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From:

hippie_ninja

"Then I won't wear it when I'm around you." It's a small thing. They don't work every shift together, and as Vrenille and Sara have noted, Jesus's attention is usually on K when they are in a room together.

From:

konstant

It doesn't, just now, feel like a small thing; if it was as simple as not wearing it around K, it would have been as simple as not saying anything at all, wouldn't it?

"And if that's the rule?"

From:

hippie_ninja

"It never would be, because Vrenille would never do that to you." Something he'd hoped K would know by now; this conversation is due in part to Vrenille's concerns over how K sees this.

"But if he didn't realize you'd be there, I'd tell him, and we'd change it."

From:

konstant

This is where there's a critical, vital split: K believes Jesus, trusts Jesus, trusts Vrenille.

He doesn't believe this concept that Jesus is presenting to him. He does not believe that he alone, his protest alone, is enough to stop anything from happening. He does not believe that his discomfort, his unease, makes a difference at all to something he's not even involved with.

And he has no idea how to reconcile these two things, so he falls silent instead.

From:

hippie_ninja

There's something in K's expression that Jesus knows: the disbelief clashing against the little bit of trust that's there. He knows that feeling and he also knows where most people land when they're pushed to choose.

"K, please," he steps toward him, reaching up to touch his face and then not. "Talk to me."

From:

konstant

It's good that Jesus doesn't reach for him just now, especially his face; K manages to stay still while he draws closer, tracks the hand coming towards him without flinching, but for just this moment he can't tolerate a third stressor.

Jesus's hand lowering allows K to switch his attention back to his face, to see the plea there as much as hear it in his voice, and his own eyes soften a bit, too. His own coping mechanism that shuffles him ever closer to the automaton he was always accused of being breaks down a bit.

It doesn't mean he has any better idea what to say or do.

"I don't know what you want from me with this, Jesus," he admits, quietly, a bit helplessly.

From:

hippie_ninja

He reaches up instead to stop Nibbles from batting at Mango through the slats. It gives K a little more distance.

"I just want your thoughts. What are you thinking right now?"

From:

konstant

Just thoughts. It's a dangerous question, at least when the thoughts K is having are personal - when they might go against what he believes is expected from him. Jesus is upset that K is upset, and he wants to reconcile it; the more he pushes though, the more K wants to push away in turn. The more the distress sinks in deeper, makes what thoughts he does try to string together disjointed.

K doesn't want Jesus to be upset either though, so he curls his fingers into his shirt and tries, even though it feels like the worst thing he can do.

"I don't like it. I don't like thinking about it, I don't like seeing it, I don't like worrying what happens if you're wrong and there's more to it than you think. I don't like that you're asking me what I think about it knowing both that there's no way I can like it, and that I don't expect that to change anything. Vrenille is trustworthy. You both enjoy it. It's different for you and it's between you. So - I don't know."

From:

hippie_ninja

"It's between us." And he doesn't need K to like it. Jesus likes it; Vrenille does; that's ultimately what decides if it continues, so it will.

Just not around K.

"It's hard for you, isn't it? Knowing that we care enough about what you think to adjust what we do in public."

From:

konstant

"Do you know what happens to replicants who care too much about the wrong things? Who care in opposing directions from humans?"

Everyone here tells him it doesn't matter that he's a replicant. That he's as real as he needs to be.

An entire life is harder to change, though.

From:

hippie_ninja

"They'd retire you." Using K's word, which is such a soft word for what it really is. He almost said the other word, the real one, execute. But he wants K to keep talking and he wants to understand on K's terms.

From:

konstant

Is there anything in your body that wants to resist the system?

"I'm already - so far out of bounds." It feels like something pulled up out of him, not with the violence of ripping but deeply seated, painful, hardwon nonetheless. You don't look like you on the inside - miles off your baseline.

"And I know. I know. It doesn't matter here, none of it is supposed to matter here, I know. But it does. So yes, it's hard. But we were doing okay, weren't we? Things were okay. Things were good. Are good."

Is there security in being a part of the system?

Edited Date: 2023-01-28 01:18 am (UTC)

From:

hippie_ninja

"We're still okay," he says, facing K directly again, looking up into his eyes.

He knows there's no way to talk K into believing that he isn't expected to answer a certain way. He knows there's no making up for the years of real ownership K went through.

"We're okay. This isn't me wanting to change us. This is me wanting to make sure that I- respect you. And how you feel when I'm around you."

From:

konstant

Jesus faces him squarely; K searches his face, still caught firmly in that contradiction of not expecting to find anything dishonest there but also unable to believe what he's being told.

He says they're still okay and K's breath feels tight in his chest, in his throat. He doesn't understand. He doesn't know what will happen next, what this will turn into, doesn't know anything - but Jesus says they're still okay.

Maybe he doesn't need to understand how. "System," he murmurs like he does sometimes, not to Jesus or anyone really, just a verbal touchstone before he shakes his head.

"I'm sorry."

From:

hippie_ninja

"Why are you sorry?" Jesus is the one who brought this up. Jesus is the one pushing, despite his own habits.

K is right; he could have just left this alone. Despite it all he's glad he hasn't.

"What does 'system' mean?"

From:

konstant

The second question is much easier to answer than the first; it's familiar, known, like a steel beam hidden in the walls holding up the entire building around it.

"Baseline," he answers, low, soft, but more sure of himself than the rest of what he's been saying. "What does it feel like to be part of the system, feel it in your body, the system, do you get pleasure out of being part of the system, have they created you, is there security, is there a sound that comes with the system, is there anything in your body that wants to resist the system."

He rattles it all off in one long breath, calm, certain, by rote. System. Answer the question - which just leaves the other question, and that one is much harder.

"I'm sorry that I don't know better what to do."

From:

hippie_ninja

"You're talking to me." even though he knows it's hard, even though he knows it goes against some clearly deeply embedded rules in K's mind.

"That's all I want is to talk this out. I just want to understand, and be understood. And maybe we won't get there today."

From:

konstant

"It feels like a hologram," he says abruptly, realizing - remembering - that Jesus has seen the kinds of realistic displays of entirely fabricated people and animals and phenomena his city has to offer.

"I hear you, I believe you, it seems like something I could lean weight into - but like if I try, I'll go right through."

From:

hippie_ninja

"I think that's something only time can change. You have to see it's real first." And even then maybe not. There are things Jesus knows he should be able to trust, and had simply never been able to.

"Give me a chance to prove it?"

From:

konstant

A chance to prove something is a chance to have it used against him, too; a chance for Jesus to be right is a chance for K to be right, too. Sometimes the things Jesus has offered to teach K - to help K with - have been easy to agree to, but not this.

Still, he hasn't regretted anything he's left in Jesus's hands. He nods.

From:

hippie_ninja

That's all he can really hope for. A chance; that's all he needs. "And if it comes up with Vrenille...hear what he has to say about it. His side of it. Okay?"

From:

konstant

Vrenille. K hasn't forgotten, of course - it's a full half of the reason they're even having a conversation, that K hung around this long to have it - but he frowns faintly for a moment.

Then he nods again.

From:

hippie_ninja

He nods, too, and steps away, goes and sits back down. "Are you okay?"

From:

konstant

Mango, still trying to reach Nibbles through the door, finally barks sharply for the first time and K says her name, not sharp but firm. She drops to her stomach on the stairs, still with her nose pressed against the door, but doesn't bark again.

"What's okay?" he asks Jesus, sounding resigned, but he moves over to the chair he would have sat in if they'd just eaten instead, unfolding his arms so his hands are resting on the back of it. "I've just never... done any of this."