Bodhi Rook (
onlyeverdoubted) wrote in
sixthiterationlogs2017-11-02 07:10 pm
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WHO: Bodhi Rook
WHERE: House 23
WHEN: Shortly after Kira's arrival
OPEN TO: Jude
WARNINGS: None anticipated, will add
He had to be alone for a while after. There are things he's finally started trying to fix after the better part of a year, but there are also things he understands are futile, and trying to talk to anyone after he finally left Kira would have been one of those. And probably just as uncomfortable for them as for him. So he walked. It's what he does. The chores that he usually uses as excuses are gone now, all the herbs and little edibles dead or entering some sort of seasonal torpor, the kindling wet even if the supply wasn't fine at home, the dog in no need of his companionship... No, can't find an excuse, just a walk, and he stays out until the day begins to fade and the cold gets in too deep.
Bodhi likes to insist he's never cold. He's too Jedhan to be cold. Everyone else is overreacting. And for a while it's true, but the still, wet cold here is completely different from the arid wind he knows how to take, and his robe isn't really up to it. The cold sneaks in subtly, or he's just that distracted. It takes him unawares when he realizes he's shivering and the line between hurting and numb is getting fuzzy in certain extremities.
He's still not really ready to talk to anyone, but dragging himself to exhaustion did make it a bit better. And Jude's not someone, he's safety. Not to mention in a house far away from what Bodhi can't really face right now. He knows he's supposed to come to Jude now, unnatural as it feels to be any trouble. This is where he should go. But knocking still feels awkward and presumptuous and like it can't possibly be a good idea.
WHERE: House 23
WHEN: Shortly after Kira's arrival
OPEN TO: Jude
WARNINGS: None anticipated, will add
He had to be alone for a while after. There are things he's finally started trying to fix after the better part of a year, but there are also things he understands are futile, and trying to talk to anyone after he finally left Kira would have been one of those. And probably just as uncomfortable for them as for him. So he walked. It's what he does. The chores that he usually uses as excuses are gone now, all the herbs and little edibles dead or entering some sort of seasonal torpor, the kindling wet even if the supply wasn't fine at home, the dog in no need of his companionship... No, can't find an excuse, just a walk, and he stays out until the day begins to fade and the cold gets in too deep.
Bodhi likes to insist he's never cold. He's too Jedhan to be cold. Everyone else is overreacting. And for a while it's true, but the still, wet cold here is completely different from the arid wind he knows how to take, and his robe isn't really up to it. The cold sneaks in subtly, or he's just that distracted. It takes him unawares when he realizes he's shivering and the line between hurting and numb is getting fuzzy in certain extremities.
He's still not really ready to talk to anyone, but dragging himself to exhaustion did make it a bit better. And Jude's not someone, he's safety. Not to mention in a house far away from what Bodhi can't really face right now. He knows he's supposed to come to Jude now, unnatural as it feels to be any trouble. This is where he should go. But knocking still feels awkward and presumptuous and like it can't possibly be a good idea.
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Later that night
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.
Re: Later that night
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.
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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.
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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.
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"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."
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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?"
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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."
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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."
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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.
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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.
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"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.
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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?"
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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.
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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."
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"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.
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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.
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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.
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"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.
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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.
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"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.