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

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

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).

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Because reading is for squares," Kira answers easily, finding Credence well before he's had to endure the studying of interacting with Credence in Graves' presence. He's actually snuck off to fool around with girls who had fathers less suspicious and controlling, and he has no such intentions with this friend.

Instead of sitting at Credence's side, Kira just leans a hip against the long bow of Credence's back, peering over his shoulder to see the same book it always is. He wonders if it's a comfort to read about a monster more human than its creator, or just a means of pressing a bruise, over and over.

The latter is probably why they have books at all.

Slipping a finger into the collar of his own shirt, stretched by every body he's shared it with, he tugs the damp fabric away from Credence's skin. Even after he fainted on his own porch, Credence insists on covering up. "Come on," he says, leaning on him in friendly, shit-giving earnest: "we're going swimming at the waterfall."

"N--no," Credence begins, even though he knows Kira is joking. He hugs the book protectively, unsurprised when Kira gently bumps him with his hip--Kira is incapable of anything normal--water is wet, the sun is warm, and Kira touches people in very strange ways and places. Peculiar.

Like now, as he touches Credence's collar and Credence instinctively curls. Not because Kira is a bully, or would do anything to harm him, but because it's too darn hot and he doesn't feel like being lectured again. He's about to say something, too, to stand up for himself preemptively when--

"We are?"

"Unless you'd rather swim in the fountain," he offers, and he's only teasing so much about it. He's been in the fountain several times now, and he still doesn't believe there's anything magical or sinister about it--it's just a fountain, where the're dumped to wake up after whatever happens on the way in.

Or where they're programmed to wake up, if you hold to Mark's theory.

As if to press the issue, he steps back and starts to lift the hem of his tank, fully prepared in this heat to leave it on the edge with his shorts and swim down to the bottom. "It's up to you," he tells Credence. Strip down at the fountain or try for a corner of the pool in the woods.

"No," Credence cuts in, and it's mostly because swimming in the fountain is crazy. It may be Kira's brand but it's not his: he's half expecting Kira to jump in again but what happens is just a little worse.

"Kira!" His voice rises, which is another feat only Kira can really do, and without even thinking his hands move to grab at Kira's wrist, preventing him from pulling his tank top up.

At least he's not stammering and turning around: he's actually trying to stop him. He looks pointedly at Kira (to the left of Kira) and then down at the fountain.

"Okay, okay. The woods."

Kira laughs at the absurdity of it--he probably shouldn't, probably should be coddling Credence a little more in light of everything that's happened. It's just so hard to go back, to let go of any progress even in the hopes of adjusting for the future. That Credence can touch him--be so bold as to grab him--just to keep him from taking off his shirt--

It's as silly and backwards as Credence himself often is. It isn't even anything he hasn't seen before, but Kira puts both hands up in acquiescence. "It's fine, Credence, I'm hardly the only guy wandering around without his shirt." God help them if Credence crosses paths with Isabelle, though it might lead to an interesting conversation about whether Kira borrowing a fucking sports bra would make him feel better about seeing his barely-there abs.

"Come on, you can bring your book if it makes you feel better."

"It'll get wet," Credence protests, completely missing Kira's tone of voice and following. He follows blindly, trying his best to ignore the fact that there are other people--men--wandering around without shirts. He hadn't seen any and honestly, he doesn't know what he'd do if he did.

He settles for shuffling after Kira, hunched over. He's fallen a step behind, but mostly because he has no clue which path Kira wants to take versus being too shy to move next to him.

"Did you read when you were home? What'd you like?" He can see Kira liking mysteries, that's for certain. And maybe a secret romance novel.

"It won't," Kira promises, "You can leave it with your clothes, there's a rock shelf you can keep them on." And hide behind, if no one's tanning themselves on it today. He'll take that spot for himself and keep an eye out, if Credence needs a lookout to unbutton his fucking collar.

That Credence might want just as much privacy from Kira himself doesn't occur, or is dismissed so quickly as to not have been thought.

"Either heavy literature or absolute trash," he admits, slowing his pace until his swinging arm brushes Credence's stiffer limbs as they walk. "Frankenstein's good--you maybe know about Jane Austen. Steinbeck's after your time, I think, and you wouldn't know the Japanese stuff. Honestly though, my sister and I liked to trade shitty erotica back and forth with notes in the margins, she used to read it to her school friends for a laugh."

Maybe she still does: so long as the quarantine worked, Chiyo was the safest of all of them.

"Wouldn't she be too young for erotica?" Credence is listening raptly, caught up in stories--Kira hardly mentions his family, so when he does curiosity bubbles up inside of him and he can't help but broach it. Kira hasn't told him to stop, and since Kira is the bluntest person he knows, he assumes it's alright.

He probably shouldn't assume, he knows, but Kira has him doing a lot of things he shouldn't do.

"It wasn't weird? Since you were brother and sister?"

"No," he intones, to both, nothing weird about it in his mind until Credence went and asked. "She's almost twenty-two, and it was a joke." Not that they'd never had serious talks, about boys, about things like protection. He'd been easier to talk to than their parents--almost as powerful as their mom, but never acting like he already knew all of Chiyo's secrets.

She and Daichi had that bond of not knowing, the way Kira had always been closer to their mother, but there were things their father would never speak to either of them about.

"We were like friends," he tries to explain, knowing Credence had siblings, but that their situation probably wasn't conducive to being close like that. "You'd like her," he adds, knowing how Credence fawns over some of the village ladies. "She dyed her hair lavender and ran off to art school upstate."

He's not sure what's funny about it, and he screws his face up trying to reach. The hilarity of reading a steamy penny novel is something the future must have developed, because he doesn't get it at all.

Credence barely understands lavender before, eyes wide, he reaches to his own hair, growing far longer than it ever has, and tugging it.

"It was purple? How did she ever come across such a thing?"

Kira laughs again, looping his brushing arm with Credence's elbow as they find the river's edge, to steer him along its path toward the falls. Hair dye is easier to explain than helicopters. "When I'm from, you can get a bottle of dye for your hair, same as your clothes."

Not that Credence's wardrobe struck him as the kind that made him keen on that kind of practice. "You have to bleach it first when it's this dark," he adds, lifting his hand under Credence's arm to tug his other wrist, subsequently tugging the hair still between Credence's fingers. "But after that you can make it whatever color you want, and she liked to stand out."

Nothing like Credence in any way, but Kira thinks they'd appreciate each other. Chiyo was one of the kindest people he knew.

Kira's laughs, he's learned, are something Credence craves. Especially if they're unexpected, because now he knows they're not at him, just the things he says. Credence has no desire to start being a vaudevillian comedian, but it's nice to know that on occasion his questions can get a chuckle.

Even if he's never sure how.

He grabs at Kira's hair, finding it impeccably soft and quite different from his own, but he knows not to voice that out loud by now. Instead, he picks his way towards their newly designated hang out spot.

"She sounds like a real rebel," he agrees. "It may be a bit too much for me."

"If I'm not, she won't be," he promises, leaning his head into Credence's curious touch. His own boundaries are a lot more flexible than his friend's, and he doesn't see a point in yet punishing Credence for reaching out.

Someone else might, but he'll deal with that when hell freezes back over and Credence finds the confidence to pull anyone's hair but his own.

Kira lets him go when he withdraws: variation on a theme. He's not going to make Credence do anything, he's not going to stop him either. "That rock, up ahead," he points out, spotting the dried, previously mossy face of the stone he and Isabelle had sunned themselves on. He doesn't plan much of that today: he's had to shove Tim's face or hands off a sunburn, and fun as it is to annoy him, he isn't looking to shed his entire skin for the summer.

"Kira, you are too much for me." Credence's voice is a small one, and he vividly remembers the visceral feeling of panic their first meeting, when Kira had threatened to spill his food onto the floor. Sometimes, he feels like they're friendship is a little bit like that, if toned down. One person doing something strange, the other mildly alarmde.

He looks up at the rock and half-smiles, bemused. "I hadn't noticed it before," He confeses, and picks up the pace just a touch to get there first. He's not racing Kira, but he wouldn't be opposed to getting there first.

Just because.

He can already hear the water, and even if that makes him nervous, he focuses all of his attention on the stone that looks perfect for lying down on.

"You're getting in," he calls savagely, watching Credence go for the stone slab. "We're going swimming, no more books and button-downs." Whatever he is, however much of it he is, Credence has held up this far. It's time to start pushing, even if Credence thinks he has been from day one.

With his back turned and attention elsewhere, Kira takes the opportunity to finally strip off his top, the black fabric sticking to his skin. He'll leave the shorts, even if it's nothing Credence hasn't seen after finding him on the porch. This is a different context, and context is everything with Credence.

"Come on," he says, coming up to the landmark and tossing his shirt onto it, then Ren's necklace. "You can keep behind the rock if anyone comes along, but honestly, no one's going to care."

Kira practically reads him the riot act, even if it's in a kind and gentle fashion, and Credence finds himself actually smiling. Sure, it's a nervous smile, and he definitely doesn't want to do this at all, but he can somehow never say no to Kira.

"I'm very fond of button-downs and books, Kira." he tries his best to sound admonishing and not slightly hurt, but he carefully picks his way down towards where Kira is, looking down at his own shirt, and then the water, and then the other's face, as if searching for something.

"You promise you won't laugh?"

"It's important to know how to swim," he says, like it's anything to do with what Credence likes. "I took swimming at school, that makes it educational, so fit it into your nerdy-agenda." Nerdy means as much to Credence as half the things Credence says do to Kira, but he's wading in up to his knees as he speaks, in little mood to explain.

When he looks back though, Credence is looking at him--not in the way Credence is almost always looking at him, whenever he's in Credence's orbit. It's something important, the kind of look that makes Kira miss the ability to know.

Especially with a question like that. "Why would I laugh," he asks. Why would it even matter, if he had a reason? He's knee deep in a strangled river wearing faded black shorts he hemmed with a knife, bitten and bruised and little muscle to speak of. He's always tried to lead Credence by example, but he doesn't know how to explain--if he doesn't care about himself, it's because he doesn't care at all how anyone looks with their shirt off. "I promise, Credence--it's fine."

He has no idea what nerdy even means, or if it's a good or a bad thing, and he can't quite comment on it if he's clueless so he makes a mental note to ask Bodhi or Mr. Graves about it later. That's not the hard part of this--the hard part is... well.

Kira promises he won't laugh, so he supposes it's alright, and he has half a mind to ask him to turn around before he realizes it's only a matter of time and that would probably make things worse.

He carefully moves hands to his shirt, and with slender fingers begins to slowly undo the buttons. It's not just in his posture that he's uncomfortable--he sniffs despite there not being any pollen or him ever having a runny noise. It's not that he's going to cry, either, but as he slowly slides off his shirt, it's apparent as to why he buttons even the first one up fully.

There are more scars. Not just on his palms, but moving up his arms. His chest is covered from days where just a slap on the hands wouldn't do. The silvery scars are and faded, the freshest one 6 months old, but it's there as a permanent reminder. Credence, looking down, shifts uncomfortably. When he finally turns to put his shirt down and carefully weight it with a rock, his back reveals even more.

"Remember," He mumbles, "You promised not to laugh."

"I did," he says quietly, neither staring nor dropping his gaze. Kira has met all kinds of people, before and after waking up in the fountain. He's undressed hundreds of bodies, he's seen and felt and tasted all kinds of scars. Sometimes they're childhood accidents, sometimes they're self-inflicted. Ty had all manner of marks from his mysterious years of training, but the point--

Kira knows why Credence has those scars, and it's nothing to do with learning anything but the wrong things. Especially about himself. Especially about his own worth.

His own bruises are innocuous, nothing in the same universe as those scars, and he forgets them as he wades back to his friend. When he comes up beside him, he reaches with his left hand, layers the scarred knuckles over Credence's own. "Hey," he says, no louder than before. He's not going to tell Credence to cover back up, or let him run away without cooling off in the water, learning to exist in his own skin a little--but he can do it gently. "This," he says, pointing to the hand taking Credence's own, "and this," lifting it until Credence follows his own fingers to the line cutting Kira's cheek. "They hurt. That's what scars are. Someone, or something hurts you, and you live through it. Only someone incredibly cruel would laugh at them. Only someone who didn't matter at all."

It's just his shirt, but he still feels naked. Bare, and more than just physically--he keeps himself stopped, arms protectively crossing himself before he remembers that that's rude. He forces them down, fists balled and shaking, and the sudden touch--when had Kira come over to him?--makes him jump.

His hand relaxes once he realizes it's Kira, and he takes in the other's words. He drinks them in, lips pressed into a thin line, and tries his best not to sniffle like a girl. It fails.

"Kira..." He wants to say so much. He wants to say 'thanks,' and he wants to say 'you're my favourite person here,' and he wants to say 'I'm sorry I'm like this,' and he wants to say 'please never leave,' but what he says is completely different.

"I'd like to get in, now, please." Maybe if he dunks his head in the water it will hide the fact he's about to cry.

Circumspect and given to structure as Credence is, flexibility has always been required in their relationship. Kira doesn't know anymore, what might happen when they talk, where they might go, and all he can do is push when it feels like time to push and let things go when it isn't. If Credence wants to swim, Credence can swim. If he wants to slip to the other side of the rock and cry, Kira will keep watch from his own side.

"Yeah, sure," he agrees, stepping side to give Credence room to wade in. "Whatever you want, I'll get our stuff settled, let me know if you want company."

With some people, he wouldn't. Maybe with Credence, he shouldn't, but before he walks further around the rock to give him some space, he sets his hand over Credence's shoulder. He's done it before, but never with the knowledge of the scar wrapped around its curve, never skin to marked skin. It doesn't linger for long, just a touch and squeeze before he moves on.

This doesn't change anything, unless Credence decides it should.

Kira doesn't really touch. He bumps into, he accidentally brushes, but Credence knows him well enough to know when he actively touches--when he makes it a point for it to not be an accident--it's pretty damn powerful.

He catches himself smiling, just a little, in spite of himself. Because despite everything--despite the world trying to take both of them down, be it Aurors or a disease that wipes out most of New York City, they have each other.

That's a very, very comforting thought.

He waits until Kira's away, taking care of something that he suspects is just an excuse for Credence's own personal space, and keeps his pants on as he wades in. What follows next is a strangled cry that sounds like a bird either hitting a window or finding a worm. It's difficult to tell.

"Kira! It's so cool!"

Just like that, they're back to the fountain, Credence distracted and Kira free to tease. "Yeah," he calls, weighting down his own clothes next to Credence's, covered against the breeze and passing fauna. "It's wet, too."

Before the canyon, Kira didn't do much outdoors. There wasn't an outdoors to explore, in the sense of forests and rivers. He knew how to swim, but he'd never been a barefoot boy in overalls or shorts, picking his way through the forest with sure, bare feet. He never sunned himself on rocks, never climbed them to overlook a waterfall and its clear pool.

He's someone else here. As cruel and separating as the place is, that isn't always a horrible thing.

"You'll get used to it," he promises Credence, running the length of the rock to launch himself from its overhanging edge, hitting the center of the pool with a splash.

Credence's grin is shy but evident, bright on his face--he's sure he's going to burn from being in the sun for too long, but the water is cool and as long as he goes anywhere where he can touch the bottom, still, it's fine.

He should have done this earlier. Kira doesn't care about how silly he looks. Sure, he's still wearing his pants and underwear, but his shirt's off, and all Kira does is--

--cannonball, apparently. Credence yells in surprise, blocking his face a little too late. The result is a strange sputtering sound as he gets water right up his nose. It's only after Kira surfaces that Credence manages to say anything.

"You didn't have to come in so scary," He murmurs.

Kira slips back under and swims for the opposite edge, conscious of crowding Credence as he tries to coax him in. Pulling himself up to sit and dangle half his body in the water, he shakes it out of his hair. "It's fun," he argues, though he can accept Credence not making a distinction. It's only the most normal way to enjoy a pool possible, so of course it offends.

"Do you know how to swim," he asks, catching himself before he tells Credence to try it. There's pushing, and then there's having to drag your friend back to the shore because they drowned in the middle of the pool. "We can work on it if you don't, it's probably a good thing to learn in a place like this."

For all they know, when the rain comes back they'll have to deal with flooding.

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

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