. He gets to a count of twelve--his breathing just a tiny bit steadier for it--before he looks up at K.

When he sees that Jesus is focused on his pulse, he lifts their other joined hands and, so, so gently, works his own hand free so he can spread Jesus's palm on his own chest. So he can feel his own chest rise and fall with each breath.

He lifts his eyes back to Jesus's, and lets them sit like that for a few cycles of breath.

"Your heart is beating," he offers, quietly. "Your lungs are working. Your skin is warm, your muscles work, and you know yourself. I don't have a philosophical answer, but you were born human. You're alive now. These are facts."

He is alive. He is, because he's not a walker.

You know yourself.

There is no other phrase that could have landed for him.

He leans against K, just enough his shoulder is against K's chest. His weight is barely there at all; it would hurt to lean too far but he's also not in a place where he can be both mentally sore and physically needy. So this: this is all he can do.

K feels the most unsteady he ever has, even with multiple holes in his gut; but when Jesus leans there, he might as well be leaned against a wall for how little K moves. For this, he can hold.

He lets his temporarily cool hands cover Jesus's over his chest, over his wrist; he closes his eyes so he can focus on staying upright, staying steady, on hoping anything he said can help.

"I'm glad you came here."

"So am I." It's becoming the norm for him to come to K and to end up feeling better about something, even if he hadn't started out feeling badly in the first place. Which makes him wonder if K gets anything close to it in return.

He squeezes K's shoulder and stands, to get the blankets and the pillows, and to take a moment to give K another assessing look. There's nothing wrong with him physically that he could find, but no one would look at K and say he looked like he's feeling all right.

Sitting up, talking, paying attention are all taking their toll on K, who is beginning to shiver again by the time Jesus is arranging bedding on the floor; he feels mentally better for it, more centered in himself, but he doesn't argue again about Jesus getting up. He pulls one of the sandwiches into his lap but stops before unwrapping it to rub his eyes again while Jesus is across the room.

He focuses again when he comes near once more, setting the sandwich aside in preparation to move down to the pallet.

"Thank you."

"I'm the reason you're going to be sleeping on the floor looking like you caught the plague," he frowns. He resists the urge to check him for fever again and instead adds the pillow Jesus was probably meant to be using. Let K have it, let him be extra comfortable. "Don't thank me. I feel bad enough already."

"We're both the reason. You're not comfortable near me right now," K points out, calmly. There's no accusation, no guilt or hurt because, "I don't trust myself. Neither of us wants to be alone. Do you have a better compromise?"

He's already easing down into the new blanket nest though.

"You sleep on the floor. But I get to take care of everything else." He lays down gingerly, with his head propped up on one hand so he can watch over K as he settles in.

"You can use the bathroom if you need to," K offers by way of reply. It's been two days, Jesus is probably already settled, but it's there. "And borrow some of my clothes. I don't know how much good I'll be for... a while."

He still wants to try with the sandwich, but he also wants to sleep.

K can't have any idea what those little gestures mean in the context of Jesus's world. He tries to take them in this context, so they have the meanings K intends. But he also hopes that he himself never takes for granted what it can mean when someone offers their roof, their bed, their clothing. He doesn't want to become so used to this world that those things don't still stir things up in him.

"You just have to rest." And eat. "I'll just be here."

Keeping watch, dozing, listening. He doesn't want to leave until K has recovered from whatever this is.

He's not as clueless as someone from a living planet might be; K always had enough thanks to being government property and an expensive piece of equipment, but he saw how much a single meal off a street cart meant to some people. He gave away clothes before.

It's no accident that anything he has, he'd share with Jesus.

"Try to sleep, too," he suggests, sighing gratefully as he eases down onto his side, back to Jesus. There's not much hope in him for that one though.

"I'll try." He is tired. He's aware of how much sleep he needs, too, to recover from a weeklong mission.

And he does try. He gets four hours, and he wakes peacefully from a dream where he and K are sitting and watching a blank television. K is dead, most of the skin peeling off his face, exposing his molars, tearing at the corners of his lips when he speaks.

It means when he wakes he spends a very long time just studying K, watching him breathing.

Another reason K wasn't concerned about taking the floor: he sleeps like the dead should, completely unaware of wherever it is he's actually laying. Jesus has slept beside him before and K is usually quiet, usually still, but also very readily able to be woken. This time he's not disturbed at all by the attention on him, and his breathing is deep, even, and slow; he doesn't move a single muscle once he's out, which was almost immediate after he closed his eyes.

He sleeps for several hours past when Jesus wakes up, until the dawn light starts creeping in through the drawn shades. It's not much here in the Down, it doesn't actually touch K, but the silhouette comes close and it brings the entire room up an important few shades. He wakes all at once, and hard with a deep, gulped breath and a push for upright that would work a lot better if every muscle in his body weren't half dead to him from sleep.

He breathes a word that sounds like cells.

He doesn't watch K the whole time. He tries to sleep again and can't, so he listens to the city instead, identifying sounds he knew in the old world and imagining what it will be like to live here. (How long?)

He instinctively sits up when K stirs, used to having to block a bleary, panicked blow when people wake that hard.

K doesn't strike out, though his head turns and he automatically tracks the sudden movement beside him; he squints, blurry, and it takes a long few moments before recognition breaks across his features, but break it does.

He winces, getting a hand behind him to hold him up, and shakes his head to clear it.

"Jesus," he mutters, half to himself, half to signal he knows him, his voice croaking again with disuse. He groans and sits forward to rub at his eyes. "'d I wake you?"

"No, I'm okay." He settles his back against the wall. He hasn't been asleep in hours, so his voice is soft, clear. "How do you feel?"

Like Sapper Morton put him through another wall.

He takes a moment to answer, giving himself time to adjust to being awake - being alive. The grogginess is already lifting, taking with it the lingering, creeping claustrophobia from sleep, and if he doesn't feel normal he at least feels hopeful for the first time since waking up in the bathtub that whatever this is seems to be fading.

"Better," he finally says, and when he drops his hand away from his face and looks up at Jesus, his eyes are clearer. "When did you -" No, he remembers the gun, remembers bits and pieces of their conversation, remembers Jesus talking about dreams and being human. It's just the time piece that's missing. "How long?"

"Hard to say. You've had four or five hours since I woke up." A solid eight or nine, maybe, all told. "You don't look as bad. I'm not tempted to call a doctor."

Since I woke up.

"You slept?" he clarifies, relieved, pleased - even as he stretches his limbs trying to get feeling back into them faster, trying to make that feeling into something more comfortable.

"How are you feeling?"

He wasn't expecting K to have any reaction to the fact of him actually getting rest. The relief in K's voice makes him grin, self-conscious at the unexpected affection it implies.

"I'm all right. Better than when I got here." Not ready, just yet, to leave. "You probably don't feel up to going out tonight, do you, yet?"

He glances at the outline of light on the wall, doubtful, but the truth is he doesn't know. The truth is he's still working out what he feels.

"Is there something going on?" he hedges.

"Nothing special. I just thought we could go to a magic show or find some music." Is he asking K on a date?

He didn't come here planning to do this, but there it is.

Helpfully, without really thinking about it, K has picked up the sandwich he fell asleep on last night when he noticed it, settling his shoulders against the nightstand so he can still see Jesus.

He's more focused on considering their options for leaving this room - and what it means that Jesus wants to leave it with him considering his own past week and how it ended - and what it would take to make him confident in doing so.

"I don't know that the blade runner is really gone," he cautions. Or how he'll react to being outside again. "But I think I'd like that."

"My friend thinks it was the locals. I haven't seen any walkers in a few days... If they're gone, the blade runner probably is, too." But he's willing to stay in, too, if K feels safer that way.

"I met someone in prison who runs a club for creative types. Poetry, singing, it's a little more laid back than where we work."

He can't stay in this room forever. He doesn't even want to, not really, and despite that he doesn't want anyone else around him hurt - ever, but especially not Jesus - he finds he does feel better about the prospect of having someone with him when he tries.

And he glances up, immediately interested, when he hears about the club.

"Is that something you think you'd like?"

"I really like poetry," he admits with a little grin, a tiny shrug. "I like the quieter places, it's just not everyone's go-to."

Meaning yes, he would really, really like to take K there.

The grin, the veiled giddiness, make K smile. In Los Angeles, quiet places had been few and far in between outside of his cruiser; he's curious about what it looks like here.

"I'm in," he says, not as easily as he might have a few weeks ago, but still interested. "Do you have a favorite?"

He isn't surprised K agrees. It seems like something K would enjoy too, or he wouldn't have asked, but he's still glad. "I was reading Ovid's Metamorphosis back home. But books were so hard to come by, I never did find a favorite. Maybe I will now."

K shakes his head; he's not familiar. So much was lost in the blackout, and some of what's left is still off limits to replicants - but much of it isn't.

"There are books everywhere here." And he's still a bit awed by it honestly. "What was Metamorphosis like?"

"It's a history of the world, told in myths and legends. I didn't get to finish it, but maybe I will here. The last part I read was Hades being shot with Cupid's arrow so love could infiltrate Hell." He gives the window, the strange city they're in, a wry look. "Seems fitting now."

There are parallels K can draw on his own. He wasn't LAPD's most effective blade runner, though, because he imposed his own assumptions over what people told him.

It stings and aches right now to remember that, but he focuses on Jesus, focuses on the curious streak.

"How so?"

"Because to hear about this place, you'd think love would be the last thing anyone could find. Everything has the quota putting pressure on it." Even Jesus feels it and he knows K does, too. He wouldn't have slept with him if not for the city reframing everything. He wouldn't be surprised if it was the same for K.

"But people are happy together. We're all up against the same wall, but I've had people tell me they've found love like they never had at home."

K has never had a friend like Jesus, but odds are good they could have known each other for years without it even occurring to him to make a move. Maybe not, with the combination of interest and respect, but it certainly wouldn't have happened already. He's thought about this before.

He thinks about it often.

"One of the first people I spoke to here, one of the first to help me, insists that this place is more what people make of it then what the officials try to sell it as. He insists there are people here he wouldn't know how to live without now." K isn't a skeptic, but he does happen to think that perhaps it's being romanticized a bit as a coping mechanism.

"Your friend isn't wrong. You have to make a place bearable somehow. Usually, the only way to do it is with other people." Everyone he talks to is horrified to learn what his home world is like, but he misses it. He misses Hilltop, he misses Aaron and Alexandria, he misses the road.

"But it would be very easy to use this place as an excuse to become angry and bitter. To just use people. Instead, they make connections, deep ones."

"Vrenille," K offers while he digests the rest of that. They both know Vrenille.

Finally he smiles, a little sad, and nods.

"I should try to shower if we're going anywhere today."

Vrenille. He likes him, he likes that K talks to him.

"All right." He'll brush his teeth and his hair, get ready, hold down the fort while K does.

The light still hurts, but not anything like it has the day before; it feels like walking around outside the biome for short periods of time, and he can tolerate that. The shower wakes him up, makes him feel more focused - which he absolutely takes advantage of to keep his mind from wandering too much as bits and pieces of memory come back.

When they're ready to head out, K sticks very close to Jesus's side and stays alert, collar flipped up but not fastened, hands deep in his pockets and his gun riding his ribs.

Jesus usually moves through crowds like water, but with K beside him he's slower and more willing to take up space. He keeps his hands free, and he watches those around them--starting first with the way they walk and then, when nothing is alarming, he'll offer little smiles or nods if they meet eyes.

"You said you'd found a lot of books around here. What do you read?"

K is comfortable in crowds usually but when he's fresh off being hunted, being retired, he's grateful to have someone familiar with him. Someone he trusts.

He doesn't hear the question at first but he is paying attention. He is able to piece it back together and takes up the distraction eagerly.

"Anything. Physical books are rare, but there are still a lot of digital copies of the ones that survived the blackout. I like Westerns."

Westerns. He wouldn't have guessed those even still existed in a world where blade runners exist. He smiles at K and leads him around a corner. "What do you like about them?"

"They're very dramatic," is his immediate answer, ready to hand. "I like both the books and the movies, but they have such distinct characters that are always doing such interesting things for reasons that make no sense to me like having shootouts and robbing trains. And there are always horses, and cows. Sometimes chickens, or buzzards."

Of course K would read a western and be captivated by the buzzards. Jesus smiles, picturing K's face as Lonesome Dove played--K seeing nothing as clearly as the cows.

"You've never been around them, have you?"

He shakes his head.

"No. There aren't any animals left except in the richest households, and those usually aren't real."

Deckard had a dog, he remembers. It barely seemed alive. "I did see some insects once. I don't know what they were. They were loud."

"If we were back home I could teach you." He knows every bug, every type, that exists in Virginia by now. He'd started out reading pilfered books about which ones were edible, and the rest of the knowledge filled in by osmosis.

It does draw K's attention over.

"Are you interested in insects?"

"Anything living," he agrees easily. Plants, bugs, animals, people. "Sometimes the only things around for miles were the bugs. Made sense to get to know what they were."

"These were where nothing living was supposed to be. The city had been irradiated, and there was no biome to protect or normalize it afterwards. I don't know how they were surviving."

And he had no one to ask, unwilling to risk Joi being targeted, unable to call the station analysts.

And honestly unwilling at that point anyway.

"Could you draw one?" Irradiated bugs might be simply monstrous versions of those he knows, but who knows? They could just be the same cockroaches said to survive nuclear winter.

"Yes. Remind me when we get back to the housing and I'll try."

He's watching where they walk, marking the streets as they pass them - and, notably, relaxing the further they go without incident.

"You're making a lot of friends."

"It's easy to do here. Everyone I've met so far has cared about helping me settle in." It's unlike any community he's ever been in before. He does have the advantage of being extroverted, and being used to building bridges, though. "...Are they that way with you, too?"

K nods.

"It's... New." He's capable of speaking to strangers when he's filling a clear role. This has been much, much harder.

"And more difficult, probably. But yes."

"It's hard for me, too." He's glad for it, but it's still jarring. "Different reasons, I know."

"You don't show it," he answers, and honestly that's one of the things K admires most about him. People are important to him even when they're not easy for him.

"It took even me a while to spot it."

"All I wanted for years was to build a place that was safe for people to have their families. Whatever the families looked like. This place somehow has given that to a lot of people. It's easy for me to just be happy for them."

It makes it easier to accept their kindness that way. "It just doesn't help how outside of all of this I feel."

There's something startling about hearing something so familiar come out of a completely different person's mouth, unprompted, word for word in their context instead of his own and yet identical. K wanted Los Angeles to be safer, to be better, and he worked for that as best he could. It was limited, and nowhere near enough, but he did work for it.

And he was never, ever going to be a part of it. He looks over at Jesus, wishing with such clarity and force that it aches that he knew how to make a space at his side that Jesus would feel welcome in - but he doesn't.

So instead when they have to slow for a person in front of them to navigate a line out the door of a bar, he lets his hand brush Jesus's wrist. That's all, just a touch, but it's the best that he has.

It's a barely there touch and it's in the midst of moving indoors. But K had kept his hands in his pockets, so Jesus knows what this gesture means, and he reciprocates by touching K's elbow as they move inside and find a seat.

K stays watchful until they've settled into chairs, more wary of the enclosed space at first than he had been out on the streets, but if there's fewer ways out there's also fewer ways in which makes the room easier to cover; it's also inside and there are fewer lights, which makes him feel better. He does, after a short time, relax.

He's still quiet, but he watches people around them with interest rather than caution, and he sits close enough in his chair to Jesus that their elbows might brush if they're not careful, although his hands are back in his lap, in his pockets.

"Is your friend here?" he asks quietly.

He looks around and shakes his head. It's a fairly busy night, though the atmosphere is different. "Want a coffee?"

He does want a coffee, although he lets Jesus pick it. He's just enjoying being here.

This place is like nothing he's ever seen, nothing in Los Angeles; there is no place this quiet, this calm, this lacking in neon lights and electric hum and the sound of air filters. If there is he's certain he wouldn't be allowed in it, and if he were he wouldn't be able to sit quietly and undisturbed while people move around him like he's just another person in the middle of it. He feels more isolated than ever, newly so in a place that has people insisting he's part of it both in his best interests and not, but no one pays him any particular mind sitting here at this table with Jesus.

He doesn't speak through several performances, watching them intently, memorizing details almost automatically, methodically sipping his coffee; watching the people around them and the way the staff move through the tables when there's no one actively performing something. He's never heard an acoustic guitar played well. He's never heard a soft, emotive voice with no augmentation over a staticky microphone and large, physical speakers.

It has the peculiar effect of making him feel both more settled and more homesick, and when the latter starts to settle in he leans closer to Jesus.

He leans closer when K does, subconsciously at first. Then when he realizes, he glances at K and smiles softly, and lets his foot rest against K's under the table out of view.

"I liked that last one."

K doesn't answer right away, well aware of that subtle point of contact while he watches around them, idly turning his empty coffee cup slowly between his fingers.

Then his gaze returns to Jesus, resting there for several moments before he finally says, "I like all of it."

It's a warm weight, it makes him smile. "So do I." And his hand brushes K's as he takes his cup and sips from it.

"Do you sing?"

The question catches him off guard, and he starts to answer it but stops, smiles a bit - embarrassed - before smoothing out his expression again.

"I have vocal cords, I can -" Does he? Yes, sometimes, he has before. Does he? No. Not in front of anyone. "Do you?"

That answer means Jesus's interest is now intensified.

"I play guitar a little. I can sing, I guess." He lifts an eyebrow and nods at the stage. "If there was a song we both know, I'd ask you to come sing it with me."

Edited 2022-08-24 19:53 (UTC)

K starts to warm to the idea - until Jesus includes the stage, the audience, a performance in it. That's too much for him right now and he had unconsciously leaned forward a bit more but he draws back that short distance now.

"I'd try. With you," he says slowly, an uncertain glance at the stage himself and then back.

It feels like a failure of some kind to say, "But - not here? Today?" The spotlight isn't bright but it's bright enough, and the idea of all that attention on him feels like an invitation to have him singled out and shunned.

It's hard to say what part of it is being shy and what part is the lingering effects of what happened to him. Jesus might nudge him through shyness, but he's seen how bad K had been feeling.

"Next time," he says, which has the added bonus of being a request for a second date. Or whatever this is. "Maybe I'll find a guitar by then."

K's brow clears of concern immediately, relieved by this compromise.

"Next time," he agrees readily, as much because he does want there to be a next time as because he's not up to it now, too. And, quietly, "Thank you."

For not pushing him this time, when he isn't exactly afraid but he doesn't feel solid either.

"I haven't played or sung anything in years," he admits, his smile soft. "Maybe we're better off practicing privately together first anyway. What's a song you like?"

"You're right, maybe you're horrible," K comments dryly, not at all seriously. He's quite certain that if one of them should be practicing first, it's not going to be Jesus.

"I don't have just one. I like - classics. Elvis Presley, Muddy Waters, Nickelback, the Monkees."

It makes him laugh. The way K's humor shows up isn't so unexpected anymore, but it's still new enough that it delights Jesus an extra bit to hear it.

"I could learn an Elvis song," he muses. "I'll get a guitar if you pick the song."

K's thoughts go immediately to one specific song, rolling through a years long empty lounge, crackling in the neglected sound system and skipping between punches until Elvis himself was there, white and shimmering and cutting, blinding, through the dark.

He smiles and says, "Hallelujah," instead of that one.

K's expression is best described as neutral, but Jesus pays attention, and he's seen flickers here and there of something else under the surface. He always wonders what K is thinking in those moments, but he doesn't ask. You don't ask things like that in a public space. You generally don't ask at all, anywhere, where he's from.

So instead he pretends to have to think about that one. "And you'll sing with me?"

"I'll sing with you," he agrees, anchoring himself back in this here and this now.

"I like that one. I don't understand all of it, but I like it."

"I haven't heard it in years," he shakes his head. "What are the lyrics?"

He doesn't have to sing them. But he could.

He clears his throat a bit, drinks some of the water he asked for and glances, briefly around them at how close the other tables are.

"The ones I don't get are -" He licks his lips, stalls again, and then does try. His voice is low but that's hardly surprising considering his speaking voice, and it fits well with the bare bones of this particular melody when he offers, pitched soft between the two of them, "Your faith was strong but you needed proof, you saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you; she tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne and she cut your hair, and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah."

"Did you ever read the Bible?" Is where the answer to that starts, but like everything in the Bible there are layers beyond it.

K shakes his head; he's read a lot of things and not all of them are predictable, but not that.

"Samson was a great warrior, undefeatable as long as he kept his hair long." He grins, flicks his own back. "He fell in love with a Philistine woman--the enemy. She was hired to find out what gave him his supernatural strength, so she seduced him and convinced him to let her cut his hair off. Then he was defeated."

He watches the movement, the way Jesus's hair falls, and listens to the story with calm attentiveness; he's not entirely aware of the very faint curve at the corner of his mouth for just a moment.

"Then he shouldn't spy in women's bathrooms, maybe," he points out. "Seems like a moral lesson."

"Right? I always thought she was a hero for her people," he chuckles. "Samson hated the Philistines. He killed a lot of them. The song sort of implies he thought it was worth it, though. Maybe he was tired of fighting."

That's an interpretation he likes, too. There's something he finds agreeable about choosing to be overpowered by something gentle enough to be worth it.

"Is that okay? You like that one?"

"I like it," he nods. "I think it suits us better than Blue Suede Shoes. Me, anyway."

He likes the theme, he likes the tempo. He'll be able to pick up the song easily if he can find a guitar.

"Why did you pick it?"

"It's... complicated." Not the explanation, the song itself.

"There're a lot of emotions in it that other songs or poems often try to make out as simple, but they're not. They're tied up together and they continue when they shouldn't. They're messy, but the song isn't."

Anything real should be a mess.

"It's why I've never liked love songs. The real thing shouldn't be simple. I'm not even sure real love should make any kind of sense."

He is, of course, an outsider looking in, but he's never bought the glitzy, sugary storefront window version of love. Nothing that can break people so thoroughly and so easily could possibly be summed up the way sonnets imply.

"There's a line in one of the verses," K starts, almost hesitant, but he's watching Jesus and Jesus has always wanted to hear what he has to say before.

He watches, and the moment he sees any concern - or doubt, or disgust - start, he'll stop.

"All I've ever learned from love is how to shoot somebody who outdrew you. And I know most people have heard that as love being vicious, as having to get in the first shot before someone else can hurt you, but the pronoun says you. Like maybe even if something hurts in the end, that love carries over and makes you want to defend them from others anyway, but it's also the other. It's complicated."

He'd never heard it that way but it speaks to him: a need to protect someone he loves even when he's given all else that he can to it.

"Any good song should be complicated," he murmurs, but he's watching K, smiling softly.

It's that gaze, something he sees there, that makes him glance down for a moment; it would have made him smile, before the blade runner, before he was retired for a second time, and rose again from it.

He's aware now, though, of a faint twist in it, like maybe he's lying, like he's deceiving Jesus somehow. He watches his thumbnail, rubbing a fingertip over it.

"I know I haven't - felt that. Love, not really. But sometimes when I listened to that song it seemed familiar anyway."

"I've never been in love either." Platonically he's loved people yes, many people. People he would kill for. People he did die for in the end. But not the sort of love that leads to giving up your supernatural powers and your throne.

"In that song you hear about wanting to defend someone even if you've been hurt, though. I like that about you."

He believes him. He doesn't even need to look up and read Jesus's face to know he's telling the truth, and K believes him.

It's just harder to know how to settle that on his own shoulders, on reconciling that with who - with what he knows he is.

He glances up again and asks, "How long did you want to stay here?"

"We can go." They've been here at least a couple of hours now, and K wasn't feeling well to start with. "Are you okay?"

He's not just asking about K's recovery, but about that quiet before K asked.

He nods, quirks his lips again when he looks up even though it fades again as his smiles are wont to do. He's not surprised Jesus noticed - he's perceptive - but it's not anything he wants to talk about even here.

And, genuinely, he is tired even though it takes a lot for him to admit to that part of it.

"I don't want to rush you."

He shakes his head and pushes his chair back. "I've had fun. You should rest." They have next time, after all.

K follows him, and as soon as they're outside he pulls a cigarette out of the tin in his pocket and lights it up. He gives himself the time it takes to smoke it down to nothing before he says anything else, walking alongside Jesus and both smoothing the wrinkles out of his own mood and steeling himself to admit what he knows he needs to regardless of the consequences.

"I - didn't make quota," he offers, quietly, when it comes to choosing which direction they'll go: towards Jesus's apartment, towards K's, or separate. "One of the messages on my phone is to report to the SLUT center for injection, or I'll be taken there anyway."

He looks up at him, troubled but quiet. They cross the street toward K's apartment. "It might feel like the aphrodisiac we tried," he offers. He hopes it won't hurt. It's awful enough on its own without being painful. "What are you thinking about it?"

He wants to shrug, wants to refuse to take responsibility for having an answer like real people do sometimes, but that's not an option for him.

"I haven't been, but - if it's not like that, I don't know what it'll be like. And I'd understand if you'd rather not be around me until we know for sure either way."

Even on a normal day, but he'd also seen the way Jesus held himself decidedly separate instead of simply not thinking of being closer.

They're at a corner but he stops them in a more decided way, turning to face K directly. "I don't want anything that happens between us to be for any reason except we want it. As much as we have any say on that." Because he likes K in a way that borders on the old world, and he's afraid of muddying that in any way.

"But I'd rather be there for you however you want me to be."

As a rule, K doesn't show much emotion in his expression, ever; but for just a moment when Jesus stops them here, when he takes the time to look directly at him - furthermore when he looks at him like that, there's a moment when the look in K's eyes fractures open just enough. He has absolutely no idea what to do with that offer now if he ever did, no idea if it would be better - for both of them, for Jesus - to ask him to stay, to ask him to go, to leave the choice in his hands. No hope in this moment of ever knowing, because they don't have a say in it, and he's certain that if they did have a say this wouldn't be an issue. Replicants don't have a place with humans. Not as equals.

But that's not true either and he knows that every bit as confidently as he does the other; for the first time since Joshi told him to erase all evidence of a miracle he wishes desperately that someone would just tell him what to do, and it shows in the way he looks back at Jesus before he shuts it down and pushes it all away.

Dreadfully distinct. "Okay," is what he says even though it doesn't mean anything, even though it's just a noise his mouth makes while he draws himself up straight again.

"You don't have to decide what you want right now." The tiniest smile. He holds up his device. "I have a phone. I'm a light sleeper. You can call me whenever you want. Even if it's just to listen to Elvis."

The light changes and they have to go, but not before he murmurs, "I'm sorry this is happening."

It's not Jesus's fault. It's not even really K's fault. He thinks about that while they cross the street, as they take a turn away from the few other people on the street and the way they're going.

This is how long it takes him to make any kind of decision, even though it's not a very good one as far as decisions go. Not very decisive. All the same he reaches out to touch Jesus's wrist, and comes to a stop.

"May I try something?" he asks, low.

"Yeah," he says, and doesn't say Anything you want, because he's not that naive. But there's not much he'd say 'no' to with K's expression still fresh in his mind.

He's not looking for the limits of what Jesus will allow him to do anyway, but very earnestly asking permission. It's a little unfair, he thinks, but replicants aren't the only ones that use visual cues. Humans do it too, so it's not so dishonest after all.

He studies Jesus a moment, memorizing all the little tells at the corners of his eyes and mouth, the set of his jaw and the crease of his brow. Then, his touch is light as it had been on his wrist, he reaches up to the corner of Jesus's jaw until his face just enough to kiss him.

It's not a deep kiss, but it's not light either, and he doesn't rush. He needs a good solid few moments to feel whatever he's going to feel, to feel the way Jesus reacts to him.

And when he steps back, he studies Jesus's face again, long and steady and deep, looking for anything that's changed. Looking for anything that tells him that Jesus would rather he goes, or ask to be left alone.

Edited 2022-08-25 00:48 (UTC)

He returns the kiss, taking his time with it, enjoying it despite not knowing what K is looking for in it. His smile is a little quizzical when K looks at him, but there's pleasure in it, too. Even a little relief.

"Was that all you wanted to try?" A little mischief in his smile now. "Or do you need to try it again?"

K doesn't smile back but, bit by bit, his eyes soften to something very similar. Both hands are at his side again and he considers reaching for Jesus's hand again but doesn't, not quite yet.

Jesus is teasing but K owes him an explanation so what he says is, "You went through something difficult. So did I. We face more difficult things, and there's a lot I don't know how to talk about. I just... Needed to check in."

He starts to pull K back to him, to kiss him again in the same slow way K had, but he pauses--hand on K's cheek, mouths almost touching. "Can I?"

K doesn't flinch away from the touch, doesn't pull back from the kiss even before Jesus pauses.

"Yes," he says, and lets Jesus close the difference still but once he does K relaxes into it, too.

This is as far as he's willing to go, physically. He took a hard hit to his left kidney and if the entire experience at the Zoo hadn't killed his libido for a while, that one vicious punch has done the trick until he's healed. But that's the nice thing about K: he actually seems to enjoy this part on its own. He suspects he could kiss K for an hour and he'd still enjoy it.

He doesn't take an hour, of course. But he doesn't rush. He only breaks it when a car honks at some other reckless pedestrian and he jerks, reaching for a knife, sees there's no danger, and rallies by looking up at K like it hadn't happened.

"When do you have to go in?"

K doesn't pull back until Jesus does, and he's right: he could be content with this. He could walk away with only this and be happy.

He glances over because Jesus does, but then back at him, watchful but calm now. A faint line appears between his eyebrows at the question, thinking.

"It just said to report to the center. No time limit, but I doubt they'll wait longer than a day or two." That's another reason K wanted to warn Jesus: "I don't want you to get into trouble with the SIN guards again so soon."

"If I thought it would do any good I'd do it anyway." Fight them off, break more arms. There's not even a question that he'd do it again if it would keep K from being forced.

"Do you want me there? Or do you want to come find me after it wears off?" There isn't room for K to just not see Jesus again, sooner rather than later. But it has to be up to K what the context is.

He's said this before but he'll say it over and over and over again because in a life suddenly unanchored, this much is still true: "I don't want to hurt you. Hurt anyone." And as long as he's in control of himself he knows he won't.

But there are stories about the injections. He is, he must admit, something like scared - but it doesn't matter. "Best if I'm alone until after, probably."

"I trust you, K." And yes, first that means that he trusts that K wouldn't hurt him. Not willingly. But it also means, "If you think it's better for you to do this alone, then I'll leave you alone until you're ready to see me again."

It's a peculiar way to phrase it, for K; he's never had another option than to do something alone, and all of his thoughts about Jesus being around have just been about him spending time there not necessarily helping him do anything about it.

His fingers twitch and this time he gives in, this time he lifts his hand to brush Jesus's arm and he nods.

"I'll let you know when I'm safe again."

"If I don't hear from you in a week," he warns. "I'll call."

And if he doesn't hear from K then, he'll break in again.

And indeed: "I'll do my best to answer this time."

Not that he had just chosen not to answer before but still he makes the promise.

"Be safe." He starts to say something else, hesitates, and decides, "I'll tell you about the zoo when I see you again."

Are you still around and in one piece?

I am. Are you?

As much as I ever am.

Do you understand how lacking that is as a reassurance?

Vaguely, but it does mean I'm fine. Did you find a contract yet?

Statistically, 'fine' is also a word that most people use when they're not actually. Just so you know.

No, I haven't.

It usually means at least functioning for me. It's not a high bar but it is a bar.

Why?

Not over this.

Over the device or were not talking over this topic?

Over the device.

Although I've not had great luck with the topic, either.

Come over. Then you can at least tell me what bad luck over the topic means.

Alright.
I'll head over soon.

I'll keep an eye on the door

[An hour later:]

Did you move?

Shit. Yeah. I bought a place in the down. [Address]

Alright.

[Much better. He turns up another hour later, coat on but open for once, grateful to be done with his citation.]

"When was this?" he asks once the door is open, once he's slipped inside.

He locks the door behind K, mostly because the Down is what it is. Not a problem for him but he doesn't need random people wandering in and leading to destruction of his own property. "A week or two. About the time we had nightmares in the streets and I signed a new sub."

K prefers living in the Down as more familiar for him, and he locks his door too. It's not a judgment to be aware of facts.

He glances up at the roundabout mention of contracts, brow furrowing faintly.

"Additional? Or did you switch?"

He tilts his head just slightly at the furrowed brow. "Additional. His name's Midnighter. He's pretty self-sufficient, but I did want extra space in case he wants to use it."

"Ah. Yes, I spoke with M a bit." It's weird for K how small Duplicity is after a city with a population in the multimillion level tier.

"You must be doing well then from the city's perspective."

"Doing well meaning following the intended order of things or financially?"

What? He doesn't know.

He does often expect a lot of overlap in people he knows. They mostly have things in common.

"I don't make the call for multiple contracts," K points out.

"So whichever one that is. Probably both."

"Buying a house here is probably the better indicator financially. The second sub's relatively inconsequential if neither of you are assholes." Which is random, but. "And yeah, compliance to this shit and buying property here feels strange, but I really wanted out of their housing before the issue was forced."

K hasn't spent a lot of time investigating the Dominant side of things; he's been preoccupied with... other things.

So: "Does that happen often? They change their minds about the housing?"

"Dominant housing is temporary. After a year they move you out, either way. I'm a little early but I like it being under my control." It's a great way to get money into a society they aren't really part of, Scott supposes, and can't integrate into.

Not that any of them really want to, making the money situation more annoying somehow.

He frowns down in the direction of the floor but not at anything in particular - he's just thinking.

"For a program with a clearly stated goal, there are a lot of arbitrary rules and protocols."

"Their clearly stated goal doesn't make any damn sense to me on any level," he admits, sounding more tired than mad in this case.

Hey man, mid-month check in. Two weeks since they slapped on this whole double quota garbage. [Which all sounds very businesslike and utilitarian, but then his expression and tone softens, more personal, concerned.]

How you been doing? [Not just with that, he seems to imply. With everything.]

It was thoughtful of them to give further incentive for people in the
program to engage with each other.

Have you seen the aquarium?

[That wins a snort of laughter.] Super thoughtful, yup. That's LIES, always with all our best interests at heart, never an ulterior motive in sight.

I ain't been in yet, just gone by outside. Kinda weird choice for a place where all the local seem so scared of the sea, but-- [He shrugs. Maybe it's because they're so scared of the actual sea that an aquarium has its appeal.]

Have you been in? It's gotta be full of stuff you've never got to see before.

Do humans find it particularly hard to avoid drowning? Several of the people I've spoken with regarding it have done so.

It's amazing. [There's been a faint, almost sharp note of wry sarcasm in his voice so far, but these two words are utterly sincere, before the wryness is back again:] And also comes with some emotional effects that make double quota a bit easier than it might otherwise be.

Without an aquabreather or something like it? Kinda, yeah. Do replicants...not find it hard to avoid drowning?

[Can you secretly breathe water or something, K? He's heard that line about "originally designed for environments humans couldn't survive in," but he doesn't know how far that goes.]

I'm gonna take that as the silver lining here. [Both how amazing he finds it and the part that makes double quota easier.] What, uh, flavor of emotional effects they got going in there?

Edited 2022-09-15 10:37 (UTC)

My last retirement was via asphyxiation. It was underwater, but I don't know which actually worked. At the same time, I was able to swim back to shore even with extensive abdominal damage that turned out to be fatal.

[So fifty-fifty in his experience. As far as silver lining goes though:]

Irritability and anger, but also calm and arousal. Standards, I'm learning.

Well that's...a little confusing if I'm honest, but I'm gonna go with not near so easy as humans. Which stands to reason given everything you've said. [K is more robust than any ordinary human. This is something Vrenille simply accepts. K is probably more robust than any ordinary norn too. That's just how it is.]

They do like to stay on brand. [Because yes, those are very much standards.] Mix 'n match is better than lucky dip though, 'specially if you've learned what cause has what effect 'n can choose how you use it.

[There's a tacit question there--it sounds like K has worked that out and is (hopefully) using it to his advantage, but Vrenille isn't going to assume without confirmation.]

What's confusing about it?

[He isn't trying to mislead Vrenille in any way, even if he doesn't like to think about Luv on top of everything else he must think about. They're quickly approaching his threshold for things he's willing to discuss over the devices, but he can answer that much, probably.

He reads the unspoken question - hope even, maybe - loud and clear even through the screens, even though there's no actual question spoken of in so many words.]

That would be what I'm angling towards, at least a bit, yes.

You're saying you drowned but then swam back to shore--died, er--were retired, and then died again?

I think maybe I'm just missing the story that connects the dots there. [Because those sure are some dots with some big ol' gaps between them, K.]

And if it's working then I'm glad. [But that's the question, isn't it, and at this point he's just going to come out and ask.] Is it working?

Oh. No. I'm sorry.

I drowned another replicant, then I swam back to shore and - [Sigh, fine, if it's easier for Vrenille to put together with minimal context:] - died, and then I came here.

[Which is all easy to relay compared to the snag the last question represents. K's brow furrows faintly, and he visibly waffles for a moment.]

Some.

Oh right, ok, I'm following now. [He thinks.] This is the fight where you got all those injuries you had when you got here.

[He remembers the state that K was in well, he just hadn't known that drowning another replicant and nearly drowning himself had been a part of it all. He remembers the skeletal narrative that K told him though, at least enough to understand that whoever his fight was with, it would not have been someone the LAPD had sent him to retire. And if it was another blade runner they'd sent after him...well, he supposes that's possible, given that K would already have been classified as rogue. It doesn't quite seem to square with everything else he knows though--what was in K's nightmare and the way he spoke about it. He thinks that would have been subtly different.]

I wanna ask who they were, why they were set against you, but you don't gotta talk 'bout it if you don't wanna.

I do think we gotta talk 'bout quota though, numbers 'n shit. 'Cause there's could 'n then there's did, and LIES don't care if you're on the path trying to make it work.

Yes.

[That is where he got the injuries, most of them anyway, that he'd had leftover when Vrenille first met him.]

We wanted different things, the other replicant and I.

[But no he doesn't want to talk about that, or about quota, on a network he knows is being watched. Old habits from a world where most people had never held a pencil but hacking a basic connection was common knowledge.]

Not here. I'll meet wherever you like, but not here.

[He wants to ask about that--the different things, yes, but more the want, because there's agency in want, and as he understands it, for most replicants that sort of agency isn't possible except as an extension of what their owner wants, which is hardly the same thing.

All of that he holds onto though. K wants to speak in person, and he's happy to accommodate.]

Take me to this aquarium then?

[He wouldn't care very much about seeing it on his own, but seeing it with K, learning about what he's discovered there? That he certainly cares about.]

[The smile is immediate and audible.
He's fascinated by the aquarium and everything in it.]

I can meet you there in half an hour. In the lobby, by the tank wall.

[Which is exactly when and where he'll be.]

[Some guys--Vrenille swears, some guys it's worth it just to see them smile. K's in that category for him, especially since his smiles are so rare, something that feels special and precious, lighting up his own smile in answer.]

I'll see you there.

[And he does, taking in the space of the lobby when he arrives as he scans for K's distinctive silhouette across the room.]

"It's different than what I expected," he says by way of greeting as he steps up beside him.

He might be a bit more difficult to spot than usual: he's crouched down beside the glass so he's on eye level with a cluster of brightly colored sea anemones, chin resting in his hand and his eyes following the graceful, slow swaying of the Easter egg tendrils in the current. It's almost like breathing, he thinks.

And then Vrenille is there and K tips a look up at him, lips quirking briefly before he turns back to the tank.

"What were you expecting?" he wonders.

He's so damn innocent, Vrenille thinks as he spots him, follows the line of his eyes. He's seen sylvari a bit like this, the newly awakened ones in the Grove so enchanted with the world, all its new experiences, simply looking and touching and smelling and tasting, drinking it in with wide-eyed wonder and wasting nothing. Just as Ventari teaches them to.

He waits for the greeting before crouching down at K's side. So innocent and this whole fucking place is gonna conspire to take that away from him.

"There's an aquarium in Divinity's Reach," he explains, "near the orrery outside the Queen's palace. It's open, bright. Almost a thoroughfare really. This feels a lot more quiet...intimate."

"Someone told me there used to be places that let people swim with sea creatures - dolphins," he adds, remembering the name. He likes the sound of what Vrenille is describing and he likes the sound of getting to interact with something friendly and intelligent and wholly unlike humans.

Someone moves too quickly behind them and some of the coral around the anemones close and shrink like sentient things; K lifts a hand to touch two fingers to the glass, slowly, not to tap or scare them but so when they start to chance opening up again, he's already closer to them.

"This part is all just display. Public. Most of the effects I've noticed are deeper inside."

"Now that sounds like an earth thing," he says it fondly enough. Over time he's come to realise that there are things people come up with on earth that no one in tyria would ever think to do.

"If you wanted to swim with dolphins where I'm from, you'd probably just go swim in the sea. Or the harbour in Lion's Arch, there's some out there. I can see 'em sometimes from my bedroom window back home."

It's nice to think of, just a simple, quotidian memory of his life as it was, being where he felt he belonged, things happening in their natural way. Like the anemones, moving the way they move, pulling in, expanding out. He tries not to dwell on how it makes something twist inside of him--just homesickness, he knows. Here, that is what's quotidian.

"I think swimming with quaggan's probably more common where I'm from." A pause.

He doesn't want to rush K on when he's transfixed with what's right in front of him, so he waits until he looks up again before asking, "You wanna show me what-all's inside?"

"What's a quaggan?" K asks.

He thinks of his own window at home, not so little in comparison to the room - half the wall, really - but forgettable in the grand scope of Los Angeles as a whole. Insignificant. He watched traffic and holo-ads and smog roll by, sometimes watched the windows across the street, one of millions, maybe even billions of snapshots of life, all facing buildings

He would feel an echoing pulse of homesickness if he weren't so entranced with what's in front of him, but he hears the unfamiliar word and looks up. At the question from Vrenille he nods, and draws his hand back so slowly, so carefully, the creatures in the tank don't withdraw again. Only then does he stand.

"The tunnel's over this way." He doesn't say it's his favorite, but it's there in his tone and the way he goes straight for it.

"They're sorta squat beluga-looking things. 'Bout yay high when they're on land," he holds a hand up around waist height, "but they live in the water. Got flippers 'n a big wide tail, 'n they say 'oooo' a lot."

As they walk, he does his best quaggan impression, an artificially low, slowed voice, sort of fitting if one can imagine what talking underwater would be like: "'Cooo, quaggan is pleased to see you. You would not like quaggan when quaggan is angry. But quaggan wants to live in peace.' They're gentle, friendly...sorta cute really, so long as you don't piss 'em off. But that doesn't happen much on account of how getting mad embarrasses 'em."

K, he thinks as they approach the tunnel, his mind looping back to the careful way he stood up so as not to trigger another reflexive retreat of the coral, would adore quaggans. Probably swim with their tadpoles for hours if you gave him an aquabreather and half the damn chance.

K doesn't know what a beluga is either, but he does his best to picture it. He does in fact come to the conclusion about speech underwater, and it makes him smile. He's not sure if it's that there is so much in Vrenille's world that he'd like to see - a good chance; there's a lot in Duplicity, and there had even been things in Los Angeles he was still discovering - or merely how Vrenille describes them, how he bothered to notice the things he now tells K about, but he likes hearing about them. The impression makes him laugh, low and pleased.

"Sometimes I wish there had been more species capable of speech on Earth," he offers. Mostly he doesn't bother, or remembers how humans have treated the next closest thing to themselves even though they created them. But sometimes. "Why embarrassed? Do you know? Is it cultural, or did something happen?"

The entrance to the big reef tunnel is well marked, even if the walls on either side weren't constructed of floor to ceiling tanks giving just a glimpse of the teeming, darting, active life on the other side of the glass. They curve gracefully to the narrow passage through the exhibit, and this is where K slows - this is where he remembers that he's running a two out of three streak for encountering trauma in his friends, and he watches Vrenille for signs of the same when he sees that the water will be over them as well as close in on both sides.

Getting K to laugh is rare. At least it has been for Vrenille. Maybe others have heard it before, but he's hard pressed to think of a single other instance, and the feeling of it blooms warm in his chest.

He actually has an answer about quaggans as well, which is almost surprising to him--one of those stray bits of information he's learned about his own world in the years he's been with his guild. Before he left Ebonhawke, he wouldn't have known any of this.

"It's 'cause it changes 'em. Physically. They go kinda scaley 'n scarlet, like armored fish, grow big pointy teeth. They call it 'the rage,' and mostly they can't control it. They just destroy whatever's in their path. It's shameful in their culture, getting like that." Which, now that he's saying it aloud, all sounds like stuff K can probably relate to.

"Valuable allies though," he adds "the ones who could. There were one or two who joined the Pact, enraged pretty much all the time. They held the line out in the jungle, sometimes when no one else did. It's the sorta thing that makes me think...well, it probably ain't my place to say, but I think Earth'd probably better if there were some non-human races there.

"Humans on their own are assholes." He's not even mincing words about that. "I saw it in Ebonhawke. Shit, I was part of it in Ebonhawke. First time I met the members of my guild, I said awful things to 'em."

He doesn't elaborate on that though because they're entering the tunnel, and far from signs of trauma or discomfort, Vrenille is turning on the spot, his face upturned, grinning at the fish in the water overhead. "See now this is more like Divinity's Reach."

It does sound familiar, and K is already watching him so he just raises an eyebrow instead. It sounds like they found a way to make it useful, though, and that interests him; he needs to think about it before he says anything though, and so he nods to acknowledge the information and then glances away to the tanks and a large school of small, flashing golden fish.

"I don't know if it was better with a non-human race," K points out mildly. "But I've always understood why humans are the way they are with us." And he, unlike the rebellion, isn't angry about it for the most part. It's not worth his energy.

When he sees the grin he tips his head in invitation and moves ahead more decisively, taking them to the first bend in the tunnel where it widens a bit to allow more room for observation - just in time for the largest shark in the tank to slide by overhead, serene and rhythmic in its serpentine swimming motion.

"This is where I like to stand," he says, stepping right up to the glass, though he does it again so carefully and slowly that the fish closest to the glass barely startle. His eyes track the creature swimming overhead, something like awe still in his eyes despite that he goes on to explain, "You can see most of the tank from here, and the shark swims by over and over again."

"That's 'cause you are real generous 'n real kind." A frank declaration as he slips into the bend of the tunnel, out of the way of anyone passing behind them.

No empty compliment here. Being able to feel some degree of empathy and patience even for those who treat you most harshly, most unfairly--that's a rare and precious skill. Anger would be justified, would be understandable. Knowing that and being able to let it go? Most people couldn't. It deserves to be acknowledged, like so much else about K that his world didn't bother to credit because it fell outside of their metrics for him.

He steps up to the glass too, turning backwards once he does, facing towards the tunnel, his head falling noiselessly back against the glass, so that he can both look up overhead, at the wide angle across from them, and also easily glance at K without needing to turn to do so.

A spotted eagle ray passes above them, its white underbelly seeming to almost brush the arched glass before it carries smoothly on its way, the shape of its mouth and gills seeming to smile down at them. "Looks like it's flying doesn't it?" He's seen rays before, but never quite like this, and he can't pretend it isn't captivating.

K doesn't even know where to start with being told he's generous, he's kind; neither of these things are useful for a blade runner, and he would never claim them for himself, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't the least bit pleased about it. He is, and furthermore, he can see that Vrenille is telling the truth as he sees it.

He smiles, and watches the ray, too. "Mmhmm. There's another one further ahead you can touch, but its stinger does something, makes you impulsive," he offers, hands resting at the lip of the frame that's the only break in the glass. "It's peaceful, and alive, and beautiful here. I like it." Like he'd first found solace in Vrenille's garden, unlooked for and thus unexpected; he watches a pair of eels drift out of their coral caves, mouths open and gills working, and the way the fish around them change directions to avoid them like a carefully choreographed dance. "Thank you for coming here. With me."

Edited 2022-09-25 05:40 (UTC)

Surprise, K, your whole existence is no longer being measured on the grounds of its utility. You're no longer valued just as a piece of high-spec equipment that's considered "broken" if it goes beyond its assigned parameters.

Vrenille knows that all of that is new for him, that it will take more than a couple of months to adjust to it, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't hear it, shouldn't experience what it's like to be valued for the person that he is. It's ironic, he thinks, K's world setting off to make their perfect automaton for killing, retiring, following orders, and have managed instead to make someone who values life and peace and beauty so much, someone whose first concern is to harm no one, even if it means sacrificing himself to do it.

He has to laugh a little at the Tale of Two Rays though. "Ain't that Duplicity all over--full of life 'n possibilities till you round the corner and it sets you off doing some reckless, madcap shit you had no plans for doing when you woke up," he shakes his head. "I'm glad I'm getting to see this with you though--dunno when I'd have come otherwise." So the gratitude is mutual.

"I'm guessing that impulsive's not the thing you're looking to lean into to help with quota." Impulsive sounds more like the kind of thing K would mistrust in himself and want to avoid.

It is, of course; impulse is not something safe, not something acceptable, at least for him. He's seen some good results in others but it is, by and large, a human right. K smiles a bit, though it fades quickly, his feelings on the subject mixed - especially now that quota is coming up again.

He hasn't forgotten what sparked meeting in person, at least this time; he hadn't exactly been hoping Vrenille would, but it would have been alright with K if he had. If they didn't have to have this conversation at all, not with how he expects it will eventually go.

He nods down the tunnel; first thing's first. "The same place as the ray there are starfish, and they all do something if you touch 'em - anger, paranoia, calm. But there's a room past the touch tanks too. Jellyfish?" He hadn't known what they were before he saw them here, but he glances at Vrenille for any sign of recognition. Regardless: "They're - calming. And it feels kind of like it's better to be close, to be touching someone than not, at least for me. Like it would be worse to leave the room without doing... something... than to deal with whatever's keeping you from not. Whatever that something is."

In a place like Duplicity, it's probably obvious along what lines that something usually is. "It's been helpful. And - I think maybe it's been hurtful, too. But it's there."

Vrenille is certainly familiar with jellyfish, but the remark makes his eyebrows rise, "Big ones?" Because when he thinks of jellyfish, the first thing he thinks of are as long as a man is tall, with trailing, stinging tentacles that extend much longer. That is...probably not what K's referring to, though even the ones that can hurt the worst can be hypnotically beautiful at a distance.

He can't help but be curious to see these tanks further in, but what K's telling him makes him reluctant to suggest it. If K does, that's fine, but Vrenille resolves that it's up to him to lead, especially where that last room is concerned. And even more so given what he says.

"Hurtful--to you? How?"

"No," he answers, though the fact Vrenille has to ask that alerts K to the possibility that there are such things as large jellyfish, and he glances over curiously as he holds his hand up. "About the size of my palm, and they're see through in the light, but in the dark they glow all kinds of colors." He's enamored, naturally.

And it's a much easier answer than the second one. His hand disappears into his pocket, the other following suit almost automatically. "Not to me. Well." He tips his head. "I was there with someone, and we - had a nice time. Nicer than before. Which made it harder on him when I warned him that my contract deadline is coming up."

Vrenille mouths a little oh of understanding. He can imagine why K likes those. "Also probably safer than the big ones, which can sting you something fierce. They're partially see through too but kinda tinted, darker tentacles."

If only life could be just this--amassing lists of all the things K has never gotten to see before and then finding ways to show them to him. But alas, they have to think about things like quota and contracts.

He does a quick mental accounting of the time that's past since K's arrival. "Couple weeks now, is it?" He looks at him sidelong, fully aware that up until now, K hasn't even been willing to approach a conversation on the topic, at least not with him. "What're your thoughts there?"

K still doesn't want to approach this topic; he doesn't like that this city keeps forcing him to have it, doesn't like how he can be having a perfectly nice time at the aquarium with a friend and a perfectly easy conversation with that same friend and then this happens. He nods - yes, a couple weeks.

His eyes track the path of a large, flat, violet and pink fish as it swims along the glass in front of him, and maybe he just won't answer the second question. Maybe he doesn't have any thoughts on it at all.

Except he does, and when the fish is gone and he's watching a pair of crabs digging in the sand he says quietly, "Next week. And I'm not going to have one."

Well that sure comes out sounding definitive. Vrenille's brow ticks up a notch. He's not shocked by K's resistance, far from it. That much practically comes off of him in waves--it has for a long time. Vrenille has to wonder, though, if he so much as entertained having a conversation with anyone about this before he decided.

It is late in the game now, of course, but he reckons there should be, at least, a non-zero number of conversations (and conversations, specifically with someone in the position to offer) on the table for him before he rains the city's laws down on his own head.

"I hope that's not down to lack of options," he says evenly. "'Cause if that's the reason, you 'n I can change that right now."

Most people barely even notice K, who is quiet by preference and capable of standing or sitting still for hours at a time if he's of a mind to; if they do, typically those same people get the mild side of him, which is also his preference. The LAPD keeps order, he'd been told over and over again by Joshi. He wants peace and he's content to go with whatever lets that happen, most of the time.

But every now and then there's this side of him too - and Vrenille has a knack for finding it, even K would admit. Something in his expression closes itself off; his eyes stay in the eel, but he's very aware of his position in relation to the other man's when he makes an offer that, all told, is not exactly surprising.

It still sends a shiver down K's spine, though there's no sign of that in his simple, concise answer of, "It's not."

Vrenille genuinely doesn't go trying to seek out the points that will make K tense up like a touch-sensitive leaf. He does indeed seem to find them though, and he's getting used to the signs of when he's brushed up on something particularly sensitive.

His reaction to that now is the same as ever--he leaves it be. It's not the path to walk, that's the meaning he takes from K's tension. Too much, not this way, a different route. It's not down to a lack of options, and K does not want to hear him say more about it. So he doesn't. He doesn't cajole or try and argue the toss. No is no. It's at the very heart of personhood, being able to say no, and he knows that for K that hasn't been much of an option before now. That makes it, in Vrenille's estimation, something a bit like sacred ground.

He lifts his eyes to the water overhead, the motion of the light in it as a grouper, big and grey, crosses above them. "Y'know they're not going to let you just opt out 'n still walk free. You're okay with that?"

K still fully expects to be rolled right over like Vrenille's leaf; he has learned to brace exactly like this over a lifetime of being ignored and being used in spite of his preferences, to reserve the most blatant refusals for the most distasteful of denials. He still doesn't quite know what to think of it when Vrenille lets himself be turned aside.

K's eyes slide towards him though he doesn't turn his head; he's still watching the tank but also, now, watching the other man.

"I know," he says as simply. "But it's different from the injections. It's just me, in the cell until I'm not. That or they're hiding something." But he's not afraid of that. He's not unwilling to suffer that if he gets to do so on his own terms.

"If that's all it is then I don't doubt you can wait 'em out." And this is wide of the topic maybe, but it occurs to him: "I don't even know--do replicants age? Do you have an...I dunno, a sunset date built in? Anyway, on will alone I don't doubt you could outlast the lot of 'em, still be sitting there when today's SIN guards are all old 'n gray."

However. "I dunno what they might do down the line if just locking you up doesn't sway you. I wouldn't put hiding something past 'em."

It makes him think of things that happened here years ago, things he supposes most people have forgotten now because the city has, overall, a very poor memory, perhaps by design. Maybe the most reliable thing about Duplicity is that it's hiding something.

"Some of us do, if the client requested it," he answers, an abbreviated answer, the relevant portions of it amongst a complicated history: "I don't know if I do."

He's already passed the four year mark, but he's a service model, so maybe it'll be eight.

"I understand. And if that happens, I'll reevaluate, but for now - I know what you've said about the contracts." His voice is so low he might be telling a secret to the grouper, though it doesn't care; it swims by, fins fanning delicately, mouth working in its own silent mutterings. "I just don't see how it can be true."

Vrenille's voice is low too, but so that their words remain private, so nothing carries.

"You mean how they can be..." how does he want to phrase this, "fair? How they can be anything besides enslavement--ownership of one person by another?"

That's the rub here, isn't it? Reading between the lines, he thinks it must be, but he wants to hear how K will put it, how exactly it's framed for him.

Where is the place in the world you feel safest? Within.

K nods, and watches his own reflection in the glass doing the same; he almost leaves it there, lets that stand as its own answer. But if he's going to go to that extent to escape something he can't think his way around, he doesn't want to come off as just mulish, or childish. He has tried to talk himself around.

It's just he hadn't begun to feel steady until he made the decision to refuse to participate.

"It's like trying to imagine a color I've never seen based on someone else describing it. Or like being told go ahead, jump off this roof, I'll fly even though I never have before."

Did they keep you in a drawer when they were building you? Dark.

"Leap of faith," he murmurs, thinking of Jacob and this mad thing he does, jumping from rooftops, sailing down, plummeting with arms outstretched, throwing himself into the safe landing that he can't possibly have seen from above.

Vrenille's never known how he knows, how he identifies the places he can jump from, but he does it, much the way he somehow seems to just see, just know: people in a building, their locations, their attitudes, friend or foe--his "eagle vision" he calls it.

So it's a little like that maybe: Vrenille can't see what Jacob can see; he'd doom himself leaping off a building. And that's what it's like for K as well. Vrenille can understand that.

"Maybe it's 'cause humans use contracts for so damn much," he offers, "even if we call 'em different names--bond, deal, bargain, pact, arrangement...shit even debt--they're all parts of the same thing. Maybe we're just more used to the double-speak." He casts K a sidelong look, not sure if this will make sense to him and not wanting it to be misunderstood.

"Sometimes I think there's not much that's more deceitful in this whole place than these contracts they got us all signing."

K is listening, even though he's not looking at Vrenille anymore; he's watching the patterns the light through the surface of the water cast onto the sand, onto the backs of the fish broader than they are tall, the wavering lattice work of interlaced halos, the soothing slide of refractory shadow in between.

He does understand the words, even thinks he understands the context, but then Vrenille calls the contracts deceitful and K breaks his number one rule from working cold cases: he lets it fall into the shape of what he's been expecting all along.

"How so?" he asks, a bit too promptly, openly wary - not of Vrenille's answer or honesty, but because this is what he was expecting all along.

And yet maybe it won't be quite what he expects:

"Well when you think of the shape of this place, you got the Creator, who's obsessed with the idea of this 'deceit gene,' right? Wants to find someone without it, someone free of deceit. And he's a submissive y'know--got a contract same as anyone. So he drags all of our sorry asses into this city that says, first, fuck each other but do it by the numbers--our numbers. And then goes 'n tells us we gotta sign contracts if we wanna walk anything close to free." He's had years to think about this--for him, by now, it all feels quite clear.

"So what do we collectively do? We see a city that's damn well begging for deceit on all sides 'n we say 'Ha! Sure, we'll take your system 'n the letter of your law and we'll sign on these dotted lines, but jokes on you; we'll just live as we please in all your blindspots. You want us to trick you? Well shit, we can trick you.' It's deception all over. The law demands it. And the Creator's out there wringing his hands wondering why he can't find anyone free from deceit."

He shakes his head, laughing a little at the irony and the contradiction of it all, the vulgarity of this whole place.

It's a thought K has had, too. Irony and how this place encourages what it claims to denounce, what all the rhetoric lists in terms of condescension. And he had accepted it then: he lied to Joshi, he worked to deceive Luv and Deckard. He deserved to be here, wherever here is, whatever the explanation for this place is.

But this is different. He is in open defiance now of what he's been told he must do, but he's being as up front about it as the situation demands. He is being honest.

"I am trying not to be," he points out, but it's disingenuous; he knows he'll omit something if the consequences are severe enough for someone he cares about. "Why do you say the contracts the worst of it?"

"Oh it's not on you," Vrenille waves it aside not to be dismissive but because there are certain things that, it deserves to be acknowledged, are bigger than anyone--things that are structural and systemic. K shouldn't feel he carries this one on his shoulders when he doesn't.

That's part of why Vrenille's pointing to the contracts as the worst, though also, this part is a little difficult for him to explain. He understands it when it sits in his own mind, but then as soon as he tries to say it aloud, it always seems to lose something. He tries though, to at least come close, to convey something to K of what he's realised in his time here.

"I think maybe it's 'cause the contracts, they're to do with the law here, right? And...well, it took me a long time to work this out 'cause I guess I'd always thought that the law and truth were on the same side together. I don't think that's it though. I think when it comes right down to it the law's probably one of the worst tools there is for getting to the truth. 'Cause the law doesn't care 'bout truth, it cares 'bout law."

He doesn't want K to misunderstand him here, so to clarify--"I'm not saying people who work for the law don't care 'bout truth. I'm not saying you don't. But the law itself?" He shakes his head. "That's something else. Truth is messy. Telling the truth? That's even more messy. And there's a lotta truths the law can't hear. I think...anytime you got something fixed that you're holding folks to the letter of, you're gonna miss half the truth by doing it. And then you got deceit built in. Two sides of a page, y'know?"

[He's just praying they haven't taken away his communicator or restricted him to speaking only to Doms]

K?

[They haven't, and he's awake, so he answers promptly.

It's only one syllable, one letter, but he doesn't like the sound of it.]

Jesus?

They're gone. Rosita and V and Hakkyuu, at least a half dozen others. Have you heard any guards talking in there?

[It's not a well organized prison, not in the ways K has been documenting; he hadn't noticed that no one has been by in hours because it happens from time to time, but now he pauses to listen.]

There are people here talking but I can't hear them. No one has been by to check me in six hours.

What do you mean gone?

They were abducted.

There's a rescue operation; I'm launching my own with Vrenille.

Abducted by who?

...you don't know.

No. I don't know much yet.

I wanted you to know, in case... [He hesitates. He doesn't do this, he doesn't do 'if I don't return' speeches.

But he'd told Tara he'd be back to keep running the Hilltop, and instead he'd died. He'd assumed he'd be back. The thought of assuming anything so easily now just twists up inside of him.]

No.

[K says it flatly, firmly, cutting across the beginning of that speech.]

Keep the line open. I can help, I've conducted entire cases remotely before.

[Jesus flips on the video and seems to switch modes entirely. He's no longer here explaining why K might never hear from him again; now he's on a mission, with a new ally and a new set of skills to use.]

I'm heading over to V's to see if there were any clues left.

Two Dominants and a Submissive, all from the Up?

[K switches modes too; he was a blade runner, his job was to retire replicants, but he had to find them first. That was where he excelled, and he settles to it again now quickly.]

Those are just the ones I know personally. I don't know who else is missing but there are plenty of people going after them.

[As he walks he shows K glimpses of people around them, people worrying]

It happened fast.

I'll check the network.

[And try to figure out if he can make it out to help in person, but he's less sure of that success so he keeps it to himself.]

When?

Sometime after I went to bed.[He tries to think when that was] After three, might still be ongoing.

[K is quiet for a moment, listening to someone Jesus is sidling past until he can't anymore, then continues:]

Hakkyuu is a fighter. V, too. Whatever's going on has some force or some support behind it.

Watch the guards.

You think SIN guards might be doing something?

I think nothing happens in this city that whoever is running it doesn't approve or can't effect, and they work for them.

Okay. I'll try to walk near a few, maybe you'll notice something I haven't.

I need to see most of their faces to be able to read them. I know that makes it obvious.

V's place first, then.

[He doesn't know if any guards would bother talking about it in public, and he doesn't want to spend time hoping and searching when there could be active clues at V's.

He picks the lock when he gets there, but the place is clean.]

Nibbles?

[They wouldn't take the cat, would they?

But no- Nibbles is easily found.]

[K has gone quiet while Jesus walks, the line still open but muted; when he gets to the door though K is back, and it's not that he's forgotten about Nibbles at all - he hasn't - but he doesn't react until Jesus finds the cat safe, and then his brow is furrowing with concern.]

How long will he be okay on his own?

He's well fed, he won't starve anytime soon and I'll leave some food out. The bigger worry is water...

If something happens to me, you can ask someone else to come take care of him.

You need to check in with me regularly. You pick the interval.

[Jesus knows better what it's like out there, what his plan is, what's reasonable.]

And to be careful.

Every hour. If I haven't contacted you in two, start to worry.

Don't be that guy everyone hates. Hit your check ins.

[He'll start to worry far sooner than two hours later.]

Can you fill the sink for Nibbles?

Yeah.

[He starts the sink filling]

Don't worry. I'm going to need your help, I'll be calling you as much as I can.

[K frowns, doesn't bother wishing out loud, but he does glance around his own cell again briefly, studying the door.]

There's no sign of struggle or fighting? He hasn't been there?

Well, Nibbles has food. So he was here in the last forty-eight hours at least.

Okay. I'll keep an eye on this but I'm going to try something.

...From prison?

Choom...

You ok?

[K's answer comes back immediately, and he doesn't waste time with text.]

V - where are you?

[ Switching to voice, he's not quite ready to show his face just yet ]

Apartment with Nibbles.

Meant to come see ya sooner...

Never mind that.

[He's not panicky, not by other people's standards, but his voice is very direct and very firm, the closest he's ever sounded to a police officer since V has known him.]

Are you okay?

[ The extended silence on V's end of the line might begin the answer. The heavy sigh continues it. ]

Couldn't tell ya.

I feel... numb.

[Jesus has already told him some. V's answer isn't encouraging.]

V...

Let me see. Please.

[ Hesitant but unable to pin down why, eventually there's a video feed that joins his audio.

One side of his face is a collage of bruises, old lacerations tight red lines in his complexion.

He looks like he went a few rounds with an 18-wheeler but lived to tell the tale. ]

Don't recommend the hospitality there. Couldn't tell ya where this came from though.

[ What else is there to do except try bury his head in humor? ]

[Most people communicate via tone and body language - and K does too. He prompts people to answer certain questions sometimes so he can match up expressions with words, but by and large he reads faces. Microexpressions. Cues.

It's harder through the screen, and V has cyberware which changes the signs K is used to reading in humans, but the tradeoff is he's open, easy to read even from the start. It means that K spends several long moments just watching him, just reading him, before finally he shakes his head gravely, brow furrowed.]

You're not okay.

[ He's not going to insult K's intelligence by pretending he's okay. Crest-fallen isn't quite his expression, but he's missing his usual spark of vitality. ]

No. 'm not.

[ Which is something for him to deal with because everybody else around him has their own shit to worry about.

Like K and jail. ]

They been treatin' ya okay in there?

I'm fine.

[He says it dismissively, with finality, like the subject is absolutely closed - unworthy of attention just now.

V was not only confined to one space - imprisoned himself - but who knows what happened to him there. K has already forgotten about anything that happened to him during the same timeframe. He doesn't like anything at all about what he's looking at now.]

Your contract deadline is up tomorrow. Do you have one?

[ Usually V'd gently prod an 'I'm fine' statement, explore whether that's really true or not. But the tone catches him off guard for a moment, and then there's the question about his contract date.

Truth is he'd forgotten about it with time twisting up the way it had. ]

Uh-- no. I don't.

[ The idea of going to jail should be so deeply disturbing to him his skin should be crawling. And yet... he's so tired mentally, physically. He's not sure he has it in him to run, or to fight. ]

[The thing is, K saw how much the prison upset V firsthand, when it wasn't even him who would have to stay behind in the cell. K tends to have stronger reactions to others suffering in his stead, it's true, but he remembers the deep, claustrophobic almost horror of it, the skincrawling need to be gone with its hooks just under V's skin an arm length in front of him.

He sees none of it now. What he does see is some kind of hurt, core deep and possibly essential. What he sees is someone knocked so far off himself he's almost a different person.

Someone who just got out of a cell of one kind, and does not need to go into another. He swallows, but it's an easy choice.]

Do you still have a copy of the contract you showed me?

[ It takes a moment longer than it usually would for V to catch up with where he thinks this might be headed. And even then it's a few beats longer of his remembering K's reasoning behind not signing.

So, when he speaks again, he sounds uncertain. ]

Uh, yeah. I didn't... it's here. Somewhere.

...why? Are you..?

[Most people in Duplicity know K as someone who could be mistaken as timid, who is quiet, who is unassuming. He's content to stand back and hold his tongue, to be obedient, because he's not an officer here. He has no authority here at all, not even an illusion of it.

But that's what he was made for, and once he's made up his mind, he's plenty capable of being assertive.]

Find the contract. If you still want it, sign it and send it over.

[Sometimes things you want to be aren't simple like you'd want 'em.]

[ He'd been guessing at the direction of the conversation and still it takes him by surprise. A flutter of surprise shining through the gloom. It's a relief and that's been in short supply lately. A relief because K should never have been in jail.

Outwardly the corners of V's optics prick with tears he's still able to produce. They don't fall but he does have to drop his head for a moment to gingerly dab them away. ]

Yeah, I do want that. ...but do you?

[If there was a chance K would back out before now, that completely evaporates the moment he sees that.

He reminds himself of V's voice that first day in the visitation room, sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do 'n make the consequences as bearable as possible. These consequences are no longer bearable.

Time for a new limit, somehow, some way:]

Someone told me I should pick my battles alongside people who care about me and do what they can to have my back.

Same goes for you.

Are you up?

[It's late but not that late. Ten thirty, he realizes, which means K might even just be at work.]

Yes.

I need your help. Can I come over?

In an hour.

Will that be soon enough?

An hour is fine.

[It will give him time to finish getting ready, to talk to Rosita.

But in reality it ends up being more like fifty minutes before he's knocking on the door.

He only knocks because he wants to give K that little measure of privacy to grieve.]

The other side of the door is silent. Even when K does finally approach, his steps are quiet on the floor, he turns the handle carefully.

The apartment is neat and clean and looks like no one lives here at all except for Nibbles' food and water dish tucked out of the way against the island. All the lights are turned off except the one in the smaller bedroom and a stove light in the kitchen.

K tips his head towards the bedroom, which matches the rest of the apartment except for the wrinkles where K was clearly sitting on top of the bedspread, and Nibbles is sitting on the corner, freshly disturbed from his nap in K's lap, and makes a soft sound of greeting when he sees Jesus.

Coming into an apartment as stripped bare as this one is all the confirmation he needs. He stops in the doorway, taking it all in with a stricken, wounded expression. He moves listlessly from the doorway to the counters to the bedroom and finally looks at K.

"Nibbles?" He hadn't expected the cat to still be here, and he kneels to greet him, to look up at K.

What happens now? He had always thought it every time a new family sent him back and that is exactly what this feels like. He'd grown so attached to V, to the safety with him, to the thought of everything they shared and never had to speak of.

Gone now. And what about K?

K stands in the middle of a room that had never felt like his, that he had never bothered even to unpack his few belongings from the Down, and gives Jesus a helpless shrug when their eyes meet. He doesn't know why Nibbles is still here and V isn't. He doesn't know why any of this is happening. He never did.

"I'm so sorry," he says, so soft it's barely audible; sorry he didn't tell Jesus sooner, sorry he has to now, sorry he couldn't do anything to change it. Sorry he doesn't have anything better to offer, sorry Jesus is looking at him like that.

Just sorry.

"I'm sorry I couldn't stay earlier." When he'd had the mission to focus on, when he'd had to leave.

There's space beside him, beside Nibbles, and he glances at it and then at K. "Come here?"

K shakes his head, draws in a breath that he has to gather in slowly, like moving too fast will cause something to break or shift.

"There was nothing to do here," he says, then glances back towards the main part of the apartment - empty, for now, and he's not sure which he prefers. By the time he looks back Jesus is inviting him in closer and he finds he does want to go. He does want to be close, if he has to be.

When he eases down to the edge of the bed, Nibbles arches up to rub against his ribs and he offers his hand, lets the cat pet itself on his outstretched palm for a few moments before he wanders closer to Jesus instead. He watches all of this, feeling lightheaded, feeling dizzy in a way that won't stop.

"Will you take him?"

"He's yours, K. He was left with you." Jesus pets Nibbles but he looks over at the other man. "I don't care what the city says, Nibbles belongs to you now."

"I have no idea how to take care of him," K answers, and there's a faint edge of something that could be panic if it were less passive, less deeply sunken into him.

"And someone could take him away any day. I don't want that. I want him safe. I'm not safe."

"K," he turns to him, lays a hand on his cheek, holds his gaze. "Even if I take him, he's yours. Even if I protect him, he's yours. Okay?"

Under Jesus's hand, K shivers so faintly it can only be felt - but what can be felt is it doesn't quite stop. It takes him a moment to look up to bring his eyes to Jesus's, to look back from inches away.

He couldn't take care of Joi, and she was a program on a piece of technology in his pocket. He couldn't take care of V, who was his own person, his own capable, competent person. He has no idea how he's supposed to take care of something as precious, to him, as a cat.

"Dreadfully distinct against the dark," K murmurs, and reaches up to touch Jesus's wrist.

His hand splays gently against K's cheek, fingertips into his hair, and his brow furrows. "What does that mean?"

K shakes his head, gently so as not to dislodge Jesus's hand, leans into it faintly after.

"It won't mean much," he's sure. There's no reason it would. "Something I use to - something I use."

His fingers slip further back into K's hair and they're forehead to forehead, and Jesus wants to just keep him like this a while.

"Tell me about it? Please." He wants to know. He wants to know what it means to K, even if he never knows the original meaning behind such a cryptic phrase.

In its way, it's an easier topic than V, than Duplicity, than contracts or pets or relationships. It's steady and known, indelible and fixed.

He doesn't answer right away regardless, swallowing as he relaxes against where they're touching now. He still has one hand shadowing the movement of Jesus's on him, and the fingertips of his other hand brush his knee every bit as lightly.

"It's from my baseline script," he does finally offer, though. "And dreadfully distinct against the dark, a tall white fountain played. It means... a lot of things. It's the last line."

Baseline. He remembers K talking about it before. He can imagine that it's comforting, in its way.

"What did it mean just now?"

"It means thank you." Which is true. He licks his lips and tries again: "It means something going right."

It means he is filled with dread for the month ahead, but Jesus is still here now.

"I always liked that it ended on the only thing that felt hopeful in it."

He wonders if the people who wrote the script had any idea K would find something hopeful in it.

He smiles, thinks he'd fight through a lot of people to give K a little more hope.

"I'll take care of Nibbles. But as soon as you have a place of your own, he belongs with you. No one else is going to make sure he has the right number of sweaters for winter. He needs you, K."

K's brow furrows, but he doesn't open his eyes again to check how serious Jesus is being. He already knows.

"I know you don't think that's true," he says, dully. "You said he'd be fine inside. I have to go back to the Down soon and I don't know who they'll put me with. Then I'll have two months to find another contract."

And they both know how that went last time.

"K," pleading softly, but he can't bring himself to finish that thought. So he switches to something else, something even harder to say. "V isn't the only Dominant who needs you. He's not the only person who needs you on the outside."

This time K does open his eyes, and he does pull back enough to be able to read Jesus's features better. To not force either of them to say the difficult things right now, things - in K's case, the loss fresh and still feeling like nothing so much as an imminent crash he can't stop or turn - that he might not even mean when he's calmer.

He has no idea what to do about it, but he can't say no when Jesus is saying his name like that, telling him that he's needed, looking at him like that. He has no idea what to do, but he can't just say no either.

He kisses him instead.

He knows this is probably going to end the same way: with K in prison because it's the only way he feels he has freedom of choice. And he knows he can't ask someone to give that up.

So for now he kisses K back, careful at first and then with a ferocity that surprises him. But all that pain has to go somewhere, and K at least understands it.

It surprises K a bit, too, but he adapts quickly - it feels better, anyway, than the great yawning hole he'd only just started to build over and now finds himself plummeted back down into, finds himself sinking faster.

It feels a bit like a lifeline, this touch when everything else hurts, this connection. So he's surprised a moment and then he straightens up to meet it, to be here now anyway, deepening the kiss and easing closer to Jesus where they're both sitting.

Don't go.

He's silently asked this of K before, and just like before he already knows he's just going to support whatever K decides to do, no matter how it hurts.

What matters is he has K right now, so he lets the kiss deepen and he lets himself cling to K in a way he normally wouldn't.

Please don't go, too.

He'll never tell, never mention it again, at least not in the conversations they have with words, with voices; but that's not now. Jesus is the one who first showed him how to do this, how to let another person pull him in despite his better judgment, and K is an excellent student.

He has a month of a Dominant he didn't know before yesterday and two months of uncertainty after that, but that's not now. Now, he reaches as much to pull Jesus to him as hold on himself, and he takes his time with this kiss, and does not stop until Jesus signals that he needs to.

He has all but crawled onto K's lap at this point when he breaks for air, his fingers still tangled in K's hair.

"It's going to be okay. I'm going to make sure we're okay," he murmurs.

And K is only too happy to welcome him, to pull him closer, to steady him against him with arms wrapped around tight. When times are better, times are calmer, he's in awe that Jesus lets him be this close; now, he tries to wrap himself in that privilege, to breathe in this space Jesus makes for him beside him.

"I'm trying," he promises, licking his lips as he catches his breath. "I just don't understand how."

"One thing at a time." He kisses him again, lighter this time, because he doesn't know exactly how either. You feel it, you absorb the loss, and you keep going.

He can offer the thing that's going to keep himself moving.

"I need your help. But it's okay if you can't right now."

K keeps wishing there were something he could do, some caseload to work on, some patrol shift to pick up or evidence to catalogue. Instead he's just sitting here waiting, hurting, with nothing he can do to influence it either way.

The kiss is welcome, in a way he would be shocked by himself for feeling only a few months ago. He's stroking his thumb along the inside of Jesus's wrist when he says that though, and he immediately focuses on something he might be able to actually do like a lifeline.

"Tell me what you need," he says without hesitation.

The way K snaps to is familiar, and he nods to himself, certain he's doing the right thing by asking.

"I'm going back to Veracity to look for more clues about the abductors. I need someone here to gather the intel as I send it back--someone to keep it safe so it isn't all kept in a central location. My partner has someone he'll be sending information back to the same way. But you're good at this--this was part of your job, right?"

Yes," he answers just as promptly, relieved that what Jesus is saying is readily achievable for that very reason.

"Analytical programs and equipment wasn't always available to me in the field, so I'm used to processing and recording data internally until such time as I can commit them to an official server." When K talks about anything to do with his former occupation, the uncertainty he's plagued by in Duplicity almost constantly vanishes; this he's comfortable with, this he knows he's good at doing. He was made for it. "I'd offer to go with you, but I think it would cause more problems than it would solve."

"No, I need you here," he shakes his head. "I'm used to getting in and out alone. I'll be fine. I just need to know the information is getting back to someone who can keep it safe."

"I can do that," he promises. He will do that.

"What are you looking for? Who are you going with?" It's so much easier to focus on some other problem than what's going on inside these walls.

"When I was there with Vrenille I interrogated a man who seemed to be near the top of things. At the least, he had a lot of information we didn't have time to go through. I'm after that." And there's a focus to him, a vibrance at the chance to be doing something for this place.

"I heard most of those people were taken in by the SIN guards and the city officials." And misses being able to just go and look up those results.

"And that the city itself is unstable."

He frowns. "Unstable how? Duplicity has had two civil wars--could they be on the brink of that?"

"No - physically." He can at least imagine a toxic city under the ocean. There was a neighborhood like that in Los Angeles.

He frowns and considers a moment. "If you end up needing help and call, I'll come anyway."

"I know you will." He thinks back, grins, and it feels good to smile. "I remember you breaking out of prison. Pretty sure not much could stop you if I called. It didn't hurt, did it?"

"No," he answers, distracted by the sudden grin, unsure what it means in practice. It keeps him from withdrawing too much as he considers Jesus's face.

"I don't... Like to do that. Sometimes people are scared by it."

He shakes his head slightly; he wasn't frightened by it. "Impressed, I'd say. For me, anyway. It made me feel a little better about your choice...knowing you weren't stuck where you didn't want to be."

"It's part of why prison doesn't worry me." He could even still get out again, he thinks, if he was willing to do real harm to the guards. He's not for just himself though.

"If I'd known it could make it better for you I'd have said." Another, not so direct apology.

"I didn't know what would've made it easier on me. I was just trying to support you." Which is what he'll do again in three months, when K will likely reach the same conclusion he did the first time around.

"Where are you going to be staying?"

"I was told I could stay here for the month," he answers, automatically glancing towards the door again, towards Nibbles, and then back at a man who probably doesn't realize that support is such an odd word to K that he doesn't know what to do with it.

"I don't have anywhere besides the Down housing to go anyway. Not that won't cause problems."

It's odd how empty this place seems without V, even though V hadn't decorated or done much to make the space his own.

In the end, he was only asking so he'd know where to go to find K.

"I can stay here tonight. If you want."

K is quiet then, his gaze still scanning over Jesus's face, lingering at each feature; the shape his hairline makes and the pieces of it that always fall loose of how he ties it back first; the shape of his eyebrows; the blue of his eyes; the curve of his nose, the way it comes to a fine point; the fullness of his beard, and the way his lips form his smile, the way they frame the flash of his teeth when he talks or grins.

He brushes his fingers along the slope of his neck. "I want you to," he says, delicately, clearly, "But I'm not allowed to have visitors. I don't want you in trouble."

"I'll leave before first light, then." But he'll stay the night. He holds K's gaze, the way he's being studied, and fights a shiver of feeling. "I want to be with you. We both lost someone..."

The same someone.

"I'm sorry," he says again, immediately, not the least bit perfunctory even though it's almost reflexive, even though something in his expression crumbles ever so slightly.

"You found him, you brought him back, and I -" He shakes his head. "I'm sorry."

He let them both down.

"I found him with you," Jesus lays his hand on K's cheek, urging him to look at him, to hear him. "I couldn't have done that without you. You saved him as much as I did."

"I was right here." Loading the dishwasher, wiping down the counter. He's not sure when, exactly, V vanished but he knows - "I was between him and the door, and I didn't even know until he was gone."

Some officer he is. Some friend, to not even know.

"K, I'm dead. Not just dead; I should be in a coffin. We have no idea how we're brought here. No one knows. And no one expects you to be able to stop however it is they bring or take people." His other hand on K's other cheek, desperate to be heard.

"It is not your fault."

He lets himself be steadied, although raising his eyes to meet Jesus's again feels harder than breaking out of that cell had. He makes himself do it anyway, focuses on the warmth of Jesus's palms at his cheeks, at the way he leans into every word he says like he doesn't need K to believe it because he does all on his own.

But he wants him to believe it. He wants it to be enough to hold back K's doubt, which is cancerous and deep, which will kill him a second time if it gets half a chance.

He doesn't agree, but he doesn't argue either, and leans his forehead against Jesus's. Wraps his arms around Jesus, tight, and hangs on.

He slides his arms around K then, chin on K's shoulder, and wishes he knew what to say, what to do. This is all he has. This is all he can offer: being here, even if it means defying the city.

"I don't blame you for this."

Do you have dark thoughts?

Did they program you to have dark thoughts?

Do you think it's some kind of corruption, these dark thoughts?

K shivers, hangs on a little tighter, although this still isn't even a fraction of his strength. He wants to hold Jesus here, yes, but not to hurt him, physically or otherwise.

Jesus doesn't blame him. K turns his face into his hair, and breathes in, and tries to let that be enough for him, too. "I think this is fear," he confesses, whisper-soft.

Maybe it's a spot of rust or something.

He's scared, too.

If he holds K like this, if they don't let go, could he just vanish right out of his arms?

"What are your thoughts doing?"

He doesn't startle; he's spoken the script aloud before after all, pieces of it anyway, his part of the call and response. Hearing something along the similar lines from Jesus isn't the strangest thing that's happened.

What kind of power do you have against the dark?

"Circling." Why are these things happening? "I don't want you to go."

Do you think you can protect people against the dark?

"I don't want this to be what our lives are."

Jesus doesn't either. But it is. And this is how his life has been for over a decade: uncertainty and fleeting moments, and sudden losses. He doesn't know how to make it easier, not for himself and not for K. You just keep going, that's all there is.

"I'm not going." Not right now. He has the mission, but not right now. "I want to stay with you."

Dreadfully distinct against the dark.

K is aware that he uses his baseline to self soothe; he's aware that in some ways it's destructive, but at least in a way he understands. Emotions are trying to tear him apart and doing a decent job of it, and until Jesus came in the door, until he insisted he wasn't leaving again, the only thing keeping him moving forward was that script over and over and over again in his head.

Jesus says he'll stay. Jesus wants to stay. K takes several moments to let that sink in but when it does, he nods.

"Okay." It may be trouble, and maybe it won't change anything, but he does believe him. "I want that. I want to stay with you, too."

"Come lay down with me." Nibbles is on the bed, and at first Jesus tries to arrange himself around him but the cat hops off the bed and sits, tail flicking, watching and waiting for the humans to get settled.

K was already dressed for bed, which in this case just means he's barefoot. It means he's willing to let go of Jesus long enough to let him climb up onto what really is a nice king-sized bed, with a thick comforter and soft pillows. It's a nice room. K just doesn't want to be in it alone.

But he does follow, and he does curl up on his side facing Jesus and already reaching for him again, unknowingly echoing what the other man had wondered before: is holding onto each other enough to keep them here, or can they vanish right out from under each others' hands?

He holds gently onto K and then his hold is firmer, his arms all the way around him, the two of them tucked in together. Nibbles jumps back onto the bed, sniffs at K's ear and offers an inquisitive meow.

The noise K makes in return is clearly one Nibbles is used to from him - low, soft, almost a word but not quite - because he comes straight over to where K lifts a hand to invite him. He meows again and K offers a murmured, "I know," and rubs his ears. This is how the cat settles where he stands then, draped across both of their hips, curled up and purring.

"He misses him too. He keeps looking."

"Oh, Nibbles..." He hadn't considered this until K says it, and now he sees it and it pains him. He pets the cat, cooing to him nonsense sounds.

"He has both of us. And I don't care what your Dom says, it's not going to keep me away from you."

There's something soothing about watching Jesus doing the same thing with Nibbles that K does; the genuine fondness despite the way K sees Jesus looking at him sometimes, the thread he can't quite place.

It doesn't matter. K trusts him, and he proves why in the next moment.

"He says I'm an unruly Submissive, and I need stricter rules to be successful." K has no idea what to do with this information, it's so far from what he's used to - and yet, he knows, true enough from a program perspective. "That I can earn back the freedoms I've taken advantage of so far with obedience."

Of course. Of course that's what the Dom said. "If you want to obey his rules, we will. But if you don't, I'll be here however many times you want."

"I don't want the rules to get worse," he hedges.

But he also adds: "This is against them, now. I'm not supposed to have visitors here either." He doesn't care as much as he once would have.

"Tell me what you want, and I'll do it," he says, but makes no move to get up until then.

"What I want isn't anything to do with this place," he says after a moment of groping after an answer. The fingers of one hand curl tighter into the fabric of Jesus's shirt under them.

"I'm worried it's part of what got V into trouble. Got him removed from the program."

He strokes K's back. "How could it be? You obeyed his rules. People just vanish here, K...a lot of people. It's like death."

And that makes it perhaps too easy for Jesus to accept.

"You didn't hear how hard he pushed to get me to consider signing with him. Some of the things he said."

Things that K isn't sure even now he believes, but that he'd been willing under the circumstances to give it a chance. To let V prove he meant them, and now he's gone.

"He was in open defiance of the program. In a prison run by it."

Jesus frowns. "He didn't trick them, K. They saw your contract. They approved it. This is not your fault."

"I've worked for the government. I've seen what gets through sometimes until it makes it to the desk of someone who gives a shit." It used to be him.

But he's not actually trying to argue. He tucks his head closer to Jesus's chest.

"I just don't want it to happen anymore."

"I don't, either." And they're both helpless to change it but he holds onto K as if that will make a difference, tucks K's head closer, chin atop K's hair. "You have me right now."

K turns his face into the warm pocket made by Jesus's shoulder, neck, and jaw and closes his eyes, just listening to him breathing, feeling the syncopated beat of their hearts.

"I'm glad you came," he confides to the safe space created between them, breathing in the specific mix of skin and sweat and earth and liquor and something else that's uniquely Jesus.

His lips brush the tendons of Jesus's neck, first just proximity, then a deliberate, grateful kiss.

He strokes K's neck, his back, holding onto him. He doesn't have to think as hard as some others might, to remember the earliest and heaviest losses he'd felt. There's the mission coming up but, "This is where I want to be."

They share that. K isn't coded like a child, he doesn't throw himself on the floor and scream out his rage and hurt, but he's still rocked by something so momentous that he's never felt before. He's used to death. He's made to kill his own kind - an act humans have a completely separate name for, they consider it so heinous - but he's never lost people he cared more deeply about than he does any citizen of Los Angeles.

His hand follows the line of Jesus's arm up until he can slide their fingers together, hold on firm. "If he comes back, we'll tell him you were here to borrow something."

"I'll hear him coming." He checked that the door was locked; he'll hear the key in the door with plenty of time to hide. "He won't see me."

"I don't want to get you into trouble," he says again, and he means it. If Denis tries to hurt Jesus, K honestly doesn't know what he'll do.

"I don't want you to be alone right now." It's worth the risk. It's worth a night in jail--but it probably wouldn't even come to that. It's worth paying a fine, repaying Drake for it.

"I don't want to be alone right now."

This first, K might have argued, or at least continued to discuss. The second, though, is not something he can push back against, is not something he wants to push back against at all, so he falls silent after the breath he takes initially.

"Then we won't," he finally settles on. "The apartment is usually too quiet to sleep much anyway."

"It's too loud here for me," he's so used to the near silence of a rural camp, especially one made up of people who have to be quiet to avoid drawing the attention of walkers. "I keep thinking I'll get used to it."

"Even up here?" The suite is twenty floors in the air, and the windows are thick and soundproof. It reminds K of his apartment in Los Angeles, except there's a view outside the windows.

He traces an idle finger over top of Jesus's shirt, following the line of one of his ribs like it's a line of Braille in the dark.

"It's an artificial quiet. I hear it and when I start to fall asleep I hear footsteps." Shuffling, dragging footsteps, nails on the walls.

It's strange to have that thought, that admission, juxtaposed with the way he arches slightly to let K have all the access to his ribs he likes. But he's used to horrible thoughts being paired with something pleasant, and this almost makes him feel at home.

When K reaches the end of his easy range of motion over Jesus's side he splays his fingers to feel the way the other man's breathing expands his ribcage, the way the bones pull closer again on the exhale. The way he lives under K's hand.

"I wish I could do something to change that for you. To let you get some rest."

"You do," he says, a little surprised that it isn't neon obvious to K. But then, Jesus does wake up several times a night, and K has been there when Jesus has got up to check the doors and windows--even though he's already done it before they ever fell asleep.

"When I wake up and see you, it's easy to fall asleep. To know we're okay." Most of the time, at least.

He strokes his fingers through K's short, soft hair. "It's worth risking a fine or some time in the Zoo to have nights like this with you." Under his ribs, K will feel how steady his heartbeat is. How calm.

Everything feels more complicated now; in Los Angeles life wasn't simple by any means, but he understood why things were the way they were. He didn't blame anyone.

Here, he hears Jesus say that and knows it for the truth; he's certainly seen it, and he sees it now. But it still feels precarious, given the consequences hanging over their heads for seeking out too much comfort with one another, as if they should be able to just find it with a contract partner instead.

"I wish I could offer this more often then," he amends; that they didn't have to worry about fines or the Zoo. "But then - that's part of the challenge for you, isn't it?"

Jesus has spent his whole life dodging the law. Sometimes it caught him and sometimes it didn't, but it's never occurred to him to simply follow laws that don't make sense to him. Arbitrary rules put in place by a Dominant don't register at all.

"Hm? What do you mean?"

"Finding ways around the rules the program sets out," he answers, finding the dropoff where bone stops and it's only muscle protecting Jesus's body from the outside world. He doesn't say it like it's a bad thing, just something he's noticed.

"Finding loopholes to defy the Dominants and the guards."

Edited 2022-11-06 05:46 (UTC)

"Some of their rules make sense." And he obeys them. He pays for his coffee, he goes to work.

"But there's no reason you and I shouldn't be allowed to stay together if we want. We obey all their other rules. We even have sex sometimes. I'm better in a lot of ways when I'm with you."

In the dark he smiles, though, the mischief maybe lost between them. Or maybe not. How well can K see? "But yeah. I don't mind finding ways to make our lives easier even if it bothers them."

Edited 2022-11-06 05:49 (UTC)

He can see it. Even if he couldn't, he'd be able to hear it. For a moment he just soaks that in, tries to let it salve the hurt wrapped around his heart like barbed wire.

"I don't know how much easier it makes things for us," he hedges, because he knows how missing quota has gone, how housing violations might go, how tonight might end if Denis comes in before he has been the other two nights, "But you do make my life better. I prefer that."

"If you ever don't want to take the risk, we won't." Nothing they can do to him here compares to the horrors of home. He doesn't want to be forced. He doesn't want any of the things they can and will do to him to make him comply. But the punishments aren't like what he's come to expect.

He doesn't have the right to decide what K risks, though.

It's such a specific, uncomplicated sentiment - and wholly doomed of course. The man that showed up to take over K's contract could punish him for Jesus acting out and probably will. Jesus's Dom could do the same. They could be jailed or worse.

Surely Jesus knows this if K does. He says this anyway, and K watches him with the cat, and his answer is a soft, sweet kiss when he turns back from talking to Nibbles.

It's just past midnight and he's coming in from the rain. He has Nibbles under his coat which makes this trickier, but he ends up climbing in through the window into K's bedroom and then he slides it shut behind him.

K does need to sleep but not as much as humans generally do; it's easy to hear that something is happening, and K is sitting up in the bed and watching silently for what that something will be.

He recognizes the silhouette against the window, and the lights from outside show an impressed smile.

"Should I sound the alarm?" he asks quietly.

"Better not. I brought you a bribe," he says, opening his coat so Nibbles can jump down.

"What -" K blinks when he sees the cat, and then he's up out of the bed, crossing over to shut the door all the way so Nibbles doesn't wander into the rest of the house.

Then he comes over to Jesus's side and where the cat is still getting his bearings. His smile settles, hand brushing Jesus's arm in grateful, surprised welcome before he folds down to sit cross legged on the floor and scratch Nibbles' ears.

"I can't believe you broke into Sara's apartment to bring the cat for a visit." But he's smiling when he says it.

"I didn't want to disturb her if she was sleeping." That's a tiny reason, sure. The main one is the look on K's face right now, and the smile he'd given Jesus as he came in the window.

"Are you doing okay here?"

"I like it here a lot better than the apartment." He hasn't spread out any more here than he has in the suite he shared with V for a short time, but his body language is different, and he's sleeping without a shirt.

"And I get to see the puppies whenever I want. Sara seems to like it, too."

He imagines it for a moment, K just surrounded by puppies, and smiles.

"Do you get to keep one? Mango?"

The serene smile brought out by Nibbles arcing up into K's hand and purring loud enough to be heard across the room twists a bit on him, though it doesn't go away.

"Sara wants me to," he hedges. "I want to. I just don't know if I should."

It troubles him, both the idea of getting to raise and care for and love another living creature, and what might happen to her if anything happens to him.

"Have you seen them? The puppies?" he asks instead.

"No," he shakes his head slightly. "If I'd known seeing them was an option I might've left Nibbles home."

Cats and dogs historically don't get along, but Nibbles is an especially chill cat so he finds himself hoping.

Which, when K glances up and sees the look on his face even in the dim light in the bedroom, forgoes the question of if he wants to see them.

"He can stay here for a little bit. He won't hurt anything." K bends down, briefly, to set his forehead against Nibbles' in a reverse of what the cat sometimes does to him when he's feeling particularly affectionate. Then he pushes up to his feet and finds a shirt to pull on.

"They're two doors down, at Cassidy's."

Another of those soft smiles as he watches them, and decides scaling the building with a cat in his coat was definitely worth it.

"How many are there?"

"Nine," K answers, smiling in spite of himself, and motioning Jesus after him to the door. He also puts a finger to his lips as if that was in question, leading them quietly down the hall and out the front door. He doesn't bother to put on shoes, given how short and well kept the walk is.

"Have you ever seen puppies?" he asks once they're outside.

"Every now and then. Not in years, though. And I've never had one. Puppies were always things my friends had, or they were always there in raves and drum circles." He glances up at K and tries to picture him at either venue, grins.

"Sara says it just needs food, water, and love," he answers, clearly quoting someone else with the way he lists everything.

"And blankets. She says they have fur so they don't need a sweater." K seems dubious.

Jesus frowns. "They're pitbulls," he says. "They don't really have much fur. They have less than the goat my neighbor had--it got out one winter and froze to death."

How cold does it get here? He doesn't know, but probably cold enough for frostbite.

K doesn't actually stop, but his stride does falter for a moment as he leads the way up the stairs to Cassidy's door, eyes darting to Jesus.

He is, it must be said, at least mildly horrified by this prospect.

"We're going into winter," he says, dismayed. "I was considering working something out anyway. Maybe just to be safe."

Absolutely just to be safe.

"I doubt they'll be leaving the puppies out anywhere cold," he says. The puppies seem very well cared for. "But it doesn't take much for the power to go out. If sweaters can help, why not just make sweaters? I already found a place that makes them in Nibbles's size."

"Are they expensive?" he asks, pleased that Jesus is being proactive on Nibbles' behalf. K has been a bit distracted himself, so he just takes this as evidence that he made the right decision by turning over care, at least temporarily.

"Hold on, let me make sure Apricot recognizes me," he cautions at the door, because there's definitely already a dog barking on the other side. A dog that sounds very large and intimidating, even though when she's visible down the hall she barely comes up to K's knees.

He waits until K gives the all clear before he steps inside and introduces himself to her.

"Fifteen bucks a sweater, so cheaper than it is to clothe myself," he says, although he'd steal anything Nibbles needed if he couldn't afford it. "And if they give me trouble, Drake will buy anything we need. But I'll ask around, see if anyone can teach how to make them."

Edited 2022-11-10 01:41 (UTC)

K is distracted for the next several moments murmuring to Apricot - "Easy now, it's just me. You know me. There you are, good girl." - and extending a hand to her, unafraid despite her raised fur and pinned back ears. It all comes right a moment later anyway, wagging her tail so hard her entire back end wags with it and sidling up to sniff at Jesus while K rubs her ears and sides.

"I'd like to learn," K says immediately, then. And: "This is Apricot. She's the mother."

Jesus's experience with dogs is of them as either friendly companions or half starved stays, so he treats her with some caution and doesn't linger long with introducing himself.

"She likes you."

K, glancing back at Jesus and seeing his hesitation there, stands up from where he's crouched to greet her, which sets her wagging again.

"She likes everyone. I'm told it's the puppies that make her bark at first. They're back here."

He follows K, checking windows and doorways with quick glances as they go. What he's really watching when they get there isn't so much the puppies as it is K with the puppies.

K leads him down a hall and into a nursery that did a better job of containing the puppies when they couldn't just jump over the sides of it. It's been built up a bit so they don't just spill out but there are excited yips and whining the moment they detect movement - and it triples when they recognize K at the door.

He's quick, then, to move forward and try to catch the forerunners and put them back into the whelping box, and most of the nine puppies are content to swarm his lap when he steps in and sits down - but the largest one, a rich butterscotch color with white markings, leaps again and again to lick his face, climbing all over her siblings to do it.

K grins at first, tipping his chin up as much as he can, but when Mango accidentally gets him right on the mouth with her tongue, he laughs.

Jesus watches from the doorway, then steps inside and closes the door behind them to contain the puppies as well as the noise.

"That one's yours?" He guesses, smiling, just watching the way K's face lights up a little.

The owner of this house is in a coma; the woman who comes to see him sometimes always makes herself known immediately if she's here, but given that they've been left alone so far, K can safely assume she's not.

K manages to subdue Mango by rubbing her sides and then her belly when she rolls over in his lap just like she likes, and instead of agreeing that she's his, what K says is, "This is Mango. She's the one Sara wants me to adopt."

He knows why K hesitates. But he smiles, warm, knowing. "I think Mango wants it, too."

K introduces the rest of the puppies like they've walked into a dining room with them seated around a table or something, but he comes back to Mango at the end and scoops her up against his chest.

"You want to pet her? They're warm, and they lick and chew a lot." Is this normal puppy behavior? He doesn't know, but he knows these do it all the time.

Edited 2022-11-15 01:50 (UTC)

He lets Mango sniff him, something she does for a minute because he smells like Nibbles, and then pets her, murmuring to her the way K had done to the mother.

"You could start your own rescue." The way things are going, the way animals find their way to K

K gives up Mango to Jesus, and that makes room on his lap for two more, which he's only too happy to indulge. He doesn't do babytalk the way some people do with puppies, but it's also true that what he murmurs to them isn't exactly words and isn't exactly not.

He blinks and looks up. "Rescue?"

"Yeah. You know, abandoned animals, injured animals. Ones who will need homes. Nibbles was lucky he has you, the puppies are lucky they have people." A mild shrug. Not all pets are as lucky.

K knows these things happen in the world. He's seen abandoned, injured, neglected humans all his life, and most of it wasn't even their fault. They're just trying to live in a world the generations before them left for them, trying to get away while other humans bar them from it.

But he looks down at the puppies, who don't understand them at all and so are wagging their floppy tails happily, mouths open and tongues lolling as they jockey for attention that K has momentarily failed to give them. For a moment, this new version of an old concept occurring to him for the first time, he looks nothing so much as stricken.

Then he resigns himself to it. "I don't understand why people don't help more."

"There are people like you who do," he says, when the shock of seeing something so soft on another person has faded. He lays his hand on K's shoulder and, because he's been told he's allowed, he leans in and kisses him lightly. Three puppies are immediately jumping up at him when he does though and he draws back, laughing.

K looks up at the touch, so he's ready when Jesus is there, kissing him; he keeps one hand up to deflect the worst of the puppy attack, letting them have a moment anyway, and smiles faintly into the space after.

"And you," he points out, because Jesus is taking care of Nibbles, too. "How much time do you have tonight?"

"How long do you want me to stay?" When they'd been sneaking into V's old suite it had been different. He doubts Sara has restrictive rules in place but he doesn't want to encroach, just the same.

"Long enough for me to talk to you about something," he hedges, carefully scooping puppies off his lap so he can stand up again without hurting them.

He hugs Mango to him a moment longer than the others, letting her wash his face over and over with her tongue before he sets her carefully down with her siblings.

"You can decide after that, but if you still want to stay, I'd like the company."

He'd like to stay. He came here hoping, even though he hadn't been sure bringing Nibbles would mean he'd have to leave.

"Talk about what?"

"Let's go back to the apartment," he suggests, petting Apricot's head on their way past, too.

"I don't want to be interrupted." It's Duplicity, so this could have a distinctly suggestive tint to it - and it doesn't not, honestly - but it's not foremost, either.

He leads the way back, quiet through the darkened house once more, and reaches down to scoop Nibbles up to keep him from running out the door as they come back through.

"Do you have any plans for next week?"

"Nothing special." He's forgotten next week is significant in any way. He shuts the door to keep Nibbles in and sits on the bed. "Did you want to do something?"

K has gotten much more comfortable with Nibbles over the month they lived together, and he tucks him close against his chest both to keep him warm and to scratch idly along the side of his head and ear - which masks the slightly deeper breath he takes as he tucks one leg under him to sit on the bed across from Jesus, facing him.

"I talked to some people," he starts, calm, but that's deceptively easy for him. "Vrenille is willing to let us use the Manor, and Barry will help me cook, and Sara has cleared all the rules I had there for a minute, so - if you wanted to. If you still want to. I thought we could have a Thanksgiving meal just a bit early."

Edited 2022-11-15 18:32 (UTC)

In all honesty, Jesus had forgotten he'd ever mentioned Thanksgiving to K.

Though K hides it well he saw that quick intake of breath, and he realizes there's just a touch of nervousness in his friend right now. It melts away any apprehension he has about the holiday. He looks down, letting himself just feel the startling strength of affection it brings on.

"Yeah," he says, emotion thick in his voice. "I'd like that."

K is confident in his ability to read people, and he remembers how Jesus had reacted to even the suggestion that they could maybe try to do something here. He's sure he saw what he saw, and in the reactions of the people he's asked since he's seen similar - it'll be good for everyone, he still believes. What he's less confident in is if something may have changed since then, or if he missed something.

K had intended to lean heavily on V at the time, of course, so that's one aspect that changed - but he's watching Jesus's face until the moment he looks away, and that faint tension lifts from him on an exhale.

"Yeah?" he echoes, lips tugging. "You can invite anyone you want. I haven't given any firm details to anyone so we can still change anything, but - I was clear that no fighting will be allowed."

That's what brings his eyes back to K. He remembers now telling K that was why he didn't celebrate; holidays were a tense time for him, full of a lot of angry, hurting boys seeking to take it out on each other, and a lot of staff who would rather have been with their own families instead.

He reaches up to cup K's face and just kisses him, and then just keeps kissing him.

K hadn't bothered trying to anticipate how Jesus would react; he had hopes, of course, but he'd already decided that if Jesus balked then that was that. No harm, no foul.

This is much better. He smiles as soon as he feels Jesus's touch on his face, and leans forward into the kiss; Nibbles slides out from between them and he lets him go, shifting forward a bit to be closer, taking his time with the kiss, too.

"Want me to stay tonight?" he murmurs, but isn't really done kissing K yet and sets about it again, just as slow.

There's innuendo in there, but there's also not; they've spent nights where this was all they did and he's enjoying this.

"I do," he admits the next time they break for breath; he does want that, he wants Jesus close, he wants to know what happens next after whatever that is he saw briefly on the other man's face in the half-light of the room.

"Is that okay?" Whether they do this, or more, or less. He just wants him to stay.

"This is where I want to be." And he would want to be there even if K said no, even if this moment he had to pack up Nibbles and go. This is where he's wanted to be for a few days now.

"Then stay with me," he says, warmly; the backs of his curled fingers trail lightly along the shape of Jesus's jaw through his beard, smooth carefully around the side of his neck to cup there when he leans his forehead close.

This time he doesn't kiss him as long, because then he's pulling K towards the bed, urging him to sit so Jesus can straddle him and give him full attention.

Jesus has seen a glimpse of how strong K is; he's the only one in Duplicity, besides the guards that didn't even know K's name or his serial number, how he wouldn't be able to move K if he didn't want to be moved, if he didn't allow it.

But for Jesus, he twists and bends and settles at a touch. Jesus barely has to pull at his hand before K is following him, barely has to turn back towards him before he's sitting and reaching to rub his hands up Jesus's back, pulling him close where he settles in turn.

He kisses him like this for a while, until Nibbles starts scratching at the door and draws his attention away.

"How long do you have with Sara?" Before the contract runs out.

K calls for Nibbles to bring him away from the door, though he doesn't get up from where he is, enjoying the weight of Jesus leaned against him.

"A couple weeks. I have to go back to the Down December 1st."

He strokes his fingers through K's hair, studying him through the dark. "And then prison?"

"Two months after that."

Something has changed about how he says it though - resigned more than resolved, duller than before. He doesn't want to hurt Jesus, hurt Sara, be hurt.

He just also doesn't see a way around it.

"I don't know what else to do, sweeting."

"I don't either. There aren't any good solutions. But I wish there was another way." He buried his face briefly against K's hair.

K doesn't rush him. When he'd been sitting alone in a cell he'd found that he'd missed this, with someone he chooses to be near him anyway, with someone who chooses to be here. He strokes his fingers gently along the back of Jesus's neck and lets him stay there as long as he will.

"I do too. I wish any of this made sense."

He exhales softly, gathering himself, brushing his lips against K's temple. "What made it okay for you to sign with Sara?"

"She needed a win," is the first thing that comes out of his mouth. She'd been upset with him in prison of course, but there was nothing any of them could do about that, not without signing a formal contract; and that was... before.

After all the grief from the pit, after Donna disappearing though, K had looked at Sara and seen something different. Something he could do something about.

"And I needed... something. Some space. Some room." Some time.

"I wish I could give you that." He breathes in the scent of him, K's skin and his sweat and the fabric of his clothes and the tobacco. He's missed this. "I used to be really good at finding people safe places to be."

"My job was dangerous," he says after a moment, voice low. "I rarely closed a case without being injured in some way, and I accepted that. I accept that. I'm not afraid of pain."

He could have taken fewer risks, been hurt less, but he always wanted the replicants he tracked down to have as much of a choice as he could.

"But this place goes after something else, and it doesn't fight fair. I don't think any of this is safe."

"I know." This place prioritizes the sorts of relationships Jesus studiously avoided having during the fall. The type that he has consciously chosen not to pursue.

"None of it is safe. But no relationship ever is, K."

He knows that, of course; every relationship he's ever had was combative, except the one programmed to focus on him as the center of her entire world.

He traces the muscle along the back of Jesus's shoulder, following to where it connects to the next muscle and back again.

"Why not?" he asks, instead of pointing out what they both already know. Why can't they be?

Because they aren't. Because Jesus doesn't even know what one looks like.

"Would you still feel safe with me, knowing you could lose me tomorrow?"

It's the easiest question he could have asked.

"I already do." He already knows either of them could disappear at any time - die any time, be killed any time. He's still here.

But the fact that's Jesus's go to reveals more about him than it does about K's answer: "But you don't."

Edited 2022-11-19 02:39 (UTC)

"I feel safe with you." Which terrifies him and makes him feel not safe. "It's complicated."

What matters is: "I want to be around you. I don't want you in prison, K, but I don't want you to sacrifice yourself to be free, either."

It is complicated, especially now; it had taken everything in him to trust what V had said, to take that chance, and then he was dumped right into the kind of contract he had been most afraid of. Even a man - or woman - who would actively have abused K in some way would have been preferable, for reasons he has difficulty explaining.

"The Dominant who took over when V - was gone." He takes a moment, steadies, keeps going. "He believed the things he was saying. He believed that I showed promise as a Submissive but that I needed... cultivation, is what he called it. He wanted me to earn back friends, earn back freedom. Earn any relationship outside of the one I'm meant to have with my contract partner."

Edited 2022-11-19 03:05 (UTC)

"He thought he was helping you," is what Jesus is hearing now.

"Are you okay with Sara? Has it damaged your friendship?"

"I'm being very careful," is his first answer, and he glances at the door when he does; they're being quiet, being careful, but Sara doesn't sleep much and when she does it's light. He's sure she knows Jesus is here.

He just needs, as he said, to be very careful. "I don't know how much of this is the temporary contract, and how much is... everything."

He sits back a little, looking at K. "She cares about you. Deeply. I don't think this could change that for her; I hope it hasn't for you."

"I know," he says, because he does. He remembers how desperately she'd been trying not to push him, how much she wanted to help. "I care about her too. That doesn't change."

There's just a lot, and a lot he doesn't try to talk about, doesn't see why he would.

He nods; he's glad about that. But he sits back slightly to be able to see K.

"Help me understand what you're going through?"

K has learned to trust Jesus insofar as talking about most things go, and this isn't a case of distrust necessarily - he just has no idea where to start.

Jesus sits back. K rubs his thumb along the crest of his hip and leans his shoulders back into the headboard, quiet for a long, long time.

"I'm not trying to be difficult," he finally leads with - for his friends, for any Dominants, for the program, for himself, right now. It's what he keeps circling back to when he tries to explain. "There's just... a lot that's changed, all at once."

Delivery!

On the morning of December 24th, a package will be delivered to K's apartment. Attached is a ridiculous campy card that reads:

K,
I know there's not loads of birds in the Down but there's some, and maybe someday you'll have a place in the Up where there'll be more. Happy Wintersday!
- Vrenille

Inside the box is a window box bird feeder and a starter bag of seed. There's also a little voucher informing K of his new year long subscription to one of Duplicity's premier underwear of the month clubs.

Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something. Could you come by tonight?

Okay.

Is everything alright?

Yeah, everything's fine.

How about around 8?

Alright. Is it okay if I bring Mango?

I can just pick her up after if not.

[Jesus's grin is immediate]

Bring Mango. We should see how she does with Nibbles.

That's what I was thinking.

[K smiles back, relaxing a bit more.]

We'll see you tonight then.

He makes dinner--nothing special, just pasta and a side of fresh broccoli. It's the middle of winter and the vegetables here are all fresh. He still isn't over that.

And he puts Nibbles in his best blue sweater, and he's nervous while he waits.

Mango is wearing a sweater too, which is good because she keeps leaping face first into snowbanks as she trots along at K's feet. He's smitten, which is good because he's curious but anxious too.

He scoops her up to knock, able to hold her comfortably in one arm still, and she immediately starts wiggling excitedly and licking at the air when she sees Jesus.

K smiles, small but warm.

"Hey," he croons, maybe at K and maybe at Mango, as he greets them by rubbing Mango's ears in both his hands. He ushers them inside.

"I made food." And he's set out two plates, two cups. He didn't know if K had eaten but K, by now, probably knows Jesus will always try to offer food.

"How are you?"

K holds onto Mango until she's calmed down enough not to wiggle right out of his hands in her attempts to lick Jesus's face, then sets her down to let her run around to sniff every inch of carpet.

He glances at the table and his smile widens; it might be simple, but K doesn't mind at all. He's just grateful.

"Thank you," he says, earnest, and makes sure the door closes behind him.

"I'm... Good. Okay. How are you?" He's trying to resort to reading people automatically less. He's trying to be more fair.

"I'm good," he echoes, but automatically, because he's nervous. He regroups and starts ladling out the pasta.

"I was talking to Vrenille a little while ago. He made me think about some things... Things that I hadn't thought to tell you about."

Nibbles hops up onto the table when Jesus turns his back to get a box.

Jesus's nerves make K watchful, so he shrugs his heavy coat off and hangs it up while he watches the other man sidelong, while he reaches to greet Nibbles in turn. He murmurs something too soft and too low to interrupt what Jesus is saying, still listening while he pets the cat.

There's not a question there. There's not an invitation, really, so K glances up with interest and gives him full attention, but he doesn't interject.

"I wear this sometimes," he offers the box, open to reveal the collar he sometimes throws on when he goes in to work to rile Vrenille up.

"But it matters to me that you understand some things about it, even though it's just a game I play with him."

K glances down at it and it's immediately obvious that he knows something, anyway. He's noticed, certainly, and even noticed where the attention is pulled from, where Jesus's funnels. He's never been as naive as it's easy for anyone who doesn't know him well to believe he is.

That doesn't mean anything he's bothered to think or wonder isn't complicated, doesn't mean he has ever thought he'd be involved even tangentially. His eyes flick back up to Jesus's and he straightens his shoulders automatically, expression... Not wary, but cautious.

"Okay," he offers, quiet, as difficult to read as he gets.

Now that he's begun he doesn't know where to go next, how to say what he wants to say.

"I want to know what you think of it."

He's not trying to make this harder on Jesus, not trying to make him uncomfortable. He just isn't sure what thoughts he's supposed bto have. What those thoughts change.

So he shakes his head slowly.

"I think... It doesn't matter what I think?" he answers, startled into much more base honesty than he would normally stop at another time.

"That's usually what I say when I'm uncomfortable," he says, a soft huff of a laugh. That isn't the vibe he's actually getting, though.

"It matters because I don't want you to think there's ownership in this."

"There is though," K answers, not vehemently, not insistently, but a simple statement of fact. Confident the way he is that snow is cold, fire is hot, and there is ownership involved in the binding of a collar.

He could argue. That's not what he's here trying to do, though. "What does that look like to you?"

But K, who asks for so little and is content with less, who does not know how to view his life and those of others along the same trajectory on his own, could have been happy with pasta and broccoli and never having this discussion.

He sidesteps. "You said it's a game."

"It is. It's one I feel safe playing with him because he would never actually want to own any part of me. But Vrenille worried how you'd perceive us." He studies K, looks away at Mango for a moment.

"And I realized I care about how you feel about it."

Mango, of course, is laser focused on following the scent of a creature she's never encountered before even though it's all over this apartment. She trots under the table, floppy tail wagging excitedly, and completely misses that Nibbles is on the table.

K is silent, his fingers smoothing through the wrinkles natural in the cat's skin, stroking under his chin just where he likes.

"You said you feel safe. Do you... Enjoy what you get out of it?"

"Yes. I do, very much." And he knows that will matter to K, whatever else he's thinking.

It's just all those unknown thoughts that worry him. "Does it change how you see me?"

"No."

How could it? He's human. He's being human, enjoying being human. K can't blame him for that, for working from the knowledge and experience he's lived.

He looks down at the collar again, and when Nibbles bumps his hand for more attention, he eases back a step but looks back up to meet Jesus's eyes when he says again, "No, it doesn't."

"What does it make you think?" Because he knows the way he and Vrenille see it is necessarily very different than how a replicant would.

It's not. K knows this too, and would never have thought to offer any kind of opinion on it but Jesus is asking. K isn't sure why, and that occupies more of his attention than what he thinks about any of it. He glances away, taking a deep breath.

"I know it means there are rules in place. Agreements, contracts, guidelines, whatever participants have established. I don't know what yours are and that's between the two of you, but I know for most it places one in authority over the other. That the expectations are obedience or submission, and a right to consequences if those expectations are not met."

His voice is calm and even as he speaks. Impersonal.

He nods, very slightly, worried. "And I know you've had stricter rules than I have. Or Vrenille has. And I know that might color how this looks to you."

K trusts Vrenille. They're friends, and he cares about him, knows he's cared about in turn, has concrete examples of times Vrenille has taken extra care with him that he was not obligated to take.

But there's something deeply rooted in K that doesn't know how to definitively connect that to this situation. To this unasked question, and he's quiet a long few breaths, barely responding to Nibbles' demand for continued attention.

"Do you want me involved somehow?" he finally asks.

"No. That's not what this is." He closes the little box and tucks it into one of his pockets.

"I know you've been owned before. I don't want to make you uncomfortable with this."

Now, finally, K looks back at him and just looks at him, no idea what he's supposed to say here. What Jesus wants him to say besides that it's okay. That he's not uncomfortable, that he doesn't have any negative feelings about watching two people he cares about toy with a concept a bare step away from what he's been trapped in his whole life, short as it is.

He could lie. That's a thing he does now, a thing he can do.

"What about it do you enjoy?" is what he settles on, even if it is a bit more imploring than he intended.

This is better, he thinks. K asking the questions instead of Jesus floundering for what to explain. "When I put it on it starts a game. He makes up the rules. The first time, it was that I couldn't come until the party. The rules change every time. At the Lunar New Year party, it was that I couldn't drink until after the club was closed."

Jesus loves games. K can see why that would appeal to him, why he would find pleasure in it.

He also feels a vague twist in his gut that he remembers from his conversations about contracts with V, with Drake, with Jesus himself.

"And if you did?"

"We've never said. I'd be disappointed in myself if I failed, though."

He wins the game by meeting the challenges; Vrenille's pleasure in him obeying is its own form of reward.

K nods. It's very, very different from what he knows, but the hardest part perhaps is that he does understand. He understands the pride in a job well done, in knowing he's safe from repercussions. He understands disappointment in not meeting the standard.

There is very real fear in him, but there was once an eagerness to please, too.

Mango is sniffing along the couch, pulling a pillow down onto the floor. K lets himself be distracted with going to pick her up, with carefully putting the pillow back where it goes, smoothing out the pinched corner from her too small mouth.

"I'm glad you're having fun."

Nibbles hops off, and Jesus watches him go up the stairs, then turns his attention back to K.

"Then it's okay with you?"

"I'm not involved," he points out.

"You're not asking me to be. Why would it matter if it's okay with me? Why is that even an option?"

He could answer a dozen ways and they'd all be vaguely true. But they wouldn't be the core of it, so he's quiet, picking at his food, thinking.

"I know how you were treated in Los Angeles. And I don't want you to see me as being like them. The people there." The humans there.

One more question then - one more because he's still unsure of the shape of this, of the fact they're talking about this at all but all he can see on Jesus's face is a vague sense of unease and loss of direction and something else K doesn't have a name for if there even is one.

"Like them how?"

He spreads his hands. "At all, really. Like it doesn't matter to me what you think. What you feel about things. How I affect you."

Mango is wriggling in his arms again, having spotted Nibbles; he's strong enough to hold her but she keeps trying to lick his face too, and he wants to focus on this. He wants to solve this.

He reaches up to close the door to the loft, and sets the puppy down again. She whines at the slats but she doesn't bark. K leans against the arm of the couch, close enough to intervene, far enough he's off her radar for now.

"I don't like it. I don't understand it. But it's not my business who you sleep with or what you do with them. I wouldn't want to even try to influence that, as long as you're choosing it. Choosing them. And you are. Vrenille is. What else is there to say?"

He watches K, taking the momentary distraction of the animals to breathe a little. They talk about the people they sleep with sometimes; this is different. It's different in ways he doesn't know how to quantify.

"What don't you like about it?"

"It feels dangerous to me. It feels..."

He sucks at the back of his teeth, arms folded deceptively loosely for how he's worrying at the fabric of his shirt with his fingertips hidden between his elbow and ribs.

"It's not actually any kind of fun to belong to anyone. To be something that can belong to anyone."

He listens, feeling a pang as he catches those little motions of K's fingers.

"Does this make you think I don't take that seriously? What you've been through?"

"I don't know?" He swallows, starts to look away, but stops with his head turned so he can still see Jesus.

"No? I don't -" He's never been in this position, he's never had to articulate anything like this.

"I wouldn't think what you both are doing has anything to do with me. With anyone else, and that's part of the point. But you keep asking me like it does, like I can tell you anything other than I don't understand, like I can want anything other than to be somewhere else when I see that you're wearing it."

"Then I won't wear it when I'm around you." It's a small thing. They don't work every shift together, and as Vrenille and Sara have noted, Jesus's attention is usually on K when they are in a room together.

It doesn't, just now, feel like a small thing; if it was as simple as not wearing it around K, it would have been as simple as not saying anything at all, wouldn't it?

"And if that's the rule?"

"It never would be, because Vrenille would never do that to you." Something he'd hoped K would know by now; this conversation is due in part to Vrenille's concerns over how K sees this.

"But if he didn't realize you'd be there, I'd tell him, and we'd change it."

This is where there's a critical, vital split: K believes Jesus, trusts Jesus, trusts Vrenille.

He doesn't believe this concept that Jesus is presenting to him. He does not believe that he alone, his protest alone, is enough to stop anything from happening. He does not believe that his discomfort, his unease, makes a difference at all to something he's not even involved with.

And he has no idea how to reconcile these two things, so he falls silent instead.

There's something in K's expression that Jesus knows: the disbelief clashing against the little bit of trust that's there. He knows that feeling and he also knows where most people land when they're pushed to choose.

"K, please," he steps toward him, reaching up to touch his face and then not. "Talk to me."

It's good that Jesus doesn't reach for him just now, especially his face; K manages to stay still while he draws closer, tracks the hand coming towards him without flinching, but for just this moment he can't tolerate a third stressor.

Jesus's hand lowering allows K to switch his attention back to his face, to see the plea there as much as hear it in his voice, and his own eyes soften a bit, too. His own coping mechanism that shuffles him ever closer to the automaton he was always accused of being breaks down a bit.

It doesn't mean he has any better idea what to say or do.

"I don't know what you want from me with this, Jesus," he admits, quietly, a bit helplessly.

He reaches up instead to stop Nibbles from batting at Mango through the slats. It gives K a little more distance.

"I just want your thoughts. What are you thinking right now?"

Just thoughts. It's a dangerous question, at least when the thoughts K is having are personal - when they might go against what he believes is expected from him. Jesus is upset that K is upset, and he wants to reconcile it; the more he pushes though, the more K wants to push away in turn. The more the distress sinks in deeper, makes what thoughts he does try to string together disjointed.

K doesn't want Jesus to be upset either though, so he curls his fingers into his shirt and tries, even though it feels like the worst thing he can do.

"I don't like it. I don't like thinking about it, I don't like seeing it, I don't like worrying what happens if you're wrong and there's more to it than you think. I don't like that you're asking me what I think about it knowing both that there's no way I can like it, and that I don't expect that to change anything. Vrenille is trustworthy. You both enjoy it. It's different for you and it's between you. So - I don't know."

"It's between us." And he doesn't need K to like it. Jesus likes it; Vrenille does; that's ultimately what decides if it continues, so it will.

Just not around K.

"It's hard for you, isn't it? Knowing that we care enough about what you think to adjust what we do in public."

"Do you know what happens to replicants who care too much about the wrong things? Who care in opposing directions from humans?"

Everyone here tells him it doesn't matter that he's a replicant. That he's as real as he needs to be.

An entire life is harder to change, though.

"They'd retire you." Using K's word, which is such a soft word for what it really is. He almost said the other word, the real one, execute. But he wants K to keep talking and he wants to understand on K's terms.

Is there anything in your body that wants to resist the system?

"I'm already - so far out of bounds." It feels like something pulled up out of him, not with the violence of ripping but deeply seated, painful, hardwon nonetheless. You don't look like you on the inside - miles off your baseline.

"And I know. I know. It doesn't matter here, none of it is supposed to matter here, I know. But it does. So yes, it's hard. But we were doing okay, weren't we? Things were okay. Things were good. Are good."

Is there security in being a part of the system?

Edited 2023-01-28 01:18 (UTC)

"We're still okay," he says, facing K directly again, looking up into his eyes.

He knows there's no way to talk K into believing that he isn't expected to answer a certain way. He knows there's no making up for the years of real ownership K went through.

"We're okay. This isn't me wanting to change us. This is me wanting to make sure that I- respect you. And how you feel when I'm around you."

Jesus faces him squarely; K searches his face, still caught firmly in that contradiction of not expecting to find anything dishonest there but also unable to believe what he's being told.

He says they're still okay and K's breath feels tight in his chest, in his throat. He doesn't understand. He doesn't know what will happen next, what this will turn into, doesn't know anything - but Jesus says they're still okay.

Maybe he doesn't need to understand how. "System," he murmurs like he does sometimes, not to Jesus or anyone really, just a verbal touchstone before he shakes his head.

"I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" Jesus is the one who brought this up. Jesus is the one pushing, despite his own habits.

K is right; he could have just left this alone. Despite it all he's glad he hasn't.

"What does 'system' mean?"

The second question is much easier to answer than the first; it's familiar, known, like a steel beam hidden in the walls holding up the entire building around it.

"Baseline," he answers, low, soft, but more sure of himself than the rest of what he's been saying. "What does it feel like to be part of the system, feel it in your body, the system, do you get pleasure out of being part of the system, have they created you, is there security, is there a sound that comes with the system, is there anything in your body that wants to resist the system."

He rattles it all off in one long breath, calm, certain, by rote. System. Answer the question - which just leaves the other question, and that one is much harder.

"I'm sorry that I don't know better what to do."

"You're talking to me." even though he knows it's hard, even though he knows it goes against some clearly deeply embedded rules in K's mind.

"That's all I want is to talk this out. I just want to understand, and be understood. And maybe we won't get there today."

"It feels like a hologram," he says abruptly, realizing - remembering - that Jesus has seen the kinds of realistic displays of entirely fabricated people and animals and phenomena his city has to offer.

"I hear you, I believe you, it seems like something I could lean weight into - but like if I try, I'll go right through."

"I think that's something only time can change. You have to see it's real first." And even then maybe not. There are things Jesus knows he should be able to trust, and had simply never been able to.

"Give me a chance to prove it?"

A chance to prove something is a chance to have it used against him, too; a chance for Jesus to be right is a chance for K to be right, too. Sometimes the things Jesus has offered to teach K - to help K with - have been easy to agree to, but not this.

Still, he hasn't regretted anything he's left in Jesus's hands. He nods.

That's all he can really hope for. A chance; that's all he needs. "And if it comes up with Vrenille...hear what he has to say about it. His side of it. Okay?"

Vrenille. K hasn't forgotten, of course - it's a full half of the reason they're even having a conversation, that K hung around this long to have it - but he frowns faintly for a moment.

Then he nods again.

He nods, too, and steps away, goes and sits back down. "Are you okay?"

Mango, still trying to reach Nibbles through the door, finally barks sharply for the first time and K says her name, not sharp but firm. She drops to her stomach on the stairs, still with her nose pressed against the door, but doesn't bark again.

"What's okay?" he asks Jesus, sounding resigned, but he moves over to the chair he would have sat in if they'd just eaten instead, unfolding his arms so his hands are resting on the back of it. "I've just never... done any of this."

"I know." He's never done a lot of things with other people, least of all those who care about him.

"If it helps, your doing everything right."

It does help, he finds. The subject of trust is difficult and complex, and he's still learning where it holds strong and where it falls through regardless, but following Jesus's lead has been a good decision so far. It means he can accept the assurance from him now and whatever part of him looks to others for guidance can hear it. Can believe it.

He breathes a moment, testing that it will hold, and finally his lips quirk faintly when he looks up to meet Jesus's eyes.

"It does. I trust you." Jesus is doing things right, too.

He exhales a bit of tension and nods. Okay, good.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. But I'd like it if you stayed. If you want. The food really isn't that bad if you're hungry."

"The food smells great," he says, and it's not anything fancy, others might think K was being facetious, but he means it. It's a wonder for Jesus to have fresh vegetables in winter. It's a wonder for K to have vegetables, pasta, and water at all, and he's mindful of that always.

He sits down and pulls his own plate closer, but doesn't pick up his fork yet.

"I have something I should have told you sooner too."

He eats, if only to show K that it's okay now, the tension has passed. It's safe to eat.

"What is it?"

It's safe to eat and K is already shifting a piece of broccoli with his fingers like he typically does when investigating new foods or new versions of food, but he doesn't take any bites.

"Do you remember me mentioning deactivation as a means to control some models of replicant?"

"Yes," he says, frowning, already not liking where this is going.

"It worked in the 6s, but only a fraction of them went rogue, and the rest had to be replaced for doing nothing wrong. Customers weren't happy and it's part of why Tyrell went bankrupt."

He picks up a piece of broccoli and takes his time chewing it, not even concerned that it's mostly cold by this point.

"That and because... Wallace is Wallace," and all that entails, "They left the lifespan open ended with the 8s, and that caused all kinds of problems. The majority of the replicants I retired were 8s. So... For the 9s, they left it open to client preference. Whether there's a deactivation timeline or not."

"And I'm guessing they didn't tell the 9's if there was or not." Knowing you're going to die by a certain time makes people desperate.

He swallows, some of him switching over to the parts of him that have watched people die for years.

"Did they tell you if you have one?"

"Client preference," K answers, and does not let himself look down, does not let himself look away from how he can watch pieces of Jesus disappear from his expression.

"And no, they didn't."

"Then we won't know unless one day you just stop." It could be today.

He doesn't look away but he can feel how deeply K is looking at him and he reaches a hand for him, almost without thinking.

K hadn't been sure what he would do if Jesus reached for him earlier; now, though, it's simple. He catches up the other man's hand in his own, slides their fingers together.

He said we don't know. "There are guidelines. It won't be just one day - it's always on the manufacture date. And there are popular cycles - four years, six years, eight, twelve."

It doesn't disqualify the other years, but it helps.

He brings K's hand up to his lips, beard just brushing his knuckles. Thinking, thinking, then looking up at him again.

"So when would it be?"

Maybe it would be easier if it could just be any day; like a real girl, Joi had said, and that would be true, wouldn't it? Things happen and humans die unexpectedly all the time.

But not replicants. "My manufacture date is December 25th," he answers, rubbing the tip of his thumb over Jesus's knuckles.

"You didn't tell me that when you came to see me Christmas day," he says, hearing the deep hurt in his own voice, surprised and embarrassed by how cut he sounds.

"No, I didn't." He's not proud of it, but he won't deny that he knew better by then, either. The reasons all sound flimsy against the pain he can read as plainly as hear.

"I'm sorry. It didn't even occur to me before, and after - it was past. Nothing happened this year, so I thought... we have another year before it comes up again. We have time."

He pulls his hand away and moves away from the table, to sit on the stairs instead.

Nibbles bats at his hair and he cracks a smile, weak as it is.

"Okay." A year is more than he could hope for back home. So he draws himself back together. K didn't tell him. K could have gone home that night and died and he hadn't told Jesus but that's in the past now.

Quit and keep moving forward, as they say.

"Okay. We have a year. I'm glad we do."

K doesn't try to hold onto him, but he does turn in his chair to be able to keep watching him, hands in his lap now. Mango is delighted that Jesus comes down to her level, too, and she's temporarily distracted from the cat enough to sidle up to Jesus's side.

"I am too," K offers, but it doesn't feel like enough. Normally he wouldn't try to convince anyone of anything, wouldn't keep talking, but this is Jesus. Maybe his logic doesn't make that much sense after all, but he has to try. "This was year seven for me, and I didn't really think anything would happen - and I don't know what would happen here anyway. Not in a place where we come back." That's not why though.

"Sara started avoiding me based on the idea that I might go missing someday. I was... afraid of what would happen if anyone here learned it as a real possibility." He still is, but he stays in his seat, offers none of the more desperate things he wants to say, how he wants to say them.

"I wouldn't avoid you for that," he promises, soft, earnest. "I just hate the thought that you were alone for that. Knowing it might happen."

He stands again, this time carrying Mango, and sits on the sofa. Again he offers his hand to K.

Mango, excited for attention, immediately licks at Jesus's face, chin, and neck; she's quick to burrow in against his side again, curling up next to his ribs.

K shakes his head as he stands. "That's how it's always been for me," he tries to assure him, settling down again beside him. "I didn't want anyone to have to... deal with that."

"I'm good at dealing with death." He leans against K when he sits, the same way almost that Mango is leaning against him.

"It's a sign of love where I'm from, to be with someone as they die. To help make it easier for them."

"I'm sorry," he says again, not a repetition exactly, but with more understanding. He lifts his arm out of the way, making room for Jesus to sit closer if he wants to after all.

"No one has cared the rest of my life, except Joi. It just didn't... I'm still learning the ways things are different here, where I'm the first replicant."

"You have a right to handle it however you want to. If Christmas comes and you want to be alone, I understand. Just as long as you know that I won't push you away because you might die." He threads their fingers together.

"I always have been," he says, which is not the same as wanting to be, but he is accustomed to it is what he means.

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure." He draws a breath. "I've had a lot of people die in my life. I can handle that loss better than I could if you pushed me away or left to 'spare' me."

"I'm sorry."

For those losses, for the fact that he can't change this. That he took so long to say something, that he's afraid that -

"Is it - are we still okay?" Is he going to pull away from K now like Sara did before she knew she had reason?

He looks up at K, immediately concerned. "Yeah. Yeah, we're fine." He is wondering how many people K has told. "I'm just going to want to see more of you this year."

"The years seem to go in cycles mostly. Four, six, eight. I wasn't... terribly concerned about last year, unless the city disrupted something. But this year..."

He trails off, looking down at his hands. He's never had anyone to talk to it about before, not that he would talk to about it, which makes it strange.

"This year, maybe," he admits.

"A year is longer than most people get in my world," when there's a death sentence, something fatal, involved.

He pulls K down to kiss him. "We'll enjoy the year. Okay?"

K lingers in that kiss, letting himself be pulled into it not because he doesn't beat it, but because he likes that Jesus wants it. Wants him.

He leans in once he's there though, slow and intent. He does his very best to deserve this affection, to reflect it back sevenfold.

And when he's done, he covers Jesus's hand with his own, turns his head to kiss his palm and murmur, "I already am."

Edited 2023-02-12 03:39 (UTC)

If he's not very, very careful, he thinks he could lose his mind a bit with this man. He kisses him again, because he has no words for a moment, just this, just himself.

K's other hand slides around his waist, both supporting him,enjoying the solidity of him, and pulling him closer.

Which is, maybe, when the new nut subtle note to this might become more pronounced: he wants to stay here. He wants more of this, wants to be close to Jesus, wants to feel like this and whatever else comes with it for however long he has and then just one moment more.

He wants it, and he's sure he can't have it, not for long enough. So he speaks it up while he can, bittersweet and precious.

"The table's strong enough to hold us," he teases, but he's not really teasing. "Or wherever."

The salient point is that he wants K and he might not have him next year.

"Counterpoint: we've already done that," he answers, warm and teasing.

"Tell me something new you want," he bids him between kisses, easing them both back against the arm of the sofa behind him.

Edited 2023-02-12 04:28 (UTC)

"Bend me over," he grins, but he's hooking his heels behind K already. "We always fuck face to face. ... Except I like seeing you."

Another slower kiss.

"So..." he drawls, and lets it trail into another kiss, pushing his hand up the back of Jesus's shirt, skin to skin.

"Fuck me face to face."

"Yeah?" He presses against him. "You want me to fuck you this time?"

"Yes." A faint twinge of a feeling, one without a name K is aware of, not uncomfortable but not comfortable either.

Giddy? He holds steady, lets Jesus rub against him as he will, and says again, "Yes I do."

"Have you ever been fucked before?" He asks, hand pushing K's shirt up slightly, because his answer will determine a lot.

"Once," K admits, and at least with Jesus, there's no uncertainty there that somehow - one way or another - this will be a flaw of some kind.

"We should go to the bed then," he muses, because tabletops and bent over the sofa seem like a lot for someone's second time. "I want to go slow with you."

"You won't hurt me," he promises; he could, it's possible of course, especially in this way when he can walk away from explosions and impalement and all manner of blunt trauma.

But he won't. All the same: "Wherever you want."

"Upstairs," he decides. "We'll kick Nibbles out so he can meet Mango." There are plenty of places for him to climb up to get away from her if he needs, so Jesus isn't worried about babysitting them.

K has worked both his hands under Jesus's clothes by now to warm skin, although it's still mostly idle - "Lead the way," he agrees. - until, anyway, he slides both his hands along the graceful curve of Jesus's spine and tuck under his waistband.

"Or I can do the work."

"Yeah? You think you can get us up to bed without me distracting you?" He arches up under K's touch, kissing his neck, his jaw.

"I'm willing to let you try," he murmurs back, humming softly in appreciation when he tips his head aside to give Jesus a better angle.

"But yes," is the subtle challenge.

He wraps his legs around him, he kisses him. "Try it." If Jesus wins and they trip, well, it wouldn't be the worst fall he's ever had.

He pulls at the collar of K's shirt, kissing a line along his chest there. "Watch out for the puppy."

Edited 2023-02-15 02:00 (UTC)

"I'll watch out for the puppy," he promises. Overbalancing is partially to do with lack of strength to bear a load, and K certainly doesn't lack that; he waits for Jesus to get a good grip, hands sliding lower until he can hook just under the other man's ass and lift him properly.

He kisses him back as he turns them, as he feels his way to the first stair and eases up them until he's even with Mango. He's practiced the maneuver he does then, scooping the puppy up with the toe of his boot under her ribs and sliding her down out of his way, smoothly and gently, which just leaves the door.

Jesus is strong and agile enough to lean back and get the door open--Nibbles, helpful as ever, darts out to investigate Mango--and then lean right back up to kiss K again.

"You're good at wrangling her," he teases.

K has the common sense to stand still, to wait for all the moving parts around him - Mango, Nibbles, and Jesus alike - to resolve before he tries to pick his way through them.

It means he's kissing Jesus again by the time they're moving, by the time he takes two more steps up before he's able to lower him down onto his back and ease down himself to lean over this man he cares more for than he would have thought possible only a few short months ago.

"I'm good at wrangling a lot of things," he teases back, mouthing his way around Jesus's beard to the skin of his jaw and neck.

"You must be. You managed to catch me," he says, happy about it, arching his neck to give K all the access he can offer.

Sometimes, like now, the fact of K here with him--how improbable it all is, and Jesus is used to slim probabilities--makes him almost giddy with a sense of victory. They both made it here, somehow.

K is oblivious to the revelation happening below him, although he's aware of the effect it has on the tension in Jesus's body; he's too intent on feeling his way along the bones and muscles of Jesus's chest like there's a poem stamped there in Braille, like he's planning a masterpiece he'll have to sculpt blind.

"I've never missed a target," he teases, although it's the closest he'll get - besides their play during Tumenalia - to referencing his work lightly. Even now, he only does it because he remembers how delighted Jesus was then.

The effect now is no less pronounced; the way he's moving against K's hips takes on a subtle bit of urgency. He doesn't ask for more than that, though. Tumenalia was its own thing, and he doesn't want K to think he takes K's job or the life he lived at home lightly.

He knows he's meant to take the reins here a bit, but for right now he just breathes heavy, just enjoys the heat of K's mouth on his skin, the attention K gives him that he could never have imagined receiving before he knew this man.

That friction between them created by body moving against body is delicious, and K lets that heat build without pushing him any more rushed where his attention is. He's moved down to Jesus's shoulder with his mouth by then, lips and tongue mapping skin in a way his touch couldn't, lingering in the hollow above his collarbone and the crease where sweat catches at the junction of shoulder and neck.

The reaction makes him smile, his grip massaging into the muscles just above Jesus's hip, encouraging him even as he lays himself out long beside him.

This. This is so much reassurance after the conversation they just had, after he watched K struggle with the notion that what he likes matters.

He kisses K deeply as he strokes his side, and starts to unfasten K's pants, wanting nothing left between them.

It works best if K doesn't think about things too much, which is a hard sell - he's always thinking, always wondering, and he will again when he's alone or the only one awake. But that's not now, and he's all too happy to focus on what is now.

He shifts to help slide his pants down off his hips, backs of his knuckles brushing along Jesus's jaw, and in a voice so low it's more vibration in his chest than anything he says, reverently, "You're beautiful," between kisses along his skin.

"I really, really like you..." He's breathing heavier against K's hair, and he only breaks away to get them both fully, finally naked. He takes a moment to look at K, to enjoy this moment where he's stretched out for Jesus.

"Get comfortable," he murmurs, and kisses his hip and reaches for the lube.

Hey, K. How are you feeling?

I believe nerve endings, generally speaking, are responsible for that.

Hello.

In one sense of the word. My bad asking how. Can I try again?

Certainly.

Your grace period's up tomorrow. Are you still feeling okay about signing?

[A fairly long pause, but eventually: ]

I promised that I would try.

Edited 2023-01-31 02:31 (UTC)

I know. But not me, so I'm not gonna hold you to it if you've changed your mind.

If you haven't, come by when you're ready?

Okay.

He isn't wired to just not answer at all, but nothing comes after that - including any sign of him - for quite a while. In fact, it's only an hour before the contract office will close before there's a knock on the door that will open to reveal K bundled up from eyes to shins in his duty coat, hands deep in his pockets.

He'll never be ready, but he promised to try; not Drake, but he doesn't have a good reason for anything less, so here he is. "Hello," he offers, muffled behind his high collar.

Just as he's said, Drake isn't going to chase K down and force him to sign. As much as everyone else wants him to be contracted, the choice has to be K's. Worst case, Drake figures... he'll see if Jesus wants to turn the puppy eyes on before or after K winds up in prison.

But he doesn't have to call Jesus. Late that afternoon, there's a knock on his door and a very bundled replicant in the hall. Drake takes in the sight of him curiously, wondering if how covered up he's chosen to be means something, then smiles at K and steps aside to let him in.

"Hey. Can I take your coat? Get you a drink?" Drake's just closing the door behind K when the approaching tap-taps of Sable coming to greet her friend reach the foyer and his dog appears, her ears perked and mouth open in a big canine smile. "A lapdog?" he jokes, motioning for Sable to sit before getting attention. "Good girl."

Part of it is that it's winter, and K is from Los Angeles; it's true that the sunny California weather of old is long, long gone, but the biome ventilation over his city still means that largely, the temperature stays around the same year round. He's not used to living somewhere with snow, and his associations with it are... not great, despite how beautiful it is.

Part of it, though, is comfort. Drake offers basic hospitality and K steps inside and unzips his coat readily enough, but - as usual - there's something in him that can't help but respond to Sable, smiling and his shoulders relaxing when he sees her.

"Water is good, thank you," he answers, waiting like he's learned to do until Sable has permission to be pet or to approach him, and then crouching to greet her with the traditional ear rubs. "Hello, Sable," he tells her, warm, and then his attention ticks back up to Drake. "Is this... okay? Not a bad time?"

"You've got it," Drake tells him, taking his coat and hanging it up as K kneels to pet his dog. He leaves them in the foyer to go get drinks, and when he glances back at K's question Sable is practically climbing into his lap already... she adores K. Hopefully that'll make this whole ordeal a little easier on both of them. "Timing's fine. If we don't get there before the office closes I'll go by early and make sure they file it first thing. You're not getting arrested."

He gets them each a glass of water and brings them over to the coffee table, where there are several other things waiting... a thick stack of papers, face down and divided with clips. A plate of cookies that look handmade, though the flavors aren't obvious at a glance. And another page resting face up, with a notepad and pen beside it.

"Come sit with me? Both of you."

K is not afraid of getting arrested. He's not looking forward to it, of course, but it's not a deterrent. Only keeping his promise to Jesus, to Sara, is enough to get him moving on the deadline, lets him nod his acknowledgement; it makes his, "Thank you," no less sincere for all of that. He'll help, if it comes to that.

He doesn't mind Sable being in his lap, isn't in any danger of being knocked over by her, but he isn't going to stay in the foyer either so he holds her off long enough to stand up again; he keeps a hand in her fur as he moves over and settles where Drake is setting down the water, and stops trying to hold her back as soon as he sits down.

His eyes land on the papers, slide away to the cookies, tick back over a moment later. He was going to say something. He doesn't remember what, so he murmurs something low to Sable, and then straightens up in his seat to look at Drake.

"I'm sure you've figured it out, but I'm not comfortable with this. Not because of you, or anything you've said or done. Just the whole... concept." He says it almost apologetically because it's an explanation, not an excuse. "But I won't ever be if I stay caught in the system, and I know that."

Drake sits and pats the center cushion for Sable, who jumps up and lies down between them, front paws and head in K's lap and butt against Drake with her tail wagging on his lap. He doesn't seem to mind, just laughs softly and gives her some fond butt scritches while they settle. It's pretty obvious that he isn't going to rush K through this conversation, not even reaching for the paperwork yet. And when the other man speaks first, he has Drake's full attention.

"I know that, yeah. For what it's worth, I don't think many people ever get comfortable with the concept... but you can be comfortable with your situation, if you sign with someone worth trusting." Still petting Sable, Drake reaches for the contract he's written up. "The only promise I can really make with any of this is to always listen and respect you, and that starts here. If there's a problem, we figure it out together. Read it over, and tell me if there's anything you don't like or want to add."

With that he passes K the paper and tugs the plate a little closer to them.

"No cookies for Sable, but you should try them. Padme's really gotten into baking."

K is not a man who turns down food no matter what it is, normally; he was never in any danger of starving himself, at least not any more than anyone else on the planet was, but that doesn't mean he doesn't value the abundance and variety available now. Even as he accepts the papers his eyes drop to the cookies and he smiles at the offer, small as it is.

"Thank you. I will after," he promises, and flips the papers over in his hands to start reading. It doesn't take long - his eyes dart back and forth across the page much faster than a human would, flipping between pages about every fifteen seconds or so until he's down to the end of the last page.

He's not good at this, he thinks. He has no idea how to negotiate for himself, no real way to know how to advocate for something he doesn't expect to be heard, but he tries: "I have my own income. I can pay for... somewhere."

"Are you sure you want that in writing?" Drake asks him, knowing enough about the city's bullshit at this point that he'd rather not include it. "Subs can't rent property, so the only way to put in the contract that you're paying for it yourself when I'm legally supposed to provide for you is to say I allow you to work but claim your earnings."

Hopefully the explanation will make it obvious why he doesn't like putting that in a contract, but he'll let it be K's decision.

"It'd be changing this part here." He indicates a sub-clause under where he's given K the right to work, nestled between that it can be whatever job he likes and that his working doesn't preclude him having an authorized line on Drake's account for purchases. Only vice-versa. "And then this line about housing would be conditional."

K had pulled a paycheck - and bonuses - at the LAPD. A lot of it was nominal, considering they could pay him whatever they wanted and he had no way of changing it if he thought it should be more or, as happened often, if they docked his checks for medical care, supplies, and repairs as they thought necessary. He is accustomed to others claiming his earnings.

He glances over the places Drake has indicated, rubbing the tip of his thumb over the surface of the paper almost idly.

"How else would you suggest then? I simply pay you directly?"

"If you can trust me enough for that agreement, yeah. You can send me back the rent and as far as we're concerned... it's your place, you're paying for it. If that's what you want. But there's no way to put it in the contract without losing you other freedoms." He hesitates, then adds, "We're already handshake agreeing it's private, guaranteed. Right? Even if you gave me a key I wouldn't come in uninvited. Everybody deserves someplace that's just for them."

"I don't need it in the contract." Because the truth is that K doesn't trust the city any more than he trusts anything else about this - he certainly wouldn't expect to try to argue any of it. If they really want to do something, really want to put him somewhere or take something from him or do something to him, they'll just do it.

That's all anyone has ever done, or been legally allowed to do with replicants specifically, and that carries over to the glance up at the addition.

"But your name is on the title, or the lease, or whatever it ends up being," he points out.

"It has to be," Drake concedes, giving a small, apologetic shrug. "Remember when I told you... sometimes even though you can't have everything, something's better than nothing? It's our understanding. You're paying for it, you're a person and you deserve to be able to close a door between you and the rest of the world. Everybody whose opinion is worth something will know that. And the city has to go through me. I know it's not enough, K, but it's the best we can manage... if you're willing to try it."

"I don't want everything," he says before he can stop himself, and it feels dangerous that it's already out but so much about this does and he's trying anyway.

He is trying. He looks down at Sable, rubs her soft ear so, so carefully between his fingers.

"Okay."

"...okay."

Drake doesn't challenge that, not even by saying he wishes K could have more than this. Because it doesn't matter. He just lets it sit between them for a moment, then grabs the notepad and pen and holds them out to K.

"If it helps you, we can put what we're agreeing to in writing. It won't mean anything to the city either way, but it would to me. Otherwise... is there anything else you'd wanna change with the city filing?"

K is about to shake his head - it doesn't matter to him, he's learned by now from firsthand experience how anything that's going to happen to replicants is going to happen regardless of what's in writing and what's not - but then Drake says that it would mean something to him, and K changes his mind and accepts the items.

In neat, block handwriting, K starts to write down what Drake said - word for word, KD6-3.7 sends Drake Holloway rent, it's KD6-3.7's place, KD6-3.7 is paying for it; handshake agreeing it's private, guaranteed; Drake Holloway wouldn't come in uninvited - as he shakes his head.

"No. It looks good," K answers, glancing at the pile of papers in question, then back to what he's writing without pausing, careful to contort to work around Sable's head in his lap without disturbing her.

Edited 2023-02-11 17:14 (UTC)

It could be said that's true of agreements between humans, too. Contracts are just a type of promise, and people break promises all the time. Maybe they don't mean to, maybe they even do so accidentally, but it happens. All anyone can ever do is their best to keep their word and face the consequences if they don't... but Drake does smile slightly when K takes the notepad and starts listing their private agreements. Even if the other man is just humoring him, that's K trying to make this work.

While he does that Drake grabs a second pen and signs the actual contract, no hesitation in his movements. K says it's good? He's already made up his mind. Then he reaches for the bigger stack of papers on the table, the one that's been face down all this time, and starts separating them.

"I picked these based on my budget," he tells K, "so if yours is really different we might have to look again... but they're still a good starting point."

They're apartment listings, organized mostly by size and price. Drake's set them out in piles that might seem random but besides the obvious criteria of Up or Down, one of the Down piles is available apartments near Jesus. One of the Up piles is focused on places near parks. There are a variety of styles because Drake didn't know what K would like, but every single rental allows pets.

K watches Drake sign from the corner of his eye, and in one way, it's almost a relief; having the decision looming has been a weight K has been carrying since V disappeared in November, and not one he's been able to shift or put down longer than a moment. For better or for worse, a decision has been made.

For better or for worse, K finishes marking down their amendments and moves seamlessly to pulling the contract over to sign himself, such as he can. There's no cursive for numbers.

That leaves him to eye the stacks of papers, setting down both forms of contract neatly on the table, his pen over top of them. He rubs Sable's ears and tips his head to study the topmost entry on each pile.

"I don't need much." He honestly doesn't know what to do with much. "I have to take care of Nibbles, and Mango, and I have a fish tank and a caterpillar. Other than that, the rest isn't important."

Drake nods at the list of animals -- he accounted for everything but the caterpillar, who probably wouldn't have a preference -- then pushes the non-Jesus-adjacent Down pile off to the side.

"The specific apartment might not feel important right now, but it is that you're choosing it. I want this to be your space. Somewhere you like being, somewhere that's comfortable for you. And you're not locked in... if you pick a place and realize you'd prefer something a little different, I don't care about breaking a lease."

Of course K isn't used to choosing things for himself, and Drake is still walking that fine line between encouraging and pushing. He thinks for a moment, glancing towards his own balcony.

"Nibbles likes watching the birds and I think it'd be nice for you to have some sunlight, so maybe the Up. You wanna take this stack and think about it? Take some tours?"

[at some point after the finder goes up, K will get a knock on the door. There's no one there, but there is a package for him, and inside is a big container of freshly diced pineapple.]

Hey K, are you going to the Crucible party tonight?

I was considering it. Why?

Can I catch you first? Not to be all 'we need to talk' and scare you, but we do actually need to talk about something.

Okay. I'm finishing up cleaning at the gym.
I can meet you here or somewhere else?

How long has Mango been crated? You could bring her over to stretch her legs.

[So it's that kind of conversation.]

I can do that. Give me an hour.

[ It sure is, buddy. Sorry... he doesn't like it either! ]

Thanks. I'll see you in a bit.

It does take K an hour to make it back to the Up and to let Mango out to go to the bathroom, first, and to change out of his gym clothes.

Then he's showing up out front of the building, texting Drake that he's there instead of taking Mango all the way up only to bring her back down again immediately. He lets her play on a small square of grass at the end of the slack on her leash while he waits, expression held carefully blank and calm.

Drake comes down with Sable a couple minutes later, an assortment of toys in a bag over his shoulder.

"Hey," he greets K, noting that the other man is already bracing himself. Great. This is gonna suck, isn't it? And there's no point in putting on his own mask even if he wanted to, because K would be able to tell that he's upset anyway. He does smile at the dogs' obvious excitement when they see each other, though -- no hiding that. "Wanna take them to the park?"

It's true that K takes one look at Drake's face and - well, it wouldn't be obvious to or in most people, probably, but in K the way he shores himself up is distinct to those who have spent enough time around him to see what he looks like when he's relaxed.

Mango doesn't notice. She starts barking at Sable in excitement the moment she sees her, lunging at the end of the leash to reach her, and ignores K's low calling of her name for once. He does pull her back a bit so poor Sable doesn't get a ball of puppy directly to the face, but a moment later the younger of the dogs is playbowing so hard she almost falls over.

"Yes," K agrees and calls Mango again as he turns that way. No sense in punishing the dogs because he assumes he's done something wrong.

"It's okay, K. This is how they learn, Sable won't hurt her," Drake reassures the other man, leading them over to an open patch where the grass hasn't been reseeded for spring yet. Usually he and Harley set the dogs loose in the Down where nobody cares about landscaping, but this'll be fine.

He lets the leash go slack, watching the introductions carefully -- this isn't the part of the meeting he's stressed about. Honestly, it's easier to have this conversation with the girls to monitor. There's a little breathing room to figure out how to start, too. K doesn't seem like the type he should just rip the bandaid off with.

"...I know you only signed with me because Jesus asked you to. But I hope it's been okay? I want you to feel as comfortable with me as anybody, someday."

K knows that what obedience Mango has already - and, for a puppy her age, she's very eager to please and very quick on the uptake - it only goes so far. He has no idea how she compares to other dogs but he knows when he can only expect her to pay attention to Sable instead of to him, and he lets Mango have as much of her leash as she can, too.

He glances sidelong at Drake when he registers what he's being told, brow furrowing faintly.

"That's not the only reason I signed," he says, and looks down at where the leash disappears into his coat pocket with his hand. "But you've done everything you promised. It's been... nice."

There's something troubling though, something filling Drake with dread and with sadness and with turmoil. K means what he says, but it's cautious nonetheless.

"It's the only reason I knew," Drake replies softly, though he doesn't ask what the others might be. There's no need to. "I'm glad. You deserve nice, for a change."

He means that. He's always liked K, even just from their meetings in the hall, and hearing it helps. Knowing the other man has a nice place for him and his pets, as much freedom as they can get away with... that helps. If K decides to bail because of this in two months' time, Drake's glad he could help a little bit for a little while.

"I needed you to hear from me first that Jesus and I aren't resigning," he finally says, his previously warm tone several degrees cooler by necessity. Carefully neutral sounding to most people, but K's perception will pick up that this is why he's upset. "You guys will have to be more careful with sleepovers again, and I get it if you wanna switch to whoever he does when we're up? But on my end it doesn't change anything between you and me."

K is about to tell him that he signed because Jesus trusts him, because K can see that he does - that he cares for him, that he feels safe with him. Yes, Jesus asked him and yes, Jesus promised K wouldn't be alone with whatever happened, but there are other thing that went unsaid.

And he has to do something. He has to sign with someone. He has to avoid prison again somehow, and he has to start believing what everyone he trusts is telling him sometime.

He doesn't get that far. He doesn't stiffen, not really, but every last bit of movement in his frame right down to his breathing slows to a stop and he stays motionless for three, four, five seconds after Drake is done talking.

Then, quietly, his eyes on the grass he asks, "What happened?"

There it is. Drake sighs unhappily at the question, because he knew it was coming and he doesn't have a good answer. It'd be easy to tell K to just go ask Jesus, but that's not fair to either of them. And it's not him.

"I think he got scared. Not of me exactly, just--" he shakes his head, hesitating. Uncertain for a moment how much he should say that's his opinion versus what Jesus actually told him. "A couple nights ago he said he loved me, today he was saying he needs to find somebody he doesn't. To make sure we're safe? Maybe it'll make more sense when he explains it to you, I was... really caught off guard."

K doesn't start moving again - not really, not anymore than he tensed when he stopped. But something shifts at the corners of his eyes, something softens and saddens, and then he breathes in and tucks it safely away behind the kind of bland expression that kept him the safest back home.

"He struggles with that," K says simply. Softly. Jesus has never said as much of course, but K sees more than people want him to see. K saw the hesitation every time Jesus was feeling too much pleasure and had time to think about it; every time he tried to tell K anything important, which sometimes he overcame and sometimes he didn't.

He always knew. He'd started to trust what he was being told more than what he knew, what he saw, because after all he can't actually read minds - only the strongest emotion in the moment, and maybe, maybe -

But no. "I'm sorry."

"...I know he does. What I don't know is why I thought I could be enough for him to stay anyway. I thought he was happy."

Drake sniffs and shifts his weight, pulling a rope toy out of the bag on his shoulder and offering it to the dogs to play with -- they're wrestling well so far, but he can tell that Sable is getting unhappy with Mango's tiny puppy needle teeth nipping at her ears. Once they start playing tug with that instead he straightens back up and looks at K again, sounding a little more composed.

"Maybe he'll change his mind," he muses, though there's not actually any hope in it. Just wishful thinking. "Worst thing I coulda done was hold on, you know? Make him feel guilted or trapped. But obviously it affects you too."

"Because he was. And because he told you that."

K doesn't know that for a fact, of course; he has no idea what Drake and Jesus talked about, besides him. But he knows what Jesus told him and he knows what he looked like when he said it, knows he believed it. Knows he wanted so badly for K to believe it - badly enough that K did.

He doesn't bother feeling stupid; he verified everything he heard, just like he was created to do, just like he was supposed to because what he learned with his Voight-Kampff mod was not just who was a replicant and who was human. He learned that humans lie all the time, and most of all to themselves.

Nothing Drake says requires a response. K watches the dogs playing, and doesn't answer.

Neither of them can really know it, but that's just how relationships go. Even for actual psychics, which they're not.

For a minute they're both just watching the dogs, Drake waiting in case K is going to say anything else... he doesn't. That's worrying. Not surprising, just not a great sign.

"K?" he prompts, tipping to the side to very gently bump shoulders with the other man. "Can you tell me what you're feeling?"

Brushing against K's shoulder is a bit like brushing against a brick wall; he doesn't so much as sway, giving something for Drake to rebound straight off of again. He doesn't jump or flinch, though he does lift his chin a bit, does square his shoulders slightly on the other side of the contact.

Both hands are still in his pockets. Can he tell the other man what he's feeling?

Does it matter? When has it ever, except to prove he's stepping too far outside of his own bounds?

"I don't have names for a lot of them. Only special, living, real things have names."

Well, that can't be a good sign either. Drake's brow furrows worriedly at the lack of response to his friendly nudge, and although K's reply starts off alright it quickly descends into 'uh oh' territory.

"I'm gonna need you to break that down for me, man. 'Cuz you're absolutely all of those things, at least to me, or else I wouldn't be asking in the first place. And there wouldn't be any feelings to have names for, right?"

"Okay." It's not his place to argue, and he doesn't particularly want to anyway; what's the outcome then? He can see Drake means that. He can see he's concerned, can see that yes, in this moment he's real, that there's space for feelings, whatever those are.

And then what? How many months will it take for Drake to rationalize something else to himself, something that means he has to step back from K for K's own good? What will happen with their contract then? Which will give first?

"What would you like to disprove to me first?"

Now Drake's just confused on top of the worry, which he figures probably wasn't K's intention.

"...I was hoping you could help me understand where you're at, that's all." They're going to have to back up a little if K's feeling dismissed, because Drake knows that's a mistake he's made before and still isn't sure how to fix. "I'm sorry. Can I try again?"

"Of course."

Anger, he realizes almost distantly. That's definitely in the mix, even as he reflexively smooths it over with calm because angry replicants make everyone around them anxious. It doesn't come naturally to him anyway, not really, and he does his very best to set it aside.

Hurt, he supposes, at the root of that anger. Loss, and a kind of grief that never really healed, that has no bottom and no way out, that will drown him if he lets it and he can't even see the shape of it. No one likes any of those in a replicant either though, so. Calm it is.

"Where am I supposed to be at? With any of this?"

"I don't think there is a 'supposed to' for any of this," Drake admits, "especially when you're not used to letting yourself express things in the first place."

He has to think for a moment, because that isn't a convenient answer but he does want to offer K somewhere as a starting point. What comes to mind is, once again, a question.

"Do you know why I wanted to be the one to tell you? Even though you're gonna talk to him too, and why I'm asking you what you're feeling?"

Is he going to talk to him too? K has been dealing with people - with someone in particular - that think it's better, safer, kinder even for him to be held at a distance and she doesn't like to talk to him anymore. It doesn't seem like a foregone conclusion to K that Jesus will say anything to him at all, even though admittedly he is different from Sara. He is typically more willing to talk, to try.

Not the question. He shakes his head: no.

"Because you trusted him, not me, and for at least the next two months we're gonna have to be able to communicate without him as a safety net. I didn't sign with you for Jesus, K. It matters to me how you're doing."

Overall Drake feels like he's been too reliant on Jesus, both in general since losing his partner and when it comes to K. Whether he justified the latter as not wanting to intimidate or push K, or just that the other sub was objectively safer and more likeable... they're on their own now. He needs to be more up front about giving a shit, even if K sees it as a challenge to his self image.

"You can tell me to back off. But if you're okay talking about it... maybe we can figure this out together?"

"He didn't ask you to?" K replies, doubtful. Of course that's not what Drake had said but he wouldn't, would he? And maybe that's not how blatant Jesus would have been either, but K knows about coincidences. And he knows how Jesus networks.

But trying to say Drake only signed with K because of Jesus is like saying K did the same and that's not strictly true. A large factor, perhaps, but not the only one.

"What is there to figure out? What changes now?"

"No," Drake replies simply, with a little shrug. "I brought it up, he actually seemed kinda wary at first. Like maybe he thought I was offering to make him happy? I dunno."

It doesn't really matter, does it? Things went how they went, and he leaned on Jesus too much either way. K's next question feels more important, especially since it's the same answer to both questions.

"We figure out how we relate to each other. That's what's gonna change."

K wasn't there. He doesn't have an opinion on what might have been behind that wariness, doesn't know exactly what was said and how, so he lets it go. It doesn't matter anyway.

Very little, if any, of it mattered apparently. He swallows, considers not answering just to fill space again, but in the end he does need to know:

"How does that change for you?"

Drake has to think about that before he says anything, because he hasn't really figured that out yet. After a moment he decides the only answer he's got is honesty. That's usually a good starting point for him anyway, even if it's not super reassuring.

"I guess I won't be asking him to help make sure you're doing okay anymore, or for advice on how not to screw up... I'm probably just gonna screw up directly. Sorry in advance." It's a weak, almost sheepish joke, but he's trying. In more ways than one.

"I don't need to be taken care of," K points out after a long moment considering that.

"I don't need you to never make a mistake. I'm not that fucking fragile."

He says it as calmly as anything else, but he never swears; it's a brief, blink and you'll miss it glimpse of the anger he never lets show because he doesn't want anyone to be afraid of him. Because it's dangerous for everyone to be afraid of him.

But the scale seems to have gone in the other direction. "I need to not be lied to, or if it has to be a lie, don't tell me that it's not. I need you to understand that I am alone here, and that means something. It means a lot. I can't explain it any plainer than that."

Edited 2023-03-19 19:14 (UTC)

Although he doesn't miss the flash of anger, Drake doesn't seem scared of it. If anything his reaction is a strange... his mouth twists into a small, bitter smile.

"No, you don't. I'm not worried about fucking up because I think you're fragile, K. But I hear you." He exhales, looking back up to meet K's gaze properly again. "I think I can handle that."

"Then we should be fine," is his conclusion, even though no part of him feels settled. He's still processing what he's been told, what any of this means, and feeling things bubbling up that are both unexpected and, he knows, temporary.

"Would you mind if I took a little bit to think?"

That makes two of them. Drake doesn't feel settled either, and he's definitely not okay, but if nothing else he understands K needing time to process. His expression warms back up at the question.

"Take it. And thank you, for being honest with me." Hopefully they'll muddle through it alright. This world's been giving him a lot of practice at moderating expectations, that's for sure, but Drake's still hoping. "He does wants to talk to you, too. I guess you can call him when you're ready? Or don't, but in that case he'll probably try to contact you."

K should be prepared for that, he figures.

"I expect so, yes," K agrees, his voice toneless. Unless Jesus is full on panicking, or maybe if there were a way to get away from this city and this place, he expects that eventually the other man will want to say something. All K had to do is wait.

He pulls on Mango's leash then, pairs it with calling for her, low but firm. She's reluctant, and she doesn't actually do more than glance back at K before back to Sable, but she does let herself be pulled away.

"I'll be in contact soon."

Drake lifts his free hand and gives a little wave, hoping that's true. The 'soon' part. They might have different criteria for it, after all... but he can be patient. He watches K turn away and his back as he leads Mango down the path, worry twisting in the pit of his stomach.

It's only once the other man is out of sight that he decides he might as well go for a proper walk himself. Being alone in his apartment isn't great for him, that's been true since before Jesus decided anything. Maybe he'll line up some plans besides work for the next few days so he's out as much as possible, while things settle. But he has a feeling he's going to be checking his phone constantly, just to make sure he didn't miss anything from K.

Stick with him on this, buddy. It doesn't have to be the end of the world.

Jesus does come and talk to K. It's hard, but it's not the end of the world. It takes two days total for K to contact Drake again, to let him know he's ready to talk again.

He doesn't have Mango with him this time. He walks with a cigarette in hand, but puts it out before he has to go inside the building, before he has to speak with anyone.

He looks about the same as he did last time, except more settled into it. Quiet, in a way that's different from his usual quiet; self-contained, hands in his pockets and eyes around rather than on people.

"How are you?" he leads with, knowing Jesus had planned to talk to him again, too.

The first thing Drake notices when he lets K in is the way the other man doesn't quite look at him. The second is the hint of smoke around him as he walks past. Drake closes the door and gestures for K to go on ahead and settle in the living room.

"I'm processing," he answers, since this isn't supposed to be about him. "I never knew you smoked. We-- I've got some, if you want."

"After shift," he shrugs, because that's usually when he does smoke. "With dinner, usually."

And when stressed, because as it turns out, the world can be dead and the population slowly sickening, starving, and dying, but they'll still figure out how to kill themselves faster.

"I didn't know you smoked," he counters.

"...I don't, not really. Not since high school. But my partner did." Drake's been going through them very slowly, and doesn't intend to buy more but can't bring himself to throw these away either.

He detours to the kitchen, opening a drawer and pulling out a pack, lighter, and ash tray.

"You want something to drink?"

That was more or less the answer he expected, but he didn't want to ask outright in case he was wrong. He nods, mostly to himself, and pulls his little battered cigarette tin out of his pocket to consider.

"Sure. Anything is fine."

Drake opens the fridge and grabs two bottles of beer for them, then heads out onto the balcony. It's a decent enough day and he's got two chairs out here. He claims the far one, setting everything down on the little metal table between them and opening K's beer for him by bracing the bottlecap on the edge of it and smacking down. The motion is smooth and practiced and he repeats it with his own, then lights a cigarette and places the pack in between them in case K wants to help him with these.

"So you've had some time to think?"

"I have."

K likes sitting outside, likes that Drake chose it; he follows and settles in the other chair, pausing only to shrug his duty coat off, drape it over the back. He doesn't mind that it's long enough to drag the ground. It's been through worse.

He sits for a moment, scanning what he can see around them, before his attention catches on the cigarettes again. He does, eventually, reach over to pull one out for himself but doesn't light it, not yet.

He smiles, a little, when he sees the ease with which Drake opens the bottles; he balances his own on his knee, and considers what to say next.

"You said we needed to learn how to communicate without Jesus as a safety net. That you didn't want things to change between us. And that you didn't know the reasons I signed with you that weren't predicated on Jesus, specifically. Does all that still apply?"

"Mostly," Drake agrees, settling back in his seat and exhaling his first puff of smoke into the wind. "It's normal if things change between us -- I expect them to, over time. I just didn't want you to think that Jesus breaking our contract meant anything had to. Like if you were still comfortable with me, I wasn't about to change the terms or say when we're up we're up, you know? Otherwise, yeah. All that's right."

Without knowing where K is going with this, Drake only felt the need to clarify that one point. He lifts the smoke back to his lips and inhales as he waits for the other man to continue, the fingers of his other hand tracing the raised lettering on his beer bottle.

"I'm comfortable with you," K agrees, although he rather suspects it hasn't come off that way because: "It's always been the rules that were the problem."

Rules that he's always aware of, that he can't not be aware of in the same way that he wants to point out that Jesus didn't break contract but simply exercised his right not to renew, as far as K knows. He doesn't because he's also learned that most people don't live to the letter, most aren't even aware of the letter, and he's never been able to explain that to people born with free will and the ability to exercise it effortlessly.

"I don't know what to do here, Drake. That's the honest truth. I - the contracts have been hard for me from the beginning. Nothing that's happened in my experience with them has really changed that, including a man who promised that whatever happened, good or bad, I wouldn't be alone in it." He rolls the cigarette between his fingers.

"Except I'm not alone in it. You're in it, too. And nothing bad has happened, not really. It's old experience informing how this feels."

K wouldn't be the first to correct Drake on the language he uses -- communication has never been his strong suit, he's better at showing meaning through his actions -- and he's absolutely correct. Literally speaking the contract wasn't broken, it just ran out. But something was broken. The understanding between him and Jesus, and the trust between Jesus and K. So while he'd take a correction well, he doesn't mean to misrepresent anything.

It's nuanced, but he's trying. And when K does speak again Drake listens intently, nodding only when he's sure the other man is done for the moment.

"You're gonna feel how you feel, K. I don't think anybody in the history of consciousness has ever really had control over that, no matter what they try. If you want my opinion?" He pauses there for a moment to wait for a dismissal, and when it doesn't come he offers it, honest and simple. "Follow them, without worrying about it being logical or whatever. What do you want? If resigning doesn't feel right when we're up, you can try somebody else or take another grace period... how you're feeling is more important than the rules, and your life before here is always gonna influence them. Whatever happens, whoever you're signed with, make sure they understand that."

Can we talk? Please.

Yes.

In person?

Please.

I'm on my way to your place okay?

Okay.

It's unlocked.

It's early morning, just before dawn when he lets himself in.

"K?"

Mango is over at Sara's, so the apartment is quiet in the weak grey morning light coming in through the window. K is on the couch, working slowly on a cigarette, Janus safely in a jar in the closed bathroom so the smoke won't hurt him.

He looks over when the door opens, but it's exactly who he was expecting, so he just takes another draw and taps ash into the tray in front of him.

He looks at K and it's a knife in the chest, every doubt he has being driven right back home. "Drake said he wanted to talk to you first. So I hope he has because I couldn't wait any more."

K knew it was likely something like this would happen someday; he'd told Drake as much. He knew that Jesus would want to talk to him, and he said that too.

He's having enough trouble with his own emotions right now, so he doesn't look up to meet Jesus's eyes just yet. He can't.

"He has."

"I'm sorry. I'm having second thoughts, I did the second it happened but I just- I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm doing, K." And that, for Jesus, is terrifying.

"It didn't happen -" he points out, his voice low, calm as it ever is, but cool on the consonants, crisp in a way that disappears when he's relaxed.

"You made a choice."

"You're right. I'm trying to distance myself from it and I shouldn't. I did this." And he's desperate right now to make it right, but again, there's no sense of which way is up or down or what is right or wrong.

K watches the orange glow of the cigarette slowly eating its way down the paper, watches the dead grey ash gathering on the opposite side; Jesus said he was sorry. K believes that. He believes he's having second thoughts, believes he doesn't know what to do.

Problem is, neither does K. He taps off the ash, takes another long, deep lungful of smoke, breathes it out slow through his nose.

"Have a seat, if you want."

He does. Carefully, like K might change his mind in a moment.

"Have you ever been afraid of feeling safe?"

K doesn't move, except to hold onto the ashtray in case Jesus's weight on the couch shifts something. That, and to shake his head.

No, of all the myriad things K has been afraid of in his life, he has never been afraid of feeling safe.

"It must be difficult."

"It's not. Because I never feel safe." He's watching K, heart in his throat. "But I did with you."

He knows.

He knew then.

Do they teach you how to feel, finger to finger? Interlinked.

"Then why?"

It's not my role.

I don't belong with you.

And he hears Rosita's voice and he fights those answers back. "Because it scares me. And it's not the kind of fear I know how to think through. I always ran before; I ran now. But it feels wrong."

K drops his head forward, cards his free hand back through his short hair, scrubs it forward again. He flicks ash into the tray, then sets the cigarette in it, sets the whole thing aside.

"Drake said you told him you were trying to protect us."

"It would be easy for the city to use him against me. It's what I was afraid of to start with--having to make that choice again." Between the job, the mission, and a person.

"But it didn't feel like I was leaving you at the time. Not until I was running and trying to make it make sense to myself."

What K hears is that Jesus wasn't thinking about him at all; the moment after that he tells himself there's no real reason he should have. The contract is between Jesus and Drake, and K doesn't have anything to do with their relationship or vice.

Except the part of any of this that hit K the deepest, that he didn't see coming, that he doesn't know how to just set aside and remind himself that he already knew.

He finally, finally looks up, eyes somber in the half-dark, features wounded - and his voice is very, very soft when he says, "You said we'd be in this together." When there are no right answers, sometimes it helps to just have someone with you.

He did say that. He meets K's gaze--he owes him that much.

"And I wish I hadn't run." He's not the same person who once crawled out a window to escape a boyfriend. He's clearly not the same person who chose to end relationships secure in knowing he was right.

"If I came back could you ever forgive me?"

"It's not that simple, Jesus," he says, not unkindly, not harsh - but there's not much strength to it either.

"Because I already have. I'm not angry anymore. I can't hold fear against you. You've never lied to me, not intentionally."

"You can. Most people would." Have. Do still. "I wouldn't blame you if you did."

"I -" He leans into it, firm, certain of this much: most people might, but he is not most people.

He's not even a person, and sometimes lately, he thinks that's better. "Won't do that."

He believes him. He doesn't know what to do with that, with someone who doesn't offer him a wall of anger and resentment.

"Would you let me try to earn back your trust?"

"Do you want to?"

It's an earnest question, and K's eyes are on Jesus's now, unblinking, studying and searching for whatever it was that he might have missed before, if indeed there's anything.

"Do you want to risk feeling this way in another couple of months? Maybe always?"

Maybe always. Maybe he will always want to run.

"It's different this time. Every boyfriend I've ever dated, I've left, K. And I never felt guilty about any of them. I just felt relief. But I don't now. All I want is to go back to yesterday and undo what I did, and I can't, so I'm trying to find a way forward."

"Boyfriend."

Jesus has never used that word with him; K has never pressed for it, never needed it. Replicants can't be equals, can't be partners, so he just never expected it. That isn't to say K doesn't know he's important, or that Jesus is any less important to him, but - Jesus says it now.

K echoes it back, just to make sure he heard.

"Why do this now? What changed?"

"I never felt love before the world ended, K. If I did it was just-" It always ended when the foster families inevitably returned him to the system, until he was just stuck in a group home until he aged out.

"But I learned how, I started to, when I had to think about putting all of my friends down if a mission went wrong. And then I came here where no one dies. No one is ever going to reanimate into a walker. I'm free here to just experience it, to just feel love, and I do. And I realized that's what I'd been feeling for you, for Drake--even with deeper friendships like one I have with Rosita or Vrenille. And I panicked. I was past the point where I was always safe in my relationships before."

They've talked about this before. K has mentioned that he sees that it's hard sometimes for Jesus to be around him, that it's hard to settle with him, and they moved past it.

K wants that for him. He wants him to find whatever it was he was missing before, because the truth is that K loves him, too.

K has no idea what to do with it either. "And are you still panicking now? Is that what this is - wanting to reverse it, wanting to undo it?"

"I'm not panicking." He knows what panic feels like. If he knows any feeling in the world it's panic. "This is me wanting to fix something I broke."

K isn't angry - not at Jesus anyway, not specifically. He doesn't resent him or blame him for wanting to protect himself. All of that was true.

But there is still something broken, something shifted from where it was before even if K doesn't have a name for it. He has a name for so few things when it comes right down to it.

Dreadfully distinct against the dark.

Distinct. "I just don't want to keep doing this, Jesus. I don't know what I'm doing, either."

"You won't have to." His word doesn't mean much right now. He knows that.

It doesn't. That he wants to say it does, that he means what he's saying does, and K can see that he does: he looks for them and every single marker is there, and not a single trace of dishonesty. K knows how to look under a person's skin, find the pieces of them they're trying to hide - replicants, yes, that was what it was built for, he was meant to find the barcode printed under a subject's eye if it was there to find in their mannerisms, their delays, all the ways that they were close to and yet not quite human. But he learned more than that too.

His original cigarette is out. He picks up the pack off the table in front of him, pulls another out, lights it and draws on it in silence. He has no idea what to say, no idea what to explain, so he doesn't.

He just doesn't.

"What do you want me to do right now?" Stay, go. Keep talking, shut up. He has no idea what he's doing still, only what he wants to do, but K is the one who was hurt; K has the right to decide where things go.

"Could we just -" It comes out sharper than K ever is, frustrated with them both, with the situation, with the fact that he's already established there's no one to really blame and yet.

And yet. He sucks down a third of the new cigarette in one draw, catches himself, forces himself to let it out slow. The edge is gone when he speaks again.

"What do you want to do?"

He deserves this. He hears the heat in K's tone, something that has never been there before, and accepts that.

"Could we just what?"

He wants to reach up and rub the bridge of his nose, the corners of his eyes. He doesn't.

"Could we just... sit here, for a bit. And not talk." Just be, and let K think.

He nods, expression worried but guarded. Of course they can. As long as K wants.

K is capable of sitting for hours without speaking, barely moving; he's comfortable in it. More comfortable sometimes than speaking with anyone, it must be said. No one can punish him or degrade him or be suspicious of him with thoughts he keeps to himself. He doesn't have to struggle to put anything he's thinking or feeling into words.

He finishes the current cigarette, lights a third off of it and smokes that one down, then a fourth - not frantically, not in distress, but steadily. Methodically. He fidgets with it in his hand occasionally, flicking ash off with his thumb or just idly moving it up and down, doesn't look at Jesus, doesn't look at anything if he's not actively doing something with his hands. The smoke curls up from his nostrils, from his mouth, in even, measured breaths.

Finally he puts out the last one, deciding Janus has been trapped in his jar long enough. The morning is well under way when he stands up, turns to open the window a little bit wider to let more of the smoke clear out, then sits down again where he was before.

"When Drake told me you thought you were protecting us," he finally says, and his voice is low but the tension from earlier has smoothed out of it. "All I could think was - what did I say? What have I done, or not done, that makes people I love think I want some flimsy illusion of safety instead of them? That it's something you have to do for me, that I can't for myself."

"I made a decision that wasn't really mine to make," Jesus says, watching K.

He stays sitting, stays still, giving K space to move or have distance as he needs. "Back home we learn you can't make choices for other people. It's what I wanted my community to be built around: everyone gets a choice. And I took that from you and I'm sorry and I want to make that right. I want to never do that again. It wasn't fair to you."

There's a note of desperation that creeps in when he says, "K, I'm so sorry."

It's the desperation that keeps K quiet, that stops the rest of what he was going to say - that makes him wonder if it matters. Really, on the whole of it, does it matter - and when did he start thinking that it did?

Jesus made a mistake. He's already here trying to fix it, and K already knows he doesn't want to stop seeing or talking to or knowing Jesus, so the choice becomes obvious. Why does it still feel like trying to use a dislocated joint, then?

Probably because it's new, he thinks. Probably because this is just part of it he doesn't understand, but he looks at Jesus, he listens to him talking about choice and saying he's sorry, and he already knows where this ends up.

So he swallows the rest down, he nods, and he says, "It's okay."

"Is it? It doesn't feel okay," he says, almost gasping the words, and he looks down at his hands to steady himself.

"I love you, K. And I'm not sure how to love anyone yet. But I want to know. I want to figure out how to be good at it."

K is not unaware of the magnitude of someone that he didn't feel comfortable naming a date a date around suddenly saying that he loves him. He doesn't miss it, but it seems like the sort of thing that he shouldn't try to grab hold of either. It's not a surprise after all. Not to K, who has been watching Jesus love him for weeks now.

Not that this means it's nothing. It's the reason he can say again, "It's okay. I don't know either, but it's okay."

"What can I do?" To make this up to him. He'd do anything.

"What would you want?" he says after a long moment of considering.

"If you were in my position. What would you need?"

He shakes his head. "Time. To see you prove it. But I don't know what would prove it to you besides me just being present."

"I don't know either." This is a placeholder, not a verdict. A verbal hand held up to reserve space while he tries to come up with something more substantial, more helpful.

"I know you're not lying, now or then. And I've known for a while you sometimes feel... conflicted. And sometimes not." He can always tell, which is the gift and the curse of the Voight-Kampff modification combined with his intimate knowledge of Jesus specifically.

"And I... ignored. What I knew, because things are different here. Because I can usually see what you're feeling but not why, not the intention. For those I have to trust what's being said, and - I do. And this still happened."

"What would it have looked like if you hadn't ignored it?" But more importantly, "I'm hearing that you feel- fault, maybe, for being hurt by this. There's no fault on your end."

A muscle in K's jaw tenses and releases, his eyes still lowered.

"I don't know. I don't know if what I'm feeling is what anyone else would feel or if it's... Some flaw, some warning spark in me. I'm not made to do this. I'm not made to be this."

A flaw. A warning spark.

Jesus isn't a replicant but oh, the ways he empathizes with that way of thinking.

"Made to be what?"

"Loved," he answers after a moment, low, almost too low.

"Or to love."

He swallows. "Love isn't something you can choose or predict. It just happens. So I don't think there's any way they could make you around those parameters, K."

"What's it like to hold the hand of someone you love?" K quotes, his voice taking on that hollow, mechanical cadence it does when he's referencing the baseline script.

"Do they teach you how to feel finger to finger? Do you long for having your heart interlinked?" Scan said you don't look like you on the inside. Miles off your baseline.

He runs his hand back through his hair, shakes his head and looks away when he says, guiltily, "Interlinked."

"They gave you a baseline because they know you are capable of love," he points out. "If you weren't they wouldn't have needed to watch you so closely."

K can't really blame Jesus for being unsure, for being afraid; K certainly doesn't feel as confident right now as he had at the carnival, after Thanksgiving or Tumenalia. He feels more precarious than ever.

Is this really what they were watching for? Or anger? Righteous, destructive, unstoppable hatred was what K was developed to deal with in other replicants. He was never told what he was meant to deal with in himself.

He doesn't have an answer so he doesn't try to give one.

He watches K. He thinks he should go--part of him thinks K wants him to go--but he doesn't move. "Me saying it to you doesn't mean you have to feel anything back."

"But I do."

This brings K's eyes around again, landing on Jesus, studying features he's studied over and over and over as he slept, talked, laughed, kissed, and any of the dozens of things they've done for sex.

"I do feel something back."

Edited 2023-03-24 04:11 (UTC)

"It doesn't have to be a bad thing, does it?"

Maybe he's asking more for himself than for K, but they both have so many reasons not to trust love or attachment.

"It doesn't feel bad." That's not entirely an accurate statement right this exact moment, but K is capable of understanding that some things are temporary.

Hopefully. "It hasn't, for me."

"It hasn't for me either. It's been amazing, K." So why did he run? Because it was overwhelming. A wave crashing over him, something he couldn't just breathe through.

"I can't promise I won't make mistakes again. But it won't be this one. I won't run from you."

"I don't need you not to make mistakes," he says, quietly, and it's almost a sigh but he means it. He does. "You're human. It happens."

I won't run from you.

"It's okay. We'll be okay."

He doesn't deserve this sort of forgiveness but he can make damn sure he earns it.

"Can I touch you?"

He doesn't realize until Jesus asks that he has any opinion on it either way - and for a brief, weighted moment he wants to say no.

But he doesn't actually want to push Jesus away either, doesn't want to hurt him, so he nods.

He nods, and he turns his nearest hand palm up.

He starts to reach for him but he saw that hesitation.

"You can say 'no'. I understand. It's okay. I won't be hurt." He understands needing space after pain.

"I said yes," K points out instead, a stubborn edge to it that he eases off in the next moment.

"Maybe not always, but this time, it's okay."

What Jesus wasn't prepared for is that he's afraid to touch K now. But he steps forward and tentatively wraps his arms around him, lays his head against him.

It's hard to tell what K is feeling just by looking at him. Easier once someone becomes more familiar with him, but still difficult.

It's much easier once he's being touched, which is not something he had to deal with in Los Angeles for the most part. Maybe he'll get better at it as time goes on, but here, now, his palm is still up and he lives an arm to make room for Jesus coming closer to him, but he's tense. The arm he slips around the other man in turn is cautious.

He learned how to do this here. He was learning how to do this. There's still so much he doesn't know how to do, including be hurt and love at the same time.

"I'm sorry, K." He doesn't know what else to say; the words he usually has just dry up into this one solid truth. "I never wanted to hurt you. I never want to hurt you again, and I know I will."

"I don't mind that, Jesus," he answers, soft, sad. Bit by bit his arm relaxes, rests more readily around Jesus's shoulders.

"It's these fucking contracts. They mess with my head, they make everything... complicated." They make things that he could normally choose to let go keep coming back to twist deeper again and again.

"I hate them, too. I do." For different reasons, but legitimate ones. "They get to me, too."

"Can I ask why?" he chances, breathing out and trying to find that same ease that had begun to settle between them.

"It was a piece of paper that took me away from my mom. It was always papers that got me sent to homes that didn't want me. I don't trust the papers here to protect me the way they say they will. But I don't have a good alternative to going along with it here."

K is quiet then. He doesn't want to hurt Jesus, not really, that's not the kind of anger he has in him just now. Not that it was before, either. It's just not in him naturally.

And what he has to say to that is, or feels like, such a big risk to him. Not to anyone else necessarily, but there are still old habits that have clamped down hard. Old fears that don't stop just because he can tell someone else that he understands they're obsolete.

He cards his fingers just once through the ends of Jesus's hair, then touches his shoulder, light, so he'll have warning when K starts to shift back again.

"It's the contract that bothers me most, Jesus."

Jesus lets him go, folds his arms across his chest, listens. "I know. And I wish I knew how to help."

But clearly he doesn't know how to help with his own issues.

"It doesn't help that you aren't being treated like property by Drake?"

"Drake is fine. None of this has anything to do with Drake."

Drake has done everything he promised, and K had been hoping to have plenty of time to just try to adjust and see the shape of how life could be, the way everyone keeps insisting it can be.

"If it were rational, there wouldn't be a problem. But it's not, and I - when all the rest of it wasn't enough on its own, I'd come back to what you said. To not being alone in it." K doesn't talk half as much as other people, but when he does it's in more or less smooth, complete thoughts. This is anything but. This is halting and hesitant and just shy of disjointed.

All because of this: "That was... so important to me."

It's a knife to the throat, is what it feels like, hearing that and knowing how much he's failed K.

"Please let me prove myself to you."

"Prove what?" he asks, not harshly.

"It's not as though I'd ask you to stay in a contract you didn't feel comfortable in anymore, either."

"That I won't actually leave you." He turns, restless in a way he has never felt before. He wants to move, to run, but not to run anywhere that takes him away from K.

It's the restlessness that has K watching Jesus now, stepping back as if that can ease some of the pressure, can help Jesus feel comfortable staying.

He wishes it didn't. He wishes he knew how to make whatever catches and holds in his chest listen to his thoughts, but he doesn't, so he waits and he watches and he does his best to believe what Jesus is saying over everything else.

"Okay," he tries.

Okay. An 'okay' is better than a 'no'.

Jesus only paces a little before he steadies himself and looks back at K. "What do you need right now?"

Even if K were inclined to be around anyone right now, it would be hard to ask Jesus for anything when he's already working so hard to rein himself in. He waits though, and he gives the question a three count before he answers.

"I need some time to think," he says, soberly.

"Okay." He nods. He'd need time, too. And space. "I'll go. Just- come find me when you're ready. Whenever you want. Okay?"

"I will," he promises. He doesn't no when it will be, what he'll have to say, or what it even looks like at this point, but he can promise that much anyway.

He nods again and then turns away. "I'll see you then."

It feels better to say than 'goodbye', though he's aware that might well be what this is. And then he's gone.

[Vrenille waits until he and Jesus have talked things through and Jesus is getting a bit of sleep before immediately calling K, taking himself off to a private part of the house to do it.

He's been itching with worry since he heard what happened, and he doesn't bother with text or audio. If it weren't for wanting to make sure he's here when Jesus wakes up, he'd probably just have gone in person.]

K? Jesus came to see me. Are you--

How are you?

[There's no disguising that he's worried; he doesn't bother trying to hide it.]

[K is awake. He doesn't answer right away, toying with the device in his hand, looking over what he can see of Vrenille's face. It's never the same in video transmissions. Cameras miss small details that are important, they distort measurements, they change lighting - it's important. But he can still make most things work.

He was thinking about Vrenille anyway, about trying to talk to someone who wants to hear his voice, but of course. Of course Jesus went to him, and he's neither surprised nor begrudges him that, but it makes his own decision to just stay in, to just stay silent, seem like his only real viable one. He doesn't feel any particular way about this, he doesn't think. Just resigned.

When he finally turns on the feed it's to a dark apartment, only starlight and ambient light from the city outside it backlighting him a bit, and the glowing tip of a cigarette in his hand. Nibbles is stretched across his lap, apparently asleep with his head in his hand where he's rubbing his ears.]

How is he?

Sleeping.

[Vrenille's brow is furrowed with worry. He can barely see K in the darkness, the camera not quite adjusting to the bright hot tip of the cigarette against the low ambient light. Mostly, he can see hints of movement, shadowy outlines, but he can tell that K is sitting alone in the dark and it makes him fidget a little, wondering if he really should have just gone in person.]

He's better than he was when he got here. I'm worried 'bout you though.

[I'm okay, he could say now, almost does. He's okay, he will be, none of this is anything he can't come back from.

He doesn't say it. He takes a draw off the cigarette, briefly lighting his face more, and lets the smoke trail naturally back out of his nose on the slow exhale.]

I saw this coming. I knew.

And I ignored it. Because I was asked to.

Which part? [There's a tone of sadness to the question, because the sorts of things that have been done here, Vrenille knows, are not things that can easily be undone.]

That he's in love with you. That he'd run. Or both?

Yes.

I mean - I didn't know that he'd run. But I saw moments before when he almost did. When he wanted to but didn't.

So.

[He makes a thoughtful sound, nodding. It's not hard to picture what K is describing--how clearly he'd be able to spot the moments of hesitation, the near breaks that Jesus didn't ultimately make...until he did.]

Can't make it feel much better now though. Just the opposite maybe.

[They'd talked about it, even. K had tried to say he understood, and Jesus had insisted he felt safe, felt good with him. And he meant that too.

He's meant all of it, even his apology, which leaves K at a loss for what to do, so he makes a soft sound of agreement in his throat, and occupies himself with another lungful of smoke.]

I'm not here to try 'n be some kinda go-between, trying to patch things up 'tween you guys like some middleman. That's not my place.

He came to me, and that's no small thing. It matters. But it's to one side. I'm worried 'bout you now, K. I'm worried 'bout where this leaves you.

He told me you don't trust him anymore. [But he doesn't know if those were K's words or what Jesus took from them. He doesn't know if that's where K is at right now. And there's no blame for it, either way. He's just looking for a place to begin.]

There's nothing to patch up. We didn't argue. I'm not angry.

[He accepted Jesus's apology, and told him they're okay; clearly, Jesus didn't believe that, but that's fair. K meant to mean it, but he doesn't know how to actually get any closer to that end goal.

He's still not angry, not particularly. Something else though, something related, something not far from it.]

I just. Don't know what to believe.

Yeah. I can kinda guess it must be like limbo.

[He can imagine frustration and resentment for the situation that K's found himself left in, but it's not his place to try and drum up words for whatever K is feeling either.]

Have you spoken to Drake? [The other factor in all this, a man Vrenille doesn't know except second hand, but who's come to hold this position of power in K's life.]

Yes.

He came to find me first. He asked to, I guess.

He wanted me to know that it didn't change anything between us. Except it did change something, even if he doesn't know the shape of it yet.

First? [Obvious surprise. Jesus failed to mention that.

Vrenille's prepared to bite his tongue on it. He's prepared to try and bite his tongue on all of it, but as K goes on, the furrow in his brow grows. He opens his mouth and closes it again a few times before actually figuring out what he wants to say.]

Sorry, maybe I'm not following.

He asked to talk to you so he could tell you Jesus leaving doesn't change anything.

And then--is it you saying something has changed even though he doesn't know it? Or is that him saying it to you, like he's gonna let you know when he works out what the change is?

[The difficulty with trying to do damage control with a replicant blade runner is that it's nearly impossible to bluff him. He's too well mannered to call anyone out on it, usually, but he has to be very distracted indeed to miss whatever is underneath whatever he's being told.]

He said he wanted me to be able to trust him. He was trying to make me believe our arrangement didn't have to change.

But so much of it hinges on Jesus. How can it not?

I just don't see how someone's gonna tell you that. Seems a lot more an asking you situation to me.

[He doesn't care for it, and even though he's not going to say so directly, K will probably be able to tell even via video. He doesn't care for anyone taking a unilateral stance on how things are or how they will be with anyone, but especially not with K.

But he sighs deeply lets it go. For one thing, he might still be misunderstanding. For another, if K's not mad about it, then Vrenille needs to accept his lead. And for a third, Drake is someone who Jesus trusts--who Jesus loves. So, alright. But that doesn't make him any less worried.]

It kinda sounded like it all hinges on Jesus. Unless there's parts I'm missing. You've never made it sound like you and Drake are close.

Jesus was the go between for our contract. I... when I lived with V for that month, we were neighbors, and I would pet his dog sometimes. But he came and spoke to me for the first time after Jesus mentioned me.

And I didn't want a contract. I still don't want a contract. But I also didn't want to keep hurting people, and it's not going to change, so - Jesus trusts him. I have no reason not to, not that he's given me, and I do like him. He's been kind.

[K's cigarette hits the filter and he grinds it out in the ashtray, but immediately pulls another out of the tin on the table.]

He helped me set terms in the contract, helped rent this apartment, and - then he left me alone, which is what I wanted. It's not his fault I don't want this. It's not because of him that I don't.

I just. [He falls quiet, rolling the unlit cigarette in his fingers, rubbing Nibbles' ears. He just doesn't know, so he just doesn't start again.]

Well trusting him and liking him, those go a long way. And kindness is important.

There's a lotta folks in this city who've got contracts of convenience. Two people needing signatures on a piece of paper and nothing more. Sign and then live their lives separate. If that's what you want and he'll still respect it now... [On that front, K is formally no better or worse off, regardless of what Jesus chooses to do.

That's clearly not how it feels though, and Vrenille's not about to try and say it should.]

If Jesus went back, if he signed with Drake again, would that make it-- I know not better, but would it help?

[Another long pause. K sits for several moments, trying to get traction on the question, trying to make it fit what he knows is the logical progression. It's two days, and if no one had said anything, nothing would have changed. It shouldn't matter. No harm no foul, nothing has changed, nothing has happened.

Except it did. K lights the new cigarette, carefully setting it down again, and tries to say yes. Tries to say it's a done deal, it's fine, life goes on.

What he says, very very quietly, is:] I don't want to be here, Vrenille.

[It breaks Vrenille's heart hearing him say it and knowing he's so entirely powerless to alleviate the hurt--to alleviate anything, not just about having to be here, but about having to feel the things he's now feeling.

He can't get him out of a contract he doesn't want to be in, can't get him free from contracts altogether, can't take him home with him to Tyria, can't take away the things that are worst and most inescapable about life in this city, and he doesn't have any words that will make this hurt any less.]

I'm coming there, alright? I know I can't change anything, but I'm coming there, and then... I just am. [So long as K doesn't tell him no, at least.]

Jesus needs you there.

[K is rubbing at his face, rubbing hard at the corners of his eyes, like he can massage any of this right out of him but of course he can't. No one can.]

He came to you there. That's a big deal.

He's asleep. Probably be out for a few hours yet. I'll leave a note in case he wakes up while I'm out.

[And more to the point, Jesus seemed pretty steady and calm at the point they reached. That's not to say that panic can't resurge, but the initial crisis seemed to have ebbed.]

He wouldn't want me not to come see you.

[Smoke curls up into the starlight framed by the window, pulled out the gap he's left open to vent it. More rushes up as he breathes out.]

Alright.

Could you bring more cigarettes? I'm almost out.

Of course I can. [It's such a small, simple request that it has no right to strike the pang it does in his chest, but he smiles through it regardless.]

I'll be there in twenty.

[There's a light on by the time K is opening the door for Vrenille, at least.
K can see just fine without it, but he knows how it looks, and anyway Vrenille will probably need it so he turns on one low lamp in the corner and pours a few drinks while he waits. Waiting is always hardest.

He was always good at waiting.

K is also holding what is both very obviously a puppy still and on her way to becoming quite a sturdy, large adult pit bull, solid, rich butterscotch in color; he has her over one arm like she's still only weeks old, held to his chest so that when she starts wiggling excitedly upon seeing the newcomer, he can steady them both.

She lets out a soft whuff of sound that gathers in the next one to slightly louder, but he murmurs to her and strokes between her ears and she doesn't bark again, only wiggles harder.]

This is Mango. If you pet her a few times, I can put her away with a toy and she won't make the neighbors hate me.

[It's hit or miss sometimes, she's still a puppy, but he's confident he can keep her quiet anyway. Nibbles has already moved to the bed.]

The first thing Vrenille wants to do when he gets through the door is throw his arms around K's neck and hug him.

There's a puppy in the way though, and he can absolutely tell by all the wriggling, that there's going to be no settling down without a greeting. So he dutifully presents his hand for sniffing, licking, nibbling, or the overeager combination of all three that one sometimes gets with puppies.

"Mango," he repeats the name first to smile at K for how adorable that is before greeting the dog herself. "Hi, Mango." He rubs her chin and one floppy ear, hopefully offering what counts as a satisfactory puppy greeting. His experience with animals has never extended to being a natural with them, but it's not at all lost on him how important these companions K is accumulating seem to be for him, and that matters to him a great deal.

"Hard to imagine you not getting on with your neighbours." K is so polite and respectful of people. But then he's also the single submissive who lives next door, and sometimes people will use any petty excuse to complain.

"I never have," he admits, and he smiles when he does but it's neither happy nor reaches his eyes. "At least the ones here don't write things on my door."

Mango is all too happy to make a new friend, pawing the air as if she can paddle closer to Vrenille, tail wagging furiously when it's not caught against K's chest or side. K lets her for a minute or two, and then murmurs quietly, "That's enough." It doesn't cut things off, per se, but when he steps back and moves to put Mango down inside her crate, she doesn't whine or bark. He hands her a chew toy and closes the door, and even though she still stands and stares expectantly between the two men, tail still going, she does settle down to it a few minutes later. She doesn't bark.

K brushes hair off his shirt, glancing back up at Vrenille uncertainly, then away. The animals make for good conversation starters, or buffers; he's not evasive enough just now to try to keep Mango out as a permanent distraction, but it's also true he isn't quite sure what to do now.

"There's um. Drinks there," he finally lands on, nodding at the counter where indeed there are drinks, but he's pulling his cigarette tin out of his pocket again.

While the puppy remains a factor, Vrenille rubs absently behind her ears and strokes along the top of her head. It's just what seems necessary though, a basic level of placation. He's thinking about the apartment he saw in K's memories, the ways people in his world spoke to him, the counterpoints with this one.

It shouldn't be difficult to score a mark on the plus side when the bar is literally on the floor like it has been in so many of K's past experiences, and yet somehow, things in this city seem to keep kicking him while he's down.

"I got you two," he says, pulling twin packs of cigarettes out of a jacket pocket and setting them down for K.

And then he takes the liberty of pouring a drink for them both, selecting something from the available bottles, opting for whatever looks hard but smooth, or at least as smooth as possible. (He and Hakkyuu drink whiskey when they want to drink something strong, so if that's an option, he'll choose it now.) He waits until K's lit his next cigarette before passing him a glass.

"You said you're not angry," his eyes are worried. Maybe K will just tell him he doesn't want to talk about this, maybe it won't do any good...but maybe it will do, maybe talking it through will help a little. "What are you feeling?"

The request shouldn't have been so poignant; the fact that Vrenille actually did it shouldn't be, either, both for its simplicity and for the fact it's Vrenille and yet he blinks a moment when he sees the packs. Two, even. He swallows subtly, and nods.

"Thank you," he offers, quiet, touched as he takes them. He brings them with him over to the couch so he can work on transferring them to his tin - where he's obviously been sitting either often or for a long time, judging by the state of the ashtray. This is where his lighter is, too, so he just stays there while Vrenille brings over, yes, whiskey. He nods again, but sets the glass down on the coffee table for now, focused more on taking long drag off the cigarette while he doesn't answer and doesn't answer and doesn't answer.

What is he feeling? "Not angry with Jesus, I guess," he finally settles on, sighing out smoke. "He was doing what he thought he had to do." It's not for him to say what someone else should and shouldn't do, not for him to decide what's a valid reason and what's not. "But - this keeps happening, and I keep saying I'm afraid of it happening, and I keep being promised it won't. And then it does. But I'm the one who doesn't understand how things are?"

It's such a small thing, but Vrenille watches K take those packs of cigarettes feeling as though he's managed to send a little care package across a no man's land of isolation that he's still trying to find his own way across. It's not much maybe, but at least a not nothing.

"You," he acknowledges firmly, taking a neighbouring seat on the couch, "understand a helluva lot, K. And if we don't acknowledge that often 'nuff then we oughta." We, he says, because he doesn't think he's necessarily excluded from the people who've, inadvertently, made K feel this way.

"I think with humans...I'd say a lotta times, we want so badly for things to be different with us, different in our lives, in what we do and what happens 'cause of it. We really go in with the best intentions, believing what we say, and then somehow, there's the same shit happening again, even when we tried to avoid it. We think we're taking a different road, going somewhere new, we really feel like we are. And then we end up back in the same place again, and maybe we don't even know how we got there; we just got there." He's seen the pattern too many times with too many people not to have noticed it by now.

"None of that's on you though. We both know Jesus didn't set out to hurt you, but here you are still hurt nonetheless." He swirls the whiskey in his glass, looking at the amber of the liquid, not yet taking a sip before looking up at K again.

Here he is, still hurt nonetheless. K turns the cigarette between his fingertips, studying it. It does help, a little, to receive that acknowledgement even if he wonders then at the way some instinct in him, some reflex, rears up immediately to absolve the humans around him from any fault. Is that him? Is that how he feels? Or is it the programming, keeping humans safe from him and what he might do if he did blame them?

He doesn't look up, and only barely manages not to say it, not right now.

"When I was in jail over my first deadline," he says instead, "V begged me to sign with him, for three days straight. Give him this chance. Let him help, it could be different than what I thought, we could make it something else together. He was from a nomad culture, and I think it actually hurt him to see me confined even though the only part I minded was the guards, and even they were... predictable." He draws a lungful of smoke, holds it.

Lets it out slowly while he speaks. "I went in, then, knowing that the city would be forced to do something with me eventually. Assign me to someone - like they did, after he was gone. Inject me with something to take away my choice, like they did when I missed quota. Or just get rid of me. I knew that. I accepted it. I watched it done in Los Angeles, with the rebel replicants we did manage to bring in alive. But V begged me, and it was hurting him, hurting Jesus, hurting you and Sara. So I tried." Here, finally, gently as though it has sharp edges that cut under too much pressure, as if it's something lodged so deep that any movement aches: "He didn't want to go, not for a moment, but V is still gone. There's no together with only one."

"I am so sorry you lost him--when, how you did." There's nothing to be done about it, but that doesn't make it less grievable. "Everything in this place is so fucking arbitrary, so gods damned unfair." But K, he thinks, has had to live through more unfairness here than most, which is saying something.

"For what it's worth 'n everything you've said, I believe what he was telling you, that chance for you together. I wish to all the gods you'd had time to find out. But that and a gold will get you on the airship, as they say." Wishes are cheap and they change nothing, and ultimately the sentiment is pretty peripheral. Wanting K to be able to be happy is all well and good, but it can't overwrite listening to him--listening to the uncomfortable real of what he's saying.

"Do you regret it? Saying yes to him? You've done this twice now to keep from hurting others--all us humans who wanna see you free. Two contracts you've signed to keep us from hurting. Two people who've made commitments they meant to keep." Commitments that they each, for reasons beyond simple choice and without assigning any blame for it, ended up breaking. And K himself is the one hurt in the process. "Do you wish you'd stayed in that cell?"

He lets that empathy sit for a moment, lets himself feel it. He still misses V but Jesus was the only other person K knows who knew him, and they didn't talk much about him then, and still don't. Jesus likes to keep his grief private, likes to move on and not focus on it, and K understands.

But V was so effortlessly, completely, transparently friendly with him at a time when K was only just learning that was even possible; he was so immediately enraged and protective on his behalf at any slight. He was warm, and he was loyal, and his smile and his laugh were infectious and he was the type of person it was just easy to be around, and K misses him.

He glances over at Nibbles, the cat he inherited when V went home; he watches him for a time, listening to Vrenille, considering his question. Considers lying, now that it's a thing he can do; others might like it better if he did, but he rubs one thumb with the other and says, "Yes." It means so much that there's anyone at all, now, that wants him to feel happy, but sometimes he feels like that comes at the expense of the reality of the situation they're in.

Things don't necessarily have to be a certain way, but here, frequently they are.

"I don't regret helping him, because he did need someone to sign or he would have ended up in jail himself. But sometimes I really, really wish he would have spent that effort on someone else and left me there. I don't regret the extra time with Jesus, or getting to live here, but -" He looks around then at this apartment that is, by Los Angeles standards, unimaginably luxurious, that feels like he's not really supposed to be here.

"At least in Los Angeles, I knew what to expect and so did everyone else. When I knew I wasn't going to survive, I accepted it. It was peaceful at the end, and somehow in spite of everything, I knew I wasn't going to hurt anymore. It's hard not to want that."

Edited 2023-04-07 18:48 (UTC)

It's not Vrenille's place to tell K that he should want life, want freedom, want comfort or nice things or anything whatsoever. As much as he's wanted all of those for him, been happy for him when he's seemed to have them, he's also been trying to back K's choices ever since he chose to miss his first contract deadline.

Even all those months ago, standing in the aquarium's viewing tunnel together and listening to him talk about what he'd chosen not to do, Vrenille had told him he'd support whatever he decided. He'd been ready to support the contract too, when it happened, though it seemed to be gone in the blink of an eye.

Vrenille's not been one to plead with K about signing, not the first time or the second. He's not weighed in on either occasion, in part because he's sensed this divide in him, this deep ambivalence about all these good-willed promises held out before him and the risk that, yes, they might become something of a poisoned chalice, regardless of everyone's best intentions.

So he can hear this hard truth now probably better than some could; he can hear it without railing against it, or quibbling, or rationalising, or needing to defend the promise of a good, happy life. He can listen, and nod, and feel the weight of this truth--this half of the truth that's counterbalanced by its equal in the elements K doesn't regret, each only taking its meaning when it's viewed alongside the other.

"There is a lotta turmoil in love. There's bliss 'n happiness too, but anyone who says that's all there is is selling something. Love is a mess, like anything real," just like Ana Stelline told him. "Like really being alive," like K has come to be in his time in this city, for better or worse.

"Wanting it to all just stop sometimes--wanting life to stop so it doesn't hurt, doesn't wear you down, so it just lets you rest and gives you some peace? I don't think anyone's lived who hasn't felt that. And it can be--" he casts about for a strong enough word for a moment "--suffocating, like it'll never ease up and there's no way out."

Anything real should be a mess. K's surprised to hear words he still holds up to himself sometimes, clear as day in the voice he first heard them in, coming from Vrenille now. And he knows that. He does.

He flicks ash from his cigarette, watches it burn down to the filter, and rolls it out in the accumulating pile before immediately pulling another.

"It's not love that's the problem," he says, rolling the new cylinder between his fingers, wondering at the sudden tightness in his throat. He swallows past it like he always does, because the fact of it is not the wonder - rather, it's which point has hit deep enough to bring it back this time. "I understand that. I see it. Or if I don't, it's not like... I can expect more from myself. From anyone else."

He has a lot of grace to give for love, which means a lot to him, which is new and varied and provable and so very human and yet. And yet.

He flicks the lighter, closes it again. Flicks it, closes it, fidgeting with it in his hands but finally lighting the new cigarette with a sigh.

"I don't know, Vrenille. I'm tired." Not defiant, but with that same deep-cutting loneliness as before.

"I wish I knew what to do, K. How to help." Because yes, even now, here, with the two of them sitting together so close, talking, saying these things, he knows that K is also profoundly alone. There's no one like him here, no one who can truly relate to his experience, and even if there were, would it be possible?

He thinks of what K told him about Sapper, the inevitability of how their meeting ended, and he wonders, if they could meet again here, if they could talk--just talk, not be forced to be at odds in spite of themselves--would that change anything?

"I don't know how to make it stop, even how to make it pause. And every solution I can think to offer, I know would just come with more problems." He wants so badly for K to be happy, but he can't wish that into being; it's not for him to make it so.

"If you can tell me what you need, what you want, if it's something I can do, I will." But even that, he thinks--just to say what he needs--even that can be a big ask.

It is a big ask. It would be a big ask at any time, with K's conditioning to be cautious of being asked about such things as preferences, as wants, as hopes, as dreams. To come up with an answer that is believable and human, but not too human. Unique, but not too special.

He misses his life in Los Angeles. There are wonders here, yes, and he will never, ever take that for granted, so perhaps it's how he's programmed or perhaps it's what he learned but it doesn't really matter because it's what he feels regardless. He misses his home, and his absolutes, and his clearcut track of what to do, how, when.

Except that's just nostalgia, isn't it? None of it was clearcut and he knew that by the end. Nothing turned out to be the way he'd always believed it to be, the way he'd been told it must be. He was no one - a rare replicant, yes, an expensive one, but still a replicant - and then he was someone's son, wanted, loved, and then he was even less than no one. Officer KD6-3.7, welcome beside no one, no past, no future, nothing.

Christ, why couldn't he have just stayed there on the steps in the snow, bleeding out, ready, done? He closes his eyes, and takes another long draw off his cigarette, wishing he had an answer but he doesn't.

He doesn't have one, so what he murmurs is low and to himself - "A blood black nothingness began to spin." - and lets it seem like calm.

Edited 2023-05-09 06:00 (UTC)

There is, at some point, on some level in life, a destitution--not something material but something subjective. It's a sort of absolute, something that Vrenille has witnessed in others, something that he's encountered in himself, and something he recognises well enough to know now that not being human hasn't exempted K from encountering it all the same.

He's not surprised, therefore, that there's no answer. Or that in place of an answer there's the recitation, the return to this script that has anchored K's whole existence. His touchstone, familiar now not just because Vrenille's heard him echo lines of it, but because he can remember from when it was shared in his memory.

And so, because there's little here he can offer beyond his presence, his ear, his attention, he murmurs back like he's sharing in a mantra, lending himself to it. He may not remember the whole thing, but he remembers the line that comes next: "A system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked...within one stem."

K hates the script. Words rubbed in his face, dangled before him like a piece of bread before a starving man but that the price for reaching for is death. Words he had to learn the meaning of - not just the definition but the real, weighted, visceral meaning of - so he could say over and over and over again no, I do not have this. No, I do not want this. There is no soft animal in this body to love what it loves.

K needs the script. It is the constellation of who he is, a smattering of data points connected dot to dot to dot that when stepped back and viewed as a whole reveals him. A sounding board, the limits of sonar, the pieces of him they expect to find if they read between the lines long enough, hard enough, no more and no less.

K loves the script. It ends on hope, and maybe they programmed him to feel that way but he still feels that way, still thinks of it like others think of a middle name: something they don't reveal to just anyone for any reason, that exists nonetheless, fleshing out in a measurable way who he is. What he is.

He has never heard a human echo his lines back to him. The words were programmed into him from the beginning, and the only pieces of it the humans ever bother with are the prompts, directing him to which stanzas and lines he's to present today, which desert to walk on his knees repenting. It surprises him, and he looks across at Vrenille, studies him like he hasn't since he came in, the calculating, searching gaze that more than half of the sixty-three replicants he retired over the course of his activation saw from him.

And then, he nods. Then, he takes another draw on the cigarette in his hand, lets it out, and slouches down on the couch until his knee falling wide leans against Vrenille's and his neck is stable on the back cushion. Then, he closes his eyes and breathes.

[He checks in the first day after Realignment but he's so worn out he spends that first night on Rosita's couch, stitched up and in too much pain to move. He texts K anyway, but he's so tired it comes out in a partial REM cycle and it's gibberish:

Anyway I hope you're with cheese fried trees

It's two more days before he's sure on his feet again and he tries again.]

Come for a walk with me?

[K responds to every text, promptly, concerned; he wants to help but he doesn't know how, doesn't know if he can given the givens, doesn't know. So he spends those two days out in the woods calling for Mango, walking and walking and walking over the ground they covered when they were last all together, only sitting down to nap for twenty and thirty minutes at a time when he has to.

He finds her at the shelter. She's been safe and warm and cared for the whole time, and he's so grateful that he makes a stupid, splitsecond decision and leaves her there.

Jesus's text finds him sitting on a bench in the park, and he answers this one, too:]

Tell me where.

[Mango doesn't stay there long. When things settle and Jesus realizes he never told K where to look for a lost dog, he goes and checks himself. He has her on a leash at his side when he picks a place to wait: a little cafe not far from his apartment. He sends him the address and sits down to wait.]

The K that shows up has very obviously not been sleeping, has not changed his clothes or stopped for any reason; there's three days worth of stubble on his jaw and his shoulders drag, but he comes straight away.

Mango goes wild when she spots him, yapping like she's in pain and straining at the leash until she's liable to choke herself trying to get to him, and K stops for a moment in surprised shock. Then he's hurrying over, and so very little has been right the past couple of weeks but he crouches and she jumps and when she slams into his chest he doesn't even sway, just catches her, just tries his best to hold onto her without hurting her or dropping her as she writhes and wriggles and laps at his face, his chin, his neck.

K sits down on the concrete, cross legged, and hugs his dog.

The Jesus K meets here is not the one from a week ago. Not entirely. He holds himself apart, watching K, his chair in a corner where he can see all windows and exits. He doesn't get up when K approaches--sitting means Mango can't pull him forward and tear out his stitches, and then he's still hurting badly enough he just. Doesn't.

But he watches K in this moment and it feels like maybe he's made the right call this time.

It's okay. K is aware of him, because he's very rarely not aware of his surroundings even while distracted, but he takes his moment to murmur to Mango, to apologize, to heap attention and affection on her until she can finally sit more or less in one place in his lap. Her tail is still whipping back and forth and her muscles tremble with energy, but when he sets her down on the concrete she doesn't leap back up onto him immediately.

He pushes to his feet and finally walks over into range of Jesus, and his expression falters with concern when he looks at him.

Still: "You adopted her?" he asks, picking up her trailing leash.

"As a gift. She'll never love anyone like she loves you." And he knows better than to try to replace someone's real family.

He sips his coffee. "How are you?"

"Thank you," he says, leaning into it, warmer than he's been in days. He hesitates a moment - Jesus asked him for a walk, not a cup of coffee - but ultimately sits down in the chair beside him. He puts Mango in a sit at his opposite knee, letting her rest her head on his knee so he can pet her ears, but then his attention shifts to Jesus.

"Better than some, worse than others," he settles on, trying to find the easiest path forward. Easy, too, when what he really wants to know is: "How are you?"

"I am...not okay, right now. But I will be." A small smile. "I want to get out of the city for a little while. I thought we could go out to that property I told you about."

He has a pack of supplies he wants to bring out there.

It's an admission that makes something around K's eyes soften more and he wants to apologize, knows he hasn't done much if anything to help that lately, but in the end he doesn't. If he doesn't know what he's apologizing for, what use is the apology?

So he nods. "Okay," he agrees. "Are you - okay to do that?"

"If you can handle Mango." Walking an eager dog and carrying a heavy pack were not kind to the injuries he has.

He gets up with a wince and shoulders the pack. It brings them closer together and he gives K a quiet, worried once-over. "You look tired."

"I can handle Mango," he promises. And, when Jesus starts to reach for the pack - when he shows up and his body shows K how much pain he's still in - K stands too and reaches out to stop Jesus's picking it up again with a touch of his fingertips to the back of his hand.

"And I can handle that." It's an answer to both: he wants to help, and he's good to do so.

Because he chose not to go to the hospital he has to be more careful with his injuries. So he nods after a pause, and he hands K the pack.

"Did they hurt you?"

It's nothing to K, who shoulders it easily; he's not injured, and he's a replicant. He might be tired but he can keep going for days yet if he has to.

He doesn't want to have to. He shakes his head, falling in beside Jesus, Mango trotting along opposite.

"Not really. The depowering sticks a couple times, some shoving around and a few hits and kicks. Nothing that isn't gone already." He's a replicant, and he landed in the soft tier. He knows how lucky he got. "They hurt you, though." Not a question.

He swallows, nods. It's not like he could lie about it even if he wanted to, which he doesn't. "I killed some guards after they took you down. And then another one in the lines. They took it out on me in Realignment. I was...so glad you weren't there. That they put you somewhere else."

Somewhere he wasn't being hurt.

"I'm sorry." He knows what it's for now. "If I hadn't broken out of jail before, they wouldn't have known to use the sticks on me right away. I could have helped more."

He would have been there with Jesus, but he would have been there.

"I'm sorry."

There were things done in that room he is very glad K wasn't there to see happen. But more than that he's glad none of them happened to K.

"You broke out to try to help V." He shouldn't be sorry for that. "And I'd never want you to be hurt even if it was next to me. Please don't be sorry."

"And I would never want you to be alone with them."

He knows, technically, that Jesus wasn't; he knows there were three groups, that no one was really alone, and yet.

"Vrenille was with me. We were paired up."

Vrenille was with him. He sighs softly in relief and nods; good. "I'm glad. If you had to be there, if he had to be there, I'm glad it was together. I hope it made it easier."

He hesitates. "Not everyone made it back. My friend, John, he's...he's gone."

"It did. It was -" He swallows. "It did."

A lot happened in a short amount of time, and K isn't in any rush to tear it apart until the two of them find something closer to stable ground. For exactly this reason: he shakes his head.

"You're sure?" It's not a question of doubt - it's an offer to help look, if Jesus has been limited by healing.

"Yeah." He's positive. John is not the first person he's lost, not even the first he's lost here, and K didn't know him. No one really seemed to; maybe that's why he said it.

"Come on. Let's get moving," he murmurs, and sets them off. "I'm going to miss quota this month. I need to heal and I don't want to use magic to speed it up."

It's a response that leaves K uncertain again - press for more? Offer condolences? Jesus doesn't seem to want either of those. K isn't sure what he wants, and anyway he's facing away now, he's walking away now.

"Jesus -" K catches up with him, takes a half stride ahead of him like he might try to cut him off, but he doesn't. Just turns more towards him.

"Can I touch you? I'll be careful."

Things between them have been tense and when Jesus looks up at K it's with such startled hope.

"Yeah," he says, and then, a little helplessly, "Please."

There, finally, something K can be certain of.

He brushes his fingers lightly back over Jesus's hair, confident that there are no wounds there at least that he can see, on the way to sliding an arm around him to pull him in closer.

He lets Jesus do most of the fitting them together, but in the next moment he'll loop his arm loosely into place willingly.

K smells like tobacco smoke and lack of sleep, sweat and stress. Jesus buries his face against K's neck anyway, unable to help holding onto him tight the moment he feels K's arm go around him.

"I've got stitches on my back," upper and lower. There's no safe way to hold onto him, is what he means, but he presses closer to K to try to get him to try anyway.

"I've missed you so much."

I've got stitches on my back, Jesus tells him and it stops K from trying to hold onto him the way he was going to, but it doesn't make him let go. Jesus is hanging onto him like maybe they did die, and K tucks his chin over him like he can do any damn thing about the ways he's been hurt, like he can prevent anything more from piling on.

Maybe, in this way, he can. He ends up settling one arm high across Jesus's shoulders, hand at the back of his head to hold him there; the other ends up at his hip, fisting tight into his coat more than anything, unwilling to hurt him more and unwilling to deny him what he's so clearly seeking.

"I've missed you too," he murmurs, soft, leaning his head against Jesus's.

"Do you want to stay with me tonight?" Maybe they'd both sleep, and maybe they wouldn't. But he'd rest easier with K near.

"I do," he answers immediately.

"I'd like that." He doesn't even care where. He doesn't want Jesus alone, and he doesn't want to be alone. "Would that be alright?"

He looks up at him and kisses him, a bit clumsily with how close they are, but for the first time in weeks without hesitation.

"I want that." He reluctantly pulls away. "We need to drop these supplies off at the property first."

For the first time in as long, K kisses him back without seeming like he has to feel his way around it, like that time hasn't passed at all.

He lets Jesus go though. He nods that he understands, and brushes his hand along the back of Jesus's neck as he steps back.

"This is the property you've been talking about? That your friend is buying?" He doesn't care how far it is. He's already shown that for a city boy, he'll keep up just fine.

"Yeah. She officially has it now, so we're getting it ready. It's going to take a lot of work to build it back up, but I think we could all use a good project."

He doesn't know if he's fully forgiven yet but for the first time it feels like maybe they'll get there. They have to stop at a light and he looks up at K, smiles like he's not been hurt at all.

K almost misses it - he glances down at the curb to be sure of Mango like he always does - but he looks up in time to see Jesus smiling at him, then glances back again as if he might have misunderstood.

The corner of his mouth curves, too, even though he has no idea what's happened. Not really.

"Do you... still want me to help?" Normally he'd leave it there, but they've been so careful with each other lately, so he adds: "I want to. If I can."

"Yeah. I want to show you around. You need to pick your space," a twinge as he realizes there's an empty room now, but whatever. They'll fill it up. Make Carver's room into an armory.

"And I want to show you where the garden will be. I think you'll like that part." Seeing things grow week by week. "Things taste different when you grow them yourself."

He sees that too, but there are so many landmines planted from the last few days he doesn't dare just now.

"My space?" he asks instead. And: "I've been taking care of the petunia. Something else is growing in the pot. I think it might be a second one."

"For when you're at the property." He's pretty sure if anyone has earned the right to be there in Rosita's eyes, it's Vrenille and K and Drake, who came and fought. "Even if you don't have your own room you deserve space to keep what's yours."

Just in case.

K doesn't really have anything, he doesn't bother to point out. That was already made abundantly clear when he turned up to the rendezvous with more space in his pack than was filled, and most of that was for Mango.

"Is that where you're going to stay, now?" There are rules, of course, but.

"As much as you can?"

"I'm going to try." Three days a month isn't enough. He'll find a way to bend that rule. "We need community. Rosita and I do." He looks up at K again. "And we both want you to be part of it."

"Like you have back home?" Jesus has talked about Hilltop, and K has seen it, once; in light of that he supposes it makes sense.

It's a bit harder to see himself in that, but he's willing to try.

"I watched the two of you working together. It's easy to tell you're used to it."

"Like that. Adapted for here; I can't help anyone if I'm in the Zoo every other week. But yeah. I want a place where we can be together. A place we can go if things go wrong." Something to fight for.

It's K's turn to tense slightly at mention of the Zoo - or more specifically, either of them being in it.

He focuses on the community though.

"I don't know how to farm. I went to the protein farms a couple times, but that's - not the same." And nothing he'd want to replicate here even if he knew how, even if he could. "Is that - how long until that's possible? Having it ready?"

"The roof needs a little work. Not much, though. We need to get the kitchen going but Drake knows how to do that. All it needs to be is a place to get away from the city when the city gets too crowded." A place to recharge; that's what Jesus envisions.

They're at the edge of the city now, far enough out that K feels comfortable unclipping Mango's leash and letting her run ahead of them.

"It's funny what you can get used to. City seems so small to me." He glances around them.

"I kind of liked the forest though. Wish it would have been different circumstances, but I liked the trees."

"We could camp sometime. I like the trees, too. I miss the forest; I miss wandering off the trails." Making his own way, seeing things that hadn't been seen by anyone else in years.

Exploring, having a picnic on a T-Rex. K remembers.

"You need to heal first, but. I'd like that, I think." He'll have to find out before he can say for sure, but he's pretty sure anyway.

"Remember that campsite? For the games?"

"I do. I thought it was lucky timing for me--it gave me a break from trying to get used to being around so many people and so many buildings." They've been in Duplicity almost a year, he realizes.

"What do you remember about them?"

K had still been in shock. That's what he remembers, mostly, although there are other moments.

"They put me in weightlifting. I was still healing up from..." He waves his hand. Dying. Arriving. Whatever.

"I went to a party with Sara, and you and I drank aphro potions."

"And then didn't do anything but talk," he chuckles. "I wish I'd seen you in the weight lifting."

"I liked it anyway. I still wasn't used to people actually talking to me, then." He still isn't, really, but it's no longer the surprise that it was at first.

"I don't remember much of the games. They took most of my clothing and had me lift a woman I didn't know, then a second one and I think.... they thought it was too hard for me, because I didn't really know what they wanted from me and it hurt. They disqualified me after the second." Jesus knows, now, firsthand how ridiculous the thought is of it being too hard for K to lift a single human.

"I liked it, too. If we had slept together then I think it would have taken me longer to trust you." He would have relegated K to 'fuck buddy' in his head, and kept his distance.

"Because you'd think that was all I wanted from you?" he wonders, glancing across at him.

"No," he shakes his head with a rueful smile. "Because I was trying to keep my friends and my sexual partners separate then. That didn't take, thanks mostly to you."

His brow furrows for a moment, but he's not sure or not if it's something that he should apologize for, so he doesn't. Not yet.

"Do you wish it had?" he asks instead.

"No," he says, fast, almost startling himself with his vehemence.

"I like this. What we've got. I know I screwed it up but- I want it. Like we were before. Maybe even better than we were."

K is quiet then, trying to sift through that reaction, those words. He wants to insist Jesus didn't screw anything up - there's still no blame in him for Jesus needing to get out of a corner - but not only does he know that's how Jesus himself sees it, something has definitely changed and it wasn't K. They both have acknowledged it as a mistake, but they're still working back towards each other again.

It makes him cautious, and would even if Jesus weren't still recovering from the last several days. If they all weren't. So his question, when he asks it, is both careful and earnest: if Jesus says no, he'll willingly respect that.

"Can I ask you more about... How you view what we've got?"

He swallows and nods. In a way he's hoped for this conversation. "Some of it is hard to put into words but I'll try. Ask anything."

Trying is all K can ask of him, but even getting permission, even seeing that Jesus isn't entirely reluctant doesn't make him willing to simply plunge ahead into this.

"How - you were using a lot of words before to explain. I don't know how much of that was fear, and how much you still believe." He can read the emotions Jesus is having real time, but the labels seem to be the problem this time, so he doesn't know how to get around that, or how to ask about that.

"I meant it all. Fear maybe made me more wordy than I normally would have been but I don't regret anything I said." He looks up at K as they trail out into the woods.

"I want to be together with you. I just don't know... What to call us. If you even want to go that way."

Jesus looks over at him; K meets that look, expression calm but alert, watchful.

"Do we need a word?" he asks, still feeling a bit like he's on ice that should hold but with no way to tell. "Do you want one?"

"I do. But you name something and it changes that thing. It's like quantum physics," he's about to start babbling like he had before and he bites his tongue. Stop. Breathe.

"I meant it when I said I love you. I wouldn't mind a word that means that."

He meant it when he said love, and isn't that something.

K tables the word conversation for the moment, just absorbing that. It's not that he hasn't seen how Jesus looks at him, it's not that he doesn't know he cares about him - deeply even.

But aloud is different, and they both know it. So he walks with that, and when he does finally say something it's, "Joi's the only one that's ever said that to me. She was gone a moment later."

He looks over at Jesus, hoping - hoping - it's not too soon to say in return, "I love you, too, you know."

Those words hang in Jesus's chest, not heavy but very prominent, and he just breathes through them for a moment. K loves him.

They've said it. It feels good. He hadn't expected it to feel good.

He's smiling as they walk. The ground is uneven now, so he'll have to let go sooner than he wants, but for now he takes K's hand.

"I'm lucky."

What's it like to hold the hand of someone you love?

K slides their fingers together - finger to finger, he doesn't say but he thinks it anyway - and they won't be able to keep this up long but he lifts their hands so he can kiss Jesus's middle knuckle. He's careful of the healing split there, but unhesitating for all of that.

"Interlinked," he murmurs softly, with more warmth than he ever answered the script.

"Will you tell me the Baseline script someday? All of it?" Because the few things he's heard are intriguing, because it's important to K, and also because there are pieces of it he wants to answer for K. Like how it feels to touch finger to finger. Like what it feels like to be loved.

It's not something he's ever been asked before either. Most humans don't even know it exists, of course, which isn't their fault but they wouldn't have asked in Los Angeles anyway.

Now he looks at Jesus, curious. "Yes, but - why?"

"It's important to you. Almost a part of you, in a way." The way K uses it to steady himself, to assess himself. "Is that okay? You don't have to if you don't want to."

"I don't... know," he admits, but in the way that he would have answered if he'd been asked what a banana tastes like before coming here. Not hesitant, necessarily, just completely without the information.

"I've never tried to explain it to anyone before. Or share it."

He can understand that. "What does it mean to you now that you don't have to repeat it to anyone?"

He has to think about it, has to try and frame it in a way that isn't tied strictly to a small white room with a camera and a mechanical voice coming out of the wall. During this time they have to climb up a hill and K gives Jesus his hand back for balance, but he stays close.

"It feels closer to... a prayer, sometimes. Or a set of rules you set for yourself."

"Like a mantra," Jesus says thoughtfully. "Or a koan almost. I like that."

He may not like that it was once the line between K being retired or being sent back out to risk his life, but he likes what it means to K now.

"Sometimes," he agrees. Sometimes not.

But he can't help but smile a little at the mention of a koan, even if it doesn't last longer than the top of the hill.

"Names change things. Maybe it will change this."

"Maybe for the better." They don't know. They can't know unless they do something about it.

When he has his hand back he pickpockets K's phone, though, and changes his screenname as they walk, well aware K will see him doing it. Names change things and he noticed they both changed theirs back to default.

K watches, but makes no move to stop him or take it back. Just peers curiously at the screen, waiting patiently to be handed it back.

"If you told anyone in Los Angeles that you loved a replicant - if you meant it - you'd be charged with a misdemeanor. If you tried to do anything about it, it could be a felony." Just so Jesus knows why it's so strange for K to hear, to know.

"What are we, to you?"

"I've never been good friends with the law." He offers the phone back, new screenname and all.

"You're my lover." And the word has extra weight when the 'love' is actually meant. "You're special to me. What word do you want to use?"

"I thought we were good friends?" he teases, a gentle reminder that K himself never forgets: he was the law.

"I don't even know what the options are. Or how much we'd even want to risk changing what... Is."

[Without any context or preamble:]

Y'ever seen a frog?

Not a real one.

[He doesn't need your context or preamble!!!]

Do those exist here?

One fat fuck exists at least.

Here, listen to this.

[Please mentally picture Hakkyuu holding his device down to a frog because little froggy burgling chirps come down the feed as well as Hakkyuu muttering something that sounds a lot like '--slimy rat-bastard" in the background.]

[Hakkyuu don't speak to such a magical creature in this manner!!!!

He does, in fact, listen attentively, and even switches to video to try and see it.]

[It might actually be magical, but it's still a jerk!! >:T

He lets K and the frog 'converse' for a little while, then signs as he brings the device back up.]

Lemme know if you wanna come meet it sometime. It moved into the atrium clearly ain't goin' anywhere.

Edited 2023-05-01 07:38 (UTC)

[By the time Hakkyuu has come back on the screen, K has propped his phone up on a counter and is crouched to be at eye level with it, chin set on his hand as he watches and listens.

He raises both eyebrows.]

I'm off work in an hour. [Too forward? He doubts it.]

[ ... It is entirely not fair or right that K can just look kind of adorable without knowing or trying. Hakkyuu doesn't even care for adorable.

What he does do is shrug.]

Well, you know his address now, so come by whenever you want. [There's a litle pause then--] I'll make sure there's some fresh coffee if you do. Or somethin' stronger if you want it. [He glances down off camera.] Amphibian freeloaders don't get shit.

[Wait.]

What do frogs eat?

Or drink?

They do. I've never seen this one eat by itself. I'm sure it does. Maybe. Probably.

... You gonna bring the frog a snack and give it a little misting? He won't thank you for it, just to be clear, because he's a frog. And they're ungrateful.

Just because they don't speak English doesn't mean they aren't grateful for the same things you and I are when they happen.

What's a good frog snack? Mist with what?

Most frogs? Sure, I'd be with you on that. This frog though...

[Personal vendetta? Apparently.]

And I bet he'd like a nice worm or something. If you don't have any homegrown laying around, store bought is fine.

And most with just water. You know, like a tropical plant. But louder and more round.

I've never seen a real tropical plant either.

[That he's aware of. But okay: worm. Got it.

He just assumes the rest is Hakkyuu being Hakkyuu.]

I'll bring biscotti too.

Guess we gotta do something about that too sometime, huh.

[Then, maybe in response to biscotti, maybe just to K in general--]

You do you, boo. Catch you soon.

[It is, he decides, entirely possible that the frog is simply responding in kind.
This theory remains to be seen though.

He turns up at the front door an hour and a half later, just enough time between the end of his shift and arriving here to stop by a bakery he's taken a liking to and come straight over.]

[True to what he indicated on the call, Hakkyuu is in the sunroom. The smell of freshly brewed coffee wafting lightly in the air from a cute little glass decanter on one of the warm wood sideboards.

Hakkyuu himself is stood in one corner, back straight, hands resting at his beltline with one lightly thumbing at a letther cord that's been wrapped around his left wrist several times and tied with several knots--maybe seven or more--with a little white gold rune nestled against his pulse. He's not really one for nervous repetitive gestures, at least not outwardly.

He is also staring at something very intensely.

Without looking up or over his shoulder, he offers a greeting --]

Hey, K. Find the place okay?

[Never underestimate Hakkyuu's ability to be a little snot casually.]

K has become more accustomed specifically over the last couple weeks or so - ever since realignment - with letting himself into the Manor. He still knocks, he's still the picture of polite, still takes care wiping his boots off well and truly before entering, but he does come in of his own volition and he does find the other man fairly quickly.

Unbothered by the question, he just calmly answers in turn: "Only three wrong turns this time. I'll have it down by fall." and moves to set the neat little brown bag of baked goods beside the coffee before glancing to see what Hakkyuu is staring at in turn.

"I can't believe you started without me."

The corner of Hakkyuu's mouth quirks up in amusement at K's easy reply as he steps back and turns to face him with a look of mock offence.

"I didn't start without you, I gave us a head start so you could get to the main event quicker."

The main event apparently being the frog itself, which is what he's been staring at intensely. And then steps aside from to give K space to approach if he wants to.

"Ta-dah," he says in a flat tone, which probably matches the expression on the creature itself, if a frog can have an expression. And if it can, then this one's is uncannily gormless.

The intent, deliberate lack of fidgeting has not been lost on K, who glances up at Hakkyuu's face first before he ever looks for the frog; consternation is common for the other man, and shallow, often sharp amusement, but K holds the rest of his thoughts to himself for the time being.

He is very, very interested in the frog, and the moment he sees it he cocks his head to the side and stops.

"It's real," he says, but very, very quietly, mostly to himself. Hakkyuu has moved aside so K takes one step closer and then slowly, carefully so as not to risk distressing the creature, he crouches down closer to be able to see better.

There's plenty for Hakkyuu to be cynical about in the internal interplay of annoyance and denial related to this animal, but that's more about association than anything else, and it's not really something he needs to inject into the moment K is having. Maybe later he'll resume insulting the chonky little lad, but for now, he just watches, quiet and still.

A less sharpened smile haunts his face, not really in the lips and only really a ghost in his eyes as he slides back to rest his lower back against the sideboard.

In a way, he doesn't want to intrude on this moment, something he hadn't expected would land with such significance and focus for K, so before he says anything at all, he just waits, comfortable enough to do so, or at least content to do so, before saying anything further.

"Doesn't move much and a real shit conversationalist, but it's pretty tolerate and, yeah, pretty real."

The world K lives in now is so full of new, wonderful, living things that he doubts he'll ever have time to study each of them as he wants to - as they deserve to be known, paid attention to, cherished even. He believes this with the fullness specific to a man that spent the entirety of his life on a corpse of what was once a vibrantly living planet, that knew he was going to die without ever knowing anything else - and, technically, did.

But every now and then he gets the chance to do this, to simply memorize the pattern along its rough back, the slit of a pupil in its gold patinaed iris, the nearly translucent webbing between its bell-tipped toes. To watch the way its throat expands and deflates with its breathing, the impossible width of its mouth even though it doesn't so much as move in front of him. He is aware of Hakkyuu, too, but he doesn't rush - not until the other man speaks.

"Why do you scorn it so much?" he asks once Hakkyuu has spoken again, prompt, a question he has been thinking about but hadn't wanted to ask aloud until he was forced to tear a greater fraction of his attention off the frog.

For all of whatever else Hakkyuu is feeling, the sense that K is drawing in this moment as something unique, a personal first, is something Hakkyuu can appreciate tremendously.

Except when the question arrives it means he has to give some kind of answer, and to give some kind of answer means putting an awareness he has out into the world that he's trying to pretend he's in denial about.

"It killed my entire family in the dead of night for political gain," he replies dryly, turning away to grab something.

It's all humour that works for Hakkyuu, having never known and never cared to begin any journey to find who is related to by blood for multiple reasons, with the biggest on being that he has a family that he's more bound to now than he could ever imagine blood could come close to, and why cheapen it by trying to follow a rope that's either going to be cut short or so covered in moss and barnacles as to prove a lack of prior movement.

But that's how he often approaches the world--abrupt and often on the edge of a joke more aligned with his own humour than what most others appreciate and he's been at odds with people's understanding of him for his entire life.

When he turns back, he has a glass mister in his hand with a metal plunger at the top, which he offers to K.

"Here, soak him down, it'll make his little frog day toad-ly fantastic."

Another person might have reacted poorly to that line being fed to him, or at least rolled their eyes, annoyed. K doesn't so much as look up, at least not until Hakkyuu is holding out the mister.

He accepts it, eyebrows raised in good natured skepticism. "Do you often care so much for the comfort of a genocidal creature?" he asks mildly. And: "Frogs and toads are two different creatures, I'm pretty sure."

If Hakkyuu is going to be sharply sarcastic, K is perfectly capable of being blandly earnest.

Giving K a fairly flat look at this very reasonable question and corrective observation, Hakkyuu then gives a slight shrug.

"What can I say, it's the only connection to particular loved ones that I have now,"

Ironically, right now, that part isn't an outright lie, a truth buried obliquely in a joke. There's a momentary pause, something like irritation flashing through his eyes, before he makes an exasperated noise and waves impatiently in the creature's direction.

"Just spray the damn frog and enjoy yourself, yeah?"

Unruffled, K turns his attention wholly back to the frog.

"I know we've only just met, and I don't have the first clue about what your preferences are. A light misting? A thorough soaking? Something else?"

He painstakingly adjusts the mister in his hand, a stickler for details even when he doesn't know them.

Apparently.

"Frogs swim, I don't think you'll do it any harm if you drenched it entirely. I'd probably say keep going until you're done or you get the feeling it's had enough."

He moves to lean his back against the sideboard again, arms folding over his chest, though when he speaks next it's with a little less nebulous annoyance.

"You won't hurt him, K. Go ahead."

"You realize I'm still learning what most feelings even are," he points out, idly, a wry joke of his own to make a very real truth go down a little easier.

But something Hakkyuu has said has raised a larger concern for him for the moment than the other man's surliness. "Does he need a pond or something?" he asks, giving the frog a few careful, experimental spritzes.

Hakkyuu's expression takes on a fairly unreadable state, though he doesn't sound precisely unamused as he simply answers, "Yeah, well, get used the whole learning what feelings are thing, most people don't entirely know themselves. You're probably doing way better than you think and almost certainly better than most."

He watches the frog as it blinks, wetly, lifting one little webby paw to drag it's little fingers over its face a few times as it subtly leans towards the spray K provides.

"I'm sure he'll work himself out. It's a plant room, not a frog room."

But then, he gets the feeling there's a protest on the frogs behalf building so he takes a deep, demonstrative breath that's Oh So Put Upon and adds, "Bet if you ever wanted to bring him a bird bath though I'm sure he'd be real happy about it. Don't let the name fool you, we'll add a little 'bastard frogs welcome' sign, how about that?"

Party Log

I don't know if you'd be uncomfortable at this so it's ok if you don't want to come but I'm enjoying our friendship so far and would be happy to see you there.

Carver's gone
I know you didn't really know him but
K, can you come?
I'm at the manor
can you come?

[Whatever he does and doesn't remember, whatever he's still deciding, it's not like there's any other answer he can give besides:]

Of course.

I'm on my way.

Vrenille's outside when he arrives, in the part of the Manor that was once the library, though there's little way to recognise it now beyond the shape of a few skeletal shelves built into the remaining part of a wall.

He's staring as much at the grey of the sky as he is at the space--a few left over crates set up as a makeshift table and chairs, still there from the early days after the quake. But he turns as he hears K's steps drawing near, and this time he doesn't hesitate or pause, just rushes to him and hugs him. He needs to hug someone right now.

K doesn't know what to expect, exactly, when he arrives. He doesn't know what Vrenille needs from him other than to come here, to be here, to be present. He can guess and some of them might even be correct, but he doesn't know.

And then he's here, and Vrenille is alone in a site that's either destroyed or in the middle of being built depending on how one looks at it, and then he's spotted K. Then he's throwing his arms around K, his weight against him, and K shakes his hands out of his pockets to catch him.

This time though, he knows what to do. He catches him, only swaying at all so his landing is soft, and he wraps his arms around him in turn.

"Hey," he offers, low, an acknowledgment and permission and apology.

Just his presence in itself goes a long way, just the solidity and security of feeling K's arms around him, the living movement of his body, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes and the transfer of warmth through the layers of his coat. It matters that K is here, alive despite having gone home to die, despite the sense of finality with which they believed him dead.

It's not that it gives him hope about Carver. It doesn't. He knows better than to try and enter into that kind of calculous. But it does give him comfort of a sort.

This time the tears don't bubble up though. He's almost surprised they don't, that whatever barrier has kept them at bay still holds. The ache of them is there, only knotted up, without the relief of release. Instead he just holds onto K for a long moment before he finally manages back his own small, "Hey."

Once, in the second year after K's activation, he'd worked what the human officers all called a good old fashioned homicide. Human on human violence, a jealous lover and a lot of liquor, and K had been called in to help run crowd control simply because he was available. The woman's son had been much younger than Vrenille, but he'd seen everything, including his dead mother; something about K had reassured him when the other officers terrified him, and so K had stood directing traffic around the corner with a ten year old hugging his hip and half-shielded under his duty coat until a protective agent had come to take him away.

That boy hadn't cared that K was a replicant; neither does Vrenille, and grief is grief. Loss is loss. K stands still for the first several moments but by the time Vrenille has hold of himself a bit better, he's moved one hand up to stroke the back of his head fondly, as reassuringly as he can.

"Let's go inside out of the cold. Yeah?" he suggests, but makes no move to pull away until Vrenille does.

"Not yet," Vrenille looks up, leaning his head into K's touch and managing a small, wan smile. He turns his head towards the crates, the larger centre one and the two smaller on each side.

"I wanna remember him here a minute. Was the only time he ever came here. Never when this place was whole. Just that once, and we sat there together."

It sound strange without context, maybe, this grief for someone so rarely in his space, makes it seem--well, he doesn't know how it might seem. But it matters that it's K he's saying this to. He doesn't know anyone else he could tell, no one else in this whole city, so he doesn't mind staying out in the cold a while.

It hurts, a little, to meet Vrenille's eyes and see the pain there. However strange it might sound it doesn't really matter when compared to the fact that what Vrenille is saying is real. How he feels about it is genuine.

He knows the name Carver. He can even picture the man, snarling in the cell next to him, feral and armored and locked so deeply inside of himself that he clearly hoped no one would be able to reach him. He knows he's important, and little more, but he does know.

He looks over at the crates. "Why'd he come?" he asks, willing to listen. To remember, too.

"To get drunk," Vrenille's smile broadens, but now his eyes do swim a little too. It's true, so far as answers go, but it barely tells half the story.

"His contact partner 'd disappeared. Permanent contract. Was a powerful bond--it hit hard."

He makes a small gesture towards the ruins of the house, "All this had just happened, and...you were gone too. Not long, only a few days." Vrenille had still been reeling from it, as much from K's loss as the shock of the quake, the trauma of the two events laminated together in his experience, inextricable even now.

"But he was still here, and I wanted him to know he wasn't alone. I called, didn't really know if he'd accept, but..." He did.

"But he did."

It had occurred to K on the way over here, very briefly, if anyone had done this for Vrenille when he'd vanished. Who the other man had reached out to then, had asked to just come, to just be here. And maybe that wasn't Carver in the same capacity, but it was in some way, and so he can see some of it now.

He breathes out, breath fogging in the air, and lets his eyes travel around as Vrenille gestures.

"Did it help him, do you think?"

He thinks it did help--wants to believe it at least. Carver was always a difficult person to comfort though; he was never wholly at ease with comfort. It was always something of a paradox, comfort being hard to bear, but when he came here and found all this, not an easy comfort but one interspersed with turmoil, textured by it so the friction didn't slip away too easy, so there was something that dug in...maybe what helped was that it wasn't too comforting.

"We spoke about you," is what he says by way of answer, the best that he can give. "We spoke 'bout Grayson, his old Dominant too. 'Bout ghosts and the dead and what to do with loss." They listened to each other. It had taken a long time for them to figure out how to do that together.

"I didn't know what to do with you being gone any more than he knew what to do with losing Grayson. But together in a way, we could say those things."

"It's important," he agrees, quietly. "Having someone to hear."

Having someone to listen. It's what he can offer now, as he studies the little impromptu table where the library once was, as he eases them a bit closer to it like they might still be able to hear the conversations of the two men sitting there when it was all fresh.

"I met him, I think. I remember him being around, but I don't remember talking to him at all."

"He wasn't an easy man to talk to if he didn't know you, didn't trust you," Vrenille acknowledges, "and he didn't trust easy."

He moves with K towards the little table, looking at the spot where Carver had sat, thinking of the soft brown of his eyes as they'd looked that day, the evolution from the expression that had been in them the first night they met when Carver had been ready to kill him on sight, thinking of the steps on the journey they'd made together and how much he values each one, hard as they'd sometimes been.

"Their world--his and Jesus' and Rosita's--it's a brutal place. And it hadn't been kind to him. He learned not to be kind back, not to share the kind parts of himself with anyone but his family. He was always looking for the angle, the trick--everyone's an enemy and the enemy's always trying to get you on the ground, and if you let them you deserve what happens to you, so you can't let your guard down, that's an awful sin, and you can't ever ever flinch."

It was something Vrenille had to learn to understand, this position from which Carver encountered the world. He had to find a way to meet him there, even when Carver didn't necessarily want him to do it.

K listens, stores away the details where they're safe for as long as K is online, is active. He can picture it alongside the man he has two distinct impressions of: one snarling, quite literally, naked in the cell beside K's. And one much quieter, much more settled, working in the dirt shoulder to shoulder with a woman, with Jesus, looking content not from the focused expression on his face but from something deep within him.

"That's a hard philosophy to have to live, especially if family isn't in the picture." Duplicity doesn't let it be, from what he's seen. "But he let you in?"

"Family's something you can make, you can find, you can choose even," he looks at K directly as he says is because those words matter for more than just speaking about Carver.

"Carver's was his unit back home. And then here, in the end, Ro and Jesus. It was only 'cause of them that he let me in at all, I reckon, and it took a damn long time 'cause he didn't like me at first. I got under his skin, even when I was trying not to--in fact, more I tried not to, worse I seemed to do it.

"He was worth it though, y'know? Worth the trouble to keep trying."

Maybe some people wouldn't see that the same way he does; maybe there's a lot who wouldn't think Carver worth it at all, who would see the volatility and the traces of what looked simply like madness, the paranoia, the auditory hallucinations, the myriad dysfunctional trauma responses, and simply write him off. That's not what Vrenille saw.

"His world had done horrible, unjust things to him, and he'd done horrible unjust things right back. But he had loyalty and faithfulness and heart. He was true to his people. In spite of everything, no world could take that from him, not the one he left or this one either."

K has never had family, and never been a part of one; he couldn't. He's observed them from the outside but it's a bit like watching birds knowing he'll never have wings, so clearly delineated as something he is inherently excluded from ever knowing.

He still understands what Vrenille is, likely, trying to say now; it's not the point though, Carver and Vrenille's grief is, so K is silent and Vrenille continues.

"Is that how you'll remember him, then?" he asks, more to give him an opportunity to speak on it than because he doesn't know the answer. "How you'd want others to?"

Vrenille gives a small, slow nod, his eyes on the makeshift table where they sat. He would like people to remember Carver for that, yes, and he will remember him that way. He'll remember his love for the son he lost who wasn't his by blood but was his nonetheless. He'll remember the way he sought to honour his people and the sacred way he treated the ones he'd lost, the respect he gave to the truth of grief.

"He said they're heavy, the weight of souls, and I told him how your world denied you had one, but how I knew you did 'cause I feel it when I'm with you...I felt it when you were gone." When K was gone and they knew in his world he died.

"Carver's dead in his world." And of course he doesn't need to spell that out--this place was a second life, an interval, and now he is just dead, and Vrenille feels that weight of his soul, the way his knees want to buckle with it, how he could beat the ground with his fists and scream at how breathtakingly unfair and arbitrary it all is, losing him this way. He could, for all the difference it would make, which is none.

"I wanted to bring him to mine. Wanted to see him have the chance for a life there. In my mind when I'd picture it, he'd be with us. But I never got a chance to ask him, never made the offer. I dunno what he woulda said."

He doesn't actually flinch at the idea that Vrenille was here, assigning him a soul, grieving for him the way he is now for this man who was still largely a mystery to K. This man he wanted to bring home, along with the other people he loves.

Few enough people get a choice, get warning, about losing the people important to them. Here there's an extra degree of cruelty though, in that there's no body to prove finality, no guarantee they won't ever come back. They're just not here now. K remembers Joi's face flickering over his, her eyes terrified and desperate, trying to tell him she loved him before Luv crushed the emanator and she simply blinked out of existence like she never was.

He shakes his head. "Do you know what he'd want you to do now? What the funeral rituals were for his culture?"

Edited 2024-02-01 18:40 (UTC)

"Some," Vrenille says softly. But then again, "Not funerals exactly, but the aftermath. I know a little how he'd honour his own dead--his ghosts." It was always an uneasy haunting for Carver, the spirits of the dead who clustered near and gathered in his corners, full of the recriminations he had for himself but heard in the voices of the people he'd lost--in Pope's voice most of all.

Vrenille had dreamed what Tyrian magic could make of that. He'd told Carver that part: that revenants are people who carry echoes of the great and the terrible dead, that it was how he saw him. He still believes it could have been possible. It wasn't even about the magic--he believed it could be possible, someday, for Carver to find strength in a place that seemed like weakness, that seemed a liability. He never believed he needed to banish his ghosts, only find a way to be more at peace, less tormented by them.

"When someone important was gone he'd say he'd light a candle for them--it was a sorta honour, as I understood it, a respect to those he felt mattered, which wasn't everyone. I'll do that for him now. But the rest...I think that'll be up to Rosita. I'll...have to ask her and Jesus what they want."

And he needs to sort himself out, pull himself together so that he can be there for the two of them--for Jesus, because Rosita asked him to be there for Jesus, and doing that, he thinks, is the first thing he can offer her as well.

K has never had cause to consider with any kind of weight what death must be like - what it could be like. He was never a living thing back home, never had a soul to go on when he didn't. He'd either be destroyed beyond repair and that would be that, or he would be patched, salvaged, repaired and sent back out into the world as the next version of himself.

But others around him have, and he knows the various and sundry mourning rituals are as wide and varied as the belief systems they develop from; he knows that it is, more than anything, down to the individual.

So he nods to agree that he should do that, should light a candle, should honor this ghost of his dead. That he should speak to Rosita, to Jesus; K will need to check in with the latter as well.

But here and now, he steps in front of Vrenille and offers him his hand, palm up, fingers steady. "How can I help?"

Vrenille's fingers are a bit cold when he takes K's hand, his grip curling softly into his palm, letting the warmth of skin shield against the bite in the air.

"You're here. You dunno how much that matters, just that you're here. I dunno what I'd do if you weren't."

With a gentle tug he follows the hook of their hands in so that they're interlinked between them, a little knot of contact pressed between their chests as he tucks his head under K's chin and just soaks in his presence. Utter trust and no hesitation, a feeling of safety and solace, faith.

"Just be here," it's a murmur, small. How K can help, what he can do--not an action or a service, just him, the person who he is, how much he means in Vrenille's life now.

And then, finally, he looks up at him, finding a smile, sad but genuine, as he nods towards the door inside, "And maybe come have a drink? I think I could use a drink."

It's not that K doesn't feel cold; he does. He has before, of course, in a time and place far from this one and yet far too recently to not think of the last time he stood in snow and ached for someone else.

But his hand over Vrenille's is warm, and though he mostly holds compliantly still - mostly lets the other man do whatever he's going to do, exactly as he's going to do it - he's more than content to thread their fingers together just the same. Careful, so careful, and grateful too when he helps reel the other in as he comes.

"I can do that," he agrees, low, shifting ever so slightly to block the slight wind a bit better. He can do that, can be present, can be here, can make it so Vrenille is not alone with this just here, just now. They still have a ways to go with rebuilding all the bridges between them, but there's more than enough for this.

He does not rush him but stands, one arm lifting around him, fingertips brushing slowly, lightly along his back. And when he speaks again, K simply agrees.

"Of course." They can go inside, and have a drink or two or ten, and K will stay here. K will be here, will be himself.

And, because he does have a small inkling of how much it means to Vrenille - because he can search his eyes, his face, and fill out that answer with what he can read as easily as text - he offers, first, a kiss at least twice as sweet as it is tentative.

He's not expecting the kiss. He wouldn't have ever thought to ask for it with things as they are. But it's offered so purely, so genuinely, this moment and act that K is choosing, not out of some obligation or requisite script, but just as a sign of care, of affection.

It's being unnecessary that makes it so special, and Vrenille tilts his head up letting it be slow and tender and almost chaste, this first kiss since K's been back which makes it, in a way, their first kiss all over again--a little love token that makes his smile when they break a touch less sad, a reminder of what life is still here and how to go on living it.

"C'mon," he says without moving away, and portals them inside.

Are you busy?

Not in the slightest.

Can I come pick you up then?

Or I can meet you.

Yes.

I need to move. Walk, or hike, or something. I just don't want to go alone right now.

I can go.

Are you alright?

[Is he?]

...No. It's just...been a hard month.

We can walk as long as you need.

[He needs this.]

Where are you?

In the Down. I can be at the elevators in ten minutes.

I'll meet you there.

And he is there, wrapped up against the cold, full of taut energy.

K is wearing a heavy coat but not his blade runner duty coat, and he's not particularly burrowed into it.

He takes one look at Jesus, though, and holds an arm out to him. That much, anyway, is easy.

He steps into that embrace immediately, without a word, and just buries his face against K's shoulder. For a moment he ignores the people around them and just has this: has K back.

It doesn't make losing Carver any easier, but it is one less grief to carry.

K is warm, and solid, and he tucks him in close and folds his coat around him.

After that it's his arm, and he holds on; he suspects he knows what this is about already. Vrenille called him, shell-shocked and fresh, and K has been waiting for Jesus. He'd wait much longer than this.

He waits now, too.

"My friend is gone," he says quietly, finally. "And it means he's dead. So I'm just...dealing with that."

As best he can. Muddling on, as best he can.

"Do you want to talk?" he asks.

"Or walk? Or both?" He runs his fingertips lightly over Jesus's shoulders, letting him decide.

"Let's walk," he says. Walking helps, being busy helps. He has nowhere to scavenge now, everywhere he might have stolen from reminds him of Carver so he just hasn't.

He takes K's hand and walks with him, holding onto him. "How are you?"

K is quick to settle their palms together even if his grip is light, his fingers gentle. He runs his thumb along the tendons of Jesus's, idle and comforting for them both.

"Settling," he decides on instead of any of the other things he could say. The snug leather collar with its tamper proof buckle is still sitting around his neck, always. "I don't know if I've regained everything or just... accepted that it's happening now, so it's easier."

"It took me a little while, too. To accept this." He tips his head against K's shoulder as they stand and wait for a traffic light to change. This feels good. So little feels good like this does.

"It was Carver who got me thinking differently. When I met him I suggested we work together to find a way home. He said he was happier here, where he wasn't starving. Where he wasn't going to be eaten alive if he went into the wrong house."

It does feel good, and K keeps running his thumb over Jesus's, over and over while he stands still and breathes for it, welcoming the weight.

"They're good reasons to make this place a new home." Not always, though, good enough for everyone. "Did he change your mind enough?"

"He helped. It was you and Vrenille and Rosita who really changed my mind though. I've never had people I loved before, not since I was little. Having that here...it's a hard thing to want to leave." So he made a little home for himself and he's letting himself enjoy it while he can.

He breathes out, letting that statement settle on his shoulders, in his chest. Letting it warm where and what it will.

When the light turns, he waits for Jesus to straighten back up before he steps out.

"There was this woman in Los Angeles that told me, once, that people move on to their next lives when they've learned all they need to learn in this one," he says, slowly.

"She believed it was selfish to want to keep them here with us, when what they really needed was their next step."

"I think she's right," Jesus admits. "But I also think that if you had asked me when I first got here if I was ready to move on to my next step I would have said yes. But I would have been wrong. I've needed to be here, to learn all this. About...being with people. Having family. Loving people. I'm glad I got to learn this now."

"But you're still here," K points out, smiling, just a little.

"Learning. Loving."

"They're things I never would have got to do back home. There were no men to love, not the way I-" Love you. He doesn't want to crowd K though, with his emotions. Not when they're still relearning each other.

"And my best friend here, Rosita? She lived in another community. We never got to spend much time together back home. So I didn't have that part of my family either."

"I understand," he offers, soft. What a surprise it can be. What an indulgence it can feel like.

Their lives are different, have been so different, but he raises their joined hands: "This wouldn't have been possible, in Los Angeles."

"I'm so glad you aren't back there. And I'm sorry if you wish you were... I hope that whatever else we can say about this place, you would choose this city over that one." But maybe it's more of a lateral move for K than it is for Jesus.

"I suspect I'll never stop missing Los Angeles." Suspects, in fact, that he can't. That it's programmed into him to feel like he belongs there, that he needs to be there.

But he raises their hands a little further, and kisses the leading knuckle of Jesus's hand.

"But it doesn't mean I can't... be happy here."

Jesus smiles and tips his head against K's shoulder. "There are things you've talked about that I wish I could see," he admits. "Like your car. Er, spinner? And the lights. We've been running on solar power and candles for so long that coming here, I couldn't sleep for how bright it was at first."

"It's never dark in Los Angeles," he agrees, smiling.

"Unless you have blackout windows. It's never really light either. Just... neon."

He misses it. He misses it so much sometimes.

"The spinners are fun. Especially mine."

"Especially yours?" Jesus can't help but ask. What intrigues this man? "What spinner do you have that's so different from the others?

He smiles, a small spark of mischief coming through.

"It says LAPD on the side of it." He shrugs though, keeping it modest, not sure how appropriate this is right this moment but Jesus asked. K will follow his lead.

"It's a smooth handler, and goes vertical without needing to climb first or any horizontal movement at all. And it has a siren, and lights."

Jesus grins at him. "Do you miss the lights? Being able to break the rules of the road when they were on? I couldn't have been a cop, I'd never have respected a red light again."

"I really, really liked the lights," he admits, chuckling, which terminates in a small smile.

"But I still had to be careful. Other people lose their minds when they hear sirens, and can cause accidents getting out of the way."

"And then you have the people who follow you to see where you're going, who you're arresting," Jesus grimaces. "I had a friend who did that for fun. A lot. He wasn't even a lawyer."

Edited (psl crossover brain) 2024-02-28 03:34 (UTC)

"Yeah."

He rubs his thumb over Jesus's knuckle, watching the way his skin moves under the pressure, the warm, living weight of him, the delicacy of his bones in K's hand - but trusting anyway, certain anyway that K won't hurt him.

"But I like parts of being here, too," he offers, quiet.

[Zoro doesn't often use video, but Vrenille suggested that he do so when reaching out to K.]

My name is Roronoa Zoro. I'm calling because you're friends with Vrenille. You got a minute?

[That's... curious.

It takes K a moment to open his end, considering the stranger on his screen and the name he's brought with him. Stress, he thinks. Discomfort, carefully schooled to calm.

He could be wrong, he's unfamiliar with this man, but he was once good at what he did.

Soon, though, concern delicate around an otherwise politely attentive face:]

I do. Is he alright?

[Zoro patiently leaves the ball in K's court until he responds. His own tone is measured and even as he reassures him.]

Yeah. He's fine.

He's offering me the option of signing a contract with him, but said I needed to talk to you before we agree on anything. That sound fair to you?

[ ...oh. That's.

K blinks, processing that, and opens his mouth to say they're not contracted so it doesn't matter, but stops. Vrenille told him to do this, and even if K doesn't know why - and he doesn't - isn't that what matters more?

He settles back a bit where he's sitting, and nods, willing at least.]

I suppose it does. Did he say what about?

He said it could be about anything. Sounded like he just wants to see if I can hold a conversation with people in his circle.

Mm.

How long have you known him?

Since I got here back in November. You?

It's... complicated.

He was one of the first LIERs I spoke to when I arrived. I wasn't here for a while, and didn't remember anyone at first, but the memories came back.

Nineteen months, as far as I can tell.

You went home and came back?

It's what I'm told happened, yes.

Sounds rough.

Did your designation stay the same?

I can't honestly say it was enjoyable.

It did.

What's your favorite drink?

Whiskey neat, for alcoholic.

Hot chocolate for non.

[A thorough answer. He can respect that.]

Got any favorite bars?

I do. Why?

Just wondering. I only end up going to most bars once.

Why is that?

Because this city's layout makes no sense.

I hadn't noticed. I'm used to a much, much larger one.

This place has two cities stacked on top of each other.

Yes.

How many cities were stacked on top of yours.

I was an officer in Los Angeles.

It was one of six megapolises left on the planet at the time.

Military?

Police department.

I was a blade runner. It's not a specialty anyone has heard of since I've come here.

Swords?

[He's trying, okay.]

[It's a common misconception, so K is neither surprised nor bothered.]

No. My purpose is to locate and retire rogue replicants.

[And, anticipating the question:] Replicants are bioengineered humanoid androids.

I'm a replicant.

So like a bounty hunter.

Kind of, yes.

Although I was commissioned specifically for the purpose, and I didn't receive bounties so much as bonuses for closing out cases, always less than what was paid to civilian blade runners.

Sounds like a raw deal.

In some ways.

In others, I had a lot more freedom than most other replicants.

You're used to bounty hunters?

I was one. I hunted pirates.

By choice?

It was a means to an end.

Several ends, if you were any good.

Why, then?

[He's been attentive all along of course, but now there's a subtle... settling of focus.]

Kept me sharp, kept me independent — things I thought I'd need to see my promises through.

[Zoro rarely offers more information about himself than absolutely necessary. It's not that he's unwilling to share, but K will need to delve a little deeper if he wants to unearth more personal details.]

[K is known, to those who know him at all, for his patience and calm.

Now is no different.]

Promises to whom?

[The question hangs heavy in the air. Zoro lets out a slow breath, considering his response. Finally, he settles on the simple truth, his voice low:]

... Someone I lost a long time ago.

I'm sorry.

[Concise, but sincere. He considers asking more - the detective in him is always interested in knowing more - but lets the moment hang instead before he breaks the silence again.]

Were you able to keep your promises?

Edited 2024-04-14 13:45 (UTC)

[He inclines his head ever so slightly, a silent acknowledgement of the other man's condolences. There's little room for sentimentality in his work, but Zoro still appreciates a gesture of kindness in the hardened landscape of his life.

Quietly, he answers:]

Not in the way I envisioned. But my oaths haven't been broken, and I won't turn back.

Edited 2024-04-16 23:07 (UTC)

[On his end K tips his head too, even though it's only so effective for keeping Zoro's eyes on his, keeping a full view of his face, his expression.

He considers what he's seeing for several long, thoughtful seconds, then nods.]

Adaptability is the earmark of survival.

Being here probably doesn't make that any easier.

["Mastery comes from adapting," his sensei used to say. "Flow with the fight, don't get stuck in patterns. It's not weakness, Zoro, it's the mark of a true swordsman."

Zoro gives K a light shrug.]

Nothing lasts forever.

[His voice is steady and sure.]

I can take it.

I wouldn't claim to know you better than you do yourself.

[And he's not. Some people are much better suited to the particular challenge that is the LIES program than others.]

How did you meet Vrenille?

Vrenille and I crossed paths at the lighthouse, not long after I got here. The place needed lamp oil. Turned out we both had the same job.

[In hindsight, that was a weird conversation. Something in the fuel compelled Zoro to admit to shitting in something that, according to Nami, was not a toilet. Vrenille took it in stride and didn't hold it over him, even though he easily could have.]

Since then, it seems like we keep running into each other. Either he'd check in on me, or I'd get pointed his way for work, and he'd lend a hand.

He tends to find his way into the path of people he takes an interest in.

But you've been getting along.

... Yeah.

He's got a way about him — tough, even in this mess.

. .. IC Contact | Duplicity .. .

un: judgmentkazzy

un: runs with blades

Re: un: runs with blades

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

~~~> Video ]

Annnd video

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Text | Cyclops

text | un: runs with blades

Re: text | un: runs with blades

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

~~~> Spam ]

Re: ~~~> Spam ]

[ Spam ]

Re: [ Spam ]

Re: [ Spam ]

Re: [ Spam ]

Re: [ Spam ]

Re: [ Spam ]

Re: [ Spam ]

Re: [ Spam ]

Re: [ Spam ]

Re: [ Spam ]

Re: [ Spam ]

Re: [ Spam ]

Re: [ Spam ]

texts over the last 3 days from un: canary

Late August 6 | un: runs with blades

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject