hippie_ninja | IC INBOX

hippie_ninja

This is Jesus. Leave a message.

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From:

hippie_ninja

He's reluctant to break it. He only does because a horn blares nearby, one angry motorist to another, and noises like that always make him reach for a knife. He calms quickly; there's no danger and despite how fast his reflexes are, he isn't so tightly wound that he needs a fight to calm them again.

He looks at K again once the car has sped off. "That's been the hardest thing for me so far." Not the sex, not the contracts. "There's so much noise here."

From:

konstant

K doesn't exactly startle, but he does react to the noise because Jesus did, glancing over. When there's nothing there to defend against he goes still, watching the other man cautiously - not wary, just careful not to do anything that might catch on those abruptly raw nerves.

He relaxes only when Jesus does, folding his hands back into his own lap again.

"You don't know how to turn off."

From:

hippie_ninja

"I," a hesitation, a small, sad smile. "I don't think I should turn it off."

There's no danger here. Not like at home. And he's never going back to Virginia, no matter what happens to him here, no matter how much he wishes he could.

But he can't give up on the things that kept him alive. It's not stubbornness or pride or even fear. He simply can't let himself do it, the way he can't let himself stop breathing even though he's dead.

From:

konstant

K cocks his head slightly, trying and failing to make sense of that, knowing he's going to ask before he does even though he gives it the consideration it deserves.

"Will you tell me more about why?" he asks, willing to accept no, hoping he won't have to.

From:

hippie_ninja

"I died because I was careless." He rolls a shoulder, subconsciously feeling for the place where he was stabbed, even though it doesn't exist anymore. "People I care about might be dead because of that."

It won't happen again.

From:

konstant

"But this is a different environment," he points out, not arguing, just trying to understand.

"The threats here are different." Are in the form of contracts and laws, which Jesus is openly defying, rather than the reanimated dead.

From:

hippie_ninja

"I don't know what all the threats here are yet." Which is part of why he's diving into the ones that are known, to learn where the boundaries really are.

"I know it isn't entirely rational. But I think about what happened sometimes," all the time. Constantly when he's alone, when he's trying to sleep, when he has nothing to take his mind from it. "And I can't let it go. It gets worse when I try to remember how to just be a civilian."

Because then, instead of just reflexively reaching for a knife, he jolts. He grows suspicious, he finds himself even less able to relax. "If I just let myself be what I learned to be, life is more simple."

From:

konstant

He understands. Wasn't he talking before about how hard it is for him to adjust because he can't be a blade runner here, because he has no purpose and no idea what he's supposed to be now?

If he could just reclaim something of his old life - if he could just be Officer KD6-3.7 again - maybe it would be easier. So, he nods.

"Emotions aren't rational." Everyone agrees on this, he's pretty sure. "And you've survived something we were always told wouldn't be survivable. That humans aren't meant to survive. It's understandable not to know how to process."

From:

hippie_ninja

"I just didn't think adjusting to a life with luxuries would be difficult." He'd never thought he'd have luxuries like this again, sure. But that's not the point.

"I feel ungrateful being here and struggling when what I fought for for years was food, shelter, people I liked having around."

From:

konstant

He understands that, too, now that he's not on a planet that is slowly killing everyone still on it. That will kill everyone still on it.

"Do you think I'm ungrateful, thinking how much easier it would be to be back home in Los Angeles, where the food and water are poisoning everyone who isn't starving outright, and where billions of people will die because they're poor?"

From:

hippie_ninja

"No." He lets himself sit with that, with what it means and what he knows K means by it.

It does help. It loosens the tension still in his shoulders. It will give him something to show his mind when all the guilt starts to bubble up again tonight, when he's alone.

"Do you hate being here?"

From:

konstant

"Sometimes."

He's glad to see that relaxation, that release, however small. He rubs a fold of the cloth of his pants between his fingertips.

"Do you?"

From:

hippie_ninja

"I should know better by now than to hate how things are." He shrugs. "Things are the way they are. You live and adapt to it, or you change it."

Which is one of the oblique ways he answers things when he's uncomfortable. He looks down at his hands, rubs a scar over one of his knuckles.

"I haven't been homesick in years, but I'd do a lot to be able to go back to the Hilltop right now."

From:

konstant

"Would it help you to talk about it?" he asks.

"Or more just to know that I hear you, and I don't blame you, and you can feel what you want with me?"

Because he does, he doesn't, and he can.

From:

hippie_ninja

The latter.

Jesus is more able to talk about things than his friends are--but rarely about himself. Rarely about anything that is currently painful. He wouldn't know how to put it into context here, anyway, and he's sure that's something K struggles with, too.

But it doesn't change the fact they do see each other. There are some things that are simply known and understood.

"It helps to know that I could talk to you, if I wanted," he says softly, his hand on K's without as much of the hesitance from earlier. "But it helps most knowing you see as much as you do and you don't judge me for it."

From:

konstant

K turns his hand over, not so much taking Jesus's as offering him his palm, offering the other side of that connection. His attention is entirely on the other man now, though his gaze stays soft and sidelong until Jesus reaches for him again.

His lips quirk, the subtle, most honest smile he has.

"I'm honored."

From:

hippie_ninja

He trails the backs of his nails along the fine lines of K's palm, his own smile playful though the way he's studying K is serious.

"You're good at this."

From:

konstant

It doesn't exactly tickle, it doesn't exactly not; the smile deepens ever so slightly, his fingertips twitch but he doesn't even consider pulling away.

"Am I?" he asks, because he has no idea that he's doing anything.

From:

hippie_ninja

"I've had friends I've known longer, who I trusted with less." Friends he loves, friends he's fought beside, who he would never have told anything he just told K.

"Am I keeping you from the party?" His hand, nevertheless, doesn't leave K's.

From:

konstant

"I left it with you," he reminds him, which is also his answer.

He's not going anywhere. "I'm good where I am."

From:

hippie_ninja

It makes him smile. "Want to go somewhere you can get out of your uniform, then?" He motions at himself. "I'm not dressed for being away from the pool."

From:

konstant

K doesn't hesitate to offer him his towel, too, but he's also already moving for his feet.

"Orla will be at the party until closing time," he offers, or they both know Jesus's place is empty now, too.

From:

hippie_ninja

"Let's stop by your place for your clothes then go to mine," he decides. Going to a cabin that is, for the time being, only Jesus's means there's no risk of being interrupted, even if all they do is talk.

From:

konstant

It's easy to agree; K ends up just throwing a shirt on over the red and gold pants - they're much cooler than his own sturdy surplus pants, and he doesn't actually mind them if he can add a top - and grabbing his coat and boots, and throws a few toiletry items into his pockets in case he ends up being comfortable enough to stay.

When they step in the door at Jesus's, K automatically glances to the side of the room V had inhabited, but he doesn't say anything. He just looks back at Jesus to see if he can catch a glimpse of how he feels about it.

From:

hippie_ninja

There's a barely there reaction: he misses V. He worries about him, and how hard V took the transfer, and how infrequently they're likely to cross paths now that V lives above this neighborhood.

He can't do anything about it, so the response is there and then gone in a literal blink of an eye.

He follows K's lead and pulls a shirt on, then checks that his knife is still where he left it beside the bed.

"It's not as interesting here without Nibbles around," he apologizes.