handleyourshit | Duplicity Inbox

"I never thought of myself as someone who runs when it's hard. Not since the world changed," he says quietly. "I've decided to be someone who tries. Someone who doesn't run. But...it's hard."

"It's a different kind of hard," she agrees, and wiggles her toes again, but not half so obnoxiously as she did earlier.

"What's the worst thing that could happen?"

"He dumps me." The answer is readily available. He's on high alert for it now, more than he ever was before. "And this time it wouldn't be because of anything I can't control. It'd just be me. My fault."

"Has he said anything to make you think that's where his head is at?" she asks. Maybe his not-robot boyfriend can read people, but Jesus isn't so shabby at that himself.

"He's been sleeping in the park rather than in his apartment." There are so many layers to that.

"Sounds like it should be right up your hippie alley," she prompts, because whatever the layers are, she doesn't understand why that's significant.

He shakes his head. K isn't him. "He's avoiding the apartment I picked out for him."

"Is he?" she asks. She barely remembers K out in the woods, the quietest of the group by miles and someone who didn't make her have to consider him at all by complaining or falling behind.

"Or is he just as fucked up as everyone else right now with no idea how to cope with it?"

"I'm going to bring him out here. See if he'll stay a little while." Maybe figure some things out here where there's nothing but quiet.

"Do it," she says, then pokes him in the shoulder until he looks at her.

"I mean it. The hot tub is amazing, and it will always run. I installed the well pump generator myself."

He thinks about that and nods. Okay. Maybe K will say yes. Maybe being in nature will help him.

"Fine but I still expect you to come around."

"Oh I will. Running water is like. Third on the priority list for Creekside right now."

She can and will bathe in the titular creek but she'd prefer not to, thanks.

"You need to leave a sock or something on the door though, or your boyfriend is going to be really embarrassed."

He laughs. "He hasn't touched me since Valentine's Day, we're very well behaved right now."

"Have you touched him?" she asks.

"Maybe he just needs an invitation."

She knows why he hasn't. "Maybe I just needed a fireplace first," he decides. Might as well try it.

"J -". She stops, pressing her lips together, sitting with it for a moment. She doesn't rush.

"You and me aren't the same person. What's going on with you two isn't anything like what's going on with me. But I do know a thing or two about broken trust."

Intentionally broken or not, malicious or not, a lot of the time it feels the same. Worse even when it's not intentional, because it if it were at least there would be anger to push against.

"Right after we got out of alignment, last thing I wanted was Carver anywhere near me. If he'd have rolled up on me and tried to take my hand, I'd have probably hit him. By the time he was in my apartment, I knew more about what I didn't want than what I did. Everything was just too hard, and still is. But right as I was about to tell him to get out, or maybe just leave myself, you know what he did?"

He shakes his head. He has no idea how Carver has managed to convince Rosita to keep trying with him. He's glad that it has worked, whatever it is, though.

"He asked me to come back."

It's not his exact words but without painting a whole irrelevant picture it's close enough.

"Didn't beg, didn't guilt me, didn't even say anything again after that. Just said come back, said please, and then left it with me."

She sighs, rubbing the corner of her eye.

"Sometimes people just need to hear that you still want them close, even if you think they already know, or that maybe they don't care."

He watches her, hand resting on her knee, and he nods.

"I'll try. I don't want to lose him, it just seemed... Inevitable. But it's not. For either of us."

He hopes.

"You're a good man, Jesus," she says, quietly, gaze calm on his.

"You made a mistake, and you're owning it. If that's not good enough for him, maybe he's not good enough for you."

His expression softens. He hasn't thought of anything he's been doing as being enough, clearly.

"I'm not used to being forgiven. I don't know if I'll know it if it happens."

She shrugs, tipping her head.

"How do you know with me?"

"You do this with me." He nods around them; she just lets him be near. They cuddle on a couch.

"Not always," she points out.

"How do you know before we get to this point?"

"I can just tell with you." A perk of having known her so long. Also probably a side effect of having never truly pissed her off.

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