. .. IC Contact | Duplicity .. .

[konstant]

                                                                 

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[konstant]

"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?"

[thecanarylives]

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."

[konstant]

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?"

[thecanarylives]

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?"

[hippie_ninja]

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.

[konstant]

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.

[hippie_ninja]

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."

[konstant]

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.

[hippie_ninja]

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?"

[konstant]

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.

[hippie_ninja]

"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."

[konstant]

"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?"

[hippie_ninja]

"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.

[konstant]

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.

[hippie_ninja]

"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."

[konstant]

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.

[hippie_ninja]

"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?"

[konstant]

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."

[hippie_ninja]

"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.)

[konstant]

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.

[hippie_ninja]

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.

[konstant]

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."

[hippie_ninja]

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."

[konstant]

"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?

[hippie_ninja]

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