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?"
"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.
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"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."
no subject
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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
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?"
no subject
"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."
no subject
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.
no subject
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.