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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.

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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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