"I wouldn't have if we weren't here," he can say with certainty. "If it weren't for quota, I wouldn't have dreamed of kissing someone else." Anyone else. That's where he'd been at the time.
"It was easier, when we agreed to ignore quota. But that wouldn't have been something I did, either, if I hadn't already seen that you'd... be okay, if I wasn't. That you'd let me not be okay."
That he'd care about what K thought at all, which in this moment is a thought that lets him stroke his thumb lightly over the soft skin of the inside of Jesus's wrist.
He can't see a time yet where he won't be checking in with K when they do kiss, when they think of doing more. It's okay is the only phrase that lets him continue, because K seems like very, very little has been okay for him lately.
"It's an ongoing thing," he says, so K knows. "If you're okay today and not tomorrow. If you're okay when we kiss and then you're not. If we don't both want it, it doesn't happen."
It's easy for Jesus to say, K can hear that, can hear that this has been his philosophy for a long time - probably always. These things are foregone conclusions to him, non-negotiable, not even anything he'd want to negotiate.
K, on the other hand, has to sit with that and he does, letting it sink in as far as it will, letting himself really hear it. Really know it, the way his fingers know how warm Jesus's skin is, how his muscles tense to move or even just breathe under K's hands, the ways they don't because neither of them is moving away from the other right now, or threatened, or threatening.
It's an easy truth for Jesus, and a simple truth overall, and more than anyone has ever even considered offering to K.
He lifts his free hand, lays his palm lightly on K's cheek, coaxing him to meet his eyes. He doesn't say anything; it's just his expression, asking for what K is thinking.
He can't change how K was treated back home, how he was viewed by all those people. He can't do anything about how K is treated here, either. But this much he can control.
"I know." This is not a dismissal, but rather a declaration, a confirmation; he can see that Jesus means that. He believes that Jesus means that.
Which is why he may have needed some help with courage before, with letting go of inhibitions, but he can lift Jesus's hand and kiss the heel of his hand now; he can, a moment later, lean forward with deliberate, slow care to kiss him properly.
He lets this kiss be slow, takes his time with it in a way he hasn't let himself do in years. He's thinking of the things K said--the things he liked about the role he was created to do, that it wasn't anything to do with killing or fighting or the power he had over those he was sent to execute. That what he liked was talking to people, that he liked patrol work because he got to meet people, he got to simply be a presence in the city who could help protect whoever needed his protection.
K is his friend and that is a very good reason for Jesus to not be here kissing him, to not let his fingers trace K's jaw. Getting attached the way this might lead is a bad idea.
But K, who was created to assassinate his own kind, is so gentle and so warm, and he sighs softly into the kiss and deepens it just a little.
This, in turn, is easy for K to do: to not rush, to thoroughly map the way kissing Jesus feels and the increments that Jesus either relaxes or leans closer under his hands. The measure of his breath, and how adjusting the angle just so or leaning just this much closer affects that.
He brushes the backs of his fingers up the line of Jesus's arm, lightly, to the bend in his elbow and then back again, his own still resting across Jesus's knee where his hand is light at his hip.
He shivers at how light the touch is, and his fingers hook under K's shirt. He's not pressing for more yet; he just wants to feel him, wants to see if he can get K to react this way or that to a touch here, the glide of his nails there.
K isn't ticklish, but he's sensitive to a welcome touch all the same; his breath catches so subtly that if they weren't kissing at the time it might have been missed, but he continues without pulling away. He makes a soft, approving sound - it's okay - and slides his own hand up further along the skin of Jesus's side, too, making sure to miss the rib he learned last time makes Jesus break away to keep from laughing.
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"It was easier, when we agreed to ignore quota. But that wouldn't have been something I did, either, if I hadn't already seen that you'd... be okay, if I wasn't. That you'd let me not be okay."
That he'd care about what K thought at all, which in this moment is a thought that lets him stroke his thumb lightly over the soft skin of the inside of Jesus's wrist.
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"It's an ongoing thing," he says, so K knows. "If you're okay today and not tomorrow. If you're okay when we kiss and then you're not. If we don't both want it, it doesn't happen."
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K, on the other hand, has to sit with that and he does, letting it sink in as far as it will, letting himself really hear it. Really know it, the way his fingers know how warm Jesus's skin is, how his muscles tense to move or even just breathe under K's hands, the ways they don't because neither of them is moving away from the other right now, or threatened, or threatening.
It's an easy truth for Jesus, and a simple truth overall, and more than anyone has ever even considered offering to K.
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He smiles, understated, self conscious, and takes another few breaths to find an answer.
"People don't ask things for permission, or consent," is what he finally comes up with. "They ask people."
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"You're my friend." You don't befriend things.
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Which is why he may have needed some help with courage before, with letting go of inhibitions, but he can lift Jesus's hand and kiss the heel of his hand now; he can, a moment later, lean forward with deliberate, slow care to kiss him properly.
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K is his friend and that is a very good reason for Jesus to not be here kissing him, to not let his fingers trace K's jaw. Getting attached the way this might lead is a bad idea.
But K, who was created to assassinate his own kind, is so gentle and so warm, and he sighs softly into the kiss and deepens it just a little.
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He brushes the backs of his fingers up the line of Jesus's arm, lightly, to the bend in his elbow and then back again, his own still resting across Jesus's knee where his hand is light at his hip.
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