handleyourshit | Duplicity Inbox

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

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He sighs, because he knows how it sounds. "It's the sort of irrational thing that hasn't gone away even with evidence. I was working on it with Jean...I was going to anyway. We never got to it."

"It's not irrational. It's what you needed to survive."

Maybe not in as literal a sense as some of the skills they share, but all the same.

"You had to pick like the one thing I can't help you with."

He tips his head. "You help. Maybe in some ways more than the others do."

As steady as K and Vrenille and Drake are, his survival mechanism comes from an older and more fundamental place than romance does.

"I never had a family that lasted. But you're like my sister. I'm starting to know I can come to you and you'll just be there." And he's never had that with anyone in his life.

She lifts her chin. "And I always will." As long as she has a choice in it, anyway. As long as she has her way.

"Wherever I am, whatever's going on, the space at my back is for you."

"That's true for me, too." He knows she doubts that. He knows that the more men he gathers to him, the less likely she is to believe it, but it's true and will go on being true.

She taps her pencil idly on the paper she's just doodling on now for something to do with her hands, pressing her lips together as she thinks.

"I don't mean to be... the way I am. I don't want to want people all to myself." She's not the jealous type, but the more people someone pulls around them, the more insecure she gets. Not just with Jesus.

"Just seems like every time it happens, I'm not important anymore. I think that's the problem."

"I know." He's been victim to that, too, through the years. "All I can do is keep coming around though, right? All we can do is keep an eye out for evidence that what we used to know doesn't have to always be the case."

And then it spirals from there. Like she told Vrenille, when it comes right down to it, when someone's back is right up against it, that's when you learn who they grab hold of, and who they let fall - and everyone only has so many hands. It's simple math.

"It's different here," she says quietly, like a new mantra. "Things can be different here."

"They are. And they will be." Different might not be better, but it could be. They aren't starving here. They have people. There are no walkers. "We have a chance to grow in new ways."

She smiles a bit at that, turns her piece of sketch paper so he can see it. A bunch of little smiley faces that don't mean anything, and a halfway decent wooden rail fence that starts and ends nowhere and holds in a halfassed grassy hill.

"I don't think artist is one of those ways for me."

"I see a Van Gogh in you," Jesus retorts, eyeing her masterpiece. "The question is if you enjoy it though. No point in a hobby that doesn't relax you or let off steam."

His own is just an abstract piece, a lot of purples and blue lines.

"I had hobbies that did that," she points out.

"Sex. I like building things. I really, really do."

"Sex is like a job here though." He has more sex now than he ever did in the old world, and he has to work hard not to take it for granted.

"Yeah, that's why 'had'," she chuckles, because it's hardly stress relieving in its entirety here now.

"And as for building, I'm going to assume you're going to read too much into that and tell me it's not a proper hobby." She drops the paper down on the counter, sets her pencil down on top of it so she can clear plates.

"It would be a hobby if you didn't have to do it," he corrects, flicking a little painty water at her. "A hobby is a luxury. We get luxuries now, Ro. We get to do things like self-care."

She puts up a hand to keep the water off her face, but she's smirking.

"You ever tried just hammering away at a piece of wood for blowing off steam? Works great." But she knows what he means.

"I built a set of shelves, back home. Felt nice."

He gives her a Look to let her know the double entendre he reads right into that statement, and then laughs at himself. "I'm spending too much time with M."

He adds another line of color. "Maybe you could try sculpting. Wood carving. All the decorations we have at Broken Hollow are from Jacob or whoever had it before him; we should make it ours."

She just smiles mildly at the look - she didn't mean it that way, but it's not like she couldn't, except they're here. It still works with certain people, but there's too much wrapped up in sex now for it to ever be simple.

"Maybe I will, once we get this place into shape."

"It's getting there. How's the plumbing coming along?" She's good at plumbing but he comes with helpful hands, too.

"Good," she answers, honestly.

"Drake offered to help with some of it. We're having to pull a lot of it out and replace it, but it's not like we weren't going to have to repair a lot of these walls anyway. Once fields are planted, next order of business outside is a well, and then we can get some running water in here."

"Well, K and I can get them planted this week." They both work a lot, but if they put in time on their days off it's doable.

"This place will be in really good shape come harvest time. We should have a little get together then."

For as far as she's come, as willing as she is to let more people than just her and Jesus move in and around this place, to live here if they ever need it - he says that and she stiffens right up.

"Here?"

"Nothing like my birthday party. Just us, and whoever has helped make this place." The community.

She nods then, starts to relax again; she trusts Jesus, but they have different thresholds for different things, and this is one of them.

All the same, she frowns a bit, thinking.

"We owe an olive branch," she says, not exactly hesitant, but definitely something adjacent.