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[konstant]

                                                                 

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[konstant]

"What -" K blinks when he sees the cat, and then he's up out of the bed, crossing over to shut the door all the way so Nibbles doesn't wander into the rest of the house.

Then he comes over to Jesus's side and where the cat is still getting his bearings. His smile settles, hand brushing Jesus's arm in grateful, surprised welcome before he folds down to sit cross legged on the floor and scratch Nibbles' ears.

"I can't believe you broke into Sara's apartment to bring the cat for a visit." But he's smiling when he says it.

[hippie_ninja]

"I didn't want to disturb her if she was sleeping." That's a tiny reason, sure. The main one is the look on K's face right now, and the smile he'd given Jesus as he came in the window.

"Are you doing okay here?"

[konstant]

"I like it here a lot better than the apartment." He hasn't spread out any more here than he has in the suite he shared with V for a short time, but his body language is different, and he's sleeping without a shirt.

"And I get to see the puppies whenever I want. Sara seems to like it, too."

[hippie_ninja]

He imagines it for a moment, K just surrounded by puppies, and smiles.

"Do you get to keep one? Mango?"

[konstant]

The serene smile brought out by Nibbles arcing up into K's hand and purring loud enough to be heard across the room twists a bit on him, though it doesn't go away.

"Sara wants me to," he hedges. "I want to. I just don't know if I should."

It troubles him, both the idea of getting to raise and care for and love another living creature, and what might happen to her if anything happens to him.

"Have you seen them? The puppies?" he asks instead.

[hippie_ninja]

"No," he shakes his head slightly. "If I'd known seeing them was an option I might've left Nibbles home."

Cats and dogs historically don't get along, but Nibbles is an especially chill cat so he finds himself hoping.

[konstant]

Which, when K glances up and sees the look on his face even in the dim light in the bedroom, forgoes the question of if he wants to see them.

"He can stay here for a little bit. He won't hurt anything." K bends down, briefly, to set his forehead against Nibbles' in a reverse of what the cat sometimes does to him when he's feeling particularly affectionate. Then he pushes up to his feet and finds a shirt to pull on.

"They're two doors down, at Cassidy's."

[hippie_ninja]

Another of those soft smiles as he watches them, and decides scaling the building with a cat in his coat was definitely worth it.

"How many are there?"

[konstant]

"Nine," K answers, smiling in spite of himself, and motioning Jesus after him to the door. He also puts a finger to his lips as if that was in question, leading them quietly down the hall and out the front door. He doesn't bother to put on shoes, given how short and well kept the walk is.

"Have you ever seen puppies?" he asks once they're outside.

[hippie_ninja]

"Every now and then. Not in years, though. And I've never had one. Puppies were always things my friends had, or they were always there in raves and drum circles." He glances up at K and tries to picture him at either venue, grins.

[konstant]

"Sara says it just needs food, water, and love," he answers, clearly quoting someone else with the way he lists everything.

"And blankets. She says they have fur so they don't need a sweater." K seems dubious.

[hippie_ninja]

Jesus frowns. "They're pitbulls," he says. "They don't really have much fur. They have less than the goat my neighbor had--it got out one winter and froze to death."

How cold does it get here? He doesn't know, but probably cold enough for frostbite.

[konstant]

K doesn't actually stop, but his stride does falter for a moment as he leads the way up the stairs to Cassidy's door, eyes darting to Jesus.

He is, it must be said, at least mildly horrified by this prospect.

"We're going into winter," he says, dismayed. "I was considering working something out anyway. Maybe just to be safe."

Absolutely just to be safe.

[hippie_ninja]

"I doubt they'll be leaving the puppies out anywhere cold," he says. The puppies seem very well cared for. "But it doesn't take much for the power to go out. If sweaters can help, why not just make sweaters? I already found a place that makes them in Nibbles's size."

[konstant]

"Are they expensive?" he asks, pleased that Jesus is being proactive on Nibbles' behalf. K has been a bit distracted himself, so he just takes this as evidence that he made the right decision by turning over care, at least temporarily.

"Hold on, let me make sure Apricot recognizes me," he cautions at the door, because there's definitely already a dog barking on the other side. A dog that sounds very large and intimidating, even though when she's visible down the hall she barely comes up to K's knees.

[hippie_ninja]

He waits until K gives the all clear before he steps inside and introduces himself to her.

"Fifteen bucks a sweater, so cheaper than it is to clothe myself," he says, although he'd steal anything Nibbles needed if he couldn't afford it. "And if they give me trouble, Drake will buy anything we need. But I'll ask around, see if anyone can teach how to make them."

[konstant]

K is distracted for the next several moments murmuring to Apricot - "Easy now, it's just me. You know me. There you are, good girl." - and extending a hand to her, unafraid despite her raised fur and pinned back ears. It all comes right a moment later anyway, wagging her tail so hard her entire back end wags with it and sidling up to sniff at Jesus while K rubs her ears and sides.

"I'd like to learn," K says immediately, then. And: "This is Apricot. She's the mother."

[hippie_ninja]

Jesus's experience with dogs is of them as either friendly companions or half starved stays, so he treats her with some caution and doesn't linger long with introducing himself.

"She likes you."

[konstant]

K, glancing back at Jesus and seeing his hesitation there, stands up from where he's crouched to greet her, which sets her wagging again.

"She likes everyone. I'm told it's the puppies that make her bark at first. They're back here."

[hippie_ninja]

He follows K, checking windows and doorways with quick glances as they go. What he's really watching when they get there isn't so much the puppies as it is K with the puppies.

[konstant]

K leads him down a hall and into a nursery that did a better job of containing the puppies when they couldn't just jump over the sides of it. It's been built up a bit so they don't just spill out but there are excited yips and whining the moment they detect movement - and it triples when they recognize K at the door.

He's quick, then, to move forward and try to catch the forerunners and put them back into the whelping box, and most of the nine puppies are content to swarm his lap when he steps in and sits down - but the largest one, a rich butterscotch color with white markings, leaps again and again to lick his face, climbing all over her siblings to do it.

K grins at first, tipping his chin up as much as he can, but when Mango accidentally gets him right on the mouth with her tongue, he laughs.

[hippie_ninja]

Jesus watches from the doorway, then steps inside and closes the door behind them to contain the puppies as well as the noise.

"That one's yours?" He guesses, smiling, just watching the way K's face lights up a little.

[konstant]

The owner of this house is in a coma; the woman who comes to see him sometimes always makes herself known immediately if she's here, but given that they've been left alone so far, K can safely assume she's not.

K manages to subdue Mango by rubbing her sides and then her belly when she rolls over in his lap just like she likes, and instead of agreeing that she's his, what K says is, "This is Mango. She's the one Sara wants me to adopt."

[hippie_ninja]

He knows why K hesitates. But he smiles, warm, knowing. "I think Mango wants it, too."

[konstant]

K introduces the rest of the puppies like they've walked into a dining room with them seated around a table or something, but he comes back to Mango at the end and scoops her up against his chest.

"You want to pet her? They're warm, and they lick and chew a lot." Is this normal puppy behavior? He doesn't know, but he knows these do it all the time.