. .. IC Contact | Duplicity .. .

[konstant]

                                                                 

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[konstant]

He flinches back from the flame even though he was expecting it, his eyes watering almost immediately; his hand stays steady though, and he doesn't pull back from more than the brightest, most immediate ring of light. He wonders, briefly, if this is his life now and how he's going to function if it is. It's out of his control to change, though, so he doesn't bother complaining about it.

It's comforting just to hold the cigarette, to watch the smoke trail up from the glowing ember tip, and he does so for several moments even after she asks. He's not, though. They both know he's not. He's trying, but he's not.

He shakes his head, and takes a draw off the cigarette.

[thecanarylives]

He’d squinted, recoiled from the light when he’s opened the door. She realizes it now, belatedly, after the anger’s finally started to subside.

She sits quietly, unsure of how to help. Unsure of what he needs. As she watches him, her gaze lingers on his hand - the one that three days ago had been shredded by jagged metal by her own doppelgänger. Her brow furrows, fingertips reaching out to brush against the smooth skin on the back of his hand.

[konstant]

K sits with her in that silence, working on the cigarette slowly; at first, he's waiting for her to pick up where she left off, to keep asking him questions that less need answers than they need to be asked, to vent whatever anger is left. He stays still at first when she reaches out but, when he realizes what she's doing, he offers his hand out to her for inspection - and, if he's honest, for connection at all.

She's not sure what he needs or how to help, but those few minutes of quiet, of sitting with him and expecting nothing even if it's just the short term, helps immensely.

"I... woke up here. In the bathtub," he starts, quiet. "All the injuries were gone. I only remembered that much this morning, and the rest is still - fuzzy." Which, for a replicant with acute memory and RAM modifications and no repair facilities he's aware of for what he is, is distressing.

[thecanarylives]

He has a way of depleting that rage in her more quickly than most. It's... unsatisfying, trying to stay angry with him. Like yelling at a brick wall painted with a cartoon puppy.

She can't pinpoint what it is about him. Why it seizes through her, the need to keep him safe. It's the same way with anyone she cares about, she supposes. Laurel, Barry, Donna. But it'd happened so fast with him. She doesn't even know his birthday. His favorite color. Does he have one?

He starts to speak again, without her own prompting. Without a demand from her, and she doesn't know him well, but she knows that it means something. That he's trying. Her brow furrows, attention focused on running her fingertips over his knuckles, down to the curve of his wrist bone.

"Fuzzy? Does that... happen often, for you?" She can't imagine it would, but she also doesn't have a clue how his brain works.

[konstant]

There's something special about hands, K has always thought; always from a distance though, at least until landing in Duplicity, where there are people willing to allow him to touch them, people he's willing to in turn. There's something about the delicate, complex assembly of tendon and ligament and bone and muscle and the skin with its web of prints, its creases, its calluses. Any marks from the confrontation with their nightmares are gone but the oldest scars, the splits in his knuckles from altercations throughout his life, are still there. The new one where Luv stabbed him through the palm, the one Sara herself inspected when they first met, is still there where it healed closed a few weeks ago.

He holds his hand out steady for her, trusting in his way, while he shakes his head.

"No. Anything even close to this has happened only once before, and it was -" He tips his head, considering. "I think the closest human equivalent would have been a traumatic brain injury. I had to go back to Wallace for repair to be cleared for duty again."

[thecanarylives]

Sara's own hands are so much smaller than his. Out in the field, she's a force of nature. Bigger than her own body, fighting like hell for the people she cares about. But up close, she's just... a girl. Only a few inches over five feet, slim, lean muscle and soft curves and scars all over.

Her fingertips linger on the scar, on how completely human it is, warped skin healed over. Faster than usual, sure, but still... odd. That they'd put so much work into the finest details. The slightest imperfections that made it all the more convincing.

She falls quiet again, the slightest furrow in her brow. It's not surprising that this place would effect him differently. It knows how to dig deep. Mess with you in the most creative of ways.

"How long have you been back?"

[konstant]

It's another hard question to answer just now, and he glances at the clock on the wall to answer it. Normally he could answer down to the millisecond, although his informal algorithms make sure that he doesn't outside of diagnostic mode or a direct order; most people don't talk that way and aren't comfortable around people who do. Either way, it takes him a moment to place the passage of time.

"Last night," he finally decides. He'd slept for most of that time so he doesn't remember all of it, but he thinks he remembers looking at the clock when Orla helped him out of the bathroom. "I answered your texts as soon as I could."

He's seen her fight now, seen the part of herself she's afraid is still the core of who she is; he wonders how she can think that's all there is to her when her touch is as gentle as her fingers on his skin now.

[thecanarylives]

Last night. It's a hell of a lot better than thinking he'd been holed up here for days, shutting the rest of the world out. Shutting her out. She nods quietly, trying to place the pang that travels up her chest and into her throat.

It takes her a moment, swallowing heavily, his hand heavy in both of hers.

"I'm glad you're..." Okay's not the right word. He's far from that. "I'm glad you're back."

[konstant]

Up until now he'd just been letting Sara move his hand where she wants it, where she needs to see whatever she needs to see; she could break every bone in every finger and he wouldn't pull it back, but he knows she won't. Her hurt has turned inward. He'll think later maybe it always had, in a parabolic way. For now though, he turns his hand over so it's palm up, an offer of a different kind while he swallows in turn and reaches over to tap the ash off his cigarette.

"When I'd hit a dead end on a case," he starts, slowly, carefully, "I would always circle back through everyone I'd already talked to at least once, maybe twice."
Sometimes seeing a blade runner turning up was enough to shake something new loose. Sometimes someone simply not being around anymore was enough to tell him where he should be looking.

"They always thought I'd hurt them because other blade runners might, even though I never did." He never saw any point in taking out the things other people do on the people in front of him. "I was worried it would do the same. So I went to find it first."

[thecanarylives]

In the short time they've known each other, she's tried to be acutely aware of his choices. Of giving him an option as often as she could, because so much of his past has been spent under orders. She remembers what a relief it was, leaving the League. Daunting and terrifying and liberating all at once. She wants that for him, too.

His hand turns, offered out to her, more open in a way than she'd have expected from him. She hesitates, studying the lines of his palm, long fingers and calloused skin. Her hand slides into his, palm against palm, fingertips skimming against his own.

Is it his choice? Or something he does to offer her comfort? Is it programmed into him, and if it is, does it make a difference?

"What did it do to you?" she murmurs. He'd seen the fury, the unbridled violence that consumed her own nightmare. That it wanted to destroy, spill blood, cause pain in any way possible. But she still didn't quite understand what had happened. How he'd vanished into thin air, replaced his body when she'd destroyed it.

[konstant]

It's a set of questions he has spent a lot of time asking himself, a conversation he has never dared to have aloud - even with Joi. Where is the line between biological programming and synthetic programming? How much of what he is, who he is, is down to him and the choices he makes, and how much is owed to whichever programmer typed whichever keystrokes that gave him the ability to feel and choose and know?

Did he really only change, like anyone might under duress? Or is there something wrong with him now that will continue to deteriorate as he goes against his baseline?

What was your most shameful moment?

"Distinct," he whispers, but it's not to her, it's not to anyone, it's just a reflex as sure as blowing in someone's eye will make them blink. He takes a pull off his cigarette like he doesn't even know he said it, lets the smoke out on a long, shaky breath, and then he's talking to her again.

"I don't remember all of it," he says again, honestly. "But it's a blade runner. I'm a rogue replicant. There's only one way that ends." And it probably has something to do with why his right eye aches more, is less reliable, than his left just now. "And when it ended - there's. We're always told it's impossible for any of us to remember the factory, or the repair facility. We're offline. We're not aware of anything, we're so many pounds of synthetic meat and manufactured bone. But I've always thought..." He shakes his head, shivers without being able to stop it.

"Maybe I only imagine that I do remember."

[thecanarylives]

Maybe for K, nature vs. nurture is simply programming vs. adaptation. Hasn't Sara been programmed by the League? Broken down and rebuilt into a weapon, someone they could point and shoot, carry out assignments and orders just like he did? Hadn't she put down people, hunted down her own kind, just like he had?

If humans had a baseline test, she would've failed hers a long time ago. She wasn't anywhere close to the girl who'd left on that boat all those years ago. Scared, selfish, innocent.

"What?" She frowns, barely catching the word under his breath. But he breezes past it before she has a chance to latch on, and when he shudders, something cold runs down her own spine, her fingers threading through his.

"Is that the first memory you have?" False memory or not, it's a horrifying one to have rattling around in your brain. "Do you... do they give you memories? A childhood?"

[konstant]

It's a dangerous question for him in particular, like the tumble of rocks over a dropoff edge, the splintering of cracked glass, the click of a gun safety; he hears it and his own grip tightens faintly, but he holds it off. He relaxes again.

He doesn't have to talk about that one, not really, it's only a question.

"Humans sometimes talk about us being kept in drawers, in lockers, when we're not doing our jobs. That's what I remember. A space too small to move in, that you have to push against the sides to take a deep breath. No light. No sound. Not until they open it up and let us out, wrapped up in plastic, ready to ship. I don't know if it's real or not, but when I have bad dreams, it's always that." A sense memory he can't place - not quite real, not quite not.

"They do," he says, one more pull off the cigarette and it's done, he has to put it out. "LAPD paid for twelve for me. They must have anticipated a lot of trauma, the need for a lot of stability. Some of those memories are of growing up, yes."

[thecanarylives]

She can feel the tension ebb and flow in the muscles of his hand. The desire to retreat into yourself, hide away from the sharp edges, from the memories that only remind you of how broken and fractured you really are. But he keeps coming back, keeps opening up pieces of himself, and she's grateful for that. Grateful that he's seen the broken pieces of her and hasn't retreated, either.

The way he describes it makes her uneasy, wraps around her lungs and squeezes. "That's where he took you." When he'd disappeared. That's where he'd trapped him the second time. When she wasn't around to stop it.

Her fingers curl against his, like she needs the assurance that he's here. That he'd made it out of that place, made it back. Twelve memories doesn't seem like nearly enough. He deserves better. Deserves more, a hell of a lot more than most of the humans she knows.

[konstant]

He nods, first hesitant, then more firmly. Yes. That's where he went, that's where he was trapped, he's sure of it even if he can't remember every single detail - even if maybe he never will. He remembers suffocating alone in the dark, part of the system and no more, plastic and shipping gel pressing into his mouth and ears and nose and eyes, unable to even raise his hands to try to push his way back.

He wishes he could turn on a light, maybe he'd feel better, but even with just the window letting slivers in from the Down outside it's already more than he'd had there. He looks down at where her fingers are clasped around his, possessive almost, like she can keep him here with her. That's what it feels like to him: anchoring, to here and to now and to whatever version of being alive this is for him.

"I know - it's hard to understand." He's trying. He'll always try, it's not in him to stop, even if his determination is dead silent alongside most others. "Is there anything you just know is absolutely wrong? Something so... anathema to everything you are and everything you're supposed to be that no one needs it explained that it's shameful, and terrible, and pathetic?"

[thecanarylives]

It makes her sick, turns her stomach to know that's how he died. Alone, in the dark, treated like a thing, reinforcing the absolute worst of what he's been told, over and over again. That feeling - the despair surrounding his doppelganger was overwhelming. Nearly swallowed her whole, and that's how he'd gone down. Drowning in it.

She tries to suck in a breath, the air shallow in her lungs, the darkness and the smoke thick in the air around them. If she's his anchor, he's just as much hers. She stares down at their hands, chewing at the inside of her lip as she thinks on his question. There's a dry laugh on her lips, one that doesn't have any real mirth to it.

"Shameful and terrible is pretty much where I live," she admits, the pad of her thumb tracing the curve of his wrist. "But I chose that path. You... you don't deserve that."

[konstant]

"I do."

His answer is immediate, not argumentative or aggressive but still firm. He might not have said it before all this, but now? Now it's hammered home to him that he's a traitor, he's dangerous, he is everything he's ever hunted and worse because he absolutely knew better and chose to do it anyway.

And he did: "I chose to go rogue. Like I know both that I was never a child but I have memories of an orphanage, I know that what I did was the right thing to do and that it was the wrong thing for me to do. I did it knowing what the consequence was. I did it knowing that it went against everything I was created to do. I'm not sorry I did it, but right now -"

His breath comes faster as he speaks, hitching with the leftovers both of what really happened and what the nightmare branded into his mind; he hadn't intended to sacrifice himself. It's only that the programming that he betrayed was stronger than the knowledge that he'd do it again exactly like he did before, and left him drowning.

"Right now I feel like I deserve worse."

[thecanarylives]

It's the most she's seen him speak, the words tumbling out of him freely, tight with emotion that he's usually so good at masking. He's unraveling, fear heavy, raw in his voice, and her hand slips out of his only so she can shift in closer, take his face in both of hers.

"Stop- hey, look at me." She looks him squarely in the eyes, steady. "Just because something was programmed into you doesn't make it right. Those rules, those guidelines, they were created by people, right? Fallible, human people, and humans are shit at choosing right from wrong. So you going rogue, that was your choice to do what you thought was right. And I'd trust that judgment over any of those assholes I saw at the station."

[konstant]

What she doesn't realize - what he is completely uninterested in telling her - is that there's a part of him that's programmed to obey human orders, too. There's a whole subsection of his programming devoted entirely to the superiority and preservation of human life, and he is at the mercy of it still. He likes humans. He always has.

So she reaches for him and tells him to look at her and he goes still, goes quiet, and looks back. He listens, and he knows she's right, he knows he made the right call, he does. He does.

(You imagined it was you? Oh, you did.)

"That doesn't make it easy," he manages, brow furrowed, only barely managing to keep meeting her eyes.

[thecanarylives]

There's so much she's missing. So many pieces to wrap her mind around, so many factors that affect how he sees the world, how his world saw him.

Her touch is light, but insistent. And when she's sure he won't fight her on that, she lets her hands slip back down into her lap, searching his features quietly.

"Nothing about where you come from is easy. But it's like I told you. You don't have to stick by those rules anymore. No one here sees you as... as they did."

[konstant]

When her hands fall away, he doesn't move from where she left him, still watchful, still braced for something he can't even name but that he expects will happen anyway.

Los Angeles was terrible, it was dying, but it was home; the rules he was subject to there were exacting, were harsh, but there were rules. He thinks he could like the comparative freedom, perhaps, if it didn't feel like trying to balance on a high wire without a net - and isn't that a traitorous thought, too?

"Not no one," he adds after a moment, gesturing at the black mark down his throat, at the mess that is his head. "I'm trying," he promises, a faint note of something like desperation woven through.

[thecanarylives]

She knows what it's like. To seek comfort in something terrible, but familiar. The League, destructive as it was to her soul, to the person she used to be, was home for six years. Familiar. Structured. But eventually, it had all become too much.

He reminds her of the mark that signifies his standing here, arbitrary as it is. She frowns at it, gaze lingering there for a moment.

"I know you are," she concedes quietly. "But you're not alone, okay? This... this place is a mess, but it can be better than it was at home. It will be."

[konstant]

He is, patently, not alone; she came to find him, even angry, even hurting both physically and emotionally. Even willing to threaten him into never trying this again. And things had been better, briefly, and aimed at an upward trend at least for a bit.

He'd been warned about the ways the city, the program have of knocking its subjects down a rung. Nothing could have prepared him for this though.

He nods, even if he can't quite smile yet. He hears her. He acknowledges her. He'll do his level best to believe her.

"Will you -" He stops, licks his lips, tries again. "Can we talk about something good?"

[thecanarylives]

Sara's anger may run hot, easily ignited by something that might seem trivial. But she cares deeply about the few people in her life she lets in. And K's a part of that now. She's not sure how it happened, when it happened, but it's not so easily shaken.

She studies him curiously, anticipating a request, already half agreeing to whatever the hell it is - if it'll help. If it'll cushion the below. When it actually lands, she sputters out a soft laugh, smiling down at her hands.

"That I can do," she replies, lifting her gaze to his again. "You hungry?" She slips off the bed, reclaiming the backpack she'd brought and digging around in it for a lump wrapped in foil. "Barry made... I dunno what this is. Banana bread, maybe."

[konstant]

Normally the answer to this question is a resounding yes; the one thing he never tries to defend about Los Angeles is the food or the drink, not in comparison to here, and he is voracious after a lifetime of grubs being the only protein in his life, of artifically flavored fruits and vegetables that no longer taste anything like the foods they're modeled after he's discovered only after coming here. He is eager to try anything and everything, and enjoys even the simplest of things.

He still nods, he still agrees that he is, but it's rote; his stomach is as unsettled as the rest of him and he honestly has no idea how this is going to go, but he'll try. For Sara, he'll try, and even he can recognize that under normal circumstances he would be enthusiastically agreeing.

"I've never had banana bread," he offers, moving to the edge of the bed himself, scrubbing his hands down his face and through his hair in hopes it will clear his mind a bit more. "The cookies were amazing." Not an uncommon review, from him.