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hippie_ninja

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From:

konstant

It was never his, but he knows exactly how it felt; it was never his, so it's not like he can actually say that.

He picks up a tomato, runs his thumb over the thin, smooth skin while he considers.

"There's no hope in Los Angeles. The planet is dying. Everyone left on it will die if they can't get off it. There's no saving it, no going back, and that... takes its toll. It's hard for people who have no future to imagine trying to build one anyway." This is the world he was activated into. "I remember some of those people I knew, when I start to wonder what the point is. I remember how hard it was to live that way, and how much better everything became when I met someone with hope."

From:

hippie_ninja

Jesus is that person for so many others. He's the one with the vision, he's the one who sees potential in people and pulls them together. He's doing that here, or starting to, but some days are harder than others. Some days are increasingly difficult.

"Who gave you hope?"

From:

konstant

K knows that a lot of people would name Freysa with all her smoldering anger and forceful strength, but not K; maybe it's something about his programming, something that makes him more protective of humans because he's a civil replicant and an officer, but it doesn't really matter. Most of the rebellion holds replicants superior over humans, and most of that thinking results in killing. Senseless, useless, pointless killing.

Both exist. Neither has more of a right than the other to exist, and so it's not Freysa he thinks of.

"Ana," he says, gently, eyes lowered. The warmth in his voice is not exactly love, but isn't exactly not; he does love Ana, even though she hurt him more deeply than anyone else could have. He traded his life and everything in it for hers even though she'll never know it, even though no one else will ever know the shared misery that overlapped between them. She will never know how K spent a week imagining possibilities for the first time in his life, and when all of it was dashed out for him, he couldn't bear to do the same to her.

"She's... a memory maker. Among other things."

From:

hippie_ninja

There's something complicated in there, and the possibilities for it are too many for him to dare to make any guesses. He smiles slightly, looking up at K, reading him and drinking in every emotion that shows.

"She made your memories? The ones you were-" What was the word K used? "-Created with?"

From:

konstant

K nods, the faintest hitch halfway through because for at least one that's not technically correct but then again maybe it is; she lived it, so she still made it, but in a different sense. So he nods, hesitates, finishes.

"She's the best in the business. Wallace uses memory implants on the higher intelligence models to make us more... stable," he explains. "I had to talk with her for the last case I worked. When I asked her why hers were so good, part of what she explained was that she thought of it as... kindness. She said replicants live such hard lives and she can't change our futures, but she loved giving us something good to think back on and smile."

There's a bittersweetness to that sentiment because he believes she meant it, he knows she did, and that made him believe in her in the moment; but she also gave him something that was anything but, and even though he wouldn't trade it for anything now, he has to wonder if she knew when she uploaded that sequence to his file.

From:

hippie_ninja

He likes that about her already. Replicants, from what he can tell, don't get kindnesses in their lives. They don't have rights.

There's still something in how K is talking about her that Jesus can't pin down, though.

"What memory makes you smile?"

From:

konstant

K sets the tomato down and leans on the counter instead, breathes out while he thinks.

"Sprinklers," he says, and does in fact smile. "From back when lawns were still grass and there was enough water to use on them. The family down the street had one of those arched ones they hooked up to their garden hose, and they let the neighborhood kids run through it. The spraying water makes rainbows in the late afternoon sunlight."

From:

hippie_ninja

His face lights up with a boyish smile. "I used to love that."

Summers in D.C. were always hot, always sticky, and he had only rarely been allowed near the community swimming pool. But the sprinklers? Those were fair game.

From:

konstant

K's smile settles a bit, more present than residual.

"I'd never actually seen either of those things before coming here. They were long gone by the time I was activated. But you did?"

From:

hippie_ninja

He nods, and puts the turkey in. "Yeah, when I was a kid. We didn't go swimming much, but the home always had sprinklers. I sort of ruined it, though. One year I took the hose and flooded the upstairs bathroom. After that we weren't allowed to play with it. The neighbors let us, though."

From:

konstant

K's brow furrows with concentration but he's listening, bemused.

"Why did you take the hose upstairs?"

From:

hippie_ninja

He groans a little, remembering a childish prank.

"I was upset. I wasn't going to be allowed to go live with my mother again, and I was acting out." He sets the timer. "It didn't get me sent back to her, obviously. And the staff didn't deserve that. And the other kids really didn't deserve to have the sprinkler taken away."

From:

konstant

K has memories of the orphanage but not an entire childhood's worth. He tips his head, attentive and curious but cautious.

"And that lasted long enough for you to be old enough to be on your own?" he asks, because really, the rest only matters if Jesus wants to talk about any of it.

From:

hippie_ninja

"Yeah. I was six when I went in, and you have until you're eighteen to get back with your own family or get adopted into a new one." He shrugs. None of this is tied to pleasant memories, but K seems to be genuinely curious. "I aged out."

From:

konstant

He wants to know about Jesus, wants to know what the shadows are that flicker through his expression tied to nothing obvious that K is aware of. He wants to know his friend.

He nods, noting the dismissive shrug with the resigned, worn discomfort of the actual words.

"Thank you for telling me," he says. "I'm sorry you had to wait all that time."

From:

hippie_ninja

"Ah, well," he says, with a smile that's more sad than he probably realizes. "I learned a lot there that kept me alive after the fall. Maybe it was for the best."

He gets them both bottles of lemonade and offers one. "What else makes you smile?"

From:

konstant

"You," he says simply, taking his bottle and looking at it curiously, but he doesn't stop there, doesn't longer.

"Joi taught me to dance, and I'm glad she did. I liked my cruiser." And then abruptly, remembering: "One of Sara's friends has a dog who had puppies."

From:

hippie_ninja

You. And just like that his heart flips pleasantly and he's smiling at him.

It takes on an extra light when he asks, "Are you going to adopt one?"

From:

konstant

K blinks like Jesus just switched languages on him, except he would have understood if he had done that.

It stops him from digging out his phone. "What?"

From:

hippie_ninja

"A puppy. They're going to need homes and families when they're weaned. You'd be a great puppy parent." He nods at K's phone. "You have pictures?"

From:

konstant

The prompt gets K moving again, pulling his phone out and scrolling through it to find the messages Sara sent him. The rest he very obviously has no idea what to do with or even what question to ask.

"I didn't know that was possible," he finally settles on, offering the phone. It has a paused video up of K sitting cross legged on the floor of a large whelping box, nine puppies in various stages of crawling over his lap and trying to reach his face while he does his best to pet all of them at once, eyes bright.

From:

hippie_ninja

The look on Jesus's face as he watches is impossibly soft. Impossible for the world he just came from, impossible for the things they're going through in this world, but there it is anyway: just a warm joy because his friend loves puppies.

From:

konstant

It takes K a moment to notice, as he's still stuck on the concept of adopting someone else's baby dogs. "You don't think he wants them?" he's asking when he catches sight of Jesus's face and swallows whatever his next question was going to be.

He tips his head for a moment, confused, and then that clicks too and he relaxes, smiling, as the version of him on the video notices he's being recorded and goes blank for a second - but the largest of the litter, a round, tawny girl pup manages to get an angle on licking his chin that puts her tongue unexpectedly up his left nostril and he startles, laughing.

"That's Mango."

From:

hippie_ninja

"I think it's hard to give enough attention to," a quick count. "Nine extra dogs. I think they'd be happier with families where they get enough love."

God knows there was never enough attention in the group home, not that the staff were equipped to give it anyway.

"You should see if Mango can come live with you when she's big enough."

From:

konstant

He likes the idea. He does. Nibbles is in with V right now but he spends plenty of time curled up in K's lap or on his chest, and it's reassuring in such an unexpected way to have a living creature that wants to do that, that chooses to.

But: "I have no idea how to take care of a dog," he says, as the K on the video scoops Mango up and the puppy switches to licking his neck, chewing on his ear, which K tolerates patiently.