sixthiterationlogs | (no subject)

Jude feels like he's spent the last few weeks in a fog. It lightens and darkens, changes shape and density around him, but it's always there. The world has a weight again, a layer he can't push through. Days blur together and he walks around with blinders on, head down, trying not to see the shapes in it.

Watching Bodhi pace and fuss through the house, the dog with her head low as she followed at his heels, that had set it dark again. In all the things he'd assumed about Kira, thought about him--he'd never imagined him gone. And he'd never imagined what that might do to Bodhi, but he should have. He'd been a mess when the distance took Parker and Charlie away. On his own in a strange city, unmoored from his life. He thought he'd go crazy.

He had gone crazy. Deeper into the fog than ever before, coming out with a tattoo he didn't remember the point of; then the truck crashing, then--

Fog. The fog gets heavy, but he's figured out by now that it's safe. Just stay in it, let the world happen. Let whatever happened stay behind him.

Bodhi doesn't quite break it up, but it tends to lighten up in his presence. Jude goes out to the edges, admires him a little more clearly now, sometimes lets Bodhi take him by the hand if he's up to it and stays at that edge as long as he can. He can only imagine a handful of people knocking on his door at all; fewer at this hour, and hope does the rest. He's quicker than he otherwise would be, up from where he's been dragging his life from dining room to living, to arrange around the fireplace he plans to put to good use.

"Bodhi," he greets, a little more breathless than he is for anyone else, and he takes in the man after. "Jesus, you're freezing, get in here." Pushing the door open with his back, he sweeps an arm in welcome, pointing him at the fire. Pulling him in isn't something he's even yet presumed to ask if he can do.

Pulling would have gone very badly, but, as always, Jude's care with him pays off. Bodhi sweeps in without protest, because you don't let the cold into someone's house. There's a point where he's too upset to worry about practical logistics and even this isn't that point. But the moment he's clear of the door and Jude can close it again, he turns toward the man, not the fire.

The gesture is as odd as they usually are, reconciling Bodhi's touched starved, crush-addled wants to his trauma-scarred needs. He catches the back of Jude's shoulder with one hand and rests his forehead on the front, not quite trying to huddle under his chin but still clamping onto him as a desperately needed bastion of calm and comfort. Jude's not really that much taller than he is, but the extra couple inches of space he leaves between them does leave him sort of half on tiptoe to do it. He manages not to whimper, but he really wants to.

Just like that, Bodhi crosses into the fog with him, like their clouds have finally collided and they've wandered into each other's space. Like they're the only people left alive, and he imagines--he's not kind to himself--that it would explain why Bodhi might seek him out on a wet, cold night and shove himself into his space. He doesn't usually do this.

Jude doesn't really know what to do with it, a short sound hiccuping out of him at the abrupt contact, then quiet following. Wind whistles outside, and he isn't sure what to do with his hands until he needs to see to the door. One curls in around Bodhi's back to steady him in place, trying not to hold too tightly, as he walks them deeper into the hall to give him space to swing the door shit behind them.

He doesn't know if Bodhi's shaking from the cold, or something more, and for now he doesn't ask. Cold first, everything else later. "The fire," he says, but softer than anything before, into the new proximity of Bodhi's dark hair. "Just--stay there, but we're moving." It's a very slow process, figuring out what to do with his hands, turning them so his back is to the room, walking them blindly through hanging curtains into the cozier space. By the end of it they're standing at the edge of the dining room cushions, set in front of the unused couch, curtains pulled from every room to cover windows and doorways. It's a cave of sorts, built around the fireplace, and once they're inside Jude settles a warm hand at the central curve of Bodhi's shoulders, just below his neck, and just holds him in place.

"It's alright," he says, even if it probably isn't.

He's cold, miserable, and hopeless already. There's not much left in him to object to Jude's hands, and he brought them on himself, clinging like this. Kriff, this wasn't the way he'd have wanted Jude to hold him properly the first time, panic kept at bay by exhausted resignation rather than strength of will.

But Jude's so careful with him. He always tries to reward these demonstrations with the trust they deserve, tries now to make himself like the way Jude's hand feels on his back. He can't, but he isn't going to scream. He even appreciates the cleverness of Jude's little cave. "Thank you," he mutters hollowly, sounding a bit ragged in a way his hours outside would probably explain just fine.

Now that he's touching Bodhi, he can feel how warm he isn't--not the mild burn of walking through the wind, under a chapped chill of his skin. He's cold, and that would take a lot longer than the trek between their houses. Has he not been feeding the furnace at the other house? How is Aurora faring, where is she, if he's here alone?

A lot of questions, and while Jude prefers to dig to the heart of the matter, or speaking entirely--maybe he should ask them. Ease them toward whatever's going on, while he gets Bodhi settled by the fire and out of his snow-wet gear. "It's fine," he says, hardly imagining anything he's done yet worth thanks. He just opened a door, really.

"Come on, sit down. I can get you some new layers while these dry," he offers, still not moving. He isn't sure--should he keep hold of Bodhi as they sit, should he put him down and leave him? With Bodhi repeatedly closing the distance, he isn't sure what the line is anymore. Better to just--stand there, and see what Bodhi does.

Now that skin's beginning to tighten and prickle as the heat finds him, he's starting to be aware enough to be ashamed of himself. He shouldn't have come to Jude while he was still so upset, while he couldn't get a good handle on himself. Poor Jude didn't ask for--No, well, he did, he specifically did, trouble is supposed to mean talk to Jude. But he doesn't deserve this. Afraid he's already karked this up irrevocably, Bodhi gently disengages and steps back.

Before he ruins Jude trying to comfort him, too.

"I... it's alright," he says hoarsely, fingers not shaking too much as he unties the outer robe. It's warm and heavy, but it's true that it isn't waterproof.

"Then it'll still be alright in a dry sweater," he answers logically, and he manages a wry thing that wouldn't be a smile on anyone else, but--he's never been the most expressive.

He's still in the process of arranging his life around the heat sources in his house, and clothing wound up in the bathroom, for now. He lets Bodhi disengage as easily as he let him cling, and wanders back through the cold parts of the house to fetch fresh clothes and blankets--a couple of pairs of socks included.

"You should dry your feet," he says as he comes back through the curtain, everything bundled in his arms. It isn't hard for him to imagine what Bodhi must have been doing, though the why is never fully explained to him. Bodhi wanders; they both do, sometimes together. They don't have to talk about why. This is the kind of situation where he'd offer Bodhi tea, but he doesn't have any--but he does have a little milk and honey, pots and pans, and a grate for the fireplace. It's more work, but it's definitely better than a microwave.

"I'll get you something to drink."

Bodhi watches him go dumbly, feeling the heat prod at the wet, clinging chill. He's still and useless for another minute, then sighs and does as he's told, stripping off the outer layer of tunic. The one underneath is basically dry, and he has the wet layers hung up by the time Jude is back, picking at the damp laces on his boots. He wants to argue, but he was obviously the one being stupid here. There may be some internal conflict over whether he should subject Jude to this in the broader sense, but it's definitely not Jude's job to help him deal with weather.

Instead of trying to argue, Bodhi steps over for the far more familiar gesture of taking Jude's hand in fingers that are still a bit icy. Whatever's going on with Kira, Jude is incredibly good to him and deserves to be thanked. He only squeezes gently and lets go, an apology for the state he's in.

It's a language Jude doesn't know, but would like to learn. He squeezes back, unsure of what he's saying, but feeling like it's something in the right direction. Bodhi is trying. Upset as he is, missing as much as he is--he's trying. All Jude can do is try to make him comfortable, and if he wants to really say something--he'll listen.

But there is one question, that presses at him as he disappears through another curtain for the milk, the pan. The kitchen is cold enough he's left it in the sink, in the carafe he carried it over with. There isn't much, but it's enough for a mug: he's already warm, already home for the night. Pouring milk and honey both into a saucepan, he carries it back with the mug, and sits down next to Bodhi while it heats.

He doesn't take up Bodhi's hand again, but he sets it down beside his, knuckle to knuckle and easily in reach. "Is Aurora okay?"

"She... she's fine." Well, she's probably confused and whatever dogs are in place of hurt, but nothing has befallen her to distess an admirer of dogkind. And he wouldn't want to worry Jude about her. The practical question helps to ground him, as does covering Jude's hand loosely with his own.

Bodhi is close lipped and secretive about himself, but he's perfectly willing to tell Jude about this. Stiff, it's the reason he came, not that discomfiting Jude and acting stupid was a surprising side mission. "It's... Kira came home, but he doesn't know us, or this place, or..." anything about the last almost year. Bodhi's voice shakes as he speaks. Apparently there is something this place can throw that he can't catch.

"Did something happen to him," Jude has to ask, turning his hand over under Bodhi's to curl fingers between fingers in a loose hold. His mind will never quite make the leaps of others, assuming anything but a mundane answer. Kira wandered in the woods and got a bad shock, or a blow to the head--he can't imagine anything to do with fountains and travel between worlds.

Sometimes it's like he has no imagination at all, talking to him. The sketchbooks are--well, are they proof against that, when he's only drawing what he sees, some of it not visible to others?

Better not to have one though, than to sit and imagine Bodhi not knowing him, or the somewhat plausible reverse. He's not going to forget Bodhi. He's not. "Maybe he just needs some time. At least he's back?"

Funny the way things become familiar--and necessary. Jude's rough fingers ground him as much as the gesture itself, something real, something to trust as the same worries about possible forgetting threaten him.

Resolutely, he leans in a bit closer. Not like the abortive attempt at a comforting hug earlier, that's already been ruined, but moving his arm against Jude's, putting himself more resolutely in Jude's orbit. A reminder that this is supposed to be his space now. He gets to have this, for whatever strange and possibly fleeting reason.

"If... if it were an accident, or if he were sick--people get that way sometimes, I did, one of those things we get that, um, you know, happens here... If that were it, I'd be home with him." He could take care of a friend in trouble. He had nothing to do for a guarded stranger who didn't seem to have any need of him. "He was, um, he was himself, totally... He was lucid. He just didn't know anything about, about, about where we are, or the house, kriff, the dog..."

Jude doesn't know enough about even his own problems to know if that's any kind of normal, to just forget a thing without--all the rest of the problems that go with it. It doesn't sound like any kind of dementia, or like he took a blow to he head. Just--like being a different person. Like flipping a switch.

Maybe it's like Parker. Parker was always lucid, even when he wasn't him.

Without thinking about it, Jude leans counter to Bodhi's weight, pressing their shoulders together. It's warm by the fire, and that's--well, it doesn't feel like his sweater, but it's one he wears, strewn across Bodhi's lap. Is he supposed to relax into this, when Bodhi's here for such an ugly reason? "Most of those things go away though," he suggests. "Maybe it's like--when Baze was fading. Or your hair."

"I kriffing hope so," Bodhi mutters, more bitter than he wants to sound. He wants to just be angry, but how can you be angry at unseen puppet masters in a way that means anything? "Maybe it will, maybe... Maybe in a week he'll be himself again, and..." Would he be alright with it, then? He doesn't think so. It's the knowledge that they can do this, reach in and edit memories completely, that gets to him almost as much as the specific pain of losing his friend in such an awful, taunting way.

He's stopped shivering by now, and his fingers and toes, while a little stiff and sensitive, feel sort of normal. The fire's helping. Jude's helping. He wasn't quite in any danger, but soon he'll be comfortable again. "I just... If you're right, then, well, I just, I couldn't stay there right then." He doesn't say that this was a decision made hours ago. Jude can probably figure that out from the state of him. Physically and otherwise.

By the time the words are coming out of his mouth, he realizes Bodhi only meant--in the moment. Couldn't stay in the house at that moment. Had to wander, had to wind up here. It trails him off as he asks, "Did you want to spend the night--" and sets him searching for some way to qualify it, to not make it too much.

It isn't. What's a day with Bodhi in the falling leaves, what's a night in the dark with a dog between them? He's spent prolonged periods of time with him before, even since--this.

"The bedrooms--I don't really keep them up," he starts to explain. "But it'd be your pick of the couch or the cushions, and I'd take whatever's left." Not together, obviously, just in the same closed up room with Jude tending the fire through the night. Freeing himself from the weight of it, he stands up, mug in hand, to pull the pan off the grate and pour Bodhi his drink.

Bodhi looks up at him with puppyish gratitude. He'd been wondering how to even ask without it sounding presumptuous. It doesn't have to mean anything, even if it should mean something. Jude's made it clear he won't hold Bodhi to normal expectations even when it'd be completely fair, and he already appreciated that when all he's been able to bring himself to do is sit close and slide his hand around Jude's.

"I--You know I pretty much don't sleep most nights. I don't even need the cushions. Thank you." That came out a little garbled, but Jude's had more practice than most figuring out what the hell he's saying.

Looking sheepish, he takes the moment of distance to actually put on the borrowed sweater, first unwrapping his scarf. The outer layers are wet but the snow hadn't melted through. He even unties the ponytail so the damp hair will dry more readily.

The idea of Bodhi puttering around his house all night, with his hair down no less, makes him restless enough to do it with him. "I'm going to try to sleep at some point," he says anyway, because he means it: his body is worn out on the work of preparing for the cold they're already living in, and it's starting to take his mind with it. The more he doesn't sleep, the worse his grasp on reality gets while he's awake.

Not that the nightmares stop, but sometimes he's too tired to care.

He puts the restlessness toward handing Bodhi the hot, sweetened milk and returning the pan to the kitchen. Then he puts a little more into hanging up Bodhi's scarf, fingers careful on the wet cloth. What an odd thrill, to handle his clothes and make him a part of the space. It isn't like he's never hung it up before.

"I don't really keep the furnace going overnight," he says, nodding at the fire. "The rest of the house will be cold, but you can do whatever you want with it. And there's wood by the furnace if you want hot water for anything." Stranded with nothing left to do, he folds himself back into Bodhi's space, an inch between their arms.

Bodhi starts out just smiling fondly, ready to explain that his sleep issues aren't Jude's problem and he'll be fine just sitting. Sometimes he does that, and Jude's presence tends to keep him calm, even if it's Jude's sleeping presence, and, yes, that's actually rather a weighty thing to face, but kriff, he's already the one getting a favor and he doesn't want to be any trouble.

All the things he could say on the subject sort of melt away watching Jude, and by the time he has a hot drink in his hands and Jude's hanging up his wet clothes, he wants to cry a little bit. He doesn't, but he's aware of the temptation. He finally ran to someone for help, and rather than suffer for it, he got careful, attentive listening, a sweet offer, and fussed over. Maybe that shouldn't be staggering, but it is. "Jude, I... you don't have to... any of this, I mean, I... Thank you." It's less impulsive than last time when he turns and closes some of the space between them. Hugs are too hard to figure out? Fine. He needs something to show Jude how much he values this attention.

The kiss is quick and chaste and clumsy, leaving too much space between them and painfully uncertain, but he doesn't know how else to say what he needs to.

What does he do with this? He doesn't mean to freeze up, but he knows what Bodhi means to do a moment before he's doing it, and he--he means to be sure about it. He means to be sure about a lot of things, with how he holds his body, how he moves. With how he approaches Bodhi. It's always a deliberate thing, not to touch him. Like it's important that he's making a choice not to do it, because--he does want to. And he wants that known.

Where and when to make the other choice, just as deliberately? It feels like he promised he wouldn't, and to go back on it would ruin Bodhi's ability to take the chance. Jude holds himself still, lets it happen--only follows with a tilt of his head so Bodhi doesn't pull away so quickly. But he lets him pull away. Remembers how to breathe, does it shallowly.

"You're welcome," he says, gravel in his throat, hovering where he's been left. "You don't...have to either. I want to help. And I like having you here." He makes himself look at Bodhi when he says it. If he can't be deliberate with his hands, well. Words are something he's learning to use.

It's perfect. He's perfect. In a moment of unthinking selfishness, that's all Bodhi's aware of. In a bigger picture kind of way, he knows he should want, does want Jude to be able to touch him freely, to close the space between them. But right now? Staying still, no hands, no pressure, nothing to distract Bodhi from his rash decision and how good it feels. He did it. He kissed the boy he really likes. He'll be able to do it again.

And even if it only chases off the agony over Kira for a few moments, those are amazing moments. He's wonderfully lost in warmth and softness and the sound of that gorgeous voice. He feels like he could do it again, could do anything...

The rush of infatuation and his brain's attempt to flee from its current reality ebbs away again after a few seconds. He just takes Jude's hand back and wraps it up in both of his rather than do something he'll regret. "I know. I just... I really need this right now."

It's a heavy thing, for how lightly they tread over it. A heavier thing than Jude's ever--well, openly had. Parker had been heavier. Parker had been two people, in a way. He could burn up sometimes and catch Jude with the flames, and they never talked about it. Not really. Not that second presence, or how it burned his friend away little by little. Not why he was so afraid to lose him.

He's lost him anyway. He doesn't know who there is to make Charlie dinner and who Parker calls when he wakes up a county away in a bus stop he can't remember hitching to. Were those important things, what he amounted to in his own home? This feels like one of those things.

People don't always need complicated things. But they still need them. "That's fine," he says, a little slower, like he's processing the fact that it is. They're--fine. Not great, not with everything going on, but in his piles of stress, there's one thing to set aside. "The drink," he adds, just to get his own kind of distance, and make sure it doesn't get cold. "My mom used to give it to me, help me sleep." He doesn't know if it'll do anything for either of them now, but it'll be warm.

Bodhi probably should notice that this is the first time Jude's mentioned his mother, but he doesn't. It's such an ordinary thing. There's a lot of talking around their pasts between the two of them, something he appreciates very much despite wishing he was brave enough to ask more, but a mother is an easy thing to assume and, he figures, to understand.

He's a little more leery of the milk, which he's only had so far as part of ice cream. The heat is promising, and wishing for tea would be pretty shitty of him, so he accepts it from Jude's hands. His fingers immediately appreciate it, if nothing else.

"You want to share it?" It's an absent thought, but there doesn't seem to be a second cup, and being the only one enjoying a soothing beverage seems weird.

Jude could point out that he's already had some, once he'd gotten the room put together--but if Bodhi wants to share, he can have a little more. Whatever keeps it from going to waste. He doesn't know enough about cows to know if milk will be scarce as it gets cold. If nothing else, it'll be something to stretch thinner keeping everyone fed. "Sure."

Retreating a bit into his hair, he looks at the fire. It won't need tending for awhile. Honestly, there's little else to do but stay in Bodhi's orbit, unless he decides to head back into the cold.

All Jude would know to do in that instance is go with him, cold or not, exhausted or otherwise. "Can I," he starts, but he runs out of words, stuck on how to explain what he wants. "Just, let me--" He keeps his movements slow, shifting at Bodhi's side, showing him the hand he's moving toward him as he does it. He just wants to tuck their arms together, his hand there if Bodhi wants to keep holding it, his side there if Bodhi wants to lean in. It's as much as he's initiated since he plucked the ash from Bodhi's hair. His hand fits to the shape of Bodhi's arm in his sweater, and turns on it to slip under; he stops there, looking at Bodhi for permission.

Bodhi's off-center little smile is winning against the shivering misery now. This carefulness makes it so much easier to trust Jude, prepare himself for the hands and the contact to come. And while it feels natural that Jude would always choose ways to be close that don't remind him of the worst, the fact that he's had bad reactions to a few ordinary enough interactions says that this is something to appreciate, too. He nods and holds up his arm a little, an invitation of its own.

Sharing the drink isn't really a logical thing, aside from the fact that he's not sure how much milk agrees with him yet, but it's a way to squirm closer to Jude and comfort. So is this. "Thanks. For asking, I mean, I... I should probably stop with the..." He feels kind of boring.

"Stop what," he asks, unable to think of anything Bodhi's done that he wishes he hadn't, or wouldn't do. It's a lot of negative space, trying to create the shape of desire. Jude is used to the bad of people causing him hurt, or culminating into an absence--which also hurt. Bodhi carries some kind of absence, or several, within him, but it's part of his presence. He's here, a warm column of person at Jude's side, smiling at him and drinking hot milk by a fire.

Whatever it is for Bodhi, it's one of the nicest moments Jude's had in a long time.

"It's... I've heard myself say thank you about twenty times, and--If it doesn't bother you, then I'm probably not going to stop." He's always editing himself a little, but catching a habit like that is draining. "You're just... You're really good to me. That's all." Well, pure banality, great, but he couldn't think of a better way to put the thought. Cuddled up like this--well, no, it's hardly what you'd usually call cuddling, but Jude has his arm and they're close enough for warmth to pass between them. It's as good as it gets right now.

Eventually the combined warmth of the fire and trusted company lull Jude to sleep, almost against his will. His heavy head finds Bodhi's shoulder, his words slur into nonsense, then fail to come at all. Exhaustion wins out, aided by a dose and a half of warm milk.

Waking up alone on the cushions to a fire in need of a log is normal, but Bodhi's scarf reminds him, the empty mug--he sits up and rubs at his face, checking the sofa, the corners of the room. The fire takes his attention first, and he pulls a blanket around himself to explore deeper in to the house, listening for any sound unusual to its shifts and groans.

Edited 2017-11-06 14:28 (UTC)

For a while Bodhi borrows enough alright from Jude to get by. The quiet and the heat, the sleeping comfort of Jude himself (fortunately he likes being a pillow), the distance between him and the house where his friend just isn't all together leave him calm. He watches the fire. He meditates as best he can with Jude on him.

But eventually the mind will wander, and once he loses his grip on serenity, it vanishes. Kira is gone. Their minds aren't their own. Reality is as compromised out of his head as in. What happened to the person Kira was with the memories that belonged to this past year? What happened to the Bodhi Rook there used to be, and how many have there been?

He promises himself he's just pacing once around, relieving the restless pressure behind his eyes. He takes his time carefully easing away from Jude and making sure he's comfortably asleep.

The moment he steps out of Jude's cave of warm security, that all shatters. When cold and dark catch at him, so does everything else. The only directive he can hold in his mind is to not bother Jude. Paying back all this by waking him up and acting stupid would be as miserable as it was humiliating. He does his best to sneak on his way to the kitchen. A kitchen is its own kind of sanctuary. He makes it to the table before the sobs start and he buries his face in his arms to muffle the sound.

There are moments, sometimes mundane, that prove things about people. You can't always see them coming, but Jude thinks this is one of those. Being careful of Bodhi's twitchiness around being touched is one thing, something practiced before this became anything but two people enjoying company.

This is more than that. Something is wrong, Bodhi is sobbing in his kitchen, and Jude doesn't know what he's supposed to do. And if he can't figure it out, he might not be--worth it

Maybe it should paralyze him, but he's worse than shit if he leaves it. Saying nothing, unsure yet what to say, he walks into the dark kitchen and removes the blanket, folding it once into a triangle, he lays it over the shadow at his table, and fits himself slowly into an adjacent seat.

Hand left in reach, he holds his head up with the other, willing himself a little more awake. "Do you want to talk about it," seems like a safe start.

Bodhi wouldn't blame Jude one bit for turning around and leaving him. In the moment, he'd expect it, might even prefer it. This evening probably should prove he shouldn't anticipate being treated like his feelings are an inconvenience no one signed up for, but habit's hard to kick.

He jumps at the blanket, his shredded nerves happy to share their state of miserable excitement with the more physical aspects of his being.

Bodhi doesn't take the hand. It feels like a bad idea right now, but as he wants it. He starts to apologize, gets as far as a few stammered beginnings, "I didn't mean to--I'm sorry, I wasn't--Did I wake you up?" before he abandons the effort. He doesn't want this to be happening, he wishes Jude hadn't seen, he's horribly embarrassed on top of everything else. They both know that. "Y-you... I know you hate the... all the why are we here and... what's going on... stuff. That." He hopes that made sense through his shaking voice. It's Bodhi's turn to look at Jude through his hair, tumbled down over his face by gravity and held damply in place.

Jude does hate it: it's so much easier to take the days as they come, chopping wood, making paper. He deals with what he can, and he does his best to ignore the rest. He's starting to remember--in general, but also those long months at university. How he scrambled, how he took on too much, how he was losing hours and days, until he didn't know who he was or why he was there. If he has to be boring or obstinate to keep his head, well. No one here benefits from him locked in a room, sketching his fingers to cramps, trying to capture or contact a thing that just isn't there.

"Tell me anyway," he says, sitting in a kitchen so cold and dark, it's easier to see their breath rising from the pair of shadows than it is to see anything else. Maybe it's better that way. "About Kira, about why you're out here. I don't care if I'll hate it."

That makes no sense, but it's sweet anyway. He pauses to search for a way to say the least, upset Jude as little as possible, and still tell the truth. As he understands it. There's a lot going on here.

"I..." He stops, considers, starts again. It can't be about him. "A year of memories. Gone. He's not, um, he isn't hurt or sick, or... I know that can happen. They have something that... that reaches into our heads, and-and how do we know anything?"

Oddly enough, that elememt of their capture has always upset Jude the least: it's been a relief for the past few weeks, to see something ludicrous or unnerving, and find out he isn't the only one. It's a relief to know if he saw something, if he said it--this place could take the blame over his own mind.

Which doesn't leave him with any universally comforting advice, comfort as it's been to him. "How did we know anything before we got here," he asks. "I had trouble remembering things before this place. If anything, it's gotten better instead of worse, being here."

He's quiet a moment after, gathering more of his thoughts. "This place...it's not good, but I think too--the things that happen, they can happen anywhere. Earthquakes, losing people, forgetting. You have to deal with it the same way you would at home."

"I... I can deal with those things." He catches himself before he says that he's dead where he belongs, that anything that happens here, uncomfortable as it may be, is extra for him. He doesn't want to remind Jude of that little fact. But he can agree about the earthquakes, the missing people. He grew up in an occupied city. Unknowable, uncontestable powers that do terrible things once in a while are a fact of life. "I have. I can't--I never could, um, I mean, I just... I can't deal with... Something changing what's inside my head." It happened before. And it ruined him. He's the person he is now because of it, the one shrinking away from Jude instead of pulling him close, losing the thread of fraying sentences, trembling and weak and still resisting the urge to move. But at least the cracked and shattered crystal in his mind that Bor Gullet left behind is still there.

With someone else, it's the kind of thing you take their hand for, give a squeeze, go through some normal motions of comfort. But it's Bodhi, and--and Jude doesn't even really know what those are. Parker wasn't any more normal than this, and Charlie--

Charlie just took a beer when handed one and let Jude sit beside him, drinking one of his own, pretending he was old enough. Pretending they were something like drinking buddies at the end of a long day, instead of father and son, and stretched so thin apart from what those were supposed to be. Bodhi doesn't even exist between the gulf of Charlie's absence and Parker's sometimes hideous, suffocating presence. Bodhi's entirely his own question, and Jude doesn't know the answer.

He just wants to, in a way he usually gave up on at the first sign of a struggle. This is bigger than most of those old struggles combined: how does he do anything, when it's a matter of no control? All he can think of is something like the first time they really sat down to talk, after he came back from the cave-in. Staring at his hands in the dark, he doesn't have any reason to look up when he speaks: they can barely see each other. "You can tell that something happened to him," he says. "So we'd--someone like me. I'd know if that happened to you. I think I'd know." His voice fades a bit on the last bit, uncertainty eating at him. Would he know? Does he know Bodhi very well at all, for all the attention he pays? He doesn't know what the right thing to do or say right now is. "We just have to--keep an eye on each other. Like we already promised."

Jude knows Bodhi, just not about Bodhi. The haphazardly edited version of his life that says cargo pilot with a few bad habits and little direction, the one that doesn't give any reason for the way he is. It's almost entirely true to his life and also doesn't explain a thing. And at the moment he's tempted to tell Jude... a little more of the truth. But that could make him worse right now, could just upset Jude, could ruin everything if he lets slip too much or the wrong thing. So he has to trust that it's already true, that Jude knows him, and he'd know what happened. The renewal of that promise makes him finally extend a clumsy, hesitant hand toward Jude, just sliding it across the table. He doesn't really want to, but he's had good results in trying to thank Jude for every sweet, considerate gesture.

This is one that's not working, but fuck he appreciates the effort. "Th-thanks, I... I know you would. But I don't mean--It's just, how many times have we done that already? What happened to the Kira who was here before?" Bodhi's a methodical thinker, but he's also a pulp-addicted imaginist from a world with space magic. And, well, the idea of endless, carefully programmed, inexhaustibly replaceable clones is one that doesn't stretch his credulity much.

Jude would know even less what to do with the facts of Bodhi than he does with the present reality of him. Whatever he thought to sign up for is increasingly out of his depth, in a way that doesn't push him back, but makes him wonder--when is Bodhi going to want someone who can grasp all the things he worries about? Someone who can hold all those ideas in their head and hands and work out the answers with him? He's not sure that's him.

When things got this kind of bad for him, he'd just tried to run home. And he hadn't even done that right.

But Bodhi takes his hand all the same, and for the first time, Jude wonders who he's doing that for. It's miserably cold in the unheated parts of the house, begging the question of how long Bodhi sat, or intended to sit, out here. Jude tries not to grip his hand back too tight, or let through the shiver building at his sternum. "What do you need to have happened," is all he can ask. "It's not--I don't see how we're ever going to know. You have to pick whatever lets you keep going." That Kira could be dead, he could be the same one walking around, memory taken or altered. He could be safely home with whatever life he had before this place. It isn't personal to Jude, the way wondering about Credence might be, but he understands why Bodhi cares.

He's sharply aware of the heat from Jude's hand, though he hasn't yet worked his way to the fact that he's keeping Jude from security and warmth right now. He'll be guilty about that in a bit, but now he just focuses on the fact that Jude is warm and real and cares about him. Because maybe that'll make the crawling, trapped, ugly sensation go away, the one he's never felt from Jude's careful touches before. Everything is too close to the surface. He can't help it. Even Jude doesn't feel safe when stolen memories and the violation that goes with it are so close.

"Can you... does that... I don't think that would work for me." One way the two of them are very different. He'll never stop being curious. He can't go back to being the Bodhi who looked past the Imperial crimes around him and didn't see them, even for his own mental health. "I'm sorry, I... you can go, I just, I..." Jude isn't going to be able to talk this better. He should be. Bodhi wants to be soothed and comforted. It's just not working.

Success and failure aren't usually measured in feeling. You have the money to keep the power on or you don't; you chop enough wood for the house or you don't; you dig your way out of the cave-in or you die trying.

He's glad it's dark, with wind howling outside, when he feels the shame of it tighten his chest a little more.

Maybe this is what it's like, and maybe it's going to stay this way. Something will happen, he'll do his best, and it won't be enough. There isn't room in him for that feeling and the implications of Bodhi's friend, here but gone. He shouldn't have tried to find something to say, he should have just listened. "Are you just going to sit here in the cold if I do?"

"Oh." Bodhi's voice is very small as that one hits home. The longer he's out here, the longer Jude will spend... Oh, no. No, he made it worse, of course he did, he should never have come knowing this kind of stupid shit was a possibility... The recriminations help him pull himself together, if only for a moment. "Oh, kriff, Jude, I don't mean--You don't have to--You should get back where it's warm. I'll go with you if... I'm just not good for anything when this--when I... Sorry."

He makes himself cover Jude's hand with his other one, turning and drawing closer out of necessity. It's not so bad, one of those motions that leaves him in control and always makes him more comfortable. It's not good like it should be, though. He's definitely ruined what had been such a nice night. Fucking hell.

Jude's cold and it's his fault.

He just doesn't understand--maybe he never will--how the only thing he can even think to say can be the wrong thing. This is why he doesn't talk much. He has to turn his hand over under Bodhi's two and wait for a pause in all the words, wait for no more starts after the stops, and intone his name. "Bodhi."

Just that, just something to ground them both in the dark.

"Cold's fine. I'm fine. You can be upset, I just--pick warmer places to do it." Which just sounds--like it's for him, but he means in general. Bodhi showed up worse off than he is now. "You could get sick, I mean."

"I usually try to... nevermind." He isn't sure he could even explain. The way he tries to reserve places for feelings isn't one of those old habits of his turned weirder and worse. He's so rarely had any place, even his ships and berths totally transitory, assigned only where and when he happens to be useful. Having home, having favorite walks, having a spot to go cry in are all equally new and strange. And lend themselves very well to his attempts to compartmentalize himself and keep the bad hidden from the pretty okay. Now he's crossed those wires. Jude's home and a staggering failure to keep his composure.

Then again, maybe it's not so new. Once he flew away. Now that's not an option. And when he finally flew home again it didn't go great.

"Let's get... Let's go back where it's warm." He has to or Jude will get colder. Even if he has really karked this up for good.

Is this another wrong thing? He isn't trying to force it one way or another, he just wants Bodhi safe while he works this out. "We could get a fire in the stove for you, hang a blanket over the door, if you want to stay." If Bodhi doesn't want him around, he can just bring the warmth to Bodhi.

Jude, given a home, hasn't been able to get used to all the space. He's had a trailer and a dorm, barely grew up with a real bedroom--it's been habit to narrow the space down and forget the house as a whole.

All these extra rooms? Bodhi can transform them to his own needs. Jude hardly feels an ownership of them, after all this time.

Not really grasping the weight of the offer--an invitation to make a little of Jude's space his own--all he can think of is not being trouble. Another fire would waste fuel. Jude being out here with him is wasting... well, comfort. The nice, safe, warm space the two of them should be in. "N-no, I... I'm coming back?" He doesn't mean for it to sound like a question, but, kriffing hell, does Jude even want him back after this? He knows he won't be pleasant company. Jude probably does, too. He manages to keep himself from apologizing some more just for good measure and squeezes Jude's hand. Not letting go, not now. Jude hasn't served him up the rejection he deserves yet, but this might push it over the edge.

Bodhi--compensates. Extra words, that adjustment of gaze just off-center from what he can't quite look at. Touching Jude's hand, squeezing it.

Kissing him.

He doesn't have the years of understanding he had at home, with Parker, with the people he saw every day. But he is paying attention, and he has his sketches. Jude probably does it his own ways--with the art, really. Everything else he isn't, he's never really tried to be. It's biting him in the ass, now. "Okay, but if you want to come back out here, just--make yourself a fire." Bodhi can stay or Bodhi can go--he wants him to stay, but he's used to people doing what they need over what he wants. That's alright.

Squeezing back, he gets up slowly, not pulling out of the tether of their hands. Reassurance is a harder thing to find, and maybe it isn't a good sign, just a sign of how fucked he is--the stupid thrill of holding onto Bodhi in the dark. "I can move things around, if you don't--if all the seats are too close," he adds, as close to babbling as he ever gets.

It'd be wonderful to tell him no, that there was no reason to move anything. Bodhi could see himself thanking Jude properly for the night's sweetness and putting aside the dark. It wasn't that hard to picture, but unfortunately, he could see himself cringing away and starting to tremble again just as clearly as he could see wrapping Jude in a real hug and kissing him the way he should be kissed.

"I... I don't think you--I'll just sit by myself a little bit. There's room." That had been the original plan, and he was the one who'd invited Jude to curl up next to him and use him as a pillow. This inconsistency was almost worse than what he couldn't do in the first place. Poor Jude. Badly as he wanted that contact--for himself, and so Jude wouldn't feel like this was a complete waste of time--he shouldn't be asking in the first place and putting them in a situation like this.

At least he can hold Jude's hand. He's getting used to it. Kriff, what an awful thing to have to get used to.

"There's a chair, and the couch," he agrees. "I'm used to the cushions anyway." His bed on the floor is an optimal recreation of his narrow space in the window, which was itself a recreation of narrow beds back home, made more so by holding all of his books and half of his clothes. One thing the house hasn't been since he moved in is definitely tidy.

Jude gives it another moment, another few breaths in the dark. There's a distant glow to guide them back, firelight through sheets and curtains, around a corner, but he doesn't want to drag Bodhi anywhere he might not want to be. With no one to lead though, they'll just stay out in the cold; Jude takes the first step back around the edges of the table, pauses, moves again only when Bodhi decides to follow.

Without knowing how to admit upset, there's no way to explain he isn't upset with Bodhi. He just needs to bury it further down with all the rest.

Bodhi moves quickly to follow him. He doesn't want the sensation of being dragged right now, no matter how willingly he'd like to follow. He inevitably hits his foot against the table leg, but only a little, and he's been a clutz all his life. That kind of thing is easy to ignore. If he can just keep it from getting worse, maybe Jude will forgive him in the morning for this fiasco. "Chair," he says softly as he trails along. That leaves Jude the couch, and you can't share a chair with someone. Well, no, you absolutely can, but you have to be able to be cozy if you try. Maybe someday. Maybe.

Eyeing the arrangement, Jude does take the couch, picking up a new blanket and arranging himself to stare at the play of firelight against the ceiling. If he forced Bodhi to step over him for a better place to sleep, he imagines the man would never take it, and he minds far less stepping over him to tend the fire.

"You can wake me up if you need anything," he says, unsure how quickly he'll fall asleep; there's no real desire to escape the situation behind it, but hes's already proven useless, and he doesn't want to chase Bodhi from the warm room with any kind of hovering.

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Later that night

Re: Later that night

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