[closed] tastes like being poor and small

[theintercessor]

WHO: Jude Sullivan
WHERE: House 19
WHEN: August 21st (backdated)
OPEN TO: Credence Barebone
WARNINGS: Usual warnings for Credence (abuse narratives) and Jude (epilepsy symptoms) may apply.

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An eclipse is at least a normal sort of thing to happen, even if it is on the tail of a month’s summer light, earthquakes, a room in the caves. Jude can think of a couple people who might be keen on it, just as its own thing, but he only knows where one of them lives. Really, he only knows what he knows about Credence, and most other people are mysteries. Even--maybe especially--the ones who just cough up their whole stories into his lap, first few times they meet.

Charlie used to say he was just like that. Like a wall for people to talk to. Sometimes people want to unburden themselves, and they pick the best stranger they can find. All Jude knows is: he didn’t ask.

Bodhi’s a different kind of mystery, and not just where he lives. There are conflicting answers on where to find him at any given time, and Jude feels like--an asshole. A stupid asshole, keeping an eye out for that sash. Why the fuck should he hope to run into anyone here, any single one of them, unless he needed something?

Need is a strong word for what he’s walking up Credence’s steps for. The unnaturally dark sky doesn’t spook him, but it’s--like looking at the black surface of a quarry lake. Like the white figures hitching on the dirt roads, hands at their sides, just staring. They’re horrible, they’re beautiful--and they defy solitary experience. Maybe that’s why he started drawing at all, trying to share it without having to drag people around. Yet, if he’s proved anything since arriving, it’s how little he minds dragging Credence, when Credence isn’t already hovering in his shadow.

Not today, but it’s early enough yet, and Credence usually takes his chores serious enough to do them first.

He must be doing them now: when Jude approaches the house from behind, the back door is swung open. It makes a soft creak as it moves in the shifting of the house’s weight. No breeze, just that unnatural feeling stillness under the purpling, grey sky. “Credence,” he calls, walking up the steps, wondering what work Credence is at that there’s moss and damp earth tracked up them. He looks just in the door for Credence’s boots, and calls again.

In the stillness, there’s a sound like a child crying, kind of sound on a day like this that sets the hair up along his neck. Jude pushes the door open wider, and instead of a pair of boots, or a broom set aside to sweep up the mess, there’s just more tracks, slapped to the floor Credence cleans so regularly.

Braving the wrath of Credence’s marble-cut father-figure, Jude pushes inside, following the tracks to Credence’s room, the sounds sharpening behind the door. He lifts a hand, hesitates through a long keen, then knocks softly.

“It’s Jude,” he calls, not wanting to be mistaken for anyone else.

Comments

[repressings]

He's talked to Mr. Graves about it, sort of, but even that was different. This is him alone. He's very good at being alone, he's very good at dealing with his emotions, and he's very good at hiding everything.

There's no reason to hide anymore, and so Credence does what he finds is very familiar, even after all this time. He finds a place in the corner, furthest away from everything, he curls his knees up, buries his face, and cries. Great big heaving sobs, chest seizing with each gulp.

It's his fault. He'd made Kira mad again, made it all about him a second time. Kira wanted to be left alone, but Credence had pushed it, trying to be there for him, only to have it backfire. Kira didn't let anything out except that he hated Credence. If anything, Kira pushed himself inwards to try to take care of him, suppressing everything to explain to Credence that it was fine.

It's not fine. Nothing's fine.

Credence's great heaves turn into small sobs, at least, when someone calls his name. He ignores it, but bites back a sob by gnawing on the inside of his cheek. The other calls again, louder, and Credence's voice is sort of watery and hoarse at the same time. Jude at least deserves something other than silence.

"I can't play chess with you today," Is what he says, sniffing loudly.

[theintercessor]

"Yeah, no shit," he says slowly, the depth of his voice carrying through the door more than the volume. It isn't locked when his hand sets on the knob, and he stands a moment longer, wondering if this is--his problem, his place.

They play chess, no--Credence beats him at chess. They survived a cave-in together and walked back in the pouring rain. Credence slept on him in the Town Hall. Credence--probably cares if he's still here, on a given day. That's what he wanted, but it isn't all he wanted. Maybe there's some excuse to be made, about thinking Credence is hurt, in some kind of crisis, as they call it at the school. Truth is, Jude just doesn't give a shit about the door in his way, pushing it open just enough to lean his upper body into the room.

He's not trying to expose Credence, just get a handle on the situation. Scowling at the curled up sight of him, Jude offers the only comfort he really knows how to give: "Whose ass do I have to kick for you?"

[repressings]

He's hugging himself even tighter by the time Jude comes in, but he can't stop himself. He's still crying, and after Jude says those words--strange, not that they come from him, but that they're geared to Credence, and he shakes his head.

"No, no, no no no no--it's my fault," he manages, and winds up raising a hand to hastily wipe at his tears. This isn't good. He has to get himself together, he has to pick himself up.

"I'm sorry about this, I--just give me a few seconds, and--and you need to know that he didn't do anything wrong, I made a mistake, I was a bad person, I just messed things up."

[theintercessor]

Getting information out of Credence is never the most straightforward affair--though honestly, few people he's met are as straightforward as Jude himself. He says what he means to say and he asks what he means to ask. Even Jax, who seems about as normal as a person can be here, gets lost telling stories and making jokes.

His lips press down into a line, and he scowls around the room like it will hold more clues to what happened than Credence is giving. "Was it the guy you live with," he asks, the most immediate place to start. His ire is compacted by stumbling on a situation he doesn't understand, much less like, though that's his own fault for barging in.

He was just worried: he clearly had reason to be. "If it's just a mistake then you're not a bad person," he says flatly, like his word decides it. "Everyone knows you're not."

[repressings]

"It's not," Credence is quick to cut off, quick to rush to Graves defense--they share something, a bond, even if that bond is about the one person neither of them ever want to see again. But maybe Jude and him have a bond, too, because Jude cares.

What a strange thing to think of, even after having Kira at his side; even after hearing it from other people. Everyone knows he's not a bad person. And Jude, he's not just someone he plays chess with. He's a friend, too. Friends tell each other stuff.

First, though, Credence has to calm himself down. He has to make sure his head isn't spinning anymore, and that he can be coherent without bursting into another round of tears. If he were back home, Ma would have beaten him within an inch of his life.

"I'm sorry," he apologizes, this time for not explaining very well. He keeps wiping roughly at his tears, as if the more frustrated he gets the easier it will be to stop. "I was yelled at by someone. Or... No, I wasn't yelled at, but, I made them mad. I was only trying to help, but everything I said made it worse."

A sniff.

"I know we're all going to die here. I just don't want to die with people mad at me."

[theintercessor]

Even as Credence explains, softening the situation further with each pass, Jude's hackles stay up. Maybe they've been waiting for a reason all this time, and it's better that they're in Credence's room, where any rash action would require time and thought before he got to the point of execution. For now, he slips the rest of the way in and pushes the door shut behind him, stalking over to perch against the corner of the bed.

"Well, first off," he says, his scowl not for Credence but more or less aimed at his knees, "I'll have to die first, because I wouldn't let that happen to you." In the moment, it's less a declaration than an irritable and how could you think otherwise. "And second, just go apologize then."

Everything has a simple solution. The complexities of this place are why he doesn't bother thinking it through: they'll be let out or they won't, anything else is too fantastical to be worthwhile. "And if they don't hear you out, fuck them, and I can still kick their ass."

[repressings]

Credence laughs. It's a weird laugh, watery and out of place, but he laughs, because Jude says it like it's so simple, like it doesn't matter, like the weight of everything and trying to reconcile is nothing. Like it's light as a feather. Like it's easy.

"I might not apologize right," He mumbles. "I mess up all the time, Ma said so. And I'm trying no to.. Not to be like this so much, 'cause all it does is make people mad, but it's hard."

It's the truth. Credence isn't sure he's said that to Kira, even, and his gaze carefully, cautiously moves up to Jude, trying to get some sort of reaction to gauge the situation on.

[theintercessor]

"Well," Jude starts, more thoughtful than soft. More--wrapping his own head around Credence, and Credence in this place, and this fucking place in general. "How're any of us supposed to get shit right out here? You never know when the person you're talking to is from outer space, or you're going to get trapped in a cave with them."

His opinion of Credence hadn't been especially high, before that. It hadn't been especially low either: he'd been doing his best not to have one. At this point, he still isn't sure what it is, but it's not bad.

Credence is, he thinks, always doing his best. "I think if this person knows you, they'll understand. It's just hard to be understanding when it feels like the world's ending."

[repressings]

Credence nods at those words, and has to refrain from politely explaining that he's not from space, just the 20s when he realizes that Jude was merely using it as an example.

But he's stopped crying. That's a plus. He's able to breathe--that's another plus. Jude has helped more than he knows.

"Have you ever been like that?" He asks, and it's a cautious sort of question. "Like the world's ending. You can--you can sit if you'd like."

[theintercessor]

Of course he can sit, but he complies like he was waiting on permission. It's a bit like being handed a clue for what to do with is hands, which have found their usual place in his pockets. For someone who tries to move only when moved, to go with the flow, he's pushed himself pretty far into Credence's house today.

He was just worried; a little less now that the tears have stopped and Credence is catching his breath. Upset isn't good, but it's better than hurt.

Perched on the corner of the bed, hands still dug in to the pocket of his jeans, Jude nods. "Before I came here." His brows come together under the growing curtain of his hair: "I still don't remember much after driving off the road, but I remember that feeling. I think it happens to everybody. Or--I think if you never feel that, probably you aren't much of a person." He could think of some people like that: the mine owners, kids at school, a few of the teachers.