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[hippie_ninja]

This is Jesus. Leave a message.

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[fireshow]

"What the hell you wanna fuck in the hay for then?" Head tipping back some at those fingers under his shirt, that pleased little hum he only gives when genuinely feeling it is there on his lips. "Wouldn't you rather almost break the bed or have me almost set fire to it instead of getting hay in places hay should not be?"

Knocking his forehead there against Jesus', it's done with a soft laugh and a quick kiss stolen before he just affectionately nuzzles at the other man, fingers playing with the front of Jesus' shirt as he looks down between them. "You have a way of making me feel better even when I don't know I need it."

[hippie_ninja]

He'd go on teasing, go on flirting, but John says that and it makes his smile change to something softer. John's lost a lot lately; the fact Jesus can make even a little bit of that lighter means a lot to him. It also scares him the way getting close to someone always does.

He stays present. He kisses John. "Then I'm really glad you came over."

[fireshow]

The kiss is sweet, much like Jesus himself is in this moment here and John can't help but smile a little against those lips before he goes and pulls back enough to look to him more properly. "You wanna draw me?"

[hippie_ninja]

"Yes." The answer is immediate; he's glad John offered. He motions at the couch. "There. With your fire?"

[fireshow]

Bit of laughter there on his lips at how quick that answer was. "How you want me?" On the couch, with his fire, sure.

[hippie_ninja]

"Laying on your side. Comfortable." He's picking out the pencils and chalk he'll use. "Nibbles might come bother you."

The cat is already hopping down off the stairs to investigate. He's wearing a little t-shirt today, looking as laid back as Jesus always does.

[fireshow]

A cat in a hat shirt. Right. "Don't want me posing naked with fire around me? Well, if you say so." Huff of laughter, he gets himself up and gives a stretch before he makes his way over to the couch and drops himself down on it, removing his jacket at least.

[hippie_ninja]

"Only because I'm trying to be professional," he teases. "And if you're naked I won't be thinking about the art."

He pets Nibbles while he waits, notebook open on his lap.

[fireshow]

"Really? You get turned on by all that old art of naked men as statues?" Teasing, he lounges on the couch like he'd been asked — gets himself comfortable and looks to Jesus. "Is this ok?"

[hippie_ninja]

"Just the ones who could set my bedroom on fire if I fucked them the right way," he smirks, and reaches out to adjust him just a bit so he catches the light from the window. There.

He draws a few quick lines, getting the shape of John so if and when he has to adjust it won't throw Jesus off completely.

"Have you ever been drawn before?"

[fireshow]

"No?" The confusion in his tone there is quite obvious as he does his best to stay in the pose Jesus has helped him get into. "You're not gonna say something cheesy like I have the face and body of someone who should be drawn, are you?" Despite his trying to keep his face rather neutral, he can't help but quirk a brow at that.

[hippie_ninja]

He laughs. "No. I was going to ask your advice if you had. I've never done this before either. All the other sketches I did of people were from memory."

He adds another few quick lines, then starts in with a few rough details. The drawing itself is going to be rough; he's decided to go vague with some lines, and highly detailed with others. The set of John's lips, the ring he wears that lets him light fires, the particular way he's set his hand down.

[fireshow]

He keeps relatively still as Jesus goes and sketches away, gently glancing around the room here and there as the other man does. "Why do you like to draw?" He asks then, genuine curiosity there in his eyes. "I mean... even if you're not an artist, like you say, why do you do it?"

[hippie_ninja]

"Well, it keeps my hands busy. My hands get into trouble when they're not doing something useful," he jokes. Then he offers a serious answer. "Everyone draws differently. Even if you're trained the same way, and draw the exact same thing, the pictures will always come out differently. There's a little...piece of a person in what they draw." He tilts his head, getting a different look, sketches what he finds.

"When I'd clean out the trailers after someone died I'd find things--things they'd written, or saved, or sometimes drawn. And there's not much to Hilltop, you know? So they were all writing and drawing the same place, but everyone saw things a certain way. I liked that."

[fireshow]

He wonders what it must have been like to live in such a world. Maybe, if things keep going as they had been and, seemingly would, at some point, he'd know it himself. Except rather than hiding and trying to survive from zombies, it would be from giant robot killing machines, with their only purpose and goal in their existence to hunt down and kill his kind. To kill mutants.

He thinks about that sometimes, especially with having been killed by one here a few months back, but. Rather than dwell on that right here and right now, he instead lifts his gaze up to the other man, watching him sketch away.

"Should I leave something for you?" A beat, he smiles, though it's faint. "In case I die or disappear from here before you?"

[hippie_ninja]

He focuses on John then, holding his gaze. "I'd like that," he admits. "I'd like to leave something for you. Everyone handles loss differently; I didn't know if you'd be okay with that."

Talking about death, even his own, has been a normal part of his life for over a decade now, but he treads lightly with it here.

That and thinking about how he actually died is something that his mind just shies away from. He tries sometimes, but it floods him with an unfamiliar anxiety and he's still learning how to cope with that. But this? This he can do.

[fireshow]

"I almost wonder if I'm getting numb to it now." With the amount of people he's lost here, he wonders.

Swallowing, he looks to the ring that had been given to him as a gift — a means to create fire when he's only capable of manipulating it. This way, he'd never be without it — never be vulnerable as he often was when his lighter was lost or his flamethrower broken.

Glancing up to Jesus, he can't help but tilt his head some, eyes soft like his words when he speaks. "Before coming here, I didn't really have anyone... didn't have anyone to lose. Here though... I've lost more people than I've ever had in my life back home." It's why it's been painful for him — why he's felt he should have never cared, just as he never did back home.

"Do you get numb after awhile?" He asks then, looking to Jesus. "With all the people you've probably lost over the years back home?"

[hippie_ninja]

"A lot of people do." And he doesn't blame them for it. He's had some very dark times where he wished he felt nothing, but he always comes back around to the philosophy he lives by.

"I never have. I try not to. I try to just let myself feel the loss; staying open that way, it lets me remember how happy I was with them, too. I can think about the times I laughed with my friends, and not hate that it happened. I never want to hate the good things I had just because it ended. And I never want to take for granted the things I have."

He looks at John, studies him, thinking how if he'd let himself become as bitter and closed off as Michonne, he never would have met John at all.

"Every person I've lost shaped who I am now. It would feel like destroying myself if I let myself stop loving them just because they've died."

[fireshow]

It's easy for him to lean into anger and bitterness — a little too easy, maybe. The grief he had felt at the beach had been laced with anger, yes. But who wouldn't be both angry and upset at the loss of someone they cared for? At someone they had considered their first real friend they'd ever had?

Licking over his lips, he gives a huff of laughter then, letting his gaze drop down. "You're one of those don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened people, aren't you?"

[hippie_ninja]

"I used to cry a lot," he says, ducking his head a bit with a grimace. "But yeah. I haven't cried in years. ...Which isn't because I smile a lot. At least, I didn't until I got here."

Now? Now he grins pretty readily. Amazing what not worrying about starvation can do for your mood.

[fireshow]

"Why don't you cry?" He asks, soft in the way he does. "Because you won't let yourself?"

[hippie_ninja]

"It just doesn't come anymore." He looks down at his drawing, then back at John. "A few years ago I helped pick the leader of Hilltop. I helped stage a coup that put her in charge, because I believed in her vision. I still do. Most of it. Her husband was...brutally murdered in front of her, and the man who did it probably should have been killed. But instead he got life in a cage. She decided because of that, the Hilltop would be more aggressive."

There's so much history there that he's skimming over and he's not sure how to put it all into words.

"I was second in command. The original vision was one of democracy; let the people shape the laws. But when the former leader tried to have her killed, she eventually hanged him without talking to anyone. The thing is- I spoke to him before it happened. I believe he changed. He could have become a good man if we'd given him the chance. But I stood there and I watched him plead for his life, and I watched Maggie hang him and I wanted to cry. Not just for him, but because I knew she was making decisions that were going to make her just like the man she hates. I was watching my closest friend turn into someone I would eventually have to fight. But, John, I just stood there and watched and I felt all of it and I just couldn't cry, couldn't fight, couldn't argue. It's been like that ever since."

[fireshow]

He doesn't know how far along Jesus is in the sketch he's been doing, but. After he goes and tells him all that — after he confesses, in a way, a part of his life that he's had to live and that's no doubt been difficult for him, he sits himself up on the couch and leaves it for him.

Crouching down there in front of him, strands of hair falling in front of his face, he reaches out and, so very softly, takes one of the other man's hands into his own. Holding it. Looking up to him as he does.

"Do you want to cry?" As before, the way he asks, is soft.

[hippie_ninja]

"Not for that." Not anymore. Like he said: it just doesn't come anymore. He absorbs the blows as they happen, and he keeps going, sticking to the philosophy that has let him keep his heart when everyone else around him became jaded.

But. There is one thing that claws at him, that he can't bring himself to think too hard about. It creeps up and he shuts it down, holds John's hand a little tighter. "I don't know how to deal with the fact I died, John."

[fireshow]

When Jesus holds tighter to his hand, he lets him and even brings his other hand up to cover over the other man's entirely. He stays there — crouched — looking up to him and just being there with him. Right here. Right now. Like this.

"I think it's just easier to pretend it never happened. Even if you remember it — remember bits of it." It's what he's done with his own so-called death here, but. It's different when you apparently come back to life in this place. Where Jesus comes from — where he himself comes from? Death is a little more permanent and not exactly temporary.

A brush of his thumb over that ring he wears, a small spark ignites and he wraps a crackling flame around their hands and along Jesus' wrist, warm and soft to the touch. "You're here right now. In this apartment. Drawing some masterpiece of a sketch of me." Smile just barely there on his lips, he watches Jesus, still keeping that warm flame around their hands and wrists. "Wherever here is, you're here. And I'm here with you."