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From:

konstant

In an hour.

Will that be soon enough?

From:

hippie_ninja

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.]

From:

konstant

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.

From:

hippie_ninja

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?

From:

konstant

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.

From:

hippie_ninja

"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?"

From:

konstant

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?"

From:

hippie_ninja

"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."

From:

konstant

"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."

From:

hippie_ninja

"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?"

From:

konstant

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.

From:

hippie_ninja

His hand splays gently against K's cheek, fingertips into his hair, and his brow furrows. "What does that mean?"

From:

konstant

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."

From:

hippie_ninja

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.

From:

konstant

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."

From:

hippie_ninja

Baseline. He remembers K talking about it before. He can imagine that it's comforting, in its way.

"What did it mean just now?"

From:

konstant

"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."

From:

hippie_ninja

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."

From:

konstant

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.

From:

hippie_ninja

"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."

From:

konstant

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.

From:

hippie_ninja

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.

From:

konstant

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.

From:

hippie_ninja

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.

From:

konstant

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.