. .. IC Contact | Duplicity .. .

[konstant]

                                                                 

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[konstant]

"I said yes," K points out instead, a stubborn edge to it that he eases off in the next moment.

"Maybe not always, but this time, it's okay."

[hippie_ninja]

What Jesus wasn't prepared for is that he's afraid to touch K now. But he steps forward and tentatively wraps his arms around him, lays his head against him.

[konstant]

It's hard to tell what K is feeling just by looking at him. Easier once someone becomes more familiar with him, but still difficult.

It's much easier once he's being touched, which is not something he had to deal with in Los Angeles for the most part. Maybe he'll get better at it as time goes on, but here, now, his palm is still up and he lives an arm to make room for Jesus coming closer to him, but he's tense. The arm he slips around the other man in turn is cautious.

He learned how to do this here. He was learning how to do this. There's still so much he doesn't know how to do, including be hurt and love at the same time.

[hippie_ninja]

"I'm sorry, K." He doesn't know what else to say; the words he usually has just dry up into this one solid truth. "I never wanted to hurt you. I never want to hurt you again, and I know I will."

[konstant]

"I don't mind that, Jesus," he answers, soft, sad. Bit by bit his arm relaxes, rests more readily around Jesus's shoulders.

"It's these fucking contracts. They mess with my head, they make everything... complicated." They make things that he could normally choose to let go keep coming back to twist deeper again and again.

[hippie_ninja]

"I hate them, too. I do." For different reasons, but legitimate ones. "They get to me, too."

[konstant]

"Can I ask why?" he chances, breathing out and trying to find that same ease that had begun to settle between them.

[hippie_ninja]

"It was a piece of paper that took me away from my mom. It was always papers that got me sent to homes that didn't want me. I don't trust the papers here to protect me the way they say they will. But I don't have a good alternative to going along with it here."

[konstant]

K is quiet then. He doesn't want to hurt Jesus, not really, that's not the kind of anger he has in him just now. Not that it was before, either. It's just not in him naturally.

And what he has to say to that is, or feels like, such a big risk to him. Not to anyone else necessarily, but there are still old habits that have clamped down hard. Old fears that don't stop just because he can tell someone else that he understands they're obsolete.

He cards his fingers just once through the ends of Jesus's hair, then touches his shoulder, light, so he'll have warning when K starts to shift back again.

"It's the contract that bothers me most, Jesus."

[hippie_ninja]

Jesus lets him go, folds his arms across his chest, listens. "I know. And I wish I knew how to help."

But clearly he doesn't know how to help with his own issues.

"It doesn't help that you aren't being treated like property by Drake?"

[konstant]

"Drake is fine. None of this has anything to do with Drake."

Drake has done everything he promised, and K had been hoping to have plenty of time to just try to adjust and see the shape of how life could be, the way everyone keeps insisting it can be.

"If it were rational, there wouldn't be a problem. But it's not, and I - when all the rest of it wasn't enough on its own, I'd come back to what you said. To not being alone in it." K doesn't talk half as much as other people, but when he does it's in more or less smooth, complete thoughts. This is anything but. This is halting and hesitant and just shy of disjointed.

All because of this: "That was... so important to me."

[hippie_ninja]

It's a knife to the throat, is what it feels like, hearing that and knowing how much he's failed K.

"Please let me prove myself to you."

[konstant]

"Prove what?" he asks, not harshly.

"It's not as though I'd ask you to stay in a contract you didn't feel comfortable in anymore, either."

[hippie_ninja]

"That I won't actually leave you." He turns, restless in a way he has never felt before. He wants to move, to run, but not to run anywhere that takes him away from K.

[konstant]

It's the restlessness that has K watching Jesus now, stepping back as if that can ease some of the pressure, can help Jesus feel comfortable staying.

He wishes it didn't. He wishes he knew how to make whatever catches and holds in his chest listen to his thoughts, but he doesn't, so he waits and he watches and he does his best to believe what Jesus is saying over everything else.

"Okay," he tries.

[hippie_ninja]

Okay. An 'okay' is better than a 'no'.

Jesus only paces a little before he steadies himself and looks back at K. "What do you need right now?"

[konstant]

Even if K were inclined to be around anyone right now, it would be hard to ask Jesus for anything when he's already working so hard to rein himself in. He waits though, and he gives the question a three count before he answers.

"I need some time to think," he says, soberly.

[hippie_ninja]

"Okay." He nods. He'd need time, too. And space. "I'll go. Just- come find me when you're ready. Whenever you want. Okay?"

[konstant]

"I will," he promises. He doesn't no when it will be, what he'll have to say, or what it even looks like at this point, but he can promise that much anyway.

[hippie_ninja]

He nods again and then turns away. "I'll see you then."

It feels better to say than 'goodbye', though he's aware that might well be what this is. And then he's gone.