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[hippie_ninja]

This is Jesus. Leave a message.

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[handleyourshit]

"He said the same thing," she answers, doubtfully; if he dies, she's still going to handle it. She's still going to make sure.

She nods though, and goes back to checking wounds she already knows she can't do anything for.

Jesus hasn't made it back yet when she sends another text: Never mind. We're good here.

[hippie_ninja]

He answers via voice. "What do you mean? Is he dead?"

[handleyourshit]

For the first time ever, Rosita hangs up on him immediately.

She texts a moment later though: Not dead. Need you to trust me. I'll find you later.

It's the next day before she sends another text asking where he is, if he's busy; she'll turn up shortly after, looking none the worse for wear, whatever that's worth.

[hippie_ninja]

He's only been home a few minutes when she gets in, having just left Drake's to come home to rest before he gets ready for work.

He peers upside down from the little loft over the stairs to see who's walking in, then ducks back into his bedroom to pull on a shirt. "Hey. You okay?"

[handleyourshit]

"Yeah," she answers readily, easily. "Yeah, I'm... okay. You? You haven't gotten caught in this fog bullshit, right?"

She's not a paranoid woman, but she may have circled the block just to be sure they're in the clear. The last thing she wants is her and Jesus taking pot shots at each other.

[hippie_ninja]

"Not for long." He has a bruise on his face and his arms are black and blue, but nothing to worry about. "How's Carver?"

[handleyourshit]

"He's..." Her brow furrows, troubled, as she tries to figure out how much to explain - how much she even can.

"On his feet. He went back to his place, didn't want my help to get there." She shrugs helplessly. "Better than he has any right to be, after how I found him."

[hippie_ninja]

He stares at her a moment, trying to make sense of that. He decides rather than try to get answers from her he'll just go to Carver himself, contact him and ask him over, later.

"Are you okay?" After the fog. After everything this month has given them.

[handleyourshit]

Is she okay?

It's a question she translates automatically to are you going to survive?

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good." She needed to touch base with someone familiar, someone safe, someone she will never be more complicated with than she is now; she nods. "You?"

[hippie_ninja]

"I'm good." He is watching her still, not quite believing her, not quite sure why he doesn't. "I have to go to work, but- stop in again tomorrow. Or I can come to you."

[handleyourshit]

"I'll call you," she says, abruptly wary of the way he's looking at her, but there's a convenient excuse to rethink this particular decision.

Although she's sincere when she says, "Thanks. For always coming when I need you." Back home, and here.

[hippie_ninja]

"Whatever's going on, you can tell me," he tells her, one hand on her shoulder, before he ducks past her to get his coat. He knows not to try to corner her.

[handleyourshit]

The look she gives him is nonplussed, and she's suspicious enough to stand where she is while he moves around her. She doesn't comment on it, just walks with him at least as far as outside before they split off in their own directions again. She'll figure out something by the time she has to call.

Then the rest of the festival happens, and she doesn't call; she can't, she has no idea where her phone is after the fucking orgy. She does leave a handwritten note on the island in her suite in case Jesus stops there looking for her so he knows she's still here, she hasn't disappeared, but she isn't home for a few days.

Then, she is again like nothing happened, except she still doesn't know where her phone is.

[hippie_ninja]

"Where have you been?"

Jesus is a calm presence even in intense circumstances.

He's not calm right now; he's spent three days worrying about her, on top of worrying about Drake.

[handleyourshit]

It's a tone that makes her eyebrows raise, and would normally bring her out swinging straight back; it doesn't this time because she's surprised to see him at all, let alone that upset.

"Did I forget signing something that required me to check in with you?" she throws back reflexively.

[hippie_ninja]

He's tired. He's stressed. Her response just shuts him up though. "Never mind."

He doesn't even know why he's here, she could have come to find him when she was ready, so he turns. "Sorry to interrupt."

[handleyourshit]

He makes it as far as getting the door open while she argues with herself. It's a swift argument, but it's one she has with herself often so she knows how it ends.

"Jesus, wait -" She won't physically catch him in time, especially if he doesn't want her to, but she reaches out anyway.

[hippie_ninja]

He isn't waiting for her to call out, he isn't expecting her to try. She manages to speak up with the door just opened, and he looks back at her, hurt and confused and worried.

"Just come find me when you're ready." He shouldn't have come here before she was ready to talk to him.

[handleyourshit]

"I am," she says, and this time it's immediate, firm. She doesn't like to be ambushed - no one does - but she knows her own mind.

And knows that there's more going on for both of them right now than on the surface, so she adds, "Are you?"

He can still go, she won't stop him if she's hurt him too badly just now. But she didn't mean to.

[hippie_ninja]

He lingers before he steps back inside, because he's not sure what to ask now. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I don't have to keep you long."

[handleyourshit]

She waits with him, counting down her own reaction, dropping her keys on the island.

(The irony that it's Jesus of all people worrying enough to snap at her for not being where she's supposed to be does not escape her, but she sets that side for now, too.)

"I don't have anywhere to be. I'm all yours, whatever you've got on your mind," she promises him, spreading her arms a bit in demonstration. She's still healing, there are scrapes on her palms and scratches and bruising disappearing under her collar at her neck, but she's in one piece.

[hippie_ninja]

"I don't." No pressing business. No urgent tasks. There's a flicker of something in his expression, underneath the worry, something a little bit younger and less certain. "I just wanted to see if you were coming back yet." Or at all.

He gestures vaguely at his pocket. "I would have just called but I didn't know if you'd found your phone yet."

[handleyourshit]

She's watching him, more alert than she's felt in days even if she's not sold yet on that being a good thing. It's an advantage now, for sure.

She shakes her head, still watchful. "I didn't. I have no idea where it is." And she did look, but what memories she has of how Tumenalia ended weren't focused on where she was while people were doing things to her, only that they were.

She lowers her arms. "Of course I was coming back."

[hippie_ninja]

Of course I was coming back. He doesn't dwell on how that feels, how the doubts rail against the clear evidence that she did in fact come back.

"I'm sorry," is what he says. That he was tense. That he lost his composure for a moment there. He shakes his head, not wanting to dwell. "We have to get you a phone. I can help you look."

[handleyourshit]

"Okay," she agrees, "But I'm not worried about the phone right now. What's going on with you?"

He doesn't want to dwell. She's not going to just let it slide, not when it's so out of character for him.