Those are the questions that fester. Those hopeless questions become gangrenous, bone-deep poisons in a person that erode every relationship you will ever have the rest of your life if you don't confront them. And sometimes you can't. More often than not you never find the lost father, you never hear words from your mother that give you closure.
K had the chance to meet one of his parents. He had the chance to ask. And clearly he didn't get any answers that salved his wounds any better than simply not knowing ever did for Jesus.
"I'm so sorry," he murmurs, his arm sliding to loop with K's, his weight leaning slightly against him in a gentle embrace. He's sorry because he knows there's nothing anyone can say that makes those questions stop echoing.
K hasn't been actively holding onto Jesus's hand for several minutes now, but he leans into that embrace, tipping their heads together briefly. He regrets starting this, now. All it's done is rake up things he'd thought he'd started to put behind him.
"No," he murmurs, crooking his arm to mirror Jesus's, "I am." There's still so much between that conversation with Deckard in the bar at the casino and laying down on the steps alone in the snow. Losing Joi and losing any inkling of family he might have thought he found and losing the purpose he was created for and losing and losing and losing.
He doesn't have it in him right now, so he summarizes: "I found the woman in the picture at Sapper's - or rather, she found me. She was there when the replicant buried under the tree gave birth, and died. The child was a girl. I'm not anyone, Jesus. I never was. I wasn't born, Deckard is not my father, Rachael is not my mother, I'm not anything now. The memory I have is an illegal implant of someone else's life and that's all I can ever have of it. I didn't mean to mislead you."
Because he can see that empathy in Jesus now when he looks up; he can see the connection it forges between them, the way Ana forged one with him, not through anything he's said or done or is but because his bundle was the one Ana chose to upload that memory into one day at Stelline Laboratories. That's all.
He's quiet, and then quiet even longer, imagining the breadth of that sort of loss. That sort of hope--pale as it was because, again, the sense of abandonment never leaves--suddenly dashed. He knows how that feels, too, he's had families who weren't his who decided they didn't want him after all anyway.
"You didn't." Didn't mislead him. Not maliciously, at least. He was telling the story in a way that best explained it, and that meant including how he reached his conclusions. "You didn't choose what was implanted into you. The memory might not be yours, but the empathy is." And K's empathy is something Jesus trusts first and best about him.
The memory is the only thing that made K special for a week, at least above and beyond his status as a blade runner, as a sort of trial of his kind; it was the only piece of the puzzle that he had and no one else did besides the person who lived it, who couldn't make the connection to the rest of it on her own. K was the only one who could have bridged the gap deliberately.
He nods. "I did. It was obvious, once I knew Rachael had a daughter." Jesus sat quietly with it, and K has come back just a bit from wherever he was, but not entirely. It all still hurts in a way he has no idea if it will ever stop - and here's Jesus beside him showing him that maybe it never will, even if K is comparatively late to how formative that lack of knowing can be.
"I didn't recognize it at the time because I was too distracted with my own narrative, but - the memory maker's name was Ana Stelline. She told me she'd been left behind by her parents when they went off planet because of a genetic disease she needed special equipment to survive, and the colony they went to didn't have the support for it. But when I showed her the memory... she wasn't surprised. She was upset, and guilty. Not the reaction of a top professional in her field discovering the only crime that applies to it, but of a little girl that knows what it is to be isolated through no fault of her own - and who had the means to try to form a connection anyway."
"You were the only person in the world who could ever have that connection with her," he says. Someone with the exact memory of guarding the one link she had to her real parents. Jesus doesn't consider himself a lonely person, but a part of him aches at the thought that anyone could have that link to another person. To be just a little less alone with that pain.
And she had a kill order on her head. And K, through no fault of his own, lost everything because of it. He lays his head on K's shoulder. It's all he can do.
He does not say it was the only thing he could do this time; it wasn't. He had options, although it is true that he couldn't guarantee what any of those outcomes would be: if the LAPD would accept him back even if he gave them Ana, considering he'd lied to Joshi about the child. If the rebellion would let him join, given that he was a blade runner. If Ana herself would have the resources and the knowledge to escape Wallace cutting her apart to learn what made her tick.
But he did have one direct option, and one person he knows had already evaded everyone searching for him for years, except the one replicant Ana could have given that memory to that could put it together even without her knowing who she was.
"Freysa - the woman from the picture, and a major player in the replicant rebellion movement - wanted me to kill Deckard before he could lead anyone to her and, through her, to Ana. She..." Well, she didn't save K, who survived because he was resilient, who would have eventually scraped himself up off the floor in Las Vegas. Just not in time. "...found me, patched me up a bit, and gave me a new charge pistol. She was there when Ana was a baby but didn't know where she was as an adult. She wanted time to find her, to put her at the head of her replicant army. Wallace wanted Ana because she bridged the gap between replicants and humans and might tell them how to do it, too. The LAPD would have killed her so no one ever had proof she existed. None of them cared about her, or the fact that she had no idea who or what she was. Only what they could do for their cause, or prevent by being killed. She'd never even see it coming, and all she'd ever done was exist."
K is a man of few words normally, but he's never had the chance before to explain, to vent or make sense of any of this, not out loud. Not to anyone he trusted completely. He feels vaguely nauseous now but it's nothing at all to do with Jesus beside him, Jesus who asked one question and didn't know what dam he would break. K takes a deeper breath now, and offers the one part that he is absolutely sure of, the one, single thing he knows he would do over and over and over again and never regret.
"So I took Deckard to her. I gave him back the toy he carved for her before she was even born, and I took him to where she was. It was all I could think of to do that gave either of them even a chance."
He lifts his head, looking at K, feeling something stir behind his ribs that is almost like awe.
"You gave them back to each other. You gave her a father." Something she must have given up yearning for years ago, the way Jesus had when he turned a certain age.
"You were supposed to kill her or give her to a cause, and instead you let them have each other." It isn't awe. He doesn't know what it is, only that it runs deep and quiet and strong.
K is experienced with reading Jesus now, and even at the beginning he wasn't exactly difficult; he has no idea what this is now either, only that it's strong, and Jesus is looking at him.
It makes him nervous in a way, because he doesn't know where it stems from, what it will lead to - and strong emotions tied to replicants are, historically, rarely good. He tries to shut it out and instead focuses on what Jesus is actually saying.
"Freysa had an army, Wallace is the biggest corporation on the planet, the LAPD is the largest government body in the country. Ana didn't have any of that. I wanted her to have someone on her side. I wanted her to have someone that cared about her."
No one but the woman's father and Freysa and K knew the truth. They had a good chance of hiding together, of living a life how they wanted, as much as anyone can. But they'd be together. They'd finally have family.
And K?
K was left with nothing. He lost everything and instead of trying to regain favor with the LAPD or the rebellion, he chose to give her a chance.
He reaches up, hand on K's cheek, and just tips his forehead against K's temple. "You did the right thing." The kindest choice, even though it damned him.
Ana and Deckard could still choose to go find Freysa, or try to make a deal with Wallace - or some other corporation. They could choose to do none of that. K has no idea how things will go and now it doesn't matter for him, but he does hope they get a chance.
He hopes it mattered for longer than the day.
K breathes out, relaxing into Jesus's hands, eyes closed so he can just listen to his voice and feel his touch. "I'd do it again if I had the chance. It's the only thing I'm sure of."
It's a word that K frequently pays more attention to than those around him just as a matter of course, but it sticks out especially after being reminded of a time when he thought maybe, impossibly, he was - to be born is to have a soul - only to have it stripped indelibly away again. He shivers involuntarily under the lightness of the kiss, and doesn't know what to say to that, so he doesn't say anything.
He lays his cheek on K's shoulder. "Why would I be angry? You're telling me about something that ended your life as you knew it. You're telling me about something that a lot of people I know wouldn't ever be able to talk about." People he knows just bottle it all up until it turns them bitter.
Somehow, K is not bitter. It stirs up that awestruck, deep-veined feeling again.
"You did something for her that no one else I know would have done."
K is a replicant, and a blade runner, and an officer; there are only a handful like him in Los Angeles, and none of the others want anything to do with him, and he understands. The last thing they need is to appear to be banding too closely together when everyone in the city hates them - or when they might be called to go after one of the others.
But those three things also means K has encountered so many people that hate him for feeling like he's taken something from them, taken their place without earning it. Stolen valor, after a fashion. He reaches up to smooth his hand over Jesus's hair, letting the intimacy of it comfort him as much as it will.
"I wouldn't blame you if you were, is all. I'm glad you're not."
"I couldn't be angry about that. You understand a part of it. Even if it wasn't you in the orphanage you know what that day felt like." And knowing what a day defending your last piece of your family feels like. Knowing what it was like to be around other angry, jealous, frightened orphans.
Coming away from that with empathy for the woman who actually had lived it.
Finally, it makes K smile. Not wide, not bright, it's not... the kind of thing he'd choose for them to share, if he had the choice.
But if Jesus is alright with it - if he's counting it among things to like K for - he'll try to do the same, so he smiles, and he turns his head enough to kiss him, brief and light but warm.
"Mm-mm," he says, no, a brief kiss isn't quite what he needs right now. He needs a longer one, so he takes it, hand splayed on K's cheek. It feels subtly different this time than it had a week ago when he last saw K, but for now he just lets himself feel it without examining it.
He'll notice when he thinks about it later, maybe, because the difference is faint - just now he knows mostly that it's nice, that he feels better when Jesus pulls him back rather than worse, feels connected rather than required.
When the kiss breaks K takes a breath and starts another, not pushing for more but simply renewing that connection, savoring it. He shifts to lean himself back a bit more, tugging Jesus with him - and upsetting Nibbles enough, finally, that the cat hops down to head up to find the warmth of blankets on Jesus's bed.
Jesus brings a knee up, twists, is straddling K's lap now to better kiss him. He's not pressing for more though; he isn't grinding on him, he's just better able to be in this moment with him like this. There's a flutter in him not unlike the first time he ever kissed another man, but it's grounded by something heavier he can't decipher. It just feels good, just like this, his tongue brushing K's as he deepens the kiss, then softens it again.
K holds onto him lightly, not directing or demanding but just resting his hands on him, enjoying the way he trusts him, the way he wants to be closer.
He takes his time, letting Jesus guide the depth of that kiss, but for himself adjusting the intensity. Learning, still, how to coax a sigh out of Jesus, how to make him tense with need. He doesn't mind doing his research - he's always been thorough.
His hands eventually find their way up to Jesus's back, rubbing small circles along his spine, still - ever - in awe that he gets to at all.
He's sore all over; he responds to K touching his back in a moment by pressing back against him, then realizes what he's doing and breaks the kiss with a soft laugh.
"I'm doing what Nibbles does," arching his back into a welcome hand.
He's wishing he's had more time to recover, wishing his aching bones weren't still complaining of all the activity he's had this past festival.
He inches his hand up under K's shirt anyway, because being sore has never been an excuse for him in the past.
K chuckles too at the comparison, strips his fingers down to the low of his back and up again like he would Nibbles just to tease.
Then he feels the touch on his stomach and presses his lips together, thinking. He shakes his head.
"You said you were sore," he reminds him. He never wants to hurt Jesus, but he's especially aware of it now when he's already been warned that it's a possibility. "Where?"
He grins at the distinction K makes and kisses his forehead. "Sore muscles never killed anyone; it's just been a long time since I worked hard enough to be sore. I'll make a heat pack, see if it helps my shoulders at least."
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K had the chance to meet one of his parents. He had the chance to ask. And clearly he didn't get any answers that salved his wounds any better than simply not knowing ever did for Jesus.
"I'm so sorry," he murmurs, his arm sliding to loop with K's, his weight leaning slightly against him in a gentle embrace. He's sorry because he knows there's nothing anyone can say that makes those questions stop echoing.
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"No," he murmurs, crooking his arm to mirror Jesus's, "I am." There's still so much between that conversation with Deckard in the bar at the casino and laying down on the steps alone in the snow. Losing Joi and losing any inkling of family he might have thought he found and losing the purpose he was created for and losing and losing and losing.
He doesn't have it in him right now, so he summarizes: "I found the woman in the picture at Sapper's - or rather, she found me. She was there when the replicant buried under the tree gave birth, and died. The child was a girl. I'm not anyone, Jesus. I never was. I wasn't born, Deckard is not my father, Rachael is not my mother, I'm not anything now. The memory I have is an illegal implant of someone else's life and that's all I can ever have of it. I didn't mean to mislead you."
Because he can see that empathy in Jesus now when he looks up; he can see the connection it forges between them, the way Ana forged one with him, not through anything he's said or done or is but because his bundle was the one Ana chose to upload that memory into one day at Stelline Laboratories. That's all.
That's all.
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"You didn't." Didn't mislead him. Not maliciously, at least. He was telling the story in a way that best explained it, and that meant including how he reached his conclusions. "You didn't choose what was implanted into you. The memory might not be yours, but the empathy is." And K's empathy is something Jesus trusts first and best about him.
"Did you ever find who the child was?"
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He nods. "I did. It was obvious, once I knew Rachael had a daughter." Jesus sat quietly with it, and K has come back just a bit from wherever he was, but not entirely. It all still hurts in a way he has no idea if it will ever stop - and here's Jesus beside him showing him that maybe it never will, even if K is comparatively late to how formative that lack of knowing can be.
"I didn't recognize it at the time because I was too distracted with my own narrative, but - the memory maker's name was Ana Stelline. She told me she'd been left behind by her parents when they went off planet because of a genetic disease she needed special equipment to survive, and the colony they went to didn't have the support for it. But when I showed her the memory... she wasn't surprised. She was upset, and guilty. Not the reaction of a top professional in her field discovering the only crime that applies to it, but of a little girl that knows what it is to be isolated through no fault of her own - and who had the means to try to form a connection anyway."
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And she had a kill order on her head. And K, through no fault of his own, lost everything because of it. He lays his head on K's shoulder. It's all he can do.
"What did you do?"
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But he did have one direct option, and one person he knows had already evaded everyone searching for him for years, except the one replicant Ana could have given that memory to that could put it together even without her knowing who she was.
"Freysa - the woman from the picture, and a major player in the replicant rebellion movement - wanted me to kill Deckard before he could lead anyone to her and, through her, to Ana. She..." Well, she didn't save K, who survived because he was resilient, who would have eventually scraped himself up off the floor in Las Vegas. Just not in time. "...found me, patched me up a bit, and gave me a new charge pistol. She was there when Ana was a baby but didn't know where she was as an adult. She wanted time to find her, to put her at the head of her replicant army. Wallace wanted Ana because she bridged the gap between replicants and humans and might tell them how to do it, too. The LAPD would have killed her so no one ever had proof she existed. None of them cared about her, or the fact that she had no idea who or what she was. Only what they could do for their cause, or prevent by being killed. She'd never even see it coming, and all she'd ever done was exist."
K is a man of few words normally, but he's never had the chance before to explain, to vent or make sense of any of this, not out loud. Not to anyone he trusted completely. He feels vaguely nauseous now but it's nothing at all to do with Jesus beside him, Jesus who asked one question and didn't know what dam he would break. K takes a deeper breath now, and offers the one part that he is absolutely sure of, the one, single thing he knows he would do over and over and over again and never regret.
"So I took Deckard to her. I gave him back the toy he carved for her before she was even born, and I took him to where she was. It was all I could think of to do that gave either of them even a chance."
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"You gave them back to each other. You gave her a father." Something she must have given up yearning for years ago, the way Jesus had when he turned a certain age.
"You were supposed to kill her or give her to a cause, and instead you let them have each other." It isn't awe. He doesn't know what it is, only that it runs deep and quiet and strong.
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It makes him nervous in a way, because he doesn't know where it stems from, what it will lead to - and strong emotions tied to replicants are, historically, rarely good. He tries to shut it out and instead focuses on what Jesus is actually saying.
"Freysa had an army, Wallace is the biggest corporation on the planet, the LAPD is the largest government body in the country. Ana didn't have any of that. I wanted her to have someone on her side. I wanted her to have someone that cared about her."
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And K?
K was left with nothing. He lost everything and instead of trying to regain favor with the LAPD or the rebellion, he chose to give her a chance.
He reaches up, hand on K's cheek, and just tips his forehead against K's temple. "You did the right thing." The kindest choice, even though it damned him.
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He hopes it mattered for longer than the day.
K breathes out, relaxing into Jesus's hands, eyes closed so he can just listen to his voice and feel his touch. "I'd do it again if I had the chance. It's the only thing I'm sure of."
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Better than his builders ever intended.
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It's a word that K frequently pays more attention to than those around him just as a matter of course, but it sticks out especially after being reminded of a time when he thought maybe, impossibly, he was - to be born is to have a soul - only to have it stripped indelibly away again. He shivers involuntarily under the lightness of the kiss, and doesn't know what to say to that, so he doesn't say anything.
Except: "I'm glad you're not angry."
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Somehow, K is not bitter. It stirs up that awestruck, deep-veined feeling again.
"You did something for her that no one else I know would have done."
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K is a replicant, and a blade runner, and an officer; there are only a handful like him in Los Angeles, and none of the others want anything to do with him, and he understands. The last thing they need is to appear to be banding too closely together when everyone in the city hates them - or when they might be called to go after one of the others.
But those three things also means K has encountered so many people that hate him for feeling like he's taken something from them, taken their place without earning it. Stolen valor, after a fashion. He reaches up to smooth his hand over Jesus's hair, letting the intimacy of it comfort him as much as it will.
"I wouldn't blame you if you were, is all. I'm glad you're not."
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Coming away from that with empathy for the woman who actually had lived it.
"I really like you, K. Even more now."
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But if Jesus is alright with it - if he's counting it among things to like K for - he'll try to do the same, so he smiles, and he turns his head enough to kiss him, brief and light but warm.
"I like you too, Jesus. I trust you."
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When the kiss breaks K takes a breath and starts another, not pushing for more but simply renewing that connection, savoring it. He shifts to lean himself back a bit more, tugging Jesus with him - and upsetting Nibbles enough, finally, that the cat hops down to head up to find the warmth of blankets on Jesus's bed.
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He takes his time, letting Jesus guide the depth of that kiss, but for himself adjusting the intensity. Learning, still, how to coax a sigh out of Jesus, how to make him tense with need. He doesn't mind doing his research - he's always been thorough.
His hands eventually find their way up to Jesus's back, rubbing small circles along his spine, still - ever - in awe that he gets to at all.
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"I'm doing what Nibbles does," arching his back into a welcome hand.
He's wishing he's had more time to recover, wishing his aching bones weren't still complaining of all the activity he's had this past festival.
He inches his hand up under K's shirt anyway, because being sore has never been an excuse for him in the past.
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Then he feels the touch on his stomach and presses his lips together, thinking. He shakes his head.
"You said you were sore," he reminds him. He never wants to hurt Jesus, but he's especially aware of it now when he's already been warned that it's a possibility. "Where?"
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And as much as he always wants K, he's glad that more isn't being asked of him right now.
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"Actually help?"
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