. .. IC Contact | Duplicity .. .

[konstant]

                                                                 

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[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.

[hippie_ninja]

He lets Mango sniff him, something she does for a minute because he smells like Nibbles, and then pets her, murmuring to her the way K had done to the mother.

"You could start your own rescue." The way things are going, the way animals find their way to K

[konstant]

K gives up Mango to Jesus, and that makes room on his lap for two more, which he's only too happy to indulge. He doesn't do babytalk the way some people do with puppies, but it's also true that what he murmurs to them isn't exactly words and isn't exactly not.

He blinks and looks up. "Rescue?"

[hippie_ninja]

"Yeah. You know, abandoned animals, injured animals. Ones who will need homes. Nibbles was lucky he has you, the puppies are lucky they have people." A mild shrug. Not all pets are as lucky.

[konstant]

K knows these things happen in the world. He's seen abandoned, injured, neglected humans all his life, and most of it wasn't even their fault. They're just trying to live in a world the generations before them left for them, trying to get away while other humans bar them from it.

But he looks down at the puppies, who don't understand them at all and so are wagging their floppy tails happily, mouths open and tongues lolling as they jockey for attention that K has momentarily failed to give them. For a moment, this new version of an old concept occurring to him for the first time, he looks nothing so much as stricken.

Then he resigns himself to it. "I don't understand why people don't help more."

[hippie_ninja]

"There are people like you who do," he says, when the shock of seeing something so soft on another person has faded. He lays his hand on K's shoulder and, because he's been told he's allowed, he leans in and kisses him lightly. Three puppies are immediately jumping up at him when he does though and he draws back, laughing.

[konstant]

K looks up at the touch, so he's ready when Jesus is there, kissing him; he keeps one hand up to deflect the worst of the puppy attack, letting them have a moment anyway, and smiles faintly into the space after.

"And you," he points out, because Jesus is taking care of Nibbles, too. "How much time do you have tonight?"

[hippie_ninja]

"How long do you want me to stay?" When they'd been sneaking into V's old suite it had been different. He doubts Sara has restrictive rules in place but he doesn't want to encroach, just the same.

[konstant]

"Long enough for me to talk to you about something," he hedges, carefully scooping puppies off his lap so he can stand up again without hurting them.

He hugs Mango to him a moment longer than the others, letting her wash his face over and over with her tongue before he sets her carefully down with her siblings.

"You can decide after that, but if you still want to stay, I'd like the company."

[hippie_ninja]

He'd like to stay. He came here hoping, even though he hadn't been sure bringing Nibbles would mean he'd have to leave.

"Talk about what?"

[konstant]

"Let's go back to the apartment," he suggests, petting Apricot's head on their way past, too.

"I don't want to be interrupted." It's Duplicity, so this could have a distinctly suggestive tint to it - and it doesn't not, honestly - but it's not foremost, either.

He leads the way back, quiet through the darkened house once more, and reaches down to scoop Nibbles up to keep him from running out the door as they come back through.

"Do you have any plans for next week?"

[hippie_ninja]

"Nothing special." He's forgotten next week is significant in any way. He shuts the door to keep Nibbles in and sits on the bed. "Did you want to do something?"

[konstant]

K has gotten much more comfortable with Nibbles over the month they lived together, and he tucks him close against his chest both to keep him warm and to scratch idly along the side of his head and ear - which masks the slightly deeper breath he takes as he tucks one leg under him to sit on the bed across from Jesus, facing him.

"I talked to some people," he starts, calm, but that's deceptively easy for him. "Vrenille is willing to let us use the Manor, and Barry will help me cook, and Sara has cleared all the rules I had there for a minute, so - if you wanted to. If you still want to. I thought we could have a Thanksgiving meal just a bit early."

[hippie_ninja]

In all honesty, Jesus had forgotten he'd ever mentioned Thanksgiving to K.

Though K hides it well he saw that quick intake of breath, and he realizes there's just a touch of nervousness in his friend right now. It melts away any apprehension he has about the holiday. He looks down, letting himself just feel the startling strength of affection it brings on.

"Yeah," he says, emotion thick in his voice. "I'd like that."

[konstant]

K is confident in his ability to read people, and he remembers how Jesus had reacted to even the suggestion that they could maybe try to do something here. He's sure he saw what he saw, and in the reactions of the people he's asked since he's seen similar - it'll be good for everyone, he still believes. What he's less confident in is if something may have changed since then, or if he missed something.

K had intended to lean heavily on V at the time, of course, so that's one aspect that changed - but he's watching Jesus's face until the moment he looks away, and that faint tension lifts from him on an exhale.

"Yeah?" he echoes, lips tugging. "You can invite anyone you want. I haven't given any firm details to anyone so we can still change anything, but - I was clear that no fighting will be allowed."

[hippie_ninja]

That's what brings his eyes back to K. He remembers now telling K that was why he didn't celebrate; holidays were a tense time for him, full of a lot of angry, hurting boys seeking to take it out on each other, and a lot of staff who would rather have been with their own families instead.

He reaches up to cup K's face and just kisses him, and then just keeps kissing him.

[konstant]

K hadn't bothered trying to anticipate how Jesus would react; he had hopes, of course, but he'd already decided that if Jesus balked then that was that. No harm, no foul.

This is much better. He smiles as soon as he feels Jesus's touch on his face, and leans forward into the kiss; Nibbles slides out from between them and he lets him go, shifting forward a bit to be closer, taking his time with the kiss, too.