3ofswords (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
3ofswords) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sixthiterationlogs2017-08-11 12:31 pm
3ofswords) wrote in sixthiterationlogs2017-08-11 12:31 pm
[closed] i'll hold in these hands, all that remains
WHO: Kira Akiyama
WHERE: House 39, the Spring, House 52
WHEN: August 21
OPEN TO: Credence, comment starter for Tim
WARNINGS: Grief, blood, interpersonal conflict; NSFW content with Tim
intro; the house
Kira wakes up alone.
It happens a little more often this month, than previous. After the earthquake he’d spent a great deal of time with Tim, pushed through a barrier, added a kind of casual sleeping and breakfast to the casual sex. It had been a safe thing, no expectations, built in safeguards against taking it too far. They didn’t have to talk. They’d never have to argue and compromise over jobs, living spaces. His parents were never going to crawl out of the fountain for introductions. It couldn’t be anything, so they could let it be whatever it was.
And he’d been normal, for so much of it.
He’s not avoiding Tim now, not after the long walk they took, day-drinking and almost talking. Talking around things, couching things in practicality. He’d asked who to look for, if he gets back, Margaery’s prediction still looming over him. Someone to check on, someone to tell that their son or husband or boyfriend was alright. Of course he’d just been asking, really, about Tim’s home. How to find his people, who they were, if there was a glaring reason not to try.
Not much to do with something casual.
He’s not avoiding him. He’s just taking time for himself, days in between, not inserting himself into Tim’s day as frequently, for as long. He’s still here, and he always comes back, and he always slips right back into it all, and--and that low murmur of everything that is Tim wrapping around him. It’s too dangerous, when he already gave as much of a shit without it.
It’s easier to wake up on his own a few times a week, acclimate to the world nice and slow, in his remote house on the edge of everything. Kira lays in the bed, feeling out the space. Aurora at his back, Hoshi peeping from under the rag that keeps him quiet after sunrise. No Bodhi, but Kira isn’t really sure what time it is, and he might have found somewhere else to sleep off his late night puttering. There’s no one around at all, something to luxuriate in for a moment. He takes his time, rolling one way to scratch up Aurora’s face and ears, endure her tongue on his cheek. She isn’t so bad to wake up with, about as big as she’s probably going to get and her fur starting to lengthen as the temperatures wane. Rolling over the other way, he peels the rag up from Hoshi’s head, sets it aside, reaches past the ruffling ball of feathers to run his fingers through the contents of the drawer. A couple of condoms, dice, the old casings, the crystal necklaces. Reminders, but only of people here.
Not that he needs a piece of home other than himself.
Sighing, he rolls out of the bed, pulling on his cutoff shorts. Maybe no one is around, but the way disaster strikes in this place, he doesn’t want to be caught out in his underwear. His scrapes and scratches have healed from the last round, and he’s held Tim enough at arm’s length this week that any bruises are well-faded. He pads barefoot through the empty house, the animals used to his lazy routine enough that they don’t bother to follow, and he heads for the back door to rekindle the stove.
credence; the spring
The coat is slung over the rail of the back steps. Kira stands, framed in the doorway, staring at the familiar folds. He takes a step back and goes into the kitchen, blinking too quickly, taking a moment to drink a glass of water from the sink. It’s not there. He’s not awake yet, he’s still dreaming, it’s just the stress of everything getting him stuck in it.
The coat is slung over the rail of the back steps.
Kira sucks in a breath, louder and deeper than the last. It isn’t a box with his name on it. It isn’t new, tags still on it, a kind of--a kind of reminder of a coat, cruelly left for the coming winter. It’s slung out in the open, the fur matted and dirty, stains on the faded green fabric. It’s his coat, the one that had gone missing with Ty, the morning after their half-dreamed argument. The one Ty had been carried back in. The one Kira had been wearing before he woke up here.
Stepping gingerly out of the house, he picks up a sleeve. His throat closes for the chill lingering in the fabric, like it had just been picked up from the alley. Like nine months haven’t passed at all.
When he turns the side out, opening the coat over the rail, he recoils and cries out. Both hands lift to his face, covering his mouth and nose, squeezing his cheeks and jaw until the bone pushes back against his hands. The fur inside is still matted with blood, dried to the fibers, hideously dark on the white and brown lining. His hands press harder, holding back bile as it rises in his throat. His eyes scan out over his fingers, seeking anything in the trees, even knowing that isn’t how these things work.
Like he knows anything, about how this works.
Still gagging, he fists a grip to the shoulder seam and sets down the steps, barefoot and barely dressed, scrambling into the woods. The blood isn’t fresh, but it hadn’t been when Kira left: he’d waited a day at Ty’s bedside, hoping someone would find the right pills, praying Nicky would send someone out to get them. It had been the next night when he pulled the dirty coat back on, his cards and Ty’s pistol in the pocket. The coat feels lighter than that, and he doesn’t stop to check them: he keeps running into the trees, picking up speed, knocking through ferns and hopping rotted logs like he can catch up to something none of them have ever seen.
“Who’s there,” he calls out, panting with terror as much as the exertion. “Is he alive?” Has time moved a moment since he arrived, can he send the bottle of pills in Tim’s bathroom back somehow, is there any kind of hideous bargain to be struck—
The trees are silent, when he shuffles to a stop. All of his senses know: he’s alone, and it’s only as he looks and listens that he notices how ugly the light is, how dim it seems for mid-morning. How late did he sleep? The sky isn’t visible through the canopy, and he hunts a moment for some kind of landmark: was it all just a trick, just a lure to lose him among the trees? No, there’s the marker he carved, the upward, forward pointing arrow to the spring. He follows it, bare feet picking over increasingly lush, mossy ground and stones, until he comes out on the loamy clearing.
His legs are shaky, weak as he picks over the green moss, porous rock around the spring, until he sinks down at its edge and clutches the coat up in his lap. “Where is he,” he asks the empty trees, his voice gone soft enough to break, until he’s sobbing I’m sorry into the dirty lining.
It isn’t some double-edged gift. It hits as deep as a bolt of lightning, burning symbols on rooftops. It smells like cigarettes and gunpowder and dirty snow. It smells like old and new sweat. Kira doubles over with it, sitting on his legs in the moss, suffocating himself in it as he cries.
WHERE: House 39, the Spring, House 52
WHEN: August 21
OPEN TO: Credence, comment starter for Tim
WARNINGS: Grief, blood, interpersonal conflict; NSFW content with Tim
intro; the house
Kira wakes up alone.
It happens a little more often this month, than previous. After the earthquake he’d spent a great deal of time with Tim, pushed through a barrier, added a kind of casual sleeping and breakfast to the casual sex. It had been a safe thing, no expectations, built in safeguards against taking it too far. They didn’t have to talk. They’d never have to argue and compromise over jobs, living spaces. His parents were never going to crawl out of the fountain for introductions. It couldn’t be anything, so they could let it be whatever it was.
And he’d been normal, for so much of it.
He’s not avoiding Tim now, not after the long walk they took, day-drinking and almost talking. Talking around things, couching things in practicality. He’d asked who to look for, if he gets back, Margaery’s prediction still looming over him. Someone to check on, someone to tell that their son or husband or boyfriend was alright. Of course he’d just been asking, really, about Tim’s home. How to find his people, who they were, if there was a glaring reason not to try.
Not much to do with something casual.
He’s not avoiding him. He’s just taking time for himself, days in between, not inserting himself into Tim’s day as frequently, for as long. He’s still here, and he always comes back, and he always slips right back into it all, and--and that low murmur of everything that is Tim wrapping around him. It’s too dangerous, when he already gave as much of a shit without it.
It’s easier to wake up on his own a few times a week, acclimate to the world nice and slow, in his remote house on the edge of everything. Kira lays in the bed, feeling out the space. Aurora at his back, Hoshi peeping from under the rag that keeps him quiet after sunrise. No Bodhi, but Kira isn’t really sure what time it is, and he might have found somewhere else to sleep off his late night puttering. There’s no one around at all, something to luxuriate in for a moment. He takes his time, rolling one way to scratch up Aurora’s face and ears, endure her tongue on his cheek. She isn’t so bad to wake up with, about as big as she’s probably going to get and her fur starting to lengthen as the temperatures wane. Rolling over the other way, he peels the rag up from Hoshi’s head, sets it aside, reaches past the ruffling ball of feathers to run his fingers through the contents of the drawer. A couple of condoms, dice, the old casings, the crystal necklaces. Reminders, but only of people here.
Not that he needs a piece of home other than himself.
Sighing, he rolls out of the bed, pulling on his cutoff shorts. Maybe no one is around, but the way disaster strikes in this place, he doesn’t want to be caught out in his underwear. His scrapes and scratches have healed from the last round, and he’s held Tim enough at arm’s length this week that any bruises are well-faded. He pads barefoot through the empty house, the animals used to his lazy routine enough that they don’t bother to follow, and he heads for the back door to rekindle the stove.
credence; the spring
The coat is slung over the rail of the back steps. Kira stands, framed in the doorway, staring at the familiar folds. He takes a step back and goes into the kitchen, blinking too quickly, taking a moment to drink a glass of water from the sink. It’s not there. He’s not awake yet, he’s still dreaming, it’s just the stress of everything getting him stuck in it.
The coat is slung over the rail of the back steps.
Kira sucks in a breath, louder and deeper than the last. It isn’t a box with his name on it. It isn’t new, tags still on it, a kind of--a kind of reminder of a coat, cruelly left for the coming winter. It’s slung out in the open, the fur matted and dirty, stains on the faded green fabric. It’s his coat, the one that had gone missing with Ty, the morning after their half-dreamed argument. The one Ty had been carried back in. The one Kira had been wearing before he woke up here.
Stepping gingerly out of the house, he picks up a sleeve. His throat closes for the chill lingering in the fabric, like it had just been picked up from the alley. Like nine months haven’t passed at all.
When he turns the side out, opening the coat over the rail, he recoils and cries out. Both hands lift to his face, covering his mouth and nose, squeezing his cheeks and jaw until the bone pushes back against his hands. The fur inside is still matted with blood, dried to the fibers, hideously dark on the white and brown lining. His hands press harder, holding back bile as it rises in his throat. His eyes scan out over his fingers, seeking anything in the trees, even knowing that isn’t how these things work.
Like he knows anything, about how this works.
Still gagging, he fists a grip to the shoulder seam and sets down the steps, barefoot and barely dressed, scrambling into the woods. The blood isn’t fresh, but it hadn’t been when Kira left: he’d waited a day at Ty’s bedside, hoping someone would find the right pills, praying Nicky would send someone out to get them. It had been the next night when he pulled the dirty coat back on, his cards and Ty’s pistol in the pocket. The coat feels lighter than that, and he doesn’t stop to check them: he keeps running into the trees, picking up speed, knocking through ferns and hopping rotted logs like he can catch up to something none of them have ever seen.
“Who’s there,” he calls out, panting with terror as much as the exertion. “Is he alive?” Has time moved a moment since he arrived, can he send the bottle of pills in Tim’s bathroom back somehow, is there any kind of hideous bargain to be struck—
The trees are silent, when he shuffles to a stop. All of his senses know: he’s alone, and it’s only as he looks and listens that he notices how ugly the light is, how dim it seems for mid-morning. How late did he sleep? The sky isn’t visible through the canopy, and he hunts a moment for some kind of landmark: was it all just a trick, just a lure to lose him among the trees? No, there’s the marker he carved, the upward, forward pointing arrow to the spring. He follows it, bare feet picking over increasingly lush, mossy ground and stones, until he comes out on the loamy clearing.
His legs are shaky, weak as he picks over the green moss, porous rock around the spring, until he sinks down at its edge and clutches the coat up in his lap. “Where is he,” he asks the empty trees, his voice gone soft enough to break, until he’s sobbing I’m sorry into the dirty lining.
It isn’t some double-edged gift. It hits as deep as a bolt of lightning, burning symbols on rooftops. It smells like cigarettes and gunpowder and dirty snow. It smells like old and new sweat. Kira doubles over with it, sitting on his legs in the moss, suffocating himself in it as he cries.