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[hippie_ninja]

This is Jesus. Leave a message.

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[hippie_ninja]

"I just didn't think adjusting to a life with luxuries would be difficult." He'd never thought he'd have luxuries like this again, sure. But that's not the point.

"I feel ungrateful being here and struggling when what I fought for for years was food, shelter, people I liked having around."

[konstant]

He understands that, too, now that he's not on a planet that is slowly killing everyone still on it. That will kill everyone still on it.

"Do you think I'm ungrateful, thinking how much easier it would be to be back home in Los Angeles, where the food and water are poisoning everyone who isn't starving outright, and where billions of people will die because they're poor?"

[hippie_ninja]

"No." He lets himself sit with that, with what it means and what he knows K means by it.

It does help. It loosens the tension still in his shoulders. It will give him something to show his mind when all the guilt starts to bubble up again tonight, when he's alone.

"Do you hate being here?"

[konstant]

"Sometimes."

He's glad to see that relaxation, that release, however small. He rubs a fold of the cloth of his pants between his fingertips.

"Do you?"

[hippie_ninja]

"I should know better by now than to hate how things are." He shrugs. "Things are the way they are. You live and adapt to it, or you change it."

Which is one of the oblique ways he answers things when he's uncomfortable. He looks down at his hands, rubs a scar over one of his knuckles.

"I haven't been homesick in years, but I'd do a lot to be able to go back to the Hilltop right now."

[konstant]

"Would it help you to talk about it?" he asks.

"Or more just to know that I hear you, and I don't blame you, and you can feel what you want with me?"

Because he does, he doesn't, and he can.

[hippie_ninja]

The latter.

Jesus is more able to talk about things than his friends are--but rarely about himself. Rarely about anything that is currently painful. He wouldn't know how to put it into context here, anyway, and he's sure that's something K struggles with, too.

But it doesn't change the fact they do see each other. There are some things that are simply known and understood.

"It helps to know that I could talk to you, if I wanted," he says softly, his hand on K's without as much of the hesitance from earlier. "But it helps most knowing you see as much as you do and you don't judge me for it."

[konstant]

K turns his hand over, not so much taking Jesus's as offering him his palm, offering the other side of that connection. His attention is entirely on the other man now, though his gaze stays soft and sidelong until Jesus reaches for him again.

His lips quirk, the subtle, most honest smile he has.

"I'm honored."

[hippie_ninja]

He trails the backs of his nails along the fine lines of K's palm, his own smile playful though the way he's studying K is serious.

"You're good at this."

[konstant]

It doesn't exactly tickle, it doesn't exactly not; the smile deepens ever so slightly, his fingertips twitch but he doesn't even consider pulling away.

"Am I?" he asks, because he has no idea that he's doing anything.

[hippie_ninja]

"I've had friends I've known longer, who I trusted with less." Friends he loves, friends he's fought beside, who he would never have told anything he just told K.

"Am I keeping you from the party?" His hand, nevertheless, doesn't leave K's.

[konstant]

"I left it with you," he reminds him, which is also his answer.

He's not going anywhere. "I'm good where I am."

[hippie_ninja]

It makes him smile. "Want to go somewhere you can get out of your uniform, then?" He motions at himself. "I'm not dressed for being away from the pool."

[konstant]

K doesn't hesitate to offer him his towel, too, but he's also already moving for his feet.

"Orla will be at the party until closing time," he offers, or they both know Jesus's place is empty now, too.

[hippie_ninja]

"Let's stop by your place for your clothes then go to mine," he decides. Going to a cabin that is, for the time being, only Jesus's means there's no risk of being interrupted, even if all they do is talk.

[konstant]

It's easy to agree; K ends up just throwing a shirt on over the red and gold pants - they're much cooler than his own sturdy surplus pants, and he doesn't actually mind them if he can add a top - and grabbing his coat and boots, and throws a few toiletry items into his pockets in case he ends up being comfortable enough to stay.

When they step in the door at Jesus's, K automatically glances to the side of the room V had inhabited, but he doesn't say anything. He just looks back at Jesus to see if he can catch a glimpse of how he feels about it.

[hippie_ninja]

There's a barely there reaction: he misses V. He worries about him, and how hard V took the transfer, and how infrequently they're likely to cross paths now that V lives above this neighborhood.

He can't do anything about it, so the response is there and then gone in a literal blink of an eye.

He follows K's lead and pulls a shirt on, then checks that his knife is still where he left it beside the bed.

"It's not as interesting here without Nibbles around," he apologizes.

[konstant]

Whether Nibbles is here or not, K still moves over to where he first folded down to sit that initial visit, and does so again directly beside the bed, his back to it while Jesus finds his shirt.

He shakes his head. "He's okay. We'll see him again."

[hippie_ninja]

"V took having to move pretty hard." He worries but he sounds mostly fond as he says it. He's never met anyone so upset about having privileges.

[konstant]

"He told me that anywhere he finds a system that punches down, it's evil and he punches up against it," K answers, thoughtful.

"He was worried we'd be in danger being around him now. I'm worried he'll isolate because of it."

[hippie_ninja]

"I am, too. I saw him the day after he moved out, but I haven't since then. I don't go to the Up very often." And V might well be isolating himself. "Good reason to drop in on him though, right?"

[konstant]

"I think he'd like that even if he thinks we'd be in danger around him."

And he will, but K remembers how V had calmed down just with someone else in the room. He's confident that will work out.

"Maybe I'll try to get him to come down to Marked."

[hippie_ninja]

He nods, perking up a bit. "Pick a day we're both working. We can hang out together when we both get off."

[konstant]

And maybe having to put the mark back on to come in will soothe something in him; maybe it won't.

"I will," he promises.

"I like having the job. I like being able to expect something familiar."

[hippie_ninja]

It unsettles Jesus, on the other hand. Every day here has a steady rhythm to it and it has sawed away at his already haggard nerves. Every day he has to hold a little tighter to himself to get from sunup to sundown, and every day it feels a little worse.

But even so he's earnest, honest, when he says, "I'm glad." K, at least, seems to be doing so much better than when they first met. "I worried about you."