konstant | . .. IC Contact

[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."

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~~~> Spam ]

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