hippie_ninja | IC INBOX

"Well, it keeps my hands busy. My hands get into trouble when they're not doing something useful," he jokes. Then he offers a serious answer. "Everyone draws differently. Even if you're trained the same way, and draw the exact same thing, the pictures will always come out differently. There's a little...piece of a person in what they draw." He tilts his head, getting a different look, sketches what he finds.

"When I'd clean out the trailers after someone died I'd find things--things they'd written, or saved, or sometimes drawn. And there's not much to Hilltop, you know? So they were all writing and drawing the same place, but everyone saw things a certain way. I liked that."

He wonders what it must have been like to live in such a world. Maybe, if things keep going as they had been and, seemingly would, at some point, he'd know it himself. Except rather than hiding and trying to survive from zombies, it would be from giant robot killing machines, with their only purpose and goal in their existence to hunt down and kill his kind. To kill mutants.

He thinks about that sometimes, especially with having been killed by one here a few months back, but. Rather than dwell on that right here and right now, he instead lifts his gaze up to the other man, watching him sketch away.

"Should I leave something for you?" A beat, he smiles, though it's faint. "In case I die or disappear from here before you?"

He focuses on John then, holding his gaze. "I'd like that," he admits. "I'd like to leave something for you. Everyone handles loss differently; I didn't know if you'd be okay with that."

Talking about death, even his own, has been a normal part of his life for over a decade now, but he treads lightly with it here.

That and thinking about how he actually died is something that his mind just shies away from. He tries sometimes, but it floods him with an unfamiliar anxiety and he's still learning how to cope with that. But this? This he can do.

"I almost wonder if I'm getting numb to it now." With the amount of people he's lost here, he wonders.

Swallowing, he looks to the ring that had been given to him as a gift — a means to create fire when he's only capable of manipulating it. This way, he'd never be without it — never be vulnerable as he often was when his lighter was lost or his flamethrower broken.

Glancing up to Jesus, he can't help but tilt his head some, eyes soft like his words when he speaks. "Before coming here, I didn't really have anyone... didn't have anyone to lose. Here though... I've lost more people than I've ever had in my life back home." It's why it's been painful for him — why he's felt he should have never cared, just as he never did back home.

"Do you get numb after awhile?" He asks then, looking to Jesus. "With all the people you've probably lost over the years back home?"

"A lot of people do." And he doesn't blame them for it. He's had some very dark times where he wished he felt nothing, but he always comes back around to the philosophy he lives by.

"I never have. I try not to. I try to just let myself feel the loss; staying open that way, it lets me remember how happy I was with them, too. I can think about the times I laughed with my friends, and not hate that it happened. I never want to hate the good things I had just because it ended. And I never want to take for granted the things I have."

He looks at John, studies him, thinking how if he'd let himself become as bitter and closed off as Michonne, he never would have met John at all.

"Every person I've lost shaped who I am now. It would feel like destroying myself if I let myself stop loving them just because they've died."

It's easy for him to lean into anger and bitterness — a little too easy, maybe. The grief he had felt at the beach had been laced with anger, yes. But who wouldn't be both angry and upset at the loss of someone they cared for? At someone they had considered their first real friend they'd ever had?

Licking over his lips, he gives a huff of laughter then, letting his gaze drop down. "You're one of those don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened people, aren't you?"

"I used to cry a lot," he says, ducking his head a bit with a grimace. "But yeah. I haven't cried in years. ...Which isn't because I smile a lot. At least, I didn't until I got here."

Now? Now he grins pretty readily. Amazing what not worrying about starvation can do for your mood.

"Why don't you cry?" He asks, soft in the way he does. "Because you won't let yourself?"

"It just doesn't come anymore." He looks down at his drawing, then back at John. "A few years ago I helped pick the leader of Hilltop. I helped stage a coup that put her in charge, because I believed in her vision. I still do. Most of it. Her husband was...brutally murdered in front of her, and the man who did it probably should have been killed. But instead he got life in a cage. She decided because of that, the Hilltop would be more aggressive."

There's so much history there that he's skimming over and he's not sure how to put it all into words.

"I was second in command. The original vision was one of democracy; let the people shape the laws. But when the former leader tried to have her killed, she eventually hanged him without talking to anyone. The thing is- I spoke to him before it happened. I believe he changed. He could have become a good man if we'd given him the chance. But I stood there and I watched him plead for his life, and I watched Maggie hang him and I wanted to cry. Not just for him, but because I knew she was making decisions that were going to make her just like the man she hates. I was watching my closest friend turn into someone I would eventually have to fight. But, John, I just stood there and watched and I felt all of it and I just couldn't cry, couldn't fight, couldn't argue. It's been like that ever since."

He doesn't know how far along Jesus is in the sketch he's been doing, but. After he goes and tells him all that — after he confesses, in a way, a part of his life that he's had to live and that's no doubt been difficult for him, he sits himself up on the couch and leaves it for him.

Crouching down there in front of him, strands of hair falling in front of his face, he reaches out and, so very softly, takes one of the other man's hands into his own. Holding it. Looking up to him as he does.

"Do you want to cry?" As before, the way he asks, is soft.

"Not for that." Not anymore. Like he said: it just doesn't come anymore. He absorbs the blows as they happen, and he keeps going, sticking to the philosophy that has let him keep his heart when everyone else around him became jaded.

But. There is one thing that claws at him, that he can't bring himself to think too hard about. It creeps up and he shuts it down, holds John's hand a little tighter. "I don't know how to deal with the fact I died, John."

When Jesus holds tighter to his hand, he lets him and even brings his other hand up to cover over the other man's entirely. He stays there — crouched — looking up to him and just being there with him. Right here. Right now. Like this.

"I think it's just easier to pretend it never happened. Even if you remember it — remember bits of it." It's what he's done with his own so-called death here, but. It's different when you apparently come back to life in this place. Where Jesus comes from — where he himself comes from? Death is a little more permanent and not exactly temporary.

A brush of his thumb over that ring he wears, a small spark ignites and he wraps a crackling flame around their hands and along Jesus' wrist, warm and soft to the touch. "You're here right now. In this apartment. Drawing some masterpiece of a sketch of me." Smile just barely there on his lips, he watches Jesus, still keeping that warm flame around their hands and wrists. "Wherever here is, you're here. And I'm here with you."

He exhales and his breath is shaky. His head bows slightly and he focuses on the fire resting on his skin, warm and welcome.

"Can you stay tonight?" It feels like such a big ask.

Smile still just barely there, he nods slowly, letting the pad of his thumb brush over the back of Jesus' hand, fire still warm and almost protective in how it's wrapped around him. "Yeah," a tilt of his head. "Only if you're not sick of me yet."

He leans forward and kisses him, and then keeps kissing him. "Mmno. Not yet."

He returns each and every one of those kisses he's given with just as much warmth as the fire wrapped around their wrists and hands. Nosing at Jesus then, he brings one of his hands up and cradles the side of the man's face, thumb stroking across a cheek as he looks to him from his still crouched spot. "Let me take care of you," he murmurs. "You're always taking care of others. I think people forget you need it just as much as anyone else does."

It's been years--more than twelve, more years than the apocalypse--since anyone has offered that, and he isn't sure he knows how to let that happen anymore but he nods, looking at John, turns his head and kisses John's wrist. Okay.

John's not entirely sure how to do it himself, but. It doesn't mean he won't try. Smile there faint on his lips, he nods again himself, then raises his brows. "That doesn't mean I'm gonna be wearing some sexy nurse outfit while I do," a beat. "Unless you want me to. But even then. Maybe you'll get that for Christmas if you're good."

"I could live with that as a sight," he teases, pulling John closer, wanting him on his lap. "What do you want for Christmas?"

At the pull, he follows and he settles there on the man's lap as silently wanted. When the question is asked, he simply shakes his head. "Nothing anyone can give me and it's probably for the best anyways." That they're gone. No longer here. "What do you want?"

"I'm bad at wanting things." He gets things for himself if he wants them. "Wouldn't turn down you in a Santa hat, though."

Tilt of his head, he gives a quizzical expression. "Now... is that just in a Santa hat or?" Very important information, of course.

His smile turns sly. "Dealer's choice. I like stripping you down but...if I came home and you were just there, on my bed or my couch, wearing just the hat..."

"Might have to leave a window cracked so I can crawl in then." He laughs a little, tilting his head the other way. "Don't really wanna burn the door down to get in."

"I could leave you some lock picks," he grins. "You've used those before, right?"

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