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drivinmeinsane · 23 days

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Officer K x GN!Reader ※ { masterlist } ※ { ao3 }

※ Summary: With a tremor threatening to shake his body, he slips his fingers under the edge of his shirt sleeve and pulls it up to his elbow. His soulmark is laid bare before your eyes. The wound that he had left in his own skin when he had tried to carve out the design has faded to a raised, pale line. “That wasn’t there before,” you murmur, taking his forearm in your hands. Your pointer finger traces over the scar. ※ Rating: 18+ for mature content and themes. Please mind the warnings. ※ Content/tags: Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Implied Reoccurring Sexual Abuse by a Supervisor, Emotional Hurt, Identity Issues, Self-Harm, Alcohol Abuse, Smoking, Eye Trauma, Canon-typical Violence, Slow Burn, Developing Relationship, No use of Y/N, No Pronouns Given for Reader ※ Word count: 15,713 ※ Status: One-shot / Complete ※ Author's note: In the wake of a mentally difficult month, I present the story that accompanied me during that time. Here's to brighter days. ※ Song inspiration: Someone to You - BANNERS

In a cruelly human twist, the moment that K is incepted, birthed from a plastic bag like an item purchased at a supermarket in the years before the Blackout rocked the world, is also the moment he begins to die. This is something he won’t mind, once he realizes that death is a gift given only to the living.

As he lays, wet and trembling, atop compressed rubber and metal grating, he feels nothing but terror. His body is stricken by the wracking sobs of the newborn. His face gradually relaxes with each passing minute. The replicant’s wailing turns into coughing when his body chooses to expel the synthetically made amniotic fluid from his lungs.

“Are you done?” comes a woman’s voice. Clinical. Detached.

Suddenly made aware of the world around him, the small sterile room that it is, he opens his sticky eyelids only to be forced to squint against the penetrating glare of the artificial lighting overhead. He lays there for a moment, twisted and gasping like a crushed bird on the pavement—filled with the old memories of the nest and waiting, beak agape, for a mother who will not come. He shivers.

When KD6-3.7 manages to focus his eyes, the first thing he makes sense of is his own hands, and then the mark on his own forearm that is slowly blossoming to life. It’s all too much. His brain feels as though it is pressing against the confines of his skull, threatening to crack the bone and spill out onto the rubber. If it does, perhaps it will slip through the grate like the yolk of a broken egg.

Feet step up to him. They’re clad in sensible heels over black socks, utilitarian. K peers through the pulsing behind his eyes and sees a worn woman’s pinched face peering down at him. For just a moment, he’s certain that she intends to snuff him out. All the same, he pushes aside his fear and reaches out for her. She will become the closest thing to a mother he will ever know. K clasps his slimy hand around her sock-clad ankle. The bones are fragile underneath his grip. One too-tight squeeze and they would snap under the pressure. She tries to shake him off. He clings on, desperate for some kind of contact. He does not yet know that he will be raised solely by the wire mother with no comfort of the cloth.

“Let go.” Her voice cuts over the faint noise of the plastic crinkling above him. Disgust mars her lined face. He will grow familiar with expression. Both from her and from others.

As if burned, he immediately does. The compulsion to obey is too pressing for him to ignore. Every blood vessel and muscle fiber in his body is hardwired for submission. K tucks his hand against his chest, shrinks in on himself. He is not praised for his obedience or comforted through his turmoil. Tools, he learns later, do not need reward.

The woman crouches suddenly. She grabs at his arm and extends it under the harsh light. Her nails bite into his skin. It is the first pain he will experience from another living being. Both he and the stranger look at the elegant lines set into his flesh. She does not speak and neither does he. She lets go of him, red crescent moons grace the pale sky of his skin in the wake of her fingers.

There is a gesture that he doesn’t understand and, suddenly, he is being hosed down. The cold water sluices over him, washing away the newborn taint. With one final look cast down at him, the woman leaves.

Time passes in her absence, minutes smearing together in a twisted tangle made only more disorienting when the lights shut off. He is left in the dark, cold and struggling to comprehend. Refrigerated. He is experiencing punishment for a crime he does not yet understand. Wallace’s creation dared to have the trace of a soul in him. The evidence of it is clearly visible to the naked eye.

Eventually, the woman comes for him and lets him out into the light. He learns that he is hers, like a hunting dog belongs to a huntsman. His madam tells him that the mark adorning his forearm is a meaningless tattoo. She had only wanted him to be special. It’s the first of the many lies she tells him.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Advertisements cut through the gloom of his living room. In them, organics emphatically gesture to convey their success with the soulmate finding services being advertised. The blue light shifts to purple then to red. In the disorienting glow, anything could look real. Seated on his couch with a room temperature glass of whiskey that is only getting warmer with the heat of his hand, K watches Joi dance alone to the easy swing of Frank Sinatra.

“Did you know this song was first released in 1954 under another name by another singer? Kaye’s last name, Ballard, sounds a lot like ‘ballad’, doesn’t it?” she asks.

K hums, agreeable. The alcohol coursing through his bloodstream accompanied with his ever-present exhaustion have left him slumped bonelessly into the rigid angles of the cushions. It had been a day. It always is.

“Sweetheart,” the replicant says to his pretend wife, “will you indulge me?”

The DiJi smiles at him. He can see a knowing curve to her lips. It’s rare that he asks her for this. With a flourish, she flickers to an outfit with short sleeves. Joi kneels by the couch and rests her elbows on the edge of it, chin on her interlaced fingers.

“Is this what you wanted?” she asks, teasing. She presents her arm with an elegant flip of her wrist. The twin to the mark gracing his own forearm twinkles back up at him. He can almost imagine that it’s real.

Wordlessly, he extends his hand out and barely stops himself from reaching right through her projected skin by accident. He manages to stop himself before breaking the illusion. She plays at resting her arm in the palm of his hand. K can convince himself he can feel the warmth of her underneath the hovering passes of his thumb. Like trying to avoid breaking a gossamer thin strand of spiderweb, he carefully caresses her. Joi preens under the attention, reaching for his own mark in return. He feels the faintest trace of static.

He closes his eyes before he can register how the pixelation of her always makes the edges of her copied mark look not quite real. The replicant has to convince himself that this is enough. It’s all he has, so it must be. He cannot afford to dream of what it would be like to feel another body against his. Their kind must never look to the stars.

───※ ·❆· ※───

There had been a time in which K had wondered if the other bearer of his soulmark was his madam. He had been made for her, after all. It would only be right if they were intertwined down to the very cells that made up their bodies.

Joshi isn’t, of course. He finds out the first time that she has him strip her bare in the privacy of her office. Her skin is unmarked by anything but the scars of being human. K cannot boast the same. He heals too fast, too completely, to carry the same marks. For him to scar with any significance, an injury would have to be so severe that an organic’s body would be grievously devastated from the trauma.

He is not sure if the emotion he feels over the lack of mark on his handler is the grieving of what might have been or the relief at what isn’t. It would have been easier if it had been her. She hollowed him out. Used him. Uses him still. His madam owns him in every way that matters.

───※ ·❆· ※───

This retirement job is meant to be routine, the same as the last dirty dozen. He puts down an average of two Nexus 8 models every month. His work ethic has proven to be top of the line, much to the pleasure of the retiring department’s lieutenant. The routine success is enough to give him the security to sleep on the way to the property he’s being sent to. The ‘9 is exhausted from the long night he’d experienced.

K had poured over files at his cramped desk until his eyes burned and his throat grew so dry as to rival the arid chemical wastes of the Nevada desert. Still, he hadn’t bothered asking for water. It would cost money he didn’t want to spend. Besides, his experiences with liquid within the walls of the precinct have come hand-in-hand with punishment.

He wakes when the spinner chimes. Head snapping up, the officer inhales and exhales hard. It’s a sign of vulnerability he feels free enough to express as he turns off the autopilot and regains personal control over the vehicle. In the distance, a scattering of structures rise out from the perpetual haze of the world like a nervous herd of bovine protecting a calf against an approaching predator. He angles towards them, passing over a broken windmill on the way.

Pulling the spinner several yards short of a dead tree, he sets it down in a sprawling waste of infertile soil. A cloud of dirt gets kicked up by the disturbance. There is no hiding his arrival.

As he does on every job, K pops the latch for the spinner’s parrotfish in order to send it lazily into the sky. He gestures up at it to begin its rounds. The replicant tugs his jacket collar up over the lower half of his face. His lungs will ache for days if too much dust finds a home among the tissue. A minor discomfort, but he prefers to avoid them when he can.

Before stepping into his quarry’s home, he knocks the dirt off his boots. He doesn’t rap his knuckles against the door.

Unsurprised, he finds the living space as bare as his own apartment. There are small hints at a life here. Everything is cleaned, maintained, loved. K ignores the stab of camaraderie, buries it. He and this replicant are not of the same kind. He can’t allow them to be. It will only make the inevitability of what’s coming that much harder.

There is a pot of something fragrant boiling away on the stove that he had smelt the moment he opened the front door. He ignores it, for now, in favor of taking a seat in the kitchen. The Nexus 9 knows that he will be joined by the master of the house shortly.

He is proven right by the arrival of the pre-Blackout model shortly after settling into position. Sapper Morton bypasses him on his way to the sink. K silently observes him for a moment, elbow on the table with his gun in hand, as the wanted replicant scrubs at his work-worn hands. The water is loud in on the stainless steel basin. A flash of his inception flares to the forefront of his mind. He speaks to shake it away.

“I hope you don’t mind me taking the liberty. I was careful not to drag in any dirt.” K bites down the urge to continue, to explain that the wind had been turbulant, to actually have a real conversation with someone other than Joi. He’s not here for friendship.

There comes the rattle of something on the window ledge just out of K’s field of view. Sapper’s resigned voice answers him. “I don’t mind the dirt,” he says with a sigh and the noise of eyeglasses being placed on his rough face, “I do mind… unannounced visits.”

Heavy footsteps trod towards him in the dimly lit room. The seated officer tries not to react as the mountain of a replicant approaches him before coming to a halt a polite distance away. “You police?”

“Are you Sapper Morton? Civic number NK680514?”

“I’m a farmer.”

Sapper seems to be just as adverse to answering questions as he is. K can respect that. Answers can be a dangerous thing to give. Any vulnerability can be exploited.

“I saw that. What do you farm?” he asks, genuinely curious.

The mountain moves across the tile floor and a massive hand rises to open a cupboard. Morton slams down a container onto the counter before withdrawing a small cluster of white, wriggling objects. K watches quietly as the ‘8 approaches and drops the mass onto the table by his hand. Nematodes.

“It’s a protein farm. Wallace design,” Morton supplies as way of explanation.

Isn’t everything? K thinks. That man has fingers in nearly every form of industry in their society, both on and off world.

Taking his hand off the gun, he points at the air with a small twirl of his finger, subconsciously mirroring the gesture he’d given the parrotfish before entering the house. “Is that that I smell?”

“Grow that just for me… Garlic.”

“Garlic…” K says, wonderingly. The word feels just as exotic in his mouth as the plant might taste.

“Do you want to try some?”

“No, thank you. I prefer to keep an empty stomach until the hard part of the day is done.” The pot starts boiling even louder on the stove, as if it were protesting the refusal of Sapper Morton’s hospitality. “How long you been here?”

“Since 2020.”

“But you haven’t always been a farmer, have you?” Silence from the other replicant is answer enough. K continues, “Your bag. It’s colonial medical use. Military issue.”

He doesn’t miss the change in the older Nexus’s body language. The almost unconscious touch on the bag’s canvas side reminds K of the way he touches his own jacket when he’s uncertain. He presses onward with his information gathering.

“Where were you? Calantha…? Must have been brutal.”

“Planning on taking me in? Huh? Take a look inside?”

“Mister Morton, if taking you in is an option…” K sighs and leaves his gun aside on the table. “I would much prefer that to the alternative. I’m sure you knew it would be someone in time.”

A frustrated exhalation of air bursts from the other replicant as he pulls off his glasses. K tosses him a cursory glance before looking down, eyebrow slightly raised. He reaches into one of his inside pockets to pull out the small handheld retina scanner the police department issues for use on the field.

“I’m sorry it had to be me.”

“Good as any,” Morton says while K activates the device.

“Now, if you don’t mind… If you could just look up and to the left,” he instructs, uncrossing his legs and getting to his feet.

He knows what’s coming. He had seen him pull the scalpel out of the bag, so it comes to no real surprise when Sapper Morton lunges at him. K catches his hand before the blade can lodge itself between the span of his ribs. In return, he gets slammed against the wall by the far larger replicant. Managing to dodge the punches leveled at him, he tries to break free to create some distance between the two of them. He doesn’t succeed. The ‘8 grabs a firm hold on him and slams his body into the wall like Cain bringing the stone down upon his brother. Fighting to keep his chin tucked against the curve of his shoulder so that the back of his head doesn’t meet a similar end to Abel’s, he takes the brunt of the force over the span of his shoulders until finally the drywall gives out beneath him and he lands hard on the floor.

There is no time to recover because Morton falls with him, dropping the scalpel upon impact. They wrestle, trying desperately to get the upper hand over the other. K doesn’t want to do this. He wants to walk this back, reset and try again. He opens his mouth to tell the farmer just that when Morton is suddenly choking him. It’s as though an iron collar has been fastened around his neck. With tears leaking freely from him, he can feel the blood vessels in his eyes bursting under the strain. He growls, forcing air through his throbbing lungs and slams his fist into Morton hard enough to drop him.

Gaining traction, he manages to straddle the other replicant and he hits him one, two, three, four, five times in the throat in rapid succession. His adversary falls back, struggling to breathe through a damaged windpipe.

K wedges his fingers on the winded replicant’s eyelids and pins the eye open, trying to get the scanner ready. Morton interrupts him by grasping onto the scalpel and driving it into the meat of K’s upper arm. The officer grunts as pain radiates in his right side. He slaps the ‘8 back down and hits him. It’s punishment. Bad dog, his madam would say.

For good measure, he hits him for a second time to quell any further resistance. He doesn’t relish the feeling of his knuckles crushing against the other replicant’s trachea. This time, when he grabs Morton’s face, he manages to hold the eye open long enough for the handheld device to read it.

The screen confirms what he already knows. The man beneath him is Sapper Morton, charged with deadly assault of organic life and wanted for retirement.

Muscles twitching with adrenaline, K gets to his feet and looks down at the replicant choking on his own ruined body. “Please, don’t get up,” he says, accompanying his words with a pleading gesture.

He already knows that he will. They always do. The taste of freedom only serves to kill them in the end. Dying for the it seems… well, K can’t understand it, not like this. His eyes have not been opened to the benefits of being free.

Behind him, he already hears the rustling of Morton sitting up. He retrieves his gun from the kitchen table. It’s heavy in his hand. When he turns around and retraces his steps back towards the living room, the other replicant is on his hands and knees. Those calloused hands are clutching at his throat.

“How does it feel? Killin’ your own kind?” the farmer grits out.

“I don’t retire my own kind because we don’t run. Only you older models do.” There it is. The distinction he must draw between them to keep sane. He won’t pass his baselines otherwise.

“You new models are happy scraping the shit. Because you’ve never seen a miracle.”

K looks at him, jaw clenching with the effort not to speak. It’s on the tip of his tongue, that he has seen his own miracle. He carries it with him every hour of every day, right in his very skin. He doesn’t have a soul and yet he’s marked.

Sapper Morton rushes him, the last efforts of a wounded bull in the arena. K puts two bullets in him. The mountain falls. The house shakes and then goes still.

He covers the dead replicant with a blanket pulled from the back of the couch before extracting his eye with careful hands. He draws the makeshift shroud over Morton’s face when he’s finished. Bloody fingerprints get left behind on the faded fabric.

No matter how much soap K uses in the sink, he can’t get rid of the tacky feeling that seems as though it’s part of him now. His hands will never be clean. Innocence belongs only to the freshly incepted.

Before he leaves the small house, he takes the farmer’s glasses. Some part of Sapper Morton will live on with the replicant that retired him. It’s all K can offer him now.

───※ ·❆· ※───

A fog has laid itself over his shoulders like a second skin. It feels more familiar, more his, than the actual flesh that coats his bones. His DNA was taken from a donor. K is occasionally loathe to even call his body his. Some days, it feels like it has been parted out to anyone who might want a piece of it.

The numbness he’s feeling ensures he passes his baseline with flying colors after the retirement of NK680514. He gets to keep the moniker of “constant” K.

Joshi is pleased at his performance, When he goes to her office for his post-baseline report, she assigns him to another case to keep him occupied while the dig team finishes at the protein farm. His madam doesn’t like him to be idle for too long. He will be heading out in the morning to check in on another old model number.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Having never existed in a world where the skies are clear, K finds the beauty in the varying colors of the haze. Today, the old, industrial streets are bathed in a brilliant orange light due to the rising run. It’s a cheerful hue for the grim work that lies ahead. He supposes this area must come to life at night, being so far from the main heart of Los Angeles and its daunting amount of law enforcement.

K sends the spinner into a slow dive, cruising to increasingly lower altitudes as he gets closer to his destination. As always, the coordinates were provided by Lieutenant Joshi. She had been kind enough to provide him a suspected apartment number, rather than have him go door to door down the halls to find the culprit. Even with a number, K still doesn’t like the idea that there will be neighbors that might bear witness to this.

He finally parks the machine against the curb outside of a run-down apartment building. Even from inside the spinner, the officer can see that that bricks have broken free of the structure's edifice. He deploys the parrotfish for a halfhearted backup that will be useless unless he’s outside and gets out of the spinner.

The front door is uneven on its hinges. It squeals loudly in the silence as he pushes it open. Any dream of subtly is already dashed. The tone for this visit has been set.

Here, the hallways are dusty and unpopulated. He finds it to be a novel contrast to his own living situation. There, the building’s common areas are constantly wet with snow melt and teaming with bodies. The ‘9 wonders if this is how the explorers of ancient tombs felt. Like they were navigating the body of a slumbering Goliath. Finding the door that leads into the stairwell, he mounts the stairs. They creak and shift with the settling of his weight upon each one.

“Unit 405. One known occupant. Possible second.” the message had said.

Officer K reaches the fourth floor to find it predictably devoid of anyone in the hallway. He finds the door with its brass number and steps up to it. The knock echos in the empty hall. There is a long moment of silence before he finally hears footsteps approaching the synthetic wood. A rattle of a chain against the material, and the door opens just enough for an eye to peer suspiciously at him. There’s not enough of a gap for him to get the toe of his boot through.

“I’m sorry for the intrusion. I have some questions I need to ask.”

“You’re a cop?”

K keeps the frown off his face. This is reminding him too much of yesterday. “I’m looking for someone. Civic number NK687725. John Gradus.”

“What if I shut this door?”

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” he says, genuinely apologetic.

The stranger sighs and steps aside, opening the door all the way. “You better come on in, then. Nasty business to do in the doorway.”

Trailing after him, K rolls the situation over in his mind. He already knows the face matches, even from the glance he’d taken. It is now a matter of confirming the identity with the eye scan before the next step. Either the replicant can surrender or they can be retired. As Sapper Morton had demonstrated to great effect the day before, it’s never surrender.

“Please, sit,” the older generation model says with a gesture to a worn couch before taking a seat across from it in a chair that looks to be more tape than metal.

K readily complies, not wanting to make waves just yet. There is someone in the kitchen. They’re just out of sight.

“Can you bring us tea?” Gradus calls out after giving him a searching look. “I think it would do our guest some good.”

He’s in the middle of opening his mouth to protest when he catches movement in the kitchen entrance and he falls still. The last thing he was expecting here was you. An organic. The officer had simply assumed that the other potential occupant was another ‘8 like the one he was paying a visit. There is not mixing across kind. His madam has been aggressively clear about there being lines that must never be crossed.

Taking in the hard look you give him when you emerge from the kitchen carrying two cups, he adverts his eyes to the low table in front of him. The porcelain teacup that you place on coffee table is well loved. The edges of it are chipped and the saucer it’s resting on doesn’t match the delicate floral print.

K doesn’t miss the way that you and the other replicant engage in a silent conversation before you hand him his own drink. He is thrown off balance by this situation. The strangeness of it is putting him on an unfamiliar edge. His hand clenches on his thigh.

Across from him, you take a seat next to the ‘8 on another battered chair. Cracked vinyl and dented metal legs groan feebly under your weight. K realizes that everything in this apartment has been well-used. Repaired instead of replaced. He wonders which one of you is the sentimental type.

“Who are you?” you ask, breaking the uneasy silence. NK687725 looks embarrassed by your bluntness.

Head reeling, he responds. “Officer KD6-3.7.”

“That’s not a name. You’re one of them, then.” It’s not a question. Disgust colors your voice. That, at least, is familiar.

“Easy,” John Gradus mummers to you. He reaches over to pat you on the sleeved arm with his pale hand.

K marks the difference between this model and Morton. Where the farmer had been a combat model, it looks like Gradus was meant for another line of work altogether. He is delicate in the places where the other had been robust. K decides that he is likely an old pleasure model. A doxie, perhaps, or meant to be a private client’s pet. He can be easily overpowered in either case.

“Why are you here, Officer?” the other replicant asks, addressing him. There’s a resigned look in his eyes. K’s presence here is no mystery.

“I was sent to follow up on reports on a… rouge serial number. My betters needed reassurance.”

“You’re going to take me in? I’m afraid I don’t have much left to offer.”

“If you’re willing, I will gladly do that rather than the alternative,” K responds. Maybe today, he’ll catch a break.

“He hasn’t done anything wrong!” you cut in, rising to your feet.

K ignores the twinge he feels in his chest. “He ran.”

“So? Why don’t you?”

Left without an answer he is willing to articulate, he doesn’t respond to your question. Loyalty runs too deep when there is no one else to be loyal to but his madam. The thought of running is incomprehensible. There is nothing out there for him but the LAPD. He’d become what he hunts.

He observes quietly as Gradus manages to coax you back into your seat. Reluctance and anger are painted all over your face in broad strokes. The freedom of your expressions reminds him of Joi.

The officer’s eyes flick to the tea cooling on the table. It’s a different color than coffee, differing scent as well. A faint steam trail rises off of it. He tries to focus his attention on it rather than the strange sensation tucked behind his ribs. Distantly, he wonders if he is having a heart attack. Can his kind even have them or was their DNA too tampered with during the growth process to allow for such a thing?

“What kind is it?” he asks, abrupt.

John Gradus smiles over your disbelieving scoff, seemingly delighted at the conversation change. “Green. I grow it myself right here. Please, have a taste. We do not have any sweeteners, but I have grown to like it without additives.”

Extending his hand out to pick up the cup, his mind drifts. Why do all replicants seem to have a desire to create, to put their own mark on the world? It’s an all too human behavior for beings without souls.

The teacup is dwarfed in his grip. A bit too much pressure and he fears the entire thing might turn to wet chalk in his palm. He hovers it underneath his nose, inhales. There’s a crisp scent to it, something fresh. He presses his lips to the edge of the cup and sucks in a mouthful. Involuntarily, his eyes slip closed as the mellow flavor rolls over his tongue.

“Good, isn’t it?” the other replicant says gently. K opens his eyes and carefully places the cup back on its saucer. His side tingles underneath his gun holder, like its burning a hole into his flesh. It’s a reminder that he’s here for something other than a social call.

Reluctantly, he reaches into a pocket and pulls out his field scanner. K looks regretfully at the pair seated across from him. If he could walk away, he would.

“If you could look up and to the left for me, Mister Gradus…” he says, getting to his feet.

You surprise him by also lunging to your feet and moving to stand between him and the still-seated replicant. “Leave my friend alone. Please.”

“I can’t do that. I’m sorry,” K tries to move around you, but you put your hands against the wide expanse of his chest and try to push him back. Heat radiates from your palms, soaking through the threadbare material of his shirt. He doesn’t do anything more than sway from the sudden pressure. The strange feeling in his chest is worse. Why would you protect the thing sitting behind you? He was taught that all replicants are disposable, meaningless in the eyes of organics.

You must be the sentimental one, he realizes. You can’t bare to let go of broken things.

“Just tell your boss or whoever sent you that you couldn’t find us.”

“I can’t lie. I have orders.” K tries to sidestep you. “Please stand aside.”

You don’t listen. Instead, you continue to block him by crowding into his space. He finally catches you with a hand on your upper arm. Applying just enough force, he makes it to where you have to step aside to relieve the pressure.

“Officer, please,” the other replicant speaks, finally rising from his chair after setting down his own teacup, “You have my full cooperation if you do not—”

Gradus’s words get cut off at your sudden explosion of violence. K feels you sock him in the face with all the strength you can muster. Stars explode across his vision. A tall, white fountain looms into his mind’s eye, beckoning him closer. He staggers but recovers quickly. Moving faster than the older model behind you, he clamps his hand around your wrists before the ‘8 can do more than take a shocked step forward.

You fight his hold, struggling like an animal caught in a trap. He clenches his fingers down just enough to keep you captive.

“Please stop,” he requests of you.

“Let go of me!” you snarl in return.

This visit is escalating fast, too fast. K has no precedent for this. In every other retirement case he’s been involved with, the organics have steered clear of the situation. They never interfere, instinctively knowing better than to get between two replicants. You can’t insert yourself into a dog fight without risking getting bit in the frenzy. Already, he can almost feel your more delicate skin bruising in his grip. You’re fighting him hard despite gaining no ground.

“I’m going to need you to let go of my friend now, Officer.”

In the altercation, K had made the mistake of diverting his attention from the real threat to you. He’s chagrined to find that the other replicant has chosen to level a gun at him. It had been retrieved from its place inside a basket between the two chairs judging by the tangled mess of synthetic yarn draped cross the edges of the plastic.

Gradus is turning out to have a harder edge to him than the ‘9 had anticipated. It looks like you’re the breaking point of the wanted replicant’s amiableness. K releases his hold on you and puts both hands up before taking a step back in a show of placation. The eye scanner is still in his left hand.

“If you could put the weapon on the table,” the officer says with a nod to the surface not far from his knees.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Gradus says apologetically, still pointing the gun at him.

“We all know I can’t do that no matter how much I want to… Direct orders.”

Sighing, the other replicant lowers the weapon in surrender but doesn’t set it aside. It’s still enough slack that K feels comfortable enough to step around you. It’s a mistake.

The instant you aren’t unintentionally shielding him from your friend, K sees movement. Gradus raises the firearm in a quick, decisive motion. K responds instinctively. His fingers leap for the gun holstered against his ribs.

With a deafening pop, the bullet blows a hole in the older model’s shoulder. John Gradus falls, gasping, to his knees. K watches, mentally disconnecting from the scene unfolding in front of him as the injured replicant claws at the wound soaking the carpet with each beat of his heart. K feels your absence in a way that is not dissimilar to a limb being severed when you leave his side and throw yourself at Gradus.

Strange. He doesn’t know you, doesn’t even know your name, and yet he is experiencing loss.

Forcefully dispassionate, he watches as you ease your friend onto his back to get better access to the wound. You pull your jacket off, desperately attempting to stanch the flow of blood by shoving the material against the hole until your knuckles pale from the pressure. There is already crimson smeared across your newly bare arms.

Officer K crosses the floor and crouches next to you. He presses a knee onto Gradus’s side to keep him still for what is coming next. K holds the replicant’s eye open and readies the scanner. He holds steady even when you let go of the wadded up jacket and start to rake at the back of hand he’s using to keep the eyelids apart. Even when you manage to open up cuts in his skin with your nails, he doesn’t react. The gouges you leave behind sting less than your pleading voice.

“Leave him alone. Please, just leave him alone.” You’re sobbing.

Emotions start to bubble up from the soil he has mentally buried them in, he beats them back with a shovel. He retreats into the comforting quiet of numbness until he gets a proper look at your blood-smeared forearm.

A hauntingly familiar mark adorns it. How many hours has he spent looking at the selfsame mark on his own arm? How often has he traced along the lines and let himself dream, just a little, that there really is something real out there for him? He’s even managed to convince himself at times that someone is looking for him because they want him as much as he wants them.

The scanner beeps, flashing green. It slices through his mounting alarm. He manages to spare a glance at it. The number inset into the tissue of Gradus’s eye is a match for the civic number he’d come for, just as he’d known it would be. He hates himself for the necessary evil he is about to preform.

Digging his knee more firmly into his target’s ribs, he extracts a small knife from another pocket in his jacket. He tunes you out. The blade runner accepts the harm you’re trying to inflict on him as penance for his cruelty.

K is as gentle as he can possibly be while he cuts the eye out of the still living replicant. The older model thrashes and struggles underneath him, but is ultimately unable to break free. K had been right about him being easily overpowered.

Trembling, he gets to his feet and moves away from you both. The eye is clasped carefully in his hand, optic nerve dangling freely. With his fingers slick with blood, he finds an evidence bag in one of his pockets and tucks the eye into its new, plastic prison. The bag goes back into the pocket it had come from.

You and Gradus had referred to each other as friends. The way that you’re curled over him, the protective hunch of your shoulders as you tend to him, supports the notion. Replicants were made to be isolated, sank deep in their work. Tyrell and, later, Wallace had engineered them to be the perfect servants. K doesn’t know what to make of this bond.

Before he can leave, there is one other thing left he must confirm or refute even though he already knows the answer. His own memory had supplied it. Grasping the edge of his own sleeve, he pulls it up to expose the mark etched into his cells. He looks from his forearm to yours, eyes following every memorized curve, every line.

They match.

The mouthful of tea he’d just had in what feels like a lifetime ago threatens to expel itself on the thin carpet. He’s found his soulmate. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

K gets to see the moment you realize you register what he’s looking at. Horror blossoms on your face as your mind tries to make sense of what you’re seeing, of what you really are to each other. The emotions running across your face are all caused by him. He feels sick.

“What?” he hears you mumble. It’s a broken little noise.

Stricken by the urge to comfort you, to lay himself on the floor beside Gradus so that you may flay him open, he clenches his hands and takes another step back. You’re looking up at him like he might attack again. The cut on the back of his hand weeps, doing what he cannot.

He isn’t going to hurt you and yours any further. K had already decided that the moment he saw your soulmark. It’s a choice born from a newfound sense of selfishness. His loyalty had gained a chip in the smooth surface of it, like the teacup you had placed in front of him. He is going to lie to his madam. As proof of a job complete, he’ll bring the stolen eye back to the precinct. If the other replicant survives the trauma inflicted on him, he will be continue to be free. He can go through his life without looking over his shoulder quite so often.

As if summoned by his thoughts, a cellular device starts chiming in his pocket. His madam. No one else would call him. The officer withdraws the device and presses the button to accept the call.

Lieutenant Joshi’s voice is tinny and crackling through the speaker. She doesn’t waste a breath on pleasantries. “Your dig came through. Get down here. Leave whatever you’re working on.”

The unit trills when she hangs up. He put the phone back into his pants pocket.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He means it, perhaps more than anything else he’s said since his inception.

Understandably, you don’t say anything in response to him. Instead, you try to stand despite your legs being too shaky to manage it easily on your own. Before he can show restraint, employ any measure of sense, he bridges the distance between the two of you. K offers you his hand. He’s stunned when you actually take it. Yours fits against his own, palm to palm, as though he was made for you. In a way, K supposes, he was.

There is a breathless moment where the two of you simply stand together hand in hand, eyes peering into the other’s. He wants to shift his hold. He wants to interlink his fingers with yours. Just as he is on the cusp of fulfilling that desire, you wrench your hand free of his and that’s when K knows his time here is up.

Gathering himself just enough, he puts his back to you. The door seems miles away as he starts walking towards it.

“Hey.” There is a flinty quality to your voice.

He pauses and looks back towards you. K is unsurprised to see that you’ve picked up Gradus’s discarded firearm and are now pointing it at him. He wishes that you weren’t shaking so much. He pivots to fully face you, keeping his hands at his sides. The least he can do for you is hold still so that you can line up the shot.

The conviction bleeds out of your face and your arm lowers. The gun falls to the floor at your feet with a heavy thud. At the back of his throat, he tastes the bitterness of disappointment.

K exits the apartment unit. Every step feels wrong. He wants to fight the order. He wants to turn around. The officer wants to offer something, anything, that could make this right. He wishes he could undo the blood pooled on the carpet, but he can’t do anything at all but obey. Free will doesn’t exist for him. His madam has called him in, and for now, he belongs to her no matter what the flesh might claim.

───※ ·❆· ※───

In the morgue, K doesn’t find himself to be any more stable. Joshi had called him in to make use of his intuition and rapid processing ability, but he feels numb. His thoughts keep wandering to you.

He’s barely aware of Nandez talking to him as he idly traces a thumb over his jacket where it lays draped over his arm. He thinks the material had been a more vibrant green once, before he had acquired it from an ‘8 who had, in turn, lifted it off a ‘7.

“Your box is a military footlocker issued to Sapper Morton, creatively repurposed as an ossuary. Box of bones. Meticulously cleaned and laid to rest about 30 years gone. Nothing else in it but hair. She’s pre-Blackout so DeNAbase doesn’t give an ID.”

K manages a nod. He doesn’t bother speaking.

“It was she, plus one,” Joshi says as if it were a shocking revelation. It’s not. From his understanding, organics often manage to reproduce.

Pregnancy, death, panning shots over the dead woman’s bones… His soulmark burns like a phantom brand. The fire feels like it’s spreading to his brain. He’s going under in a cloud of embers. Bits of conversation drift around him. They’re as untouchable as the pretend wife waiting at home for him.

Struggling to gain focus, he drags his intuition up from where it lies dormant and cooling. Coco is leading the forensic discovery today, a small relief. The tech zooms in too far and K gets a flash of scrapes along bone. Man-made alterations.

“Go back. Closer. Closer. That. What’s that?” It’s time he’s spoken since being recalled to the precinct. The three organics eye in him surprise.

“Notching on the iliac crest. Fine point, like a scalpel. Looks like an emergency c-section... Cuts are clean. No sign of struggle,” Coco reports.

K thinks for a moment, mulling over the information. “He was a combat medic. Maybe he tried to save her but just couldn't.”

His words cause the others to debate. They do it with little regard of what he is.

“He didn’t seem like the saving type.” Nandez sneers.

“He took the time to bury her. A sentimental skinjob…” Coco muses, but freezes, stricken “Sorry, K,” he adds.

K shrugs off the apology. He has long since been pushed past any feelings over any slights that come his way. It had been a necessary thing in order to survive here.

“Didn’t seem like the daddy type either. So where’s the kid? You scan the whole field?” Joshi says, knowing very well that replicants are sterile.

“Just dirt and worms. No other bodies.” Nandez’s response is immediate.

“Maybe he ate it.” Coco says, more serious than he should be.

Something flares, white hot, in K’s chest. He has never had a proclivity to anger. The vicious tone to his words surprises even him. “Or maybe he loved her. Maybe he took care of the kid like it was his, at least for a while.”

The silence is deafening. Three pairs of incredulous eyes stare at him. Then Joshi speaks, cutting through the silence punctuated only by K’s harsh breathing. She sounds like she’s talking to a very small child. “But your kind doesn’t love.”

“Oh, he definitely ate it,” Nandez follows up, barely able to get the words out before he starts laughing. Coco joins him.

K bows his head, thoroughly chastised. He only just keeps from curling in on himself.

His madam sighs. “Finish up here, boys. K, with me.”

Unsure of what to expect, he follows the woman to the elevator. He presses himself into the corner during the ride up to her office, unease biting at his bones. The confined space has only been a breeding ground for trouble. Having learned a few hard lessons, he takes the stairs these days unless he is with Joshi.

The lieutenant leads him through the bullpen once they get off the elevator. Nobody pays them any attention. Eyes automatically advert from his madam. When they get to her office, she leaves him to close the door behind them. Upon turning to face her, he finds that she has already seated herself behind her desk and is in the midst of pouring herself a drink.

K waits, face turned submissively down at the floor. He doesn’t fidget.

“The world’s built on a wall that separates kind. Tell either side there’s no wall and you’ve bought a war or a slaughter. Your kind is incapable of love. That’s a trait only given to humans. So whatever notion you have in your head about the skinjob and the woman, you leave that behind.” Her tone is lecturing. It leaves no room for argument, not that he would even dare dream of it. Whatever his madam says to him is the law that he must obey.

“Yes, Madam.”

“What isn’t possible can’t be.”

“Yes, Madam,” he says again.

With a sigh, she sits back in her chair. Her eyes trace over his body, appraising. His breath catches in his throat before he forces his nervous system to relax. The only sign of his discomfort is the clenching of his hand at his side.

Lieutenant Joshi’s mouth pinches. Her face takes on a harried look. With a decisive thunk, she sets the glass tumbler down on her desk. It has been emptied for the first of what is likely to be many times.

“Go home. Get your head on straight. I don’t need you wanting retirement.”

“Yes, Madam,” K agrees.

Any relief he feels as being allowed to leave is cut short when she stops him. “Hey.”

He pauses, letting that be the acknowledgment that he’s heard her. The officer waits like the obedient dog he was made to be.

“You’re getting on fine without it.”

He feels his eyebrow twitch upwards in question. “What’s that, Madam?”

“Love.”

───※ ·❆· ※───

It’s late. The sun sat below the sprawling expanse of buildings hours ago, leaving K to sit in the dark room with only his thoughts and his DiJi for company. While he looks out the window at the other apartment building across the street, at the wall of lives stored in little boxes, he feels more hopeless than usual. The mark on his forearm feels like a slap in the face.

What use is a miracle if it only serves to remind him of his failures? It is a monument to what he destroyed without even knowing what it was he was about to rip apart.

He stands up from the purple chair and takes a few stumbling steps over to the built-in table to pour himself another too-full glass of whiskey. The bottle he had opened after getting off work tonight is already more than half gone. K doesn’t know why he’s even bothering to pour it into a glass other than to occupy his hands. He might as well drink straight from the bottle for efficiency.

With the glass in hand, liquid nearly sloshing over the edges, he goes to where his coat his hanging by the door. He swallows down another mouthful of alcohol while he reaches into one of the pockets. He takes out the small knife he uses for extracting eyes on retirement cases. K figures he should have just given you the blade and let you take his instead.

“K, what are you doing?” Joi asks, tone colored with apprehension.

She is lingering by the window, nervously shifting her nonexistent weight. The replicant ignores her. He’s been doing that a lot lately. Something has changed in him.

Crossing the room again, he takes a seat on the couch. K sets his glass on the side table. Stray drops of whiskey escape over the lip of it at the careless motion. They soak into the paper of his book, his most prized possession. It doesn’t matter. Joshi already soiled it months ago with her own glass, not dissimilar to how she has with him.

Tightening his grip around the knife, he looks down contemplatively at his right forearm. He is not wearing a long sleeved shirt this evening. Maybe he should have been.

Joi starts to plead with him the instant she realizes what he’s about to do. He manages to block her voice out and sinks the blade into his skin, just below the soulmark. The metal works its way through flesh and meat until the fine tip of it scrapes against his radius. It burns as he drags it sideways, up and to the left. Blood wells up from the wound and starts dripping freely onto his pant leg. It soaks into the material.

K has decided that he is undeserving of the fragment of soul he was given at inception. The mark must be removed. Perhaps with it no longer on his body, its twin will appear on someone else. You can have a better soulmate, and he will just be another serial number. Unremarkable in every way.

Delicate hands flicker and clip through his, grasping futilely at the knife. Joi has thrown herself to her knees in front of him and is trying to stop him. Projected tears are falling from her eyes in shimmering droplets. He follows the steady flow of them to her face and realizes that he is scaring her. In her distraught expression, he can only see your agonized face as you sob over the replicant he put a bullet into just days before. Her hands are yours in the way that they attempt to pull at his, to put a stop to the damage he’s inflicting. The comparison stops him cold. He can’t do this to Joi. Even if their relationship together is an elaborate game of pretend, he can’t make someone else feel the way he made you feel.

Smothering the emotions inside of him like a flawed replicant straight from the artificial womb, he wiggles the knife back and forth to free it from his body. He sets the blade aside on the coffee table and retreats to the bathroom. Joi is unable to follow him. She is stuck to the hardline as if on a leash. He never got her anniversary present.

Away from Joi’s worried eyes, he washes the injury in the cramped bathroom sink. Water spills out over the sides and splashes onto the floor in swirls of pale pink on the tile. It makes its way lazily to the drain in the middle of the room. He will scrub the traces of his blood out of the grout later, when he has had a moment to distance himself from everything he shouldn’t be feeling.

Feeling unsteady, K finds the platelet jelly and sets to gluing the self-inflicted wound shut.

If he pinches the sides of it together harder than what is necessary, that’s only for him to know. The bite of pain is enough to ground him in reality. It clears away some of the drunken fog.

Closer to baseline than he was, K rejoins his distressed “wife” in the main room. She rushes at him and he draws her against him as much as a living being can do with a hologram.

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry,” he soothes while she sobs nonexistent tears against his chest.

The replicant can’t help but wish that she were someone else. He wonders if his role and that of Gradus had been reversed, would you have tried to protect him? What would it be like to have someone care enough to try?

───※ ·❆· ※───

After that night where he had made an earnest attempt to remove his soulmark, he shuts himself off from Joi. He barely responds to her these days. He can hardly stomach interacting with anyone at all. Still, he does not turn off the DiJi. She is left to do wander around the room and do whatever her algorithm wishes. There is a strange sort of comfort in not feeling completely alone, even if the company isn’t actually there. He isn’t real in any meaningful way either.

His evenings become routine in their spiral. He sits, he smokes, he drinks, and he very rarely sleeps in the hours before his alarm chimes. You haunt the moments of rest he is able to get. He hears your voice in the throats of a thousand others. He sees your anguished face with every blink of his eyes.

K wishes he knew even just your name. He has nothing tangible of that day in 405. Perhaps it was just a dream, a terrible nightmare that has bled into the waking world.

He has to stop eating the synthetic meat he gets for his dinners. The artificial bloodiness of it transports him back to the moment he saw your soulmark covered with the gore caused by his mistake. He should have overridden instinct. He should have done something, anything, differently.

K nearly stops eating all together. His body is slowly wasting away, eating at his muscles. He’s taken to wearing more layers to offset the loss. No one comments at the change.

───※ ·❆· ※───

If only so you can put him down, he tries to find you. The opportunity for him to dig for information comes when he’s put on a case with Nandez. The detective leaves K alone promptly at the end of second shift. The replicant is not sad to see him go. Even at the best of times, Nandez is at his throat despite not having the authority to demand anything from him. K sincerely hopes that the man never gets a promotion.

With Nandez gone, K pulls up the property records for the apartment building he found you at and starts searching. There is nothing substantial, certainly nothing for an additional occupant in the unit rented by John Gradus. No co-signer, no lease agreement, no roommate paperwork. It’s a dead end.

Frustrated, he gets out of his chair and paces. K knows full he can’t risk diving too deep into the systems. Doing so might draw attention to his extracurricular activities. His madam would want answers, and not the ones he is willing to provide. She can’t know of your existence. Joshi was very clear about the boundaries between kind. Without question, he would find a way to retire himself if given the order to harm you.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Squinting his eyes against the feeble sunlight managing to stream into his window, he registers that Joi is looking at him. Her face carries the same serious expression that it has for the past few weeks. He feels a distant pang of guilt at being the cause of it.

She’s projected herself to be laying beside him on the thin mattress. In the dreamlike quality of the light, she looks almost tangible like this. Touchable. These small moments are why he never bothered with blinds or curtains.

“Tell me about your soulmate,” she says. He realizes that she’s emulated his mark into her hologram skin.

“There’s not much to tell.” His voice is thick with sleep.

“Tell me anyway.”

At that, he closes his eyes and summons his memory of you. With each detail he recounts aloud about your appearance, Joi alters herself. She replicates your accent, your hair, your eye color. When he opens his eyes, he finds himself looking at a pale imitation. It’s almost closer to a mockery than anything else. The morning light can’t make it real. Nothing could.

Tenderly, his DiJi reaches out and tries to press her fake mark against his in the way he’d always hoped his soulmate would when they found each other. He lets her, numb. It doesn’t feel like anything more than the faint static tingle of her projection. She clips through him.

“A special boy needs a name, a real name.” she prompts, mulling the thought over.

“Don’t,” he interrupts, softly. He doesn’t want Joi to name him. She’s not what he really wants. If anyone were to give him a name, it should be you.

With a flash of hurt on her face, she pulls away. The attempt at a loving game of pretend like they used to play is over. There is not likely to be another one.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Carefully, he tears out the title page of his book. K does not have any other paper. This will have to do. With the same marker the replicant used in his spinner to label the bag containing Gradus’s eye, he writes on the alcohol-warped page.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Officer K folds the paper and tucks it into his badge holder for safekeeping. He has a premonition that this day will end with him staring into the lens of a camera like the barrel of a gun while one of the precinct’s baseline administers hammers him with questions asked forcefully enough they might as well be physical blows.

Pushing through the crowd on the stairs, he doesn’t register the turmoil around him. He breaks free once he’s out the front door. The walk to the garage seems to pass in the blink in the eye and feels like only heartbeats pass before he’s in the work-provided spinner and on the way to the apartment building he’d been to a lifetime ago.

He puts the spinner down curbside out in front of a struggling noodle place. K doesn’t want to be parked too close to his objective. If someone comes sniffing around after him for going off-map, he doesn’t want it to be immediately obvious where he’s going.

As they had been the last time he’d been here, the streets are empty. They’re marked with obvious signs of nightlife. It all but confirms what he had suspected when doing the flyover. Graffiti and broken class litter the sidewalks in front of the row of businesses shuttered for the daytime hours. The neon signs are off and the blinds closed.

The apartment building looks the same as it had last time. Despite his own world being shaken to the very foundations, the structure he is entering looks unstricken by revelation. Retracing his footsteps, he ascends to the fourth four and finds the unit. The doormat he’d not bothered to acknowledge before is still out front.

With his pulse pounding in his ears, he raises his hand and knocks. He waits for the telltale sign of life behind the barrier. Nothing. Concern prickles at his mind, and he knocks again only to get no response. For just a moment, he thinks about just sliding the paper under the door but on a whim, he tries the knob. It turns easily in his grasp. It was left unlocked.

“Hello?” K calls out as he steps across the threshold.

Silence greets him in return.

From what the officer can discern upon casting a searching look at his surroundings, little has changed. The furniture is where it had been on the day of his visit. He is not sure if any of the personal effects have been disturbed. They had not been near the top of his priority list at the time.

A loud ringing noise shatters the peace and he startles, nearly hitting his elbow on the wall. It’s his phone. His madam must have checked on his tracker code and realized that he isn’t anywhere a good boy might be found under normal circumstances. He lets it ring through unanswered. His countdown has started.

Reluctantly, he continues his investigation and looks at the place where he had dropped Gradus. The blood stain he’d left behind is a mere, blush colored mark on the carpet. Someone, probably you, had tried to scrub away the evidence. The basket of yarn that had contained the gun has been righted and moved to a place between the couch and the blind-covered window.

Showing some level of restraint, he resists the urge to wander into the bedrooms. There are two of them. A glance through the doorways reveals that each has a bed. You and the ‘8 must not sleep in the same room. Instead of trying to puzzle out which might contain your possessions, he moves into the kitchen.

There is moisture in the sink. Someone has been here recently. The apartment had not been abandoned in his absence.

The water in the basin reminds him that Gradus had asked you to bring tea to them. Could it be your usual chore? The thought sparks an idea, and he pulls his badge from his pocket and extracts the folded piece of paper. He leaves it on the counter as his phone rings for a second time. Ignoring the repetitive trill, he picks up a pen from the coffee table and returns to the kitchen to unfold the page he’d torn from the book.

Again, his phone goes off, barely a pause between the attempts at reaching him. The timer is running out moment by moment.

Underneath the words he wrote at his apartment, K presses the nib of the pen against the paper and takes a breath. In careful writing, he adds to them.

Do you feel that there's a part of you that's missing?

What's it like to hold the hand of someone you love?

Immediately, he wants to erase the words. With the feeling that he’s making another mistake when it comes to you, K refolds the sheet of paper and tucks it partially under the kettle resting on the counter. He wishes that he knew your name so that he could write it on the paper. Even without it, it’s clear enough who the message is for. Gradus hadn’t been the one with who shared his soulmark.

With an air of finality to it, the device in his pocket rings a fourth time. It’s his cue to leave. Spurred into haste, he puts the pen back where he’d found it and takes a final glance around, still curious about which decorative choices were yours.

He leaves the apartment, making sure to close the door securely behind him. The replicant all but sprints down the stairs in the effort to create distance between himself and the apartment unit. He narrowly manages to keep his pace limited to a brisk walk on the way back to the noodle restaurant. Just as he’s reaching for the lock on his spinner’s door, he hears a low roar rapidly approaching.

Looking up, he sees a police issued vehicle pull into a stop. It begins its decent as a voice projects over the loudspeaker. “Officer K D6-3.7. We’re taking you in on failure to report.”

K puts his hands up and automatically lowers himself to his knees. Acutely, he’s aware of what will happen if he doesn’t perfectly comply. LAPD beat cops are trigger-happy organics and ready to spray and pray at anything that so much as breathes wrong in their direction. He has never respected them, never been given cause to in all his dealings with them.

A cop gets out, leaving another behind the wheel, as soon as the spinner lands. In short order, K finds himself handcuffed and made a passenger in his own provided spinner. The organic makes a stab at ruffling his nerves on the way back to the precinct.

“Lieutenant’s real mad at you for taking off like that.”

K offers nothing in response.

“What the fuck were you doing all the way out here, skinner?”

He shrugs in his restraints, chooses how to interpret the question. “Noodles.”

The officer whistles, pitchy and uneven. “Oooh, she’s going to string you up.”

K is aware. He knew the cost for his apology when he set out today. He had also decided it was worth the fallout.

───※ ·❆· ※───

The stool that Officer K is sitting on is uncomfortable—a hard, impersonal thing meant to be hosed off as needed. It’s the same as the rest of this room bathed in the sterile light of humming florescent bar. Underneath the copper burn of blood is an antiseptic tang. The baseline testing room is everything but a slaughterhouse floor in name. He’d opened his eyes for the very first time in a room like this.

Ringing fills his ears followed by the whir and click of the wall-mounted camera in front of him. A disembodied voice reads off his serial number and informs him that the test has begun.

Responses leave the replicant’s throat through as though someone else is speaking through him. He’s calm, retreated so far into himself that any residual fire inside of him has been snuffed out. He feels cold. The joints in his fingers ache with the sensation. He doesn’t dare to flex them or to rub at his chafed wrists.

The cops that had been sent to fetch him had removed the handcuffs as soon as he’d been delivered to the testing room. One of them in particular had found great amusement in hauling him through the precinct by the narrow chain like a dog catcher with an animal on the end of their pole.

Finally, the pounding against the walls of his mind stops. The interrogation is over. The camera powers down and the examiner sighs, hard, almost disappointed.

“You’re free to go, Officer. Your lieutenant will see you in her office.”

K rises, stiff, eyes unseeing. He barely registers the activity of the precinct around him as he traverses the hallway and climbs the stairs in clear avoidance of the elevator once again. He feels trapped enough in his own head without the physical captivity of being in a little box.

Low murmurs roll against him akin to the waves against the seawall when he crosses the bullpen and knocks on Joshi’s door after reaching the floor housing her office. She calls him in immediately. Her tone is like an angry wasp. It provides a sting that jolts everything back into sharp relief.

She barely waits until he closes the door behind himself. “The hell is with you?”

Years of experience have taught him to let his madam work through her anger without input from him. K waits, still and patient, in front of her desk.

“You take off without informing me, you ignore my calls, and then what? We pick you up fucking around in the street outside of some shitty restaurant? What was so important about it that you had to go out there?”

“Apologies, Madam,” he says. Repentance drips from his voice like honey from the comb.

Joshi waits, looking expectant. Her expression shifts to frustration as no more words come. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say to me? Tell me why you were out there.”

It’s a direct order. The instinct to obey pulls at him. He gives in without a fight. “I was following up on the second retirement case. Civic’ NK687725. It was a surprise, Madam. I had hoped it would be a welcome one.”

Like magic, the severely set lines in Joshi’s face soften. She is becoming convinced that he’d meant his… willfulness as a gift, as a credit to her and her management.

“Did you find anything?”

“There was no one there,” he pauses, twists the truth in his own mind, “Hadn’t been for a while. It’s probable I scared them off and they went underground.”

Who is to say what “a while” means? Time is relative.

Joshi lifts a hand and beckons him closer, around the corner of the desk. Eager to avoid more trouble, he instantly follows her direction. She rotates her chair to face him when he comes to a stop within touching distance. He has learned through trial and error to predict exactly where she wants him based on her mannerisms and tone. It has never bode well for him to be wrong.

“Good dog,” the lieutenant says, lightly kicks him in the shin. “Just let me know before you decide to be proactive again.”

“I will, Madam.” He’s glad that she has decided to be lenient today.

“Get on out of here. I don’t need the distraction.”

“Goodbye, Madam.” It’s polite and he keeps his pace measured as he leaves. He doesn’t want to seem too eager. It would send the wrong message.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Weeks pass K by without any outward indication that you’ve received the paper he had left behind at your residence. He has made a resigned peace with the idea that your paths may never cross again when he arrives back to his apartment following a day kept late at work doing overtime, again, for Nandez. Following routine and nearly swaying on his feet, he puts his hand on the scanner for the door lock. He opens it just enough to slide through and is greeted in the entryway by Joi for the first time a while. Panic is displayed on her face. Taken aback, he’s about to question her when she speaks first.

“You have a visitor. I didn’t think you would want me to say no,” she whispers.

Frowning, he mulls over the list of potential visitors and only comes up with one idea of who it might be. But, he’d just seen Joshi at the precinct before leaving for the day. She had given him no indication that she would be paying him a visit tonight. In fact, his madam had had him sit down on the other side of her desk to share a drink with her.

It had kept him occupied for the better part of the hour while she got intoxicated enough to insist that he give her a kiss before he leave. She’d failed to push things further by not ordering him to his knees before her or manipulating his hands onto her body. K thinks that she’s grown bored of him, at least for the moment. The thought makes him feel relieved.

Joi touches him on the shoulder, putting an end to his thinking. “Good luck.”

Anticipating, despite the unlikeliness of it, to see his madam, he passes by the DiJi into the main room. K stops in his tracks, stricken dumb. He’d have sooner expected Coco spread out on his couch in nothing but his clear, silicone labcoat and an artificial rose in his mouth than to be staring at you. Somehow, you don’t look as out of place as you should among his sparse possessions.

“How did you find me?” the replicant asks.

“You said your identification number the day you showed up. KD6-3.7.”

It’s strange a strange thing, hearing his “name” come out of your mouth. He doesn’t supply the nickname he’s been given during his time as a blade runner. He’s already pacing on the knife’s edge. This evening could tip him in any direction without forcing any further familiarity.

“You got the note.”

“Yes.” Your tone is matter-of-fact. “You wanted to know if I felt like a part of me is missing.”

He is left waiting for a follow-up that doesn't come. The thought hangs there, uncontinued. In the quiet of the room, K shrugs off his jacket and goes to hang it on the hook by the front door. He unholsters his gun and puts it on a nearby shelf. No matter how things go, he will not be using it on you.

Before he faces you again, K approaches the controls for the hardline crossing the ceiling. When he casts a look at Joi with his finger hovering over the power button, she looks at peace. She gives him an encouraging shooing motion of her hand. He turns her off for the first time in months. You and K will not have any outside distraction.

“He lived, by the way.”

K feels a tightness loosen in his chest. “I’m glad.”

“Why? You could have easily made the shot fatal, why didn’t you?”

“Somebody cares about him. He would have been missed.”

“And that matters to you?” You don’t sound judgmental to his ears, only curious.

“Yes. I’m sorry I had to do it.” He swallows hard, voice breaking as he continues. “I didn’t choose this.”

The replicant knows that he is only what he was made to be, nothing more, nothing less. Nature had dictated his obedience. Nurture had molded him into being what the Los Angeles Police’s retirement division had had in mind when he was purchased for their use.

Under the weight of your gaze, he begins to self-soothe by clasping his hands together in front of him and rubbing one thumb over the other. He finds himself relieved from the burden when you shift your attention to your surroundings. He watches, fascinated, as you begin to explore.

Your fingers trail over the box where he stores his cigarettes and the lighter he’d found in the pocket of one of his previous retirement jobs. Moving onward, you pick up his book and flip briefly through the alcohol warped pages. He sees the recognition dart across your features when you find the place where the torn out page had once resided. The care in which you set the volume back down on the table surprises him. His madam had never displayed that level of consideration. Neither had Joi with the projected clone of it.

“These don’t look like yours,” you say. In your hands are Sapper Morton’s glasses, held as if they might break apart in your grasp with so much as a wrong exhale.

“They’re not.”

“Whose are they, then?”

“Sapper Morton. He was a retirement case,” K pauses, hesitates, then quietly adds, “I didn’t want him to be forgotten.”

“Why?” you ask, rolling the word in your mouth like a pearl.

The question makes his skin itch. He stills as though he had just taken a seat for his baseline. The only betraying movement is the continued motion of his thumb atop the other.

“Why?” you repeat, softer this time. There’s something close to tenderness in your voice and that makes him afraid.

“He was more than a serial number.” K admits, feeling the answer clawing its way out of him. “I… they all were.”

“Are you?”

“No.” His response is immediate. Firm.

“Why not?”

Unable to answer, he looks away. Shame laps at him with an overeager tongue. There is a divide between the older models and him. In some ways, Morton was right. The ‘9s are happy scraping the shit because it’s all they have been taught to know.

He’s aware of you setting the glasses back in their resting place on the shelf, but it still surprises him when you cross the small amount of space separating the two of you to stand in front of him. You’re so close to him that he can feel the heat of your body. It makes him want to burn in your fire.

“I do feel like there’s something missing. It’s like there’s an empty space next to me that should be filled by someone, but that someone never comes. It’s the part of the reason I came here. I… wanted to talk to you knowing what we are to each other,” you tell him.

K nods. Words catch in his throat, tumble over one another. In the end, he is unable to utter any of them.

“Will you show it to me?” you ask with a gesture to his covered arm. “I want to be sure.”

With a tremor threatening to shake his body, he slips his fingers under the edge of his shirt sleeve and pulls it up to his elbow. His soulmark is laid bare before your eyes. The wound that he had left in his own skin when he had tried to carve out the design has faded to a raised, pale line.

“That wasn’t there before,” you murmur, taking his forearm in your hands. Your pointer finger traces over the scar.

His breath catches at your touch. Overwhelmed, he has to close his eyelids against the moisture welling up in his eyes. He opens them again when the pressure of your hands leaves and sees you taking off your own coat to toss it over the back of his chair. The replicant barely has a moment of respite before your left hand resumes its position cupping the underbelly of his forearm. You keep him steady as you raise your right arm and nestle it alongside his to place the soulmarks side by side.

K’s eyes hadn’t been deceived back then. They are perfectly identical.

It’s more than he can handle. He curls into himself, instinctively seeking the fetal position. His chin is against his shoulder, face turned away from you. He’s not sure if he’s burning up or drowning.

“Hey… hey.”

Suddenly, your arms are around him. K feels himself being guided in until he’s all but cradled against you as you ease the both of you to floor. He finds himself pressing his face against your neck as you rub a soothing hand up and down his back. For each moment that passes, the replicant grows increasingly more worried that he’s overstaying his welcome, but you don’t push him away. Instead, you gently rock him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, sounding choked even to his own ears.

“I’m sorry too. I misjudged you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pissed, but it wasn’t… I have an understanding of why you did what you did.”

Forcing himself to put some distance between your bodies, K finally pulls away. He doesn’t want to risk being reprimanded for taking too much. Your hands fall into your lap in the void he leaves behind.

There is a part of him that keeps expecting to discover that this is a vivid dream. Will he wake up and be staring at the water-damaged ceiling instead of your face? The hard floor under his knees, the chill of it creeping through the fabric and trying to find a home against his skin, seems to signal otherwise.

“Please don’t apologize. What I did was unforgivable.”

“John’s not mad at you, you know?” The words come as a surprise. He searches your eyes for a joke only to see sincerity reflected back at him. “He said you probably extended his life a few years by taking his eye and turning it in. Nobody’s gonna come looking for a dead man.”

“He’s not on our radar anymore. His file has been greyed out,” he says, getting to his feet.

Automatically, he reaches down to offer you his hand. It’s a mirror of your last interaction. He can tell by your expression that you are reliving the same memory as he. Still, you once again take his hand without hesitation. You hold it for just a moment before letting go. He doesn't think he imagined the reluctance.

“I don’t want to take up too much of your time, Officer. I don’t want to intrude,” you say, turning to pick up your coat from where you had left it.

“Please. Stay,” he bursts out. The feeling of imminent loss batters at the walls of his chest, “unless…”

“Okay.”

He blinks, not expecting the ease in which you had agreed. He’s left cycling through various scripts in the effort to find something to say. Latching onto a familiar interaction with Joi, he asks, “Do you want coffee?”

“Sure, I’d take some.”

K finds himself with you in his narrow kitchen. He heats the water while you take down two mugs and locate the instant coffee grounds after some direction from him. It’s domestic in a way that he was never able to have with Joi. With her, he didn’t need to worry about knocking elbows together or pressing her into the cabinetry while trying to reach for a pot holder.

Once the hot water is ready and split between the two mugs and stirred together, the two of you take seats on the couch. Between sips, conversation flows, a trickle at first and then a flood. You talk for hours, long after your mugs are drained and sat aside.

Following the natural progression of all things, the words begin to slow as tiredness sets in. Pauses between sentences lengthen like shadows. At seeing your eyes between to flutter shut, K rouses himself out of his own comfortable stupor.

“I’ll take the couch if you want to sleep in my bed tonight,” the replicant offers. He’s relaxed, at ease in a way he’s not sure he’s ever been. You’ve changed him.

The effort that it takes for you to keep your eyelids open as you think over his stab at hospitality only endears to you him further. Finally, you shrug and smother a yawn. “I’ll take you up on that. I don’t think I need to be behind the wheel like this.”

While you pull out your phone and send a message to your roommate to let him know your plans, K gets up and crosses the room to fold down the bed. He opens a nearby drawer and pulls out the pillow and blanket to put on the mattress. With a helpless twinge sigh, he surveys the setup. It’s not the lap of luxury, he knows, but he hopes it will be sufficient.

“All yours.”

“Thank you, K.” The light press of your fingers against his soulmark warms him almost as much as the use of his nickname. You had slipped into using it when he had admitted his preference for it over his job title or serial number in at some point in the previous hours.

He nods, a shy dip of his head and lets you slide under the blankets. After fetching his jacket off the hook to use as a blanket, he turns off the lights and lays down on the couch. Sleep comes to him almost immediately. It’s dreamless.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Morning comes to him with the shrill chiming of his alarm. Fumbling for his handheld, K silences it and lays still for a moment, staring up at the ceiling. The replicant fell asleep on the couch again. He knows that he has been doing that more often than he should. Too much alcohol and flipping through the pages of his book time and time again on the hunt for any new meaning that he can gleam from the words he knows by heart have contributed to this being a regular occurrence.

With a stiff back, he sits up and swings his legs to place his feet on the floor. He freezes right on the cusp of standing up. There is a body tucked into his bed and it’s not Joshi. Yesterday evening hadn’t been a whiskey soaked dream brought on by too much wishful thinking. It had been real.

K knows he needs to get ready to go to the precinct and pushes himself through his morning routine accordingly no matter how much he would prefer to wait at your side to resume the domesticity the two of you had begun to forge. By the time he’s out of the shower and dressed, you’ve gotten up and put the bed back in its stored away position. The bedding is neatly folded and set on a shelf with the pillow.

With his hair still damp, he observes you for a moment from the kitchen. You’re tracing the faded letters and numbers on the back of his jacket with a finger, clearly trying to decipher the characters.

“N7H00105,” he supplies, sparing your eyes.

Amusement causes the corners of his mouth to rise into a smile as you turn to him with an incredulous look. “How did you…? It’s so faded.”

“It was easier to read when I acquired it.”

“Another one of your job finds?” you ask, offering him the jacket when he approaches.

“Yes.”

While he’s pulling the comforting weight of the garment over his shoulders, he tracks you with his eyes as you step into your shoes and tie the laces. You haven’t put your coat on yet, leaving your arms bare. There is a moment of silence, the two of you regarding one another. He does not want to be the first one to make the gesture to leave and, it seems, neither do you.

Your teeth are worrying your bottom lip. He wonders what you’re thinking about, but in the clear light of day, he finds himself unable to ask. The sun has burned away some of the ease of last night.

Finally, you speak. “If you had the option, would you leave all of this behind?”

He blinks, uncomprehending. “What?”

“Your job. Your life here… Would you leave it behind?”

“I… I don’t have anything else.” His words are uncertain, shaky.

“What if I’m offering you something else?”

“My kind doesn’t run.”

“It’s not running, K. It’s living.”

Rattled by the conviction in your voice, he sits down on the couch. His chest feels tight as barely defined images of things he’d hardly dared to dream of race through his mind. The enormity of what you’re suggesting is all but unimaginable. He has been loyal to his madam’s cause since the day he was incepted. There could be no deeper betrayal than slipping free of his tether.

The sensation of your hand on his shoulder jolts him back into the present moment. He meets your concerned eyes for a heartbeat before he has to look away.

“You don’t have to decide right now. You can think on it.”

“Saturday. I’ll be ready on Saturday,” he chokes out. His heart is pounding in his throat. He knows he cannot risk sitting through another baseline in the wake of this. He will fail.

“You’re sure? You won’t be able to come back here.”

“Yes.” Recklessly—impulsively—he has made up his mind.

───※ ·❆· ※───

The Saturday of his departure dawns like any other. The sunlight peering into the apartment’s only window would make K’s morning wholly unremarkable in its routine if his surroundings hadn’t been wiped clean of any personal possessions but a select few items that he is leaving behind for his madam to repossess. His entire world had fit into one furtively purchased duffel bag.

His nerves are alight with restlessness as he waits for you to arrive. The replicant had spent a few fitful hours laying on his mattress before rising ahead of the sun to ensure his readiness for the life ahead. As part of his preparations, he finally purchased Joi’s anniversary present. An emanator. He had transferred her to it after yesterday’s shift at the precinct. She had been joyous, nearly overflowing with excitement for him when he had explained the situation to her. He had cautiously let himself share his own tentative optimism.

At the DiJi’s suggestion, he had snapped the emanator’s small antenna after deleting her save file from the main console. The risk of being tracked or leaving behind damning information was too great to allow for cloud backup. Despite his own trepidation, Joi had insisted the risk of her being able to die like a real girl was worth K’s freedom.

A firm knock against the door alerts the Nexus 9 of your arrival. With haste, he moves through the entryway to open the door for you. Both of you wait until it’s securely closed before you greet each other.

“Good morning,” you tell him.

K is just opening his mouth to respond in kind when you surprise him with a hug. The replicant wraps his arms around you, careful to not apply too much pressure. It’s a novel thing, getting to hold someone like this. Reluctantly, he lets his hold on you loosen after a short moment. He knows there is work to still be done. A final step in the plan.

Without you needing to ask him, he gestures to the table in front of the window. The supplies for the task ahead are already laid out on the surface. He strips off his shirt and sits backwards in the chair as best as he can while avoiding the armrests. K closes his eyes and tries to relax.

“I almost thought you might not come back,” he admits.

He hears the snap of disposable gloves against your wrists followed by the sound of your voice. “You’re my soulmate. The mark on your arm says I’m going to keep coming back for you.”

“Not everyone likes their soulmate,” K says quietly.

There’s the sound of a packet being torn open. He experiences the sensation of a disinfecting wipe passing over the area at the base of his neck. It’s cold against his skin. You focus most of the attention on the column of his spine, right in the center of his middle trapezius.

“True, but I realized the other night that, despite everything, I do like you. Congratulations, you now have me digging a tracking chip out of your back.” Your voice is colored with fondness. It makes him want to smile. How rare. He had kept his positive emotions hidden under cloth as though they were something precious to sequester out of sight.

Hissing against the sting, the tip of K’s eye extraction knife punctures his skin. The sensation of blood trickling from the wound begins shortly after he hears you set the knife on the table and pick up the tweezers. There’s a pinch, a strange pulling sensation, and then he opens his eyes just in time to see you drop the small device on the table alongside the bloodied blade. The tweezers clatter against the laminated surface and your gloved hand snatches up the platelet jelly.

“That was in deep. They nailed you between the vertebrae. John’s was right under the skin.”

“Wallace learned from the tail-end Tyrell models. Mostly what not to do.”

He hears you hum, interested. Packaging crinkles behind his head and he’s aware of you pressing a gauze pad against the sealed wound. Your touch is so gentle as to make him believe you think he is something worth care, that he might even be special.

“Hand me a bit of tape, please?”

Obligingly, he tears off a strip and passes it to you. His bare fingers brush against your gloved ones as you take it from him. You secure the tape in place and pat him on the shoulder. “You’re all done.”

The skin feels tender beneath the bandage. But it is as though his collar has been cut. He puts his shirt back on and layers his jacket over it while you peel the gloves off. To avoid leaving more identifying forensic evidence behind that would point to you as being the accomplice, you flip them inside out and tuck them into a pocket for later disposal.

At your searching look, K nods. He is ready. The replicant picks up his bag and, together, you make your way to the front door. He pauses on the threshold, door open. Your fingers find his and give them a squeeze before he adjusts the angle and interlinks them together. Like this, he can feel your pulse beat in time with his. He feels close to human.

With one final look at the apartment that has been his cell for the past few years, he gives it a silent goodbye and closes the door for the final time. He is free.

───※ ·❆· ※───

On Monday, when Joshi arrives with two organic officers as backup, she finds the apartment stripped of any personal effects. She picks up his discarded phone off the coffee table where he had laid it between his firearm and his badge. The woman throws it against the wall so hard it shatters. Pieces of plastic rain down onto the tile. He hadn’t even left her a note.

If she ever finds him, she is going to put a bullet in him with the gun he left behind. Still, there is a part of her that is grudgingly proud of him for finally biting her hand, taking it off right at the wrist. Her replicant was a lot of things—obedient, kind—but never a coward. He better have a good life while he can. She’s going to place a purchase order for his replacement the moment she gets behind her desk.

Do not repost, copy, or reproduce my work to other sites or in other media formats. Do not use it for anything to do with AI. Thank you.

#blade runner 2049 #br2049 #blade runner 2049 (2017)#officer k #officer k x reader #x reader #blade runner 2049 fanfic #officer k fanfic #ryan gosling fanfiction #ryan gosling x reader #.my fanfics #.my work #.my posts

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xtrokeme · 8 months

Text

i'm taking one-shot requests for ryan gosling and jake gyllenhaal characters x reader if you are interested, i'm not a pro but i want to give it a try !!

ryan gosling's characters i can write:

holland march (the nice guys)*

sebastian wilder (la la land)*

driver (drive)*

sierra six (the gray man)

officer k (blade runner 2049)

henry letham (stay)

jerry wooters (gangster squad)

dean (blue valentine)

jake gyllenhaal's characters i can write:

detective loki (prisoners)*

billy hope (southpaw)

donnie (donnie darko)

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* means that they're my favs

don't hesitate to send a request please !!!

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hederasgarden · 2 years

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Interlinked - Part 2

Summary: Stepping in to help K is instinct, but what comes after is a choice, one that’s easy to make. Pairing: Officer K x F!Reader W/C: 3.9K Rating: Mature, 18+ only. Violence, angst, loss of virginity and sexual situations. A/N: Thank you N and my Gosling discord girls for their help (@sashayazie, @ninjathrowingstork and @elusivewildflower)

Part 1

It starts slow, with dinners here and there and small gifts exchanged. Cakes and sweets for artificial flowers, until soon enough you have a whole arrangement of them in a small vase on your bedside table. Eventually, K’s over almost every night and in time you’re able to coax him into talking more. You learn about his job as a Blade Runner, reading into the things he doesn’t say. It’s a hard job and more often than not he comes home banged up.

Like tonight. K shows up at your door freshly showered with a nasty purpling bruise on his jaw that extends up into his hairline. He lets you touch his cheek and fuss over him, jokingly promising it's worse than it looks. You offer him a frozen bag from your freezer that you kept for such an occasion, which he presses to his face while leaning against the counter to watch you cook. You tell him about your day and catch him watching you with that little half smile he’s taken to wearing around you.

“How was your day?” You ask him once you sit down.

“It was a day,” he replies evenly, pushing around the rice on his plate.

You know then he doesn’t want to talk about it and you switch to discussing a humorous incident today regarding one of the children of your employers. After dinner you split the lone cupcake you were allowed to take home, enjoying how his eyes close and he sighs as he savors the buttercream frosting. The cake itself is a little stale but it’s still sweet and rich on your tongue.

“I never had real sugar before I met you,” he says, licking the wrapper.

“I sneak tastes at work all the time,” you admit, grinning. “Quality control.”

“Just doing your job,” he agrees, leaning back and resting his hands on his stomach.

Joking with you is a recent development and you love it. He always looks so relaxed, almost boyish when he does. Handsome too, another voice reminds you. You shake off the thought and move to take the plates as he follows you into the kitchen. These odd feelings have been happening more and more and you know what they mean, even if you try to ignore them. K is your friend- nothing more. You’re probably the only person who treats him like a human.

You clean up together, conversation stalling though he doesn’t seem bothered by it. At the door you hug goodbye, savoring how tightly he holds you. The first time this happened he’d been so stiff and awkward you were sure you’d crossed some boundary but then, hesitantly, he brought his arms up. His hold was gentle, almost like he was afraid if he squeezed too hard you might disappear. Now it’s routine and more often than not he’s the one to pull you to him. As much you tell yourself it’s for K, you know you need it too. Before him, you could go weeks without touching someone else.

“I hope tomorrow is better,” you say as a goodbye.

He shrugs, one shoulder lifting as he steps into the hallway. Another smile for you and then he turns back to his door. Before he can make it there, one of your other neighbors, a big dark-haired man bumps into him purposefully.

“Fuck off skinjob,” he growls, sparing you a disgusted look.

He’s off down the hall before you can respond. K’s jaw tenses but he doesn’t say anything, disappearing into his apartment. It’s been happening more and more, people have noticed you’re spending time with him and they have a lot to say about it. Some of the warnings are gentle and shared with you out of real concern, while others are meant to intimidate or scare you. You ignore them all.

–

It’s Friday evening and clumps of snow float through the air as you trudge through the dirty streets. You’ve got real meat in your bag, ground chicken and some leftover sliced ham with a handful of potatoes and even a coveted batch of strawberries you’re excited for K to try. They’re a little mushy but still sweet on your tongue. You don’t see the man until it’s too late. He throws you up against the wall, hard enough to knock the wind from your lungs. You sputter and cough, the bag slipping from your fingers and falling to the wet ground.

“Stay away from the skinjob,” he warns you. He stinks, old beer and something rotten that makes your stomach curdle. “Humans and replicants shouldn’t mix.”

His grip on your jaw is painful and tears leak from the corner of your eyes. A second later the pressure is gone when the man is thrown on the floor hard enough that he coughs up a little blood and groans. K stands over him.

“Stay down,” he warns the other man, turning to face you. His hand hovers beside your cheek and you blink rapidly to clear the wetness from your eyes. At your nod he touches you, rough fingertips skating over your jaw and up to your temple. “Are you okay?” He asks quietly.

You make a small sound, tapping your chest. “Just took my breath,” you whisper, seeing the way his hand shakes. “I’m okay,” you promise him. “Really.”

Behind K, the man gets to his feet, swaying and spitting blood. “I’m going to report you,” he slurs. “Get your ass retired.”

“Penal code 12, section 14B says I’m allowed to intervene between two humans when one is in danger,” K replies automatically, tone devoid of any emotion. “I am also allowed to use lethal force. Remember that next time.”

The man grimaces and sways, anger twisting his face as he stumbles back to the street, muttering. You sag against the wall and K steps closer. His breath is warm over your skin as he leans in. The unnaturally quick way his eyes dart over your face and chest as he searches for any visible wounds is a reminder of what he really is, but you push that thought down and let him turn you around and inspect the back of your head. Even though it throbs, he assures you there’s no blood.

“It’s cold. We should go inside,” he says.

You acquiesce and let him hold your canvas bag. He keeps a firm grip on your arm as you slowly make your way up the steps of the building. People watch you pass but you ignore them, tired and in pain. No one bothers you at least, and when you glance over at K you understand why. His normally blank expression is hard, meeting the eyes of anyone who looks at you with a challenging stare you’ve not seen before. In your apartment he helps you out of your coat and puts away your treasured groceries. After, he stands there, hands at his side.

“Has this happened before?”

“No,” you promise him. “I think that man was just drunk and angry, looking for someone to take his frustration out on.” The blank expression on K’s face concerns you. You know what his next words are going to be so you speak before he can, moving the conversation to something less difficult. “I got some strawberries for you to try. Can you get them?”

A painfully long moment passes before he finally concedes and moves to the kitchen to retrieve the small metal container. He also brings a glass of water and two pain pills. You pop a strawberry into your mouth, savoring the sweet burst of flavor as he cautiously eats one as well. His eyes widen in surprise and he chews slowly.

“Good, right?”

“Yes,” he agrees, accepting the second one you offer.

You take the pills with the water and talk about the blackberries you snuck a taste of at work, how surprisingly tart it was. K continues to listen as you split the last of the strawberries and by the time you’re done you can see some of the tension in his body is gone. He’s leaning back against the couch beside you, legs spread and hands resting on his thighs. That night you let him cook dinner after he insists you rest. You supervise from the couch, noting how the back of his neck turns pink with each compliment you give him.

–

The next week passes quietly and without incident until K fails to show up for dinner on Friday. That in itself is not unusual, his time isn’t his own and he’s often called into the station at the last minute, but he does always let you know. Hours pass without any word and your worry grows when you knock on his apartment and get no answer. Finally, nearing midnight, a message from him arrives. It’s short, just an apology and the promise to join you for dinner tomorrow. You know you should leave him alone but there’s a lingering, persistent worry that has you pulling on a sweater over your pjs and slipping into your shoes.

You peek outside. The hallway is empty this time of night, and you shuffle across to his door, knocking lightly. Eventually it opens but only a crack. K’s bloodied face greets you. He looks worse than the first time you saw him on the stairs and you can’t help the little sound of horror you make. He sighs your name and tells you to go home, but your hand shoots out to stop him from shutting the door.

“What happened?” You ask, alarmed.

“Nothing. Just a nexus 8 that got the drop on me. I’m fine.”

“You're not fine, K. Let me help,” you urge. “Please.”

Several seconds drag by before he finally opens the door and you step inside. The bright lights of his apartment illuminating every scratch and bruise on his face. He never lets you see him like this, always patching himself up before he comes over. This is also the first time you are in his apartment and it’s hard to see how plain and spartan it is, completely devoid of any life.

K shows you where the first aid kit is and you set to work to clean him as he sits on the only chair he owns. You end up standing between his legs, tilting his head back to get a closer look at the wounds. He doesn’t react as you disinfect the shallow scrapes nor when you glue together the split skin on the side of his cheek. There’s more dirt and grime he’ll need to wash off on his own in the shower but for the most part you’ve cleaned and tended to his wounds.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” You question.

He shakes his head, looking up at you. There is something in his gaze, some vulnerability you’ve never seen before that has you settling a hand on his shoulder to offer comfort instinctively. He exhales sharply and his hands come to rest on your hips. The skin of your chest tingles. You hold your breath when he leans forward and gently rests his head against your stomach. For a moment you’re frozen, feeling his body tremble against yours. Hesitantly, you touch the crown of his head, running your fingers through his short hair.

K makes a soft sound and rubs his cheek against your shirt. You repeat the action, feeling his hands slide around your back until he’s hugging you tightly, urging you closer to him. He smells of blood and sweat but underneath is a scent your brain identifies as simply him. It calms you and you stay like that, rubbing circles across his shoulders and scratching his scalp as he holds you close.

When he eventually pulls back to look at you, you stare down at him uncertainly. You’ve hugged him goodbye before and even taken hold of his arm when you’ve been out together, but this is something different. Intimate.

“K…”

“Stay with me tonight,” he says so quietly you’re almost sure you’ve imagined it. “Please.”

“Okay,” you agree, the words slipping from your mouth before you’ve even processed them. You’d give him anything he asked for, you realize.

“I need a shower first.”

You clear your throat and step away, watching him disappear into the bathroom. K’s quick, returning to you with damp hair and clean skin in a matter of minutes. You move back to let him pull down the bed, wrapping an arm over your stomach as you watch the muscles of his arm flex. There are a few more bruises and cuts that were hidden by his long shirt and you reach out to run your fingers over them.

He looks at you over his shoulder. “It looks worse than it is,” he assures you.

You nod, unsure what exactly he wants. So little of K’s life is up to him that you’re always careful to make space for him to decide things. What to eat, when to touch and even what to watch on the evenings you sit in front of the tv with him. When you look up, K is watching you with those steady blue eyes.

“If you don’t want to stay…”

“No,” you promise him, stepping closer. “I… wasn’t sure what you wanted.”

“Just lay down with me. Sleep.” He says, climbing onto the bed and extending his hand. You let him pull you down with him, fitting his body closely behind yours. His breath is warm over the back of your neck and you feel his hand settle on your hip. “Is this okay?” He asks.

“Yes,” you whisper, blinking back the sudden wetness in your eyes.

It feels good to be held like this, to have another’s warmth wrap around you. You’re not even sure when the last time someone touched you like this was. Surely your parents must have, when you were little, but the harder you try to remember, the quicker it slips away. You’ve been alone for so long, working hard to make a better life for yourself that you’d forgotten how much you needed to be touched like this. You close your eyes when K tugs you even closer, his loose grip turning firm and you inhale deeply, letting the smell of him settle inside you as you commit this feeling to your memory.

“You’re so warm, soft,” he mumbles.

Tentatively, you reach for the hand at your hip, linking your fingers with his. You wait for any sign he doesn’t want your touch as you slowly draw his hand up towards your chest. You rest both your hands near your collarbone and relax when you feel his nose bump against the back of your neck as he pushes himself closer to you. K exhales and his fingertips stroke the soft skin of your chest.

“Lights off,” he says quietly, darkness flooding the room.

The only light comes from outside his window, hazy neons and dingy yellows. It’s cool in the room but his body chases away the chill and you settle more firmly into him. Sleep comes surprisingly easily, pulling you under with each drag of K’s breath behind you.

–

The cold predawn light wakes you. It’s still mostly dark in the apartment but as you blink the sleep from your eyes you realize you’re facing K. He’s still holding onto you tightly but sometime in the night you must have turned towards him. He looks so peaceful, the lines of his face relaxed in sleep. This close to him you can see the fine wrinkles around his mouth and the dark circles under his eyes. Your hand hovers over his jaw, wondering how his scruff there would feel. Would it be soft like his hair or something rougher against your fingertips?

You withdraw your hand and bring it back against your chest, continuing to watch K. His pale pink lips part and the hand on your hip twitches, a brief warning before suddenly his bright blue eyes are watching you. He looks confused for a second before a faint smile pulls at his lips. You return it, your heart suddenly picking up at his proximity.

“Morning,” you offer quietly.

K watches you, but the look on his face is difficult to place. It’s almost blank, though you can see something building behind his eyes, some of the emotion he feels escaping. The hand at your hip rises to your face to stroke your cheek and down the side of your neck. You swallow heavily and his fingers press against your throat, feeling the movement. When he grasps your chin, thumb ghosting over your bottom lip, you shudder and he does it again.

Your eyes rise to meet his, seeing the rapid way they move over your face, taking in every reaction. When they drop to your lips you know what he wants and oh, you want it too even if you’re scared. Of things changing between you or getting this only to lose if he decides this isn't what he wants. K shifts forward and his thumb pulls your lower lip down. You feel paralyzed, scared but full of so much desire too. You tilt your head up and he leans forward, your lips touching.

It’s so soft, featherlight pressure but it surges through your body all the same. You reach between the two of you to grasp his t-shirt, anchoring yourself to him. Even though you want more, your body trembling with need, you wait. K groans and that new sound from him makes your skin tingle. You whisper his name against his lips and then he’s really kissing you. There isn’t an inch of space between your bodies, your chest pressing against his. The kiss is intense and you lean back, letting him take control and pry your lips apart. He sucks your tongue and his hand slides down to cup your ass.

You moan and that seems to spur him on. He shifts you effortlessly onto your back, the weight of him pressing you into the bed. An unfamiliar ache blooms between your thighs and your legs fall open to welcome him closer. Your hips lift of their own accord, seeking out something you’re not even fully aware you want. All you can think is you never want K to stop, the feelings his hands and mouth pull from you are exquisite…

When K draws away you chase his mouth. He brushes the hair back from your face and stares down at you in wonder. “You’re the first person I’ve wanted to do this with,” he tells you and oh, there’s so much in that he doesn’t say and your heart breaks for him. You rub his bicep and you blink up at him, your gaze unfocused.

“I want you too,” you confess. “But… I’ve never-’ you start, the words dying in your throat. You’re embarrassed but he cups your jaw and watches you with a soft expression. Just like always, he seems to read what you don’t say.

“That’s okay,” he promises you. “I know how to make you feel good. Do you want me to?”

You’re about to cross a line with him, one you know you can’t come back from. This isn’t just seeking pleasure and comfort, it’s something deeper. A commitment. “Yes,” you admit, lifting your head to kiss him again. He moans and squeezes your sides before crawling down your body. He pushes your loose sleep shirt up to reveal your stomach, trailing his lips over the soft skin he finds there before continuing further south.

"I think about you all the time," he admits, kissing your thigh. "When I'm at work. When I'm at home. Even in my dreams," he continues, looking up at you through his golden lashes.

“I think about you too,” you confess, brushing your fingers over his head.

You expect some fear or maybe anxiety but all you feel is safe and comforted when he encourages you to lift your hips and pulls down your underwear and pants. Your shirt and sleep bra comes next until you’re laid bare before him. He stares at you, brows raise with a look of awe on his face. He cups your breasts and then smoothes his hands down your flank. He pulls his own shirt off and your mouth goes dry at the sight of his toned body. His skin is littered with scars and bruises but he’s beautiful. You reach out for him, running your fingers along the line of his shoulder, feeling him shiver.

K dips his head, the touch of his mouth to your most intimate part beyond what you ever could have imagined. He draws pleasure from you as easily as you draw breath. You sigh and gasp, tugging on the short strands of his hair as he learns your body. You feel almost dizzy when the dam breaks and joy washes under your skin. He doesn’t stop until he has wrung every last drop and you fall back against the bed, breathless. He crawls up to kiss you, mouth warm and sure, anchoring you to him and this moment.

It’s easy to open yourself up to him, to let him pour himself into you over and over again. Pain comes and fades out, each kiss and whispered promise makes your body soft and pliant for him. You draw him close, his jaw warm and firm as you map his face with your hands. Dawn breaks over the city, flooding the room with golden hues and K looks like an angel above you, haloed by light.

You stare into his blue eyes as you climb higher and higher together. You don’t need words here, just him and the way he moves above you and inside you. He almost looks anguished as he strains and pants, pressing his forehead to yours. You hold tightly to him, eyes sliding closed as something beautiful unfurls inside and everything goes quiet.

You come back to yourself slowly, encouraged by the soft drag of K’s hands along your sides. He stares down at you, the open concern on his face a surprise. “I’m okay,” you promise him, feeling his body relax at your words.

He draws away only to lay down beside you and rest his head on your naked chest. Just like last night, he rubs his cheek against your skin and you curl an arm around his shoulder, feeling a tremor pass through your body. Physically you feel calm and relaxed but your mind buzzes with a hundred different emotions and feelings.

“You don’t have to say anything,” you begin, gathering the courage to say what you want. "But, I love you.” The words have lived inside you for a while and you know this is the time to speak them. It could be your only chance and you need him to know what he means to you. “You don’t have to say anything back… just know that I do.”

K shifts against you but he doesn’t speak. You squeeze your eyes closed and draw in a breath as your fingers continue to stroke his bare back. When you turn your head to look out the apartment window you see the dust particles caught up in the streams of morning light. You watch them float and fall, realizing K may never feel the same for you. Deep down, as much as it hurts, you think you can live with that. As long he knows he’s more than just a blade runner -or a thing- to you. He’s as human as any other man you know.

You close your eyes and soak up his warmth and closeness. Even though you woke not long ago you're tired all over again, on the edge of sleep. You’re barely aware of the outside world, concentrating only on the feeling of K's fingers brushing over your hips.

"I love you too,” he whispers.

♡

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#ryan gosling #officer k x reader #officer k imagine #officer k #blade runner 2049 #blade runner fanfic

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greenandsorrow · 1 month

Text

After Dark

a blade runner story

Officer K x fem!human!reader (nsfw)

WARNINGS-> MDNI, 18+ only, smut, handj0b, description of a brothel, s3xual exploitation of the reader, descriptions of male genitals, s3x!worker!reader, replicant cum, slurs for replicants, death & loss, abusive behaviours, touch-starved K, intense loneliness, toxic dynamics, very descriptive, angst & hurt without comfort bc I'm a terrible person, a not so realistic scenario

SUMMARY-> In the year 2049, humans have an invention for each problem but for loneliness. The cold and cruel city of Los Angeles is all K has ever known. He's an object, a tool, a weapon. He wants to be a man, a friend, a lover. This loneliness, this isolation, this longing to feel, to have a skin to skin interaction, a soul to soul connection -even though he's been told he doesn't have one- leads him to a small brothel. There he meets Melody. He knows that's not her real name. He's not even sure if she's a human. He knows he isn't allowed to see her face but only to hear her voice and to feel her mouth and hands on his manhood. The milking table is K's outlet to the hunger that gnaws his very being, but could it ever give him what he really craves?

Chapter 1 *soon

Chapter 2 *soon

Chapter 3 *soon

Chapter 4 *soon

Support me and motivate me to keep writing, here-> PayPal link Even a single penny means the world coming from you! THANK YOU🤍

my masterlist

You can ask to be tagged in all the chapters!

Please do not copy my work.

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ilovebladerunners · 3 months

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✰; ABOUT ME AND MY ACC + MASTERLIST ⪼

My name is Adrian, I’m a new writer who goes by he/him/she/her. A few things to know about me is that I am a major Ryan Gosling fan and will mainly write about him. I’m heavily fixated on Bladerunner 2049 and Officer K, and he is currently my favorite Ryan Gosling character!

✧ ━━━━━━ ･｡ﾟ★: *.✦ .* :★.･ ━━━━━━ ✧

➤; WHAT DO I MAINLY WRITE ABOUT?

— I write the usual fluff, angst, and smut topics, but not that great in smut.

— I can write all types of readers, fem/afab, male/amab, trans or non-binary, gender neutral, etc!

— I take all types of requests and will usually say when or when they are not open! You can always talk to me there and share ideas!

➤; WHAT DO I NOT WRITE ABOUT?

— I don’t not write most fetishes or kinks that include nasty things. I will occasionally write about blood or piss kinks though.

— R@pe and non-con is something I steer away from, I only write about dubcon sometimes.

— I don’t not write about actors and their lives with the reader!

— Dead dove do not eat works are a maybe.

— The stuff I don’t write about usually varies and depends on what the requests are!

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・。.・

★; MY MASTERLIST || ꨄ FLUFF | ★ SMUT | ✘ ANGST |

OFFICER K —

*______

KEN —

*______

DRIVER —

*______

HOLLAND MARCH —

* Holland March Body Worshipping (gn reader) ★

SIERRA SIX —

*______

LARS LINDSTROM —

*______

SEBASTIAN WILDER —

*______

COLT SEAVERS —

*______

HENRY LETHAM —

*______

NOAH CALHOUN —

*______

RICHARD HAYWOOD —

*______

JULIAN THOMPSON —

*______

DEAN PEREIRA —

*______

JACOB PALMER —

*______

DAN DUNNE —

*______

LUKE GLANTON —

*______

AND MORE TO COME SOON !

✧ ━━━━━━ ･｡ﾟ★: *.✦ .* :★.･ ━━━━━━ ✧

#ryan gosling #ryan gosling characters #ken x reader #officer k x reader #driver x reader #holland march x reader #sierra six x reader #court gentry x reader #lars lindstrom x reader #sebastian wilder x reader #colt seavers x reader #henry letham x reader #noah calhoun x reader #richard haywood x reader #julian thompson x reader #fluff #smut #angst

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ken-dom · 3 months

Text

Take Me Home

Officer K x gn!reader

2.1k words

∘₊✧ Summary: K is learning to understand the new feelings you've brought into his life. There is one he quickly learns to understand completely. Understands, and needs.

∘₊✧ Author's notes: This was written for the Morning Sunshine Collab with my friends on Goosecord, and is dedicated to the anons who have been asking me for more K. Here he finally is! Thank you Lily for organising us, answering my K questions and coming up with the perfect name for his neon cum! Sascha, Tucker and Clam for giving me confidence to write him, and my bestie/sister K for, as always, being my sanity and my beta reader! Title from Home by Daughter.

∘₊✧ Warnings/content: NSFW, sleepy morning making out, blow job, Luminescum (like Ken's glizz but make it BR2049)

∘₊✧─────────────────────✧₊∘

K appreciates nothing more than these blissfully warm moments, waking up with you laid half on top of him, weighing him down like a… what was it you’d called it? Ah yes, a comfort blanket. And comfort, it most certainly was.

At first he’d likened being close to you with realising the sensation of snow against his skin was actually kind of pleasant if he paid attention to it. Both filled him with a soothing sort of wonder after an initial period of apprehension. The kind of feeling one might experience upon discovering there is more to life and being able to start actually experiencing and enjoying it.

But the longer this went on – that is, you, staying – the more it began to feel like something else that K couldn’t quite place. Over time, you’d helped him recognise that the new, satisfying feeling he was being faced with was called home. Feeling at home. He liked the sound of that. It sounded permanent. And safe.

And he does feel safe with you. He feels safe to explore who he is, rather than what he was expected to be. He feels safe sleeping with you pressed to him in only his underwear, otherwise exposed, yet waking up calm and relaxed as rain beats down against his windows, distorting the neon glow from the city outside that lights up his room far more than the dull glow of morning sun. He wishes these moments could last forever, and in some ways, he supposes, they do.

There were other feelings you’d helped him to fully grasp too, of course. Some of them were difficult to sit with, and K had been glad to put a name to them and to know he wasn’t alone in experiencing them, that you were there to support him. And some were rather more… physical. Thrilling. He was exceptionally glad you were there to help him explore those feelings too.

And sometimes, all these intense and newly tangible feelings combine into a rush of emotions and sensations and it’s the most alive K has ever felt.

This morning, he feels alive, too. And he feels content.

He’d slept as well as ever with you draped over him, his arms resting comfortably around your torso with one hand up in your hair, fingertips stroking soothing circles against your scalp as you fell asleep first and then, as your breathing slowed to a steady snore, he fell too.

He has no intention of rushing to do anything today, or of thinking ahead to what might need to be done. For now, K just wants to enjoy you. He absentmindedly begins to drag those affectionate fingertips in gentle patterns over your skin, unknowingly leaving shivers in their wake.

When you eventually stir against his chest, your fingernails scrape pleasantly at his sides – he feels alive, he thinks again – and you shift yourself to look up at him with a soft smile, he feels his heart beat just a little faster in his chest and his lips curl into a smile, too. He all but stops breathing when, without a word, you pull yourself up to press your lips to his, beginning what feels like a blissful eternity of slow, languid kisses and tender touches.

At some unknown point, his limbs and yours tangle, and your fingers find their way up to comb through his hair, too. You couldn’t be very much closer; K’s whole world spins and reduces to just this bed, just you, and him.

Something else K appreciates more than he could say is how there is so little need for words between the two of you. Especially since you’ve become a regular fixture in his life, he needs you more than he dares to ask. More than he dares to believe he was meant for. He tries not to think about that.

You understand him, you see, and he’s not sure if that’s unusual or not; whether other people in love (another new experience for him that he isn’t entirely sure he fully grasps yet) just get one another like that without a necessity for constant explanations. But he likes it because it only adds to that feeling of home, of being safe, and, he supposes, of being wanted.

When you kiss him, quick and chaste or intense and passionate or somewhere in between, his stomach seems to flip. Butterflies, you’d called it. You’d said it would probably subside over time and to enjoy it while it lasted, but it never did subside. Not yet anyway.

Your current kissing, although never reducing in intensity, slows gradually to an almost stop. In honesty, you’re still sleepy and not yet ready to face the day, but not tired enough to lie completely still either. And you can never resist him with his hair slightly mussed from sleep and that coy but loved up sparkle in his eyes.

Your lips break apart and you find yourselves face to face on one shared pillow that smells like him — lightly industrial like he carries the air of the city with him, a subtle hint of rain, and musk from the heat of your bodies pressed together while you slept. You take a deep breath to savour him while you’re laid here, just feeling one another’s hot breath against your damp, kiss-swollen lips.

K’s eyes slip closed as you lay tangled together and he feels a pang of embarrassment at the familiar heat pooling in his lower belly. He isn’t sure if you intended this to turn into anything more, and whilst he was truly and completely lost in the pure intimacy of it all, sometimes, he finds, he can’t quite control his arousal. You’ve assured him that it’s perfectly normal plenty of times, but he still feels his face heat up each time he recognises the signs.

You press forward and join your lips to his once again, with a little more vigour than before. Still, it’s semi-weightless and playful, and he feels your lips curl into a smirk against his.

He doesn’t close his eyes, just furrows his brow as concern begins to edge into the periphery of his conscience, ready to consume him. His cock stiffens some more against his will, too, and deep down he knows he can’t actually will his erection away. Especially not with you so close and relishing in him the way you do, lavishing him with affection.

You slide your lips to his jaw, and his eyes flick downward, almost suspicious, trying to follow your movements despite being mostly out of his field of vision, but they finally slip shut again when you move lower and suck lightly against the pulse point in his throat while your hand glides down from his shoulder, tingling over his bare arm and dropping to rest on the soft contour of his waist.

You shuffle yourself further down, beneath the duvet, just the top of your head exposed to him now as you circle a nipple with the tip of your tongue and, feeling his otherwise slow and steady breath catch in his chest, you smile up at him from beneath the quilt, biting your lip. Anticipation, and a question. Sheepishly, K nods, and you slide yourself lower still, hearing a quiet little, ‘Oh,’ escape his throat as you disappear beneath the covers.

It’s warm under here, and you feel the pull of sleep tugging at your consciousness, but you’ve no intention of succumbing to it. Instead you push his hips to position him on his back and settle between his thighs. It's an easy manoeuvre; muscle memory by now, but even so he’s trembling slightly, just like the first time. You can picture his face, burning with desire and uncertainty as to why you’d want to do this with him.

As your fingers curl around the elastic of his plain grey underwear, your eyes are drawn to the small luminous patch of blue that’s formed at the tip of his bulge, leaking beautifully through the thin fabric.

You’d never seen a replicants’ cum before K. He'd blushed profusely when you’d praised him for how pretty it was that first time you brought him off with your hand, pulling your sticky, wet palm out of his trousers with delight and awe written all over your face. When he caught his breath he ashamedly told you it’s a substance called Luminescum. A flavourless, harmless lubricant secreted during sexual encounters and ejaculated at the climax. Although all replicants are built with the ability to produce Luminescum, few ever actually use that ability – aside from pleasure models, of course.

You remember that night with a smile, planning to tell him how pretty it is again later. Maybe you’ll see if he’s got more than one orgasm in him this morning so you can stroke him to another release, talk him through his oversensitive pleasure and see that handsome blush colouring his cheeks again as his eyes squeeze shut and his body shakes through another release he doesn’t think he deserves.

But for now you lazily mouth at his length over the fabric in no hurry at all, taking your time just as you had when you’d made out in almost slow motion just minutes ago. And as much as K is on the same wavelength this morning, he can’t stop his hips bucking up in response to your warm tongue, or his breath turning heavy at the thrill running through him, or his cheeks feeling hot at how eager to please him you always are.

Pulling his underwear down, you clean up his pretty neon precum quickly with your tongue. Despite its impressive glow and colour it really does taste of relatively little. Slightly synthetic is the only way you can think to describe it, but you can never get enough all the same, because it’s him.

You hear him whimper as your palm slides down his length, muffled slightly by the duvet, and you feel him searching for you over it, fingers strong enough to tear the fabric if he wanted to. The thought causes a fresh wave of heat to rush to your core. He’s always so gentle when he touches you, so careful and tender, but he can fuck like a rabid animal when you ask for it, too; can make your toes curl with the snapping of his hips and his low growls and possessive, grabbing fingers.

You lick a warm, firm stripe from the base of his cock to the tip, eliciting another thick pump of that impressive blue, and then take him into your mouth, moaning around him as you suck, slow and steady.

K is feeling far from slow and steady above the covers, however, and he’s thankful you can’t see his face from where you are because he’s a mess; hair stuck to his sweaty forehead, cheeks flushed, mouth agape. He's sure you’d tell him he looks beautiful just like you always do, but it doesn’t stop embarrassment making his head spin. And he knows you can hear him gasping and humming and letting out choked little groans which only adds to the heat spreading over his cheeks.

He’s completely lost in a haze of pleasure until your tongue flicks so deliciously over his tip, and again, and again, before swallowing him back down, and as incredibly sensitive to your touch as he usually is, he just can’t hold off any longer.

He feels his muscles begin to tense and his hips, rolling in time with your movements, stutter, and with a desperate whine, he cums, lukewarm neon spilling down your eager throat as he writhes in the blissful agony of his release above you.

Devouring every last drop of his tasteless, harmless, gorgeous Luminescum, you tuck his softening cock back into his stained, glowing underwear with care, joining him back on the pillow where you immediately let out an involuntary moan at how gorgeously fucked out he looks, his palm still poised at his mouth where he’d bitten down on his knuckles at the height of his pleasure.

He averts his gaze when his eyes flutter open, timid under the heat of your gaze, and for the hundredth time you’re glad he’s not a pleasure model, because where would the fun be if he wasn’t so needy and receptive to you?

‘Good morning,’ you mutter sleepily, lips glowing with a tinge of neon blue that makes his heart race.

He simply curls back into the warmth of your embrace without a word, your arms wrapping around him once again.

Safe and warm and sated. Home.

#not s f w 💀#officer k x reader #officer k #officer k smut #officer k fic #officer k fluff #ryan gosling #ryan gosling x reader #ryan gosling smut #ryan gosling fluff #blade runner 2049 #blace runner 2049 fic #ken-dom writes

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stupidfuckingwindow · 5 months

Note

hii! i was wondering if you could do some sub!richard smut. i think he’s a total hotshot asshole until you get him in bed

Crowded // K, R. Haywood, H. Letham

Warnings/Content: It's a whole fuckin crowd. Afab reader, kind of K centric. Richard is a little bitch. Henry eats you out and Richard is in time out.

Notes: This fic came to me in a fucking dream. For solo sub Richard though I have more coming.

Word count: 382

What are you even supposed to focus on, first?

K's mouth, on yours. His breath is hot, and heavy against your lips with every kiss, and he's panting, a little. Breathless, if that were even possible. The way his right hand, large and warm, is hooked under your thigh to help keep your legs open. The tips of his fingers slightly dig into your flesh, and you feel the synthetic strength behind them. Momentarily, he pulls away from your lips to press kisses to your bare shoulder, and his left hand slides up your torso to wrap around your breast. There are calluses to his fingers, adding new texture against your skin.

Henry is another factor. Scrawny and pale and his hair is greasy and barely washed. He's in nothing, face buried between your legs and soft brown hair brushing against your inner leg. His own hands feel around your body and trace your skin, while his tongue works circles around your clit. He sucks softly at it, dark blue eyes fluttering shut while he quietly moans around your entrance. He slides two skilled fingers past your folds, fucking you on his fingers. When his eyes do open again, they're half lidded and on your face, watching your different reactions and expressions.

The cuffs clink against one another as Richard strains against them, half in an attempt to get out, half from the impatience of having to stay put and simply watch. For one of the first times in his life, he's genuinely pissed. Not a word or protest out of him, for once, even through the gag you'd tied around his head. Richard glares at you like you're a victim who'd gotten out of his grasp. He's long since lost his fight in favor of waiting things out, of getting out of these cuffs and having his way with you.

But for now, he's fucked. An uncomfortable cage around his semi-hard cock while he makes bitchy little huffs and Henry glares him down with similar hatred. Both have to swallow their pride, however, as K usually shuts them down before an argument can begin. He's equally as quiet. K is focused on you, more than he is the other two men.

Either way, you can't find it in yourself to care.

#ryan gosling #ryan gosling x reader #n.sfw.#henry letham #henry letham x reader #richard haywood #richard haywood x reader #officer k #officer k x reader #stay (2005)#stay 2005 #murder by numbers 2002 #murder by numbers #blade runner 2049 #tumblr fucked up again

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elusivewildflower · 2 years

Text

Dance With Me | Officer K x Reader

Pairing: Officer K x Reader

Summary: One of your favorite songs comes on while you’re cooking dinner, you ask K to dance with you.

Warnings: None, really. Just mostly cute fluff. Can be a bit sad when you think about the fact that K has never danced with anyone before.

Word Count: 872

A/N: This takes place in an apartment that reader and K share, but otherwise there are no mentions of when this scene takes place. I just wanted something cute to write about K. Reader and K have a pre-established relationship, which is why I’ve written him as comfortable with her as he was when he was with Joi in the movie. Thank you @ninjathrowingstork for being my beta!

The soft sound of music, from way before your time, played throughout the apartment you shared with K. You were standing over the stove in your small kitchen, cooking dinner for the two of you, humming and swaying along to tunes that came from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. It may be a bit strange to be listening to such old music, but there was just something about the songs that felt nostalgic to you. Perhaps it was the part of you that wished for simpler times. Whatever it was that always had you turning this playlist on while you were cooking, K didn’t seem to mind. Actually, he seemed to enjoy it just as much as you did. He stood at the entrance of the kitchen, shoulder pressed into the wall and arms crossed over his chest as he watched you. You stirred the noodles and synthetic proteins in the pot, setting down the spoon and turning to face K as you let the food cook.

‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ by Elvis Presley began playing in the background, one of the first slower and romantic songs to play this evening, and it brought a question to your mind. “Have you ever danced, K?” You asked curiously.

K blinked a few times, seemingly clearing his mind of whatever thoughts he was having while he watched you silently. He regarded you for a moment then shook his head. “I have memories, but they’re not real.” He admitted softly.

That answer pulled on your heartstrings. You couldn’t imagine how it feels to have years worth of memories that simply weren’t real; to know that all of your fondest memories never actually happened. You smiled softly at him. “But, you do know how to dance?”

He thought for a moment and then gave a nod, “Yeah.”

You hummed softly in response, turning your attention back towards the noodles. “Good.” He raised a brow at your response, but said nothing. A few more minutes passed and dinner was ready. You were in the process of ladling the noodles and broth into bowls when one of your favorite songs came on, L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole. Letting out a gasp, you set the ladle back into the pot. “Oh, I love this song!” You exclaimed, moving to close the gap between you and K. Now standing in front of him, you gave him the best puppy eyes you could. “Would you please dance with me?”

K smiled and nodded, offering you his hand. “Of course.” You beamed up at him, accepting his hand as he led you into the living room where there was space to move around. His free hand wrapped around your waist and pulled you in close, while your arm wrapped around his neck. Your hands were still clasped together as you began to dance along to the music, K’s eyes gazing into yours. As the two of you moved about the room, you thought of how grateful you were to have moments like these with him. There was once a time when K was afraid to touch you, always looking away when you caught his gaze. It took a while for him to become comfortable around you, and a lot of reassurance from you that you wanted him in your life.

“What are you thinking about?” K questioned, noticing the thoughtful look upon your face as he raised your arm to twirl you. You couldn’t help but giggle as he brought you back to his chest quickly, still waiting for you to answer with a brow raised.

You bit down on your bottom lip gently. “Just thinking about how much I love you,” you admitted, causing a warm smile to spread across K’s face. He raised your arm to twirl you again. However, instead of pulling you right back to his chest again, he released your hand and placed both of his on your back, leaning you backwards in a dip. K held you there for a moment, leaning down so his lips hovered above yours.

“I love you too,” he confessed, capturing your lips in a passionate kiss. As the final chords of the song played, he lifted you back into an upright position, lips still attached to yours. When you finally drew away for air, he didn’t move far, his intense blue eyes locked with yours. You felt your heart swell in your chest.

“Not bad for your first time,” you teased, a grin lighting up your face.

He hummed softly in response. “You’re my first in everything that matters, honey, and my last.” He whispered, pressing his lips to yours once again as ‘At Last’ by Etta James began playing through the speakers. K’s arms wrapped around your waist as yours linked around his neck, your bodies pressed together as the two of you gently sway to the new song.

Dinner seemed to be long forgotten about, but neither of you cared. You were quite content to stay within his embrace for the rest of the night, and that’s exactly what you did. You lost count of how many songs you and K danced to, but you knew it was a night that neither of you would ever forget.

#officer k #officer k fic #bladerunner 2049 #bladerunner 2049 fic #ryan gosling #ryan gosling fic #officer k x reader #myfics

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kenposting · 9 months

Text

Baseline

Summary: You're a Blade Runner paired to work with Officer K. You both sense a bizarre shift lately. Something is wrong.

WC: 3.6k

AN: I literally have Ryan Gosling brainrot right now and I've loved this movie for years.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀✩⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

If there was one thing the two of you could agree on, its that something was wrong. Different. Broken. Whatever it was, something was wrong.

He felt like a deterrent when you first met him. Someone assigned him alongside you a few months back. Being a Blade Runner at your stature had proven to be more difficult than anyone higher up had expected, and instead of retiring all the smaller, female models, they decided to just force you into this bizarre co-op with the other older Nexus-9s.

And that’s what happened. You were assigned a partner, and therefore, a roommate as well. You found him to be a nuisance at first. You were perfectly fine doing your job on your own. This safety precaution was unnecessary, and you believed that wholeheartedly, until you saw the case photos of your model.

It was brutal. Fueled by hatred. You had never ran into any real trouble, but these were your colleagues, retired before they had a chance to call for assistance.

You began to be grateful he was around. The two of you argued constantly, but you did feel a lot safer. He was larger than you by a lot, and much broader in stature, but he didn’t scare you. Nothing did.

Until now. You only barely understood what was going on when you compared it to human data. It seemed to be closest to fear, or perhaps anxiety. You never had a feeling before. Neither had he.

Something was wrong. You just couldn’t shake it. Even thinking that way was bizarre, as it had nothing to do with programming or logistics. The thought was pointless – unless it began to effect your work. And it had.

“Do you know why the two of you are in here today?”

Lieutenant Joshi was the superior to the both of you, a higher ranking member of the Retirement Division of the LAPD. You had never really minded her, but you knew something negative was present in the way she spoke. She was human, and you were built to analyze and understand the humanness within her. She was scared and confused.

“No, Madam.”

He answered for the both of you, something he often does. That was part of his job since the placement. He’s there to make sure you’re protected, even if it's something small.

She looked at you. You shook your head. She sucked on her teeth, visibly upset.

“Neither of you are even close to baseline.”

Another bizarre sensation crept over your shoulders and sank into your abdomen. A feeling. You didn’t like it – which was another feeling, in and of itself.

“What the fuck is going on?”

She was upset now. You tried your best to comprehend it but you couldn’t.

“Ever since we put the two of you together your retiring alone takes longer than usual, you aren’t preforming how you’re supposed to, you respond in inadequate ways, I mean, what is the problem?” She paused, collecting herself. “You only perform how you’re meant to when you’re together.”

She looked at Officer K. She was speaking mostly to him. After all, he was the only one doing his job alone anymore. You were only allowed to work when he was around, and you performed fine. It was when you weren’t working… That’s where the problems were. You actually preferred his company to your own. You didn’t understand this.

“I’m going to give you both an option.” She looked sternly between the two of you. “I’m going to retest you, right now. One of you will naturally preform better than the other. Whoever is closest to baseline will retire the other.”

“You can take me, Madam.”

His voice sounded different now. Still very monotone, but laced with urgency, like the thought of retiring you impeded on his natural task of protecting you.

She scoffed. “This is exactly what I’m talking about, what is wrong with you?” She sighed, shaking it off and leaving the meeting room. You followed K into the testing area. Familiar. Uncomfortable. Something loomed over you.

There were two white chairs. You and Officer K shifted to face one another. He looked into you. You looked back.

“Officer K D 6 dash 3 dot 7,” A voice read off his name, followed by yours. “Let’s begin. Ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

Again, he answered for the both of you.

“Recite your baseline.”

The two of you spoke immediately, like a second nature, programmed into the basic essence of your coding. You didn’t have to think or process. You knew what to do, so you did it.

“And blood-black nothingness began to spin, a system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem, and dreadfully distinct against the dark, tall white fountain played–”

“Cells.”

The two of you responded back, your voices synced to one another. Your eyes darted all around his face, searching for a sign that he was performing well. You hoped he was. Another foreign feeling, hope. Why did you hope for his success?

“Have you ever been in an institution? Cells.”

“Cells.”

His eyes never averted from your gaze. There was something foreign to you there. Something you presumed would be described as comforting.

“Do they keep you in a cell? Cells.”

“Cells.”

“When you’re not performing your duties do they keep you in a little box? Cells.”

“Cells.”

“Interlinked.”

“What’s it like to hold the hand of someone you love? Interlinked.”

K’s face flashed before your mind at this question. You wished you also knew what was going on, but you didn’t. Something was wrong. You remembered his hand accidentally brushing against yours a few weeks prior. That’s when all of this began. You were going to be retired. You could feel it.

“Interlinked.”

Officer K looked over your face, a mechanical whirring at the speed of his shifting eyes. Truthfully, he felt the same way. He was going to be retired. He could feel it.

“Did they teach you how to feel finger to finger? Interlinked.”

“Interlinked.”

“Do you long for having your heart interlinked? Interlinked.”

You could’ve sworn you detected movement in K’s lips. A slight smile. Something you had never seen before in a Replicant. Something you had never done before. His eyes softened.

“Interlinked.”

“Do you dream about being interlinked? Interlinked.”

“Interlinked.”

“What’s it like to hold your child in your arms? Interlinked.”

“Interlinked.”

“Do you feel that there’s a part of you that’s missing? Interlinked.”

“Interlinked.”

Sometimes you did think things like that, but they didn’t make any sense. It was like a buffering within you.

“Within cells interlinked.”

“Why don’t you say that three times, within cells interlinked.”

“Within cells interlinked. Within cells interlinked. Within cells interlinked.”

A silence fell over the white room, and again, fear crept in, or what you could only assume was fear. His eyes still hadn’t left yours.

“Officers, do you have anything more to say?”

The voice nearly startled you, further showing you that something was very wrong. You aren’t in any imminent danger, so why were you responding like you were?

“No, sir.”

You wondered if you’d ever have to answer for yourself again.

He stood, his movement encouraging you to stand as well. You often followed his every move. His height never ceased to amaze you. You wondered why they built him so tall, yet programmed him so meekly. He didn’t naturally intimidate you. He didn't naturally intimidate anyone. He just did his job and went on his way.

You followed him into the room you had both been in previously. Lieutenant Joshi was sat back at the table holding a sheet of data. She analyzed it much slower than either of you could.

Officer K pulled out a chair and waited for you to have a seat. Part of his task. He sat beside you.

Her eyes looked up, shifting between the two of you with a clicking motion. She was searching for something, but she wasn’t going to find it. There's nothing there to find.

“Do either of you have any comments, Officers?”

You looked at K.

“I hope I did worse than her.”

She rolled her eyes, frustrated at his malfunctioning. She couldn’t gather a response, so she resorted to sliding the paper in front of the both of you.

100% accuracy. A perfect score. The highest either of you had ever gotten to baseline.

You looked up at her. She remained searching, beginning to say something before sighing, abandoning the thought all together.

Officer K’s jaw tightened beside you.

“Do either of you have anything to say for yourselves?”

You looked at him, then her. You didn’t have any previous data on any of this. It was rare for you to have an uninspired thought, but your software had been updated to the highest functioning and you figured only one explanation would make sense.

“We’re interlinked, Madam.”

She was quiet for a moment, blinking.

“It appears so.”

Silence fell over the room for several minutes. K sat much taller than you. He felt much more powerful than you in this moment. Even now, you were glad to have him around.

“We should really just retire both of you, but we’ve never seen this kind of score. I need to speak to some colleagues and I’ll have you report back here in the following days. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Madam.”

The two of you spoke in sync. Interlinked.

The drive home was quiet, but pleasant. Both of you thought you’d be retired before sundown, so the bleak landscape appeared a bit more welcoming than usual. You didn’t particularly enjoy the world, but you did enjoy being around K.

The walk to your building was always the worst. The people outside felt like one large organism, moving and speaking all at once, an amalgamation of bodies, neon lights reflecting against the rain droplets hitting the ground. It was hard to take in so many small happenings at the same time. He knew this about you, picking up on the shifts in your face when you stepped out into the night. He placed a gloved hand on the small of your back, leading you. Afterall, part of his task was to enure your safety, and he wanted you to know he was looking out for you. He liked doing a good job for you. He feels something when you thank him for it.

“Hey, A boy!”

Moans and expletives swam through your ears. This scene was ever present. Every single night on your way home, you passed this part of town. Before Officer K was assigned to you it was much scarier. People would grab at you and pull you towards different dark buildings and corners of street. Replicant and human alike, both took advantage of your size.

You always ignored it, programmed to move forward, but something felt different this time.

The girls touched him, eyeing him up and down, walking alongside the both of you, looking at you.

“Wanna come see what a real girl feels like?”

He didn't react. He never did, actually. One of the girls showed a change in her expression, cautioning the others, mentioning his job. The words she spoke relieved you. You didn’t mind the insult, you just didn’t want him to leave you. It was scary out here. Everyone towered over you, even the girls.

The girls dismissed her warning, giggling, grabbing onto him further. Your pace quickened. So did his. You reached the stairs outside of your building and he stepped aside, letting you go ahead of him.

“We’re always here!”

They were always there. They had been built for pleasure. Sexual consumerism. It confused you, really. You didn’t understand the appeal, but it seemed like everyone else did. K didn't get it either.

He followed closely behind you up the steps. The flights went on for ages. People lingered there, littering the tight area, continuing to yell at the two of you. K kept a close watch for anyone grabbing for you, though. He wouldn’t let it happed again.

He opened the door to your apartment, holding it wide for you to walk in. Someone spat in your direction. He closed his eyes. It was like he was convincing himself not to react. He never had to do that before. The droning lull of the people made you feel anxious again, like you really were in danger. He shut the door behind you, the thick lock clunking shut.

Your apartment was safe, like a homebase. No one could attack you here. You watched as K hanged his coat on the back of the door, heavy and weighed down. He looked different. Relieved. Softer. Pleased to see you.

“Are you hungry?”

You thought for a moment, considering when the last time you ate was. There was am artificial aching in your abdomen.

“Yes.”

He nodded, stepping a foot into the kitchen. This place was so small. After all, Blade Runners don’t really deserve comfort. They didn’t need it. They couldn’t feel it. But you did. You had to accept it, it was only logical. You felt the place was small, and that meant you could feel.

K made the same thing you both ate every night. Noodles. You hated them – another feeling – but you liked spending time with him. It was sweet, the ways he chose to serve you.

He looked down into his bowl. He wasn’t eating. Something was different about him.

“K? Is everything alright?”

He looked up at you, meeting your gaze. He searched you, but found no answers.

“I don’t know. I know that I’m supposed to know. But I don’t. And that means something is wrong.”

You nodded. You felt immense comfort at his answer. He felt the same. At realizing this, a secondary thought entered your mind: he must need to be comforted as well. You thought back to your Joi, sat somewhere in a drawer for weeks now, collecting dust. You found it odd to use it around him, and he thought the same, but you remembered what went on when you did use it. You retraced all the humans you had came across in your mind, all films you had seen. You knew how they all comforted one another. You wanted to try for him. This was perhaps the most bizarre feeling of all.

Neither of you were real, just programmed to be as human-like as technology currently allowed. So really, what’s the harm in this? You couldn’t have feelings for something real, but he wasn’t real either, so no harm no foul.

“I feel the same way. I feel, I mean. I don’t like it either.”

You tried your best to put it into words.

He nodded, shifting, like he had turned something off inside of him. You had frightened him. He thought he was just malfunctioning, and the only other option is that the two of you were both feeling something very real and new and unlikely. That was frightening. Something was wrong.

His jaw tightened as he stood from the table, grabbing his bowl and stepping toward the kitchen.

You sat there alone at the table for a long time. You felt something different now, something new. You didn’t recognize it; it hadn’t been taught to you. Loneliness, perhaps. Or regret. A feeling that you had said something you wished you hadn’t.

A heavy hand rested on your shoulder, awakening you from your trance. You didn’t know how long you’d been sitting there, but the orange glow of the city had drifted into a deep aqua color. Night had fallen.

“I don’t know what’s going on.”

His voice was different. Softer than before, like every moment he became gentler and… more... human.

You hummed in agreement. You didn’t know either. He reached his hand out and you took it, following him a few feet to your small bathroom. A soft glow came from behind the doorframe.

His steps were heavy as he lead you forward. Your eyes shifted, taking in the scene.

He had ran you a bath, something you didn’t even realize you possessed in this small space. There were candles lit alongside the edge of the porcelain. You were sure you didn’t own any candles.

“I saw this in a film once…” His voice trailed off, like he didn’t know what else to say. He was almost shy about it.

You stepped forward. A new smell filled the room. Something fresh.

“Its lavender. I took some from the last Nexus-8 I retired. I know that’s not very romantic.”

Romantic? Was he trying to be romantic? Why was he trying to be romantic?

“And the candles?”

His constant blank stare shifted into a sheepish, subtle, barely-noticeable smile. But you noticed. It was just a change in data, after all.

“I bought them yesterday. I saw them downtown and I thought of you. I’m not sure why.”

Whatever you had been feeling before was miniscule compared to what you feel now. An ache in your chest and browline, sharp and sudden. A tear fell from your right eye. Something was definitely wrong.

This world was just… so sad. Fallen. Broken. Corrupted. Evil. Lost. So many things. And especially for you. You felt selfish for feeling this way at all; you weren’t a human that had everything ripped away from you, you weren’t even real. But your memories were real to you, and this was real to you too. No one had ever gone out of their way to think of you before. Everything before your assignment with Officer K was rigid and impersonal, but he wasn’t like that, and neither of you knew why.

You stepped forward, keeping his hand in yours, leading him into the small space with you. It would be snug, but both of you could fit.

You followed your normal routine, removing each article of clothing as to not get them wet. His torso was laced with cuts and bruising. Again, the sight of it made you feel something.

He sank into the water first, still holding your hand, blankly looking forward at the tile on the wall. You followed after him, laying against his chest. This was nice, but also very weird. What were you meant to do now? You were grateful for the gesture. The warm water was a stark contrast to the cold world you both lived in. The last few weeks you realized you hated being a Blade Runner, and in hindsight, he must've felt the same. Underappreciated. Unimportant. Cold. False.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Thank you for inviting me in.”

You both sat there for a long time. His hand held onto you gently, like you were in danger. Part of his task. You liked this, but in every film you’ve seen, its followed by much more interesting activities. A curiosity crept inside you. There’s so much you’ve began to be able to feel and think and see. You couldn’t help but feel like this was only the beginning. “This was very kind of you, K. I hope you know that.”

You felt him nod behind you, dismissive.

“I appreciate you letting me work alongside you. I know you didn’t like it at first, but you’ve always been very nice to me. Thank you for that.”

You felt like crying again. This world really did blow for the two of you, didn’t it?

“I’d like to lay down now.”

He nodded again, waiting for you to stand before standing himself. He got you a towel. He didn’t have to do that. It had nothing to do with your safety. That wasn’t an assigned task, that was a choice.

“Thank you.”

He nodded, careful not to look you over too much. He didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.

As you dried yourself, he left the small bathroom. You quickly got dressed, searching around for him. He was sat on the couch staring blankly ahead.

You made your way over to him, sitting beside him. You placed a hand on his arm and sat up to gently kiss his cheek, something you’d done with Joi before and something you’d seen in many movies. Even humans would do this downtown, you’d seen it before.

He looked at you.

“You kissed me. I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either. I felt like doing it. I think it’s supposed to make people feel better and you look like you don’t feel well.”

He looked at you. Nothing had ever made him react this way. He no longer wanted to just be a consumer of pleasure. Joi and the like didn’t interest him anymore. He wanted to show you something. He didn’t understand it yet, but he was made in the likeness of a human, and perhaps this was part of that. It would be different if he felt something for a human – unfair almost. He couldn’t provide them with the things they would need. He just didn’t have it in him. But you? You were like him. Just like him. The same. Cells, interlinked.

He watched as you placed your hand atop his. It was so tiny in comparison. He didn’t recognize this sensation, but he felt an urge to take care of you, to give you anything you asked for. More than his assigned task. He wanted to, even if he didn’t have to. He took pleasure in it, actually.

You were real to him; as real as he was. He wanted to take care of you. He also hated being a Blade Runner, and he knew you must have it so much harder. The board even assigned you a partner out of sheer fear you’d be brutally beaten into retirement just for existing, not to mention the humans and replicants that used your model for pleasure. He didn’t like that, and he didn’t want that. He wanted something different and it didn’t make sense to him.

The act seemed almost the same. The same positions, the same words being said, the same sequence of events. People kissing, then laying down together, all of that. But sometimes something was different. He thought of the ads around town, how they appeared to him. He compared it to the books he had to read on the human condition. Something was different. One was about lust, and one was about love. He thought the latter more closely related to what he felt for you.

“I’m okay, just thinking.”

You looked up at his scarred face, bruised from the last job. There was something heavy on his mind. You wanted to help him with that. You didn’t know how, but you wanted to try for him. Afterall, the two of you performed great at work when you were together. Maybe you’d perform great at home too.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀✩⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

#Blade Runner 2049 #Officer K x reader #officer k #blade runner #kenergy

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