. .. IC Contact | Duplicity .. .

[konstant]

                                                                 

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Voice

[disrupts]

[ Switching to voice, he's not quite ready to show his face just yet ]

Apartment with Nibbles.

Meant to come see ya sooner...

[konstant]

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?

[disrupts]

[ 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.

[konstant]

[Jesus has already told him some. V's answer isn't encouraging.]

V...

Let me see. Please.

[disrupts]

[ 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? ]

[konstant]

[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.

[disrupts]

[ 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?

[konstant]

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?

[disrupts]

[ 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. ]

[konstant]

[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?

[disrupts]

[ 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..?

[konstant]

[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.]

[disrupts]

[ 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?

[konstant]

[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.