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[hippie_ninja]

This is Jesus. Leave a message.

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[handleyourshit]

This innocent expression would look much better in the light, and much more convincing on anyone else.

It melts, though, into a chuckle. "I do," she tells him, and she does mean it, even if she hasn't been completely convinced. She rarely ever is, except with time.

"I just -" She struggles for a moment to put it into words. "I worry more here than I did back home because the stakes are different. You have one of the best hearts I've ever known, and I don't like people taking pot shots at it." She doesn't like the city dangling things in front of him and forcing him to take the bait to survive.

[hippie_ninja]

"I'm trying not to get too attached." He knows how to hold himself at bay. He's done it for years.

But it does happen sometimes. He's lying here, arm around Rosita, proof that when he does get attached it goes deep.

"It helps knowing I have you at my back."

[handleyourshit]

"And as long as I'm alive you always will," she can say, stubbornly.

"You deserve to have others there too, though." He wants others there, is one of the major differences between them.

[hippie_ninja]

"That's part of what this feels like." Maybe it's not an accurate depiction of how things are. Maybe when things fall apart, it will just be him and Rosita. But it feels as if wearing the collar at least signals he's willing to risk being wrong.

[handleyourshit]

"And I hope it holds out for you." She does. She's not great at hoping but she's better than others, and she does want people to be better than she thinks they are.

But she can't bring herself to go so far as endorsing it. She can't trust it, can't trust this man she doesn't know; she can put some faith in Jesus and his judgment, but that's as far as she can bring herself to go, especially right now with evidence that she's right not to trust this place any more than anyone they've ever met out on the road.

[hippie_ninja]

"You should get to know him." Let Vrenille be one of their people. If they can bring Carver into the fold, maybe Vrenille would be even easier.

Or maybe Vrenille isn't broken the same ways they are, maybe that's a prerequisite.

[handleyourshit]

She makes a soft huff of sound, skeptical.

"And you should take the win," she suggests, because she's intended to have a conversation with Vrenille ever since she saw what he was having Jesus do in front of an audience of people, but that doesn't mean she's ready to concede any kind of relationship with him herself.

[hippie_ninja]

"Oh I'm taking it," he promises. "And savoring it."

There aren't a lot of wins in their world. There also isn't a lot of warm sentiment which might be why he decides to add, "Thank you. For worrying about me. I'm going to try to make you worry less."

[handleyourshit]

"You know, you keep saying that, and yet here we are," she teases, but it's true that she's the one that got kidnapped and held in a pit, and he's the one she worries about more.

"It's going to take me longer. I'm okay with that."

[hippie_ninja]

"I am, too. We're a good team. I think between the two of us we always land in the right place." Not too far one way or the other.