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[handleyourshit]

  


This is Rosita.  I'll hit you back when I can.

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[handleyourshit]

"Hey."

She leans back a bit so she can meet his eyes, so she can reach up with the hand he doesn't have hold of and smooth back some hair from his face.

"I don't think they'd all three still be coming around if you weren't doing something right."

[hippie_ninja]

"How do I keep that going? Things change, they're always changing, and that's where I make the worst mistakes with people," he says, searching her face for the reassurance there.

[handleyourshit]

"What's changing?" she asks.

He hasn't failed her; maybe it's just a byproduct of the two of them being here out of everyone, being here instead of there, but it doesn't matter. This is what is, so she can say with confidence: he has not failed her.

But she also knows she's safe for him in a way the other three aren't, just like he is for her. So, start there: what comes to mind for him that he's most worried about?

[hippie_ninja]

"Well," he draws a breath, readying himself to just talk. To get it out, to let her help him make sense of it. "Things are good with Drake and K. I think they're both getting used to the idea that I meant it when I promised I wouldn't bail again."

He leans against her slightly. "A while ago, Vrenille and I took a drug that made us both forget we'd ever had sex. With anyone. It made us teenagers again basically and so it meant that when we fucked, it was our first time."

[handleyourshit]

Rosita hasn't knowingly used any of the aphrodisiacs that Duplicity has to offer, even though lately she's been considering it; all the same she knows how hard they can hit, and how real they feel while you're in them.

She raises an eyebrow, but straightens up to settle in now that he's talking.

"Intentionally?" she asks. It surprises her - but then again, maybe not. "How'd that go?"

[hippie_ninja]

"Yeah, they were formulated for the party at Marked." Jesus has a light drug history, which probably doesn't surprise many people when they get to know him. Weed, shrooms, natural things. All of that went away, of course, after the world fell apart and he had to keep his head about him.

"He let me pick which one. I couldn't tell you why I picked that one except that my first time wasn't that much fun and I wanted to see what it would have been like with someone I could still be friends with after. It went really well. But I have two sets of memories now when I think about my first time: one where I was frantic and afraid of getting caught, and one with Vrenille. And it changed things, a little."

[handleyourshit]

She and Jesus, she realizes, have a lot more in common than even they realized; her first time was with a boy, of course, so she didn't have the social stigma to worry about until much later, but there was a different one for her. It wasn't that much fun for her either, and she can see immediately the appeal of trying again with a trusted partner.

But then there's the rest. "For both of you? Or just you?"

[hippie_ninja]

"Both of us," he says, and there's a real relief in being able to say it and know it's true. Vrenille liked it, too. "It made us closer. But we're both...skittish around being closer, you know? And I'm afraid of what that might do to us over time."

[handleyourshit]

She nods along, because she does see the problem; sees, even without being as familiar with Vrenille as Jesus is, how committing is a worrisome area of overlap.

"Have you been doing the same things you did before that?" Whatever that is for them - but she's thinking, specifically: "Has the sex changed?"

[hippie_ninja]

"Yeah. The tone has, even if the things we do haven't. It's still mostly just us having fun, fooling around, playing with different ideas--but there's something underneath it that wasn't there before." For him, at least. But he suspects it's there for Vrenille, too.

[handleyourshit]

"Mm," she says, and she can't help but smile a bit anyway, because as it turns out she never stopped being a romantic.

"Do you like that part?"

[hippie_ninja]

She struggles to admit her feelings sometimes; so does he sometimes. Like right now. It's terrifying to put it out there, to give words to it, to let anyone else know.

"Yeah, I really do," he says with a huff of a laugh. "It's so different, having that with someone I care about. Someone I love."

The ways he loves each of those men are different and unique but that is what it is.

[handleyourshit]

Rosita has a sliding scale in her head of the three main men Jesus talks about to her; Drake being the first and the safest, at least until his partner disappeared; K in the middle, with his steadiness but his own baggage and trauma; and Vrenille out on the end with his own commitment issues, though she couldn't have said why that was her instinct before now.

So he's hesitant, but she grins at him now.

"You've already proven you know what to do with love though, Jesus. You know how to fix it if you make a mistake. And I know he cares about you, so - maybe just trust yourself. And if you can't, then trust me saying so."

[hippie_ninja]

"I've never loved anyone before. I don't know how I look like I know what I'm doing, because it never feels like I do. I just- every time I start to panic I remember I promised them I'd try. So I'm trying." But it's terrifying and he looks at Rosita. "I don't know how to ask them if I'm doing okay without letting on that I'm second guessing myself constantly. How do I go from loving no one to loving three men at the same time?"

[handleyourshit]

"Why is it so important that you don't second guess? I'd rather someone check in with me than pretend their way through feeling good."

She knows how terrifying it can feel. But she also knows this:

"It's not that you look like you know what you're doing. You made a mistake with Drake and K. Then you admitted that, fixed it, and you said that things seem like they're going well? That's what I meant."

And as far as suddenly loving people goes -

"I told you it was too easy here."

[hippie_ninja]

"I think that's what scares me. It's so easy to love here. They earned it--but it's so new." And it worries him.

"How do you handle being in love?"

[handleyourshit]

"Badly," she chuckles, shrugging.

"I always wanted to be in love, so I would sometimes imagine it where it wasn't. And the few times I think it might have been real? I had no idea how to get around it looking different than it did in my head."

And she ignores it now.

[hippie_ninja]

"Sometimes I did that as a kid. With foster families. I thought... I don't know. That it was going great. That they'd give me a room. That we'd have Thanksgiving and Christmas together, you know? Kodak moments."

But it never worked out that way.

"I get scared sometimes I'm doing that now. Imagining something really great when they don't feel the same way."

[handleyourshit]

"Yeah."

And it's fucking terrible to realize someone doesn't want you, whether it was ever real or not.

But: "But Jesus - K threw you an entire Thanksgiving meal. He didn't even know what it was but he did it because you said you always had."

[hippie_ninja]

He smiles and it warms every feature in his face.

"Yeah, he did. And it was one of the best times I've ever had." He nudges her with his shoulder. "My 39th birthday party was pretty great too by the way."

[handleyourshit]

"Um, your 39th birthday party was amazing, bar none. I saw the pictures," she huffs at him, brows raising.

She nudges his shoulder back though. "What I'm saying is that if you were just asking me outright, with the knowledge that I have from the outside, things look like they're more or less on track."

[hippie_ninja]

"That means a lot." That someone who he knows is critical of his lovers can see that they're moving in a positive direction.

"Who do you like most out of them?" It's probably not a fair question. Best friends ask unfair questions sometimes, he decides.

[handleyourshit]

"I like me," she answers, because yeah it is unfair, and that's what he gets.

But she does add, "Vrenille."

[hippie_ninja]

"You can't pick you," he protests. "We're not dating. Even if people think we are."

Which is hilarious and he, gremlin that he is, doesn't always tell people otherwise.

"What do you like about him?"

[handleyourshit]

"I always pick me."

But she gets the same thing, does the same thing, and it makes her grin.

"He's here, trying his best to help us. He came with a ready plan when the Creator threw his fucking tantrum, and he listens."