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K (or is he Joe, now?) has never seen snow before.
Well, he has - but not like this. Never before has he seen snow like this, so pristine, untouched. He’s seen snow before, dirty piles of it on street corners, grey and unpleasant looking.
It’s never hurt to look at snow before - and, really, maybe it’s just the stab wound - but this hurts. There’s a stinging in his eyes he wishes they hadn’t programmed into him.
He’s felt life seep from him before, it’s not a novel feeling. He’s been shot, stabbed, strangled, shot stabbed and strangled all at once - but he’s always made it. Something, whether it be his own will or the handy intervention of another, something has always saved him.
There is nothing, no one coming to save him now. He’s surrounded by nothing but snow, and his failing body is far beyond self-salvation.
Deckard is inside, reconciling with his daughter. Neither will make it out before he dies. Joe’s heart aches for them both - or perhaps that is just the sting of it giving out.
The snow is comfortable, at least. He wishes he could get up - it’d be cruel, for Deckard to stumble across him like this. But his fingers are so numb, his limbs so heavy - the thought of moving alone robs his breath and lightens his head.
It hurts. Everything always hurts, but usually there is some distraction, some other feeling he can focus his energy on. Not now. Not here. Pain is all he feels, and it leeches him of life faster than the snow.
For the first time, his mind is empty. Drained. It has stopped screaming, but the silence is no reprieve.
From the dredges of his senses come the thoughts he’d always buried, hidden underneath that chaotic mess of sound. He has no strength to fight them away, not even in the arena of his own mind.
He’d always wanted a father.
His eyes sting. He tries to think of anything else - of the snow, of Joi, Joshi. He thinks of Deckard’s bees, of how alive they’d been, and his heart aches.
They had been cared for; they had thrived. If he had had someone who cared for him, truly, like a parent does their child, would he be here, now? Dying alone in the snow, with the only father figure he’s ever known barely 100 feet away?
He doesn’t hate Deckard. He doesn’t hate Stelline, either. There is no room in him left for hate, only desperate, pathetic wanting.
He knows they will not come, and when they do, it will be too late. But what if it isn’t?
Maybe- maybe Deckard will care for him, if he holds out just a little longer. It is such a hopeless, pathetic thought, but as he dies on the steps of his only great achievement it is one he clings to.
Maybe someone will finally care for him.
The tears in his eyes finally bubble over at the thought, streaming down his face, thawing his pale skin.
His breath hitches, and he wants to fight against his own self-deprecation - Joi cared for him, how can he throw her away so quickly? How can he be so selfish?
Deep down, he knows she wasn’t enough. She was- Joi was amazing. Joi was everything, so kind, beautiful, but she wasn’t enough.
He’s never even been held. Oh, God, the thought hits him like a freight train, terrifying in it’s sickeningly human weight - he’s never even been held.
Joi, for all she tried, was nothing but an apparition, a projection who passed through him. No one else has cared to touch him beyond his shoulder, or a brush of the arm. Joe shivers, the snow suddenly so much colder, the stab wound sharper in its agony.
I’m going to die like this, he realises, and the tears come tenfold. Deckard isn’t coming.
He will die here, so close from help yet so far, so close to someone who could care for him and yet- and yet-
The doors do not open. The snow does not stop.
Joe chokes on his own tears and aches for someone to hold him.