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[hippie_ninja]

This is Jesus. Leave a message.

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[konstant]

"I don't know what's best for me," he admits. Jail hadn't been as upsetting for him in and of itself as most people seemed to have expected it to be, but there were some things he hadn't accounted for that have nothing to do with what was going on outside the bars. What was happening with his friends.

"I'm doing the best I can, but I have no idea what to do here."

[hippie_ninja]

"You want to know the truth? I have no idea what you're meant to be doing here either. I don't know what I'm doing. The only time I knew was back home when I had a mission, a purpose. Neither of us has that here." He wishes he had better answers.

[konstant]

"I don't expect you to have those answers for me," K answers slowly, but carefully. K is a replicant. There's some overlap between them - the mission, the purpose, their status as submissives - but they are different.

"I don't have them for you either. What's more important to me right now is that we can still talk to each other."

[hippie_ninja]

His hand is on K's shoulder, then gently on his cheek. "That never changed." Hence checking in every hour when K was in prison and Jesus was in the tunnels.

[konstant]

K's eyes slide half closed and he tips his head ever so slightly into the warm touch of Jesus's hand; it quiets the vast majority of the uncertainty trying to build up in him after everything. If they can still start here, then they can still coax something worthwhile out between them.

He reaches up to touch the back of Jesus's hand, to close the circuit, to keep his hand there.

"Then let's just focus on that, and we can figure out the rest as we go," he suggests - asks.

[hippie_ninja]

He sighs softly, relieved to have a question answered he hadn't quite been ready to ask out loud. K is much taller than he is, so instead of touching their foreheads together he leans his head against K's chest. "I missed you."

[konstant]

K lifts his chin to set it lightly atop Jesus's hair, and after a moment of hesitation, lifts his other arm to pull him in close, careful, wanting to be closer but also ready to back off if it's too much, too soon for any reason.

Full of care with nowhere else to go, always. "I missed you too." Jesus already said he wouldn't stay, wouldn't sleep here anyway, so K doesn't say more than that, but this is already more than he had dared hope for over the past few minutes.

[hippie_ninja]

His hand on K's cheek slides back into his hair. "I need to take care of some other people right now. But when I'm ready to take care of myself, could...could we go back to spending the night together?"

This is such a bad idea, but leaning here against K, smelling his skin and the tobacco he smokes, and he wants so badly to just fall asleep with him like he had before the prison took K away.

[konstant]

K breathes out, quiet but they're close enough it's unmistakably relief nonetheless.

"I'd like that," is the first thing he says, but it's followed by a promise: "When you're ready, I'll be here."

[hippie_ninja]

He smiles and, despite himself, nestles in closer. "You don't make it easy to leave."

[konstant]

"Then don't," he suggests, and tips his head without lifting it or pulling back. His fingertips trace a small, slow circle on the back of Jesus's shoulder.

"Sit with me a while. No one will bother us in here."

[hippie_ninja]

"Just a little while." He still has a lot to do, and he doesn't want to leave Rosita for long.

But he is bone weary, and sitting a while, near enough K they can reassure each other, is too much to pass up.

[konstant]

K can read the exhaustion in him, and he's far from the only one; any time he can get any of his friends to slow down is time well spent as far as he's concerned. Even for a little bit. Even just once.

He hums soft agreement, and moves them both unhurriedly the short distance towards the couch.

"Want me to set an alarm?" he offers, just in case.

[hippie_ninja]

"Twenty minutes," is what he'll allow himself. The moment he's sitting he slumps a little, then shyly puts a pillow on K's lap and lays his head on it.

"This okay?"

[konstant]

It's not a lot of time, but it's not nothing either, and K nods.

"It's fine," he murmurs, shifting a bit himself so they can both be more comfortable. He delicately pulls a bit of loose hair back from Jesus's face, smoothing it into place with what someone else might call exaggerated care but not K.

K, who drapes one arm over Jesus's hip, and settles his other hand in his own lap. "Is this?" he asks.

[hippie_ninja]

He reaches up and threads his fingers with K's on his lap. It's almost alarming how quickly he relaxes, how easy this feels. How safe.

Don't get used to this, he tells himself. And then he kisses K's wrist, the inside where the skin is softest.

[konstant]

K smiles, and crooks his fingers ever so slightly to lock them together with Jesus's. His thumb smooths along the gentle angle from knuckles to wrist and back.

"Thank you," he offers, low but clear.

[hippie_ninja]

"For what?" He peers up at him, tired but so relaxed now.

[konstant]

"For allowing me to be around you," he answers simply, more obviously tracing the tendon in Jesus's wrist now, eyes ticking over to his.

He doesn't take people choosing to let him be near, to be near him, lightly.

[hippie_ninja]

He holds K's gaze, memorizing how blue they are, the particular shade of green in them.

"Why wouldn't I? You always treat me this way." Like something awe inspiring. Something unexpected, something worth keeping.

[konstant]

"For any reason you want; it's your right," he answers, and then hears how generic that probably sounds even if he means it - and he does.

"Because you could choose to be anywhere else right now, but you're here, with me." He means that, too.

[hippie_ninja]

"Well, I don't think you realize how much I missed you." How much he'd worried K would just stay in prison, that this friendship was done because of it. He reaches up with his other hand--the one in a cast, but his fingers are free and he traces K's jaw with the fingertips.

[konstant]

This time K stays absolutely still, unwilling to hurt Jesus but eager for the touch nonetheless.

He'd told Vrenille, told V that he felt better in the cell and he had in some ways; but he did miss kind touch. He missed the warmth of someone even just sitting beside him.

"I'm here now," he answers instead, the best he has to offer.

[hippie_ninja]

He traces the outline of K's ear, thumb brushing the stubble on his jaw, and he tells himself not to get too used to this. But he still hasn't looked away and he's watching now for K's reactions to the barely-there touches he's offering.

[konstant]

There's still a bruise hidden in K's hairline from his treatment at the hands of the guards, still faint mottling under the day old stubble of his beard; none of it hurts him, but it's by far closer to what he's used to than the way Jesus is touching him now.

His breathing evens out and he lets his eyelids go heavy, not closed but making it easier to savor a touch so light it runs a shiver down his spine, teases out something just shy of a smile but still markedly pleased.