chitter-chatter all these secrets started giving me the shivers;

[repressings]

WHO: Credence Barebone, Percival Graves, anyone else
WHERE: Barebone-Graves residence, fountain
WHEN: June 15th-16th
OPEN TO: Everyone
WARNINGS: Standard Credence warnings, specifically parental death
STATUS: Open

---

i ➼ I ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʙʀᴜɪsᴇ ᴡᴀs ᴜɴᴅᴇʀsᴛᴀᴛᴇᴅ ᴄᴀᴜsᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ'ᴛ ꜰᴇᴇʟ ᴛʜɪs ᴀɴʏᴍᴏʀᴇ; closed to Graves
It's something Tina mentioned to him when he asked why Mary Lou knew about wizards. Why everyone else was sure magic was just a fairytale, but Mary Lou was staunch in her belief. It bothers him less that Graves didn't tell him--he knows that's how the other operates, how Graves answers Credence's questions honestly but doesn't give any unnecessary information. Instead, what's really gnawing at Credence is that he didn't ask the right question. He'd thought he was getting better at that.

It was almost a game, asides from their question-for-an-answer. He's never quite told Graves said game of course, but Credence tries to phrase his questions to get the most out of him. He considers a simple 'yes' or 'no' a failure in these circumstances, even though a yes or no is usually enough to satisfy his curiosity. Credence wants more, ravenously hungry for knowledge. Newt and Tina will happily provide answers to anything he asks, and Credence plans on using this to his full advantage so long as they don't mind, but he still wants Graves to teach him, too.

It's finally too hot for him to handle a long-sleeved shirt and jeans when he gets back from the mill, and since he's just in their house and not planning on leaving, Credence opts to wear his white scrubs again. They're lighter, just cotton, even if his arms show the criss-cross markings of unhappier times. Unhappier times he now knows and recognizes as much more complicated than he could imagine. Which brings him to the question he wants to ask.

He finds Graves in the living room, and he wants to say it's evening despite the never-ending blazing sun. His footsteps are quiet, barefeet, and he stops at the doorway, watching the older man for few moments before speaking.

"Ma knew what I was, didn't she? She knew what my real mom was, too."

ii ➼ Iᴛ's ɢᴇᴛᴛɪɴɢ ʙʟᴜᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ'ᴛ ᴋᴇᴇᴘ ꜰᴀᴋɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ'ᴛ ꜰᴇᴇʟ ᴛʜɪs ᴀɴʏᴍᴏʀᴇ; OTA
The more Credence thinks about how hot it is, the hotter he feels, and the more he thinks about how he shouldn't think about how hot it is the more he does. The circular puzzle he's trapped in is ridiculous. The problem with dressing in long-sleeved shirts and long pants is that, even if they're airier thanks to the fact that they're Kira's clothing and not his own, it's even more hot, which jumpstarts the entire thing.

He does his chores for the day and decides the best course of action is to copy what he'd spied Queenie doing a little while ago: he makes his way to the fountain, book close to his chest, dips his feet in, and reads. It's Frankenstein, which he's sure he's read at least 30 times since Christmas, but it's not like he has anything new.

It's when he finishes a chapter that he looks up--he squints against the sun, frowning--and muses, not necessarily to the person passing by.

"Do you ever wonder why they don't give us books very often? The ones that watch us."

---

iii ➼ Iᴛ's ᴀ ʙᴀᴄᴋᴡᴀʀᴅs ᴀᴛᴛʀᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜʀ ꜰᴏʀᴡᴀʀᴅ ᴇʏᴇs;

Feel free to spy Credence at the fountain or by the river, or sometimes at the inn doing whatever needs to be done (most likely sweeping).

Comments

[repressings]

"You wouldn't be taking it," Credence says quickly, and he's already closing it after dog-earing a page for the umpteenth time. "You'd be borrowing it, so when I want to read it again," he cautiously takes the other's hand, his movements purposely slow, to slide the book into it.

There. He's physically handed you something, so now Bodhi can't say no. It's a trick he learned from Kira. At the next question, though--excuse him as he balks.

"Christmas? There's no Christmas in space?" Nevermind Bodhi's from a different universe.

[onlyeverdoubted]

He should be protesting more, but his traitorous hands have already closed over the cover. He is desperate for an escape sometimes, and there's only so much time he can spend thinking through old episodes of Beyond the Outer Rim and coming up with new endings.

He's so gratefulyl flustered he doesn't even think about Credence's hand on his until it's over, forgetting entirely to be afraid, feeling none of the crawling panic that calls to mind tentacles and torture and being blindly dragged through the catacombs. He only realizes he should have when the momentary warmth leaves, so different from the unrelenting heat.He even glances down for a moment at his hand as if to make sure it's still there where he left it. His first comfortable human contact in months.

It's partly that Credence did everything right, moving slowly, not making him feel confined, moving with purpose. It's mostly just that it's Credence, though.

Good thing he has something better to focus on than how alarming that wasn't. "No, there... If there is, I've never heard of it," he says measuredly, smiling. He supposes he could clarify that "in space" doesn't mean much of anything, but really, he likes the way it sounds. Like he leads the life he imagined for a pilot when he was a teenager scrambling to leave home for, well, space and all its ill-defined wonders.

[repressings]

"It's a holiday most of us celebrate here," he explains, and then realizes putting it on religious context might be strange. Bodhi comes from a world of temples, and deserts, and teahouses, not strong churches and crucifixion.

"It's the birthday of our God," he says after a while. "And you put up a pine tree, and put presents under the tree, and then you open them the next day." He'd never got presents, of course. "And you have a big ham or turkey, or you're supposed to." He'd never had that, either. He blinks for a few more moments, glancing over.

"What genre do you like in books? That one's horror."

[onlyeverdoubted]

Its a holiday. That's really enough context, though he does try to log away the disconnected list of nouns in case it's handy later. Other people's celebrations tend to be inscrutable. He'd rather talk about books, too.

Well, not exactly books in his case. Recreational fiction reading has never been big for him, but because of availability and time, not disinclination. Reading a story instead of a report on landing conditions in unstable magnetic fields sounds nice. He's happy to interpret Credence's question broadly, though.

"Um, adventures?" In a world with space wizards and laser swords where ghosts and prophecies are an unusual but verifiable fact of life, genre doesn't quite have the same meaning, and after casting around for a more specific way to describe his tastes, he settles on an example. "I mean, pre-Imperial, Old Republic stuff, especially serials. One of my favorites--I must have gone all the way through the holos ten or twelve times. There's a Jedi and her padawan--I mean, that's just, um, apprentice, are dispatched to an Outer Rim mining colony that's lost contact, and when they arrive it's destroyed, but all the survivors have different memories of what happened, only the Jedi can sense they're all telling the truth..." The sort of mild exaggeration for exigent storytelling demands that one has to accept or you'd spend all your time quibbling. "It's a little, um, well, even in the Republic Era, things were--It tries. The padawan wants to believe the human family's story because both fathers are scientists, and everyone learns a lesson about tolerance and judgement, and it's all very... Sometimes it's just nice when things are simple, I guess." Bodhi can and will babble about his trashy taste in entertainment forever, but he's just a little self conscious of the silliness.

[repressings]

Adventures. It fits with Credence's mental images of Bodhi, and he can see the other trying to escape the deserts and tea--scrap?--shops, becoming a pilot like his favourite radio plays, or whatever it is they have that counts as the same thing in his world. He smiles faintly, listening.

"Maybe one day, you could try to reenact it. And--I'll try to do The Rum Runners, in exchange. It's a play about pirates along New York, it's awful fun. I wasn't supposed to listen to it, but--" Well. He did. Even if he got a belt once Mary Lou found out.

He never did find out how it ended...

"What's the old republic and republic era? If you don't mind me asking."

[onlyeverdoubted]

"I probably do have it memorized," he admits, because it's not like he has any right to pride, and the chances of being able to show the entirely miniseries to Credence for proper appreciation seem a bit low. "Not sure about voices..."

He wants to ask, very carefully, why Credence wasn't supposed to listen, because he's elided past a lot of these moments lately and it's starting to get under his skin. But the question is a very distracting one, and he has to breathe deep and consider to even know how to begin. "Same thing, really. It's long--actually, it's not, it just seems like another world, but I was around for it. Just young. Before the Empire took over... Every world had its own government, and other kinds of groups, sometimes, trade federations, or, well, everyone had something, and they'd send representatives to the senate to debate laws that effected everyone. I'm sure it wasn't--I know it wasn't perfect, but it was... what is was supposed to be." Bodhi's natural cynicism has been bolstered all his life by, well, his life. But it's still easy to think of those days as a golden age. For him, after all, it was. "The Jedi kept the peace, decisions were, um, close enough to democratic, and... Jedha was a shining city of pilgrims and monks. I hardly remember, but..."

[repressings]

Bodhi doing voices would be worth the metaphorical price alone--but then again, Credence would have to do the voices to the Rum Runners as well. It would be an interesting tradeoff, and definitely had to be done away from anyone else. It's embarrassing, even if it's fun, and he's well aware that Bodhi is as self-conscious as him.

It's the latter half that has him look very, very confused.

"It sounds like a big mess," He says honestly, and he's pretty sure it's not because of the way Bodhi is explaining it. He mulls the words through for a moment, and then chances another opinion. "People just trusted the Jedi? that's pretty spectacular. Where I come from, no one in the whole city can agree on a single thing." And a whole bunch of different worlds can?

"It sounds like it was peaceful."

[onlyeverdoubted]

"What's wrong with arguing?" Bodhi's a fan, actually, or he was. That might be a piece of the self he really isn't anymore. "Democracy is messy. I'll take it over tyranny any day." Bodhi looks at him a little askance, but it's not Credence's fault, certainly. He hasn't explained much about the Jedi, has he? He's a Jedhan child, if a child of its fall, and he never questioned certain things. A kid from a seperatist planet might have very different opinions, but Bodhi has never considered them. "The Jedi weren't politicians, um, well, some of them had influence, I'm sure, they were still people, but they were monks, not... not power brokers. Sure, in all the stories I grew up on, the focus was on shooting lightening out of their hands and clouding the villains' minds, exciting stuff, but most of the time? They did things like facilitate fair trade agreements, protect activist politicians... The whole point of the order was helping people. Why would you stay if that wasn't what you wanted to do?"

[repressings]

"There's lots wrong with arguing," Credence says, and his voice is soft and just a little more timid than it was before. He hasn't thought about things like democracy, or tyranny, or anything of the sort, not really. All that matters is that he keeps his head down and does what he's told, regardless.

Jedis, though. Jedis confuse him. He thinks they're like police officers at first, and then Aurors like what Mr. Graves describes, but as Bodhi keeps talking his confusion grows more and more.

"I'm not sure I understand," He says cautiously. They could 'cloud minds?' What on earth did that mean? "But... surely, there had to be people--Jedi?--who just said they were helping people because it meant they let their guard down?" Grindewald comes to mind.

[onlyeverdoubted]

"No one's perfect, but... Well, there were plenty of other things to do with it if you were Force sensitive. That's how the Imperials ended up in power, however much they want everyone to keep quiet about it." He's been in Vader's presence. Only distantly, only peripherally, or he'd probably be gone, too, just a stop on a more important station than usual. He knows what he saw. And he's a little defensive of a childhood fantasy, admittedly, much as he doesn't blame Credence for caution. "I can't say it never happened, but if you didn't want to be, um, an ascetic monk, you were sort of in the wrong... I mean, maybe."

He wishes he could refer Credence to Baze, who no doubt knows more about the Force than Bodhi, even if he doesn't want to cop to it. But that's probably a bad combination. "Lot of things to do with the Force, if you have it. One of the gate guardians at the temple used it to hand out candy to kids--we'd have to chase it around for a while. I guess having it doesn't have a lot to do with what kind of person you are..."

[repressings]

"Are you Force sensitive?" He asks, and he's not sure if it's a taboo subject or a bad subject to broach so he just goes ahead and says it. He trusts Bodhi enough to shy away and he'll take a cue, but now more than ever, he's curious.

"It sounds like you don't have to be a Jedi to have the force, or feel the force, or--I mean, I still don't understand it, but if you were, maybe you could be a Jedi, too, if you go home and live."

[onlyeverdoubted]

Bodhi shakes his head, unperturbed. He always wished he was as a little kid. Every child in the republic probably did. But it's nothing to get upset about. "No, you can use it or you can't. It's there either way. I can't. I have a great aunt on my father's side and a third cousin on my mother's... Maybe second-once-removed, I forget. Pretty week for a Jedhan family. But if there's ever been a Rook in the Jedi I don't know about them. Maybe a Guardian or two." It'd be very handy if Chirrut were here. Everyone else has turned up. Honestly.

He frowns, trying to think of a way to make it clearer. "I'm not sure, because, um, well--I don't really know, but I think it's like... Another sense. The Force is there for me, but I don't see it or hear it, it doesn't do what I tell it to or..." He doesn't want to oversimplify but he doesn't want to drown his friend in theology, either. "The Force is with me and I am one with the Force, and I fear nothing, for all is as the Force wills it." He always sounds different when he knows what he's saying for sure, not just confidence but freedom from having to snatch at words from the frantic stream of nonsense inside his head and force them into some sort of order.

[repressings]

"That's all very confusing," Credence says softly, and he means it. He's not upset, but he feels like he needs some sort of chart, a bunch of books, or maybe a tutor to fully grasp it. Bodhi, though--Bodhi says it with such conviction there's not a doubt in Credence's mind it's all real.

He just wishes it made a little more sense to him.

"Maybe one day, you can show me. Maybe someone will come from your world, if eveyrone's powers come back, and you could introduce us?"

[onlyeverdoubted]

"We do have a Guardian of the Whills," Bodhi says carefully, because inflicting Baze on the unsuspecting... Well, Baze has never actually injured him, just projected a clear intention of doing so if the opportunity should ever arise. Credence has never worn an Imperial uniform. It's probably not an issue. "I don't think he's force sensitive, but, well, he... I know he knows at least one who was--is, able to... Well, there are degrees, I mean."

Lacking any sensitivity himself, Bodhi hasn't paid very particular attention to the various shifts in peoples extra-normal abilities. He has only a general idea of what exactly happened with Credence the other week, but at least that's a cue to be reasonably polite about it. "I'm not going to do you any good, anyway. But maybe someone will turn up."