. .. IC Contact | Duplicity .. .

[konstant]

                                                                 

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[hippie_ninja]

"Could you draw one?" Irradiated bugs might be simply monstrous versions of those he knows, but who knows? They could just be the same cockroaches said to survive nuclear winter.

[konstant]

"Yes. Remind me when we get back to the housing and I'll try."

He's watching where they walk, marking the streets as they pass them - and, notably, relaxing the further they go without incident.

"You're making a lot of friends."

[hippie_ninja]

"It's easy to do here. Everyone I've met so far has cared about helping me settle in." It's unlike any community he's ever been in before. He does have the advantage of being extroverted, and being used to building bridges, though. "...Are they that way with you, too?"

[konstant]

K nods.

"It's... New." He's capable of speaking to strangers when he's filling a clear role. This has been much, much harder.

"And more difficult, probably. But yes."

[hippie_ninja]

"It's hard for me, too." He's glad for it, but it's still jarring. "Different reasons, I know."

[konstant]

"You don't show it," he answers, and honestly that's one of the things K admires most about him. People are important to him even when they're not easy for him.

"It took even me a while to spot it."

[hippie_ninja]

"All I wanted for years was to build a place that was safe for people to have their families. Whatever the families looked like. This place somehow has given that to a lot of people. It's easy for me to just be happy for them."

It makes it easier to accept their kindness that way. "It just doesn't help how outside of all of this I feel."

[konstant]

There's something startling about hearing something so familiar come out of a completely different person's mouth, unprompted, word for word in their context instead of his own and yet identical. K wanted Los Angeles to be safer, to be better, and he worked for that as best he could. It was limited, and nowhere near enough, but he did work for it.

And he was never, ever going to be a part of it. He looks over at Jesus, wishing with such clarity and force that it aches that he knew how to make a space at his side that Jesus would feel welcome in - but he doesn't.

So instead when they have to slow for a person in front of them to navigate a line out the door of a bar, he lets his hand brush Jesus's wrist. That's all, just a touch, but it's the best that he has.

[hippie_ninja]

It's a barely there touch and it's in the midst of moving indoors. But K had kept his hands in his pockets, so Jesus knows what this gesture means, and he reciprocates by touching K's elbow as they move inside and find a seat.

[konstant]

K stays watchful until they've settled into chairs, more wary of the enclosed space at first than he had been out on the streets, but if there's fewer ways out there's also fewer ways in which makes the room easier to cover; it's also inside and there are fewer lights, which makes him feel better. He does, after a short time, relax.

He's still quiet, but he watches people around them with interest rather than caution, and he sits close enough in his chair to Jesus that their elbows might brush if they're not careful, although his hands are back in his lap, in his pockets.

"Is your friend here?" he asks quietly.

[hippie_ninja]

He looks around and shakes his head. It's a fairly busy night, though the atmosphere is different. "Want a coffee?"

[konstant]

He does want a coffee, although he lets Jesus pick it. He's just enjoying being here.

This place is like nothing he's ever seen, nothing in Los Angeles; there is no place this quiet, this calm, this lacking in neon lights and electric hum and the sound of air filters. If there is he's certain he wouldn't be allowed in it, and if he were he wouldn't be able to sit quietly and undisturbed while people move around him like he's just another person in the middle of it. He feels more isolated than ever, newly so in a place that has people insisting he's part of it both in his best interests and not, but no one pays him any particular mind sitting here at this table with Jesus.

He doesn't speak through several performances, watching them intently, memorizing details almost automatically, methodically sipping his coffee; watching the people around them and the way the staff move through the tables when there's no one actively performing something. He's never heard an acoustic guitar played well. He's never heard a soft, emotive voice with no augmentation over a staticky microphone and large, physical speakers.

It has the peculiar effect of making him feel both more settled and more homesick, and when the latter starts to settle in he leans closer to Jesus.

[hippie_ninja]

He leans closer when K does, subconsciously at first. Then when he realizes, he glances at K and smiles softly, and lets his foot rest against K's under the table out of view.

"I liked that last one."

[konstant]

K doesn't answer right away, well aware of that subtle point of contact while he watches around them, idly turning his empty coffee cup slowly between his fingers.

Then his gaze returns to Jesus, resting there for several moments before he finally says, "I like all of it."

[hippie_ninja]

It's a warm weight, it makes him smile. "So do I." And his hand brushes K's as he takes his cup and sips from it.

"Do you sing?"

[konstant]

The question catches him off guard, and he starts to answer it but stops, smiles a bit - embarrassed - before smoothing out his expression again.

"I have vocal cords, I can -" Does he? Yes, sometimes, he has before. Does he? No. Not in front of anyone. "Do you?"

[hippie_ninja]

That answer means Jesus's interest is now intensified.

"I play guitar a little. I can sing, I guess." He lifts an eyebrow and nods at the stage. "If there was a song we both know, I'd ask you to come sing it with me."

[konstant]

K starts to warm to the idea - until Jesus includes the stage, the audience, a performance in it. That's too much for him right now and he had unconsciously leaned forward a bit more but he draws back that short distance now.

"I'd try. With you," he says slowly, an uncertain glance at the stage himself and then back.

It feels like a failure of some kind to say, "But - not here? Today?" The spotlight isn't bright but it's bright enough, and the idea of all that attention on him feels like an invitation to have him singled out and shunned.

[hippie_ninja]

It's hard to say what part of it is being shy and what part is the lingering effects of what happened to him. Jesus might nudge him through shyness, but he's seen how bad K had been feeling.

"Next time," he says, which has the added bonus of being a request for a second date. Or whatever this is. "Maybe I'll find a guitar by then."

[konstant]

K's brow clears of concern immediately, relieved by this compromise.

"Next time," he agrees readily, as much because he does want there to be a next time as because he's not up to it now, too. And, quietly, "Thank you."

For not pushing him this time, when he isn't exactly afraid but he doesn't feel solid either.

[hippie_ninja]

"I haven't played or sung anything in years," he admits, his smile soft. "Maybe we're better off practicing privately together first anyway. What's a song you like?"

[konstant]

"You're right, maybe you're horrible," K comments dryly, not at all seriously. He's quite certain that if one of them should be practicing first, it's not going to be Jesus.

"I don't have just one. I like - classics. Elvis Presley, Muddy Waters, Nickelback, the Monkees."

[hippie_ninja]

It makes him laugh. The way K's humor shows up isn't so unexpected anymore, but it's still new enough that it delights Jesus an extra bit to hear it.

"I could learn an Elvis song," he muses. "I'll get a guitar if you pick the song."

[konstant]

K's thoughts go immediately to one specific song, rolling through a years long empty lounge, crackling in the neglected sound system and skipping between punches until Elvis himself was there, white and shimmering and cutting, blinding, through the dark.

He smiles and says, "Hallelujah," instead of that one.

[hippie_ninja]

K's expression is best described as neutral, but Jesus pays attention, and he's seen flickers here and there of something else under the surface. He always wonders what K is thinking in those moments, but he doesn't ask. You don't ask things like that in a public space. You generally don't ask at all, anywhere, where he's from.

So instead he pretends to have to think about that one. "And you'll sing with me?"