sixthiterationlogs | let's take it to the grave [closed to several]

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let's take it to the grave [closed to several]

WHO: Kira Akiyama
WHERE: Southwest of the Town Hall, under one of the tallest trees nearest the village
WHEN: Feb 7, after the discovery of Ren’s death
OPEN TO: Open to but not requiring tags from: Casey, Credence, Veronica or Mark, Jyn
WARNINGS: Grief, character death, a dude literally digging a grave for a friend
STATUS: Yes, from the above people

Time to dig a way out, or a grave.

The message had seemed a threat, at first: Kira had wondered if meeting Ren alone might put him six feet under. What he should have done, what he should have paid attention to, was the invisible force the man spoke of, the way it connected all things. The way Ren had reached out with it, and had wanted to help him test his own strengths. There would be no more time alone with him. There would be no more meetings, no taking him into the forest to hunt the wendigo, no looking for the way out.

Taking a deep breath, Kira lifted the short, unfolded shovel again, and speared it into the hard earth. The snow had stopped falling, and the air had warmed enough to melt some of it from the ground, but the soil at the base of the tall pine was packed tight and cold. Kira was sweating under his clothes, his coats laid at the roots, and every impact of the shovel travelled up to his injured hand and tested the healing skin.

It hurt: so did his fingers and palms, the muscles strained by sudden labor. So did his arms and back, and his hamstrings, his calves, from standing and bending and tossing the dirt he moved off to one side. He’s outlined the hole to an approximation of Ren’s height, and started to sink it in.

Ren had only just returned the tool to him, after his meeting. It made Kira’s heart crawl up to his throat to think about, how thoroughly the place had punished the man for his efforts.

Maybe it was chance. Plenty of people had been injured, but so far only Ren had died. Only his home had been torn in with a symbol burned across it, and Kira took another breath, lifted again, rattled the impact up his shitty narrow frame, again. It was exhausting work, worse than deep cleaning the kitchen or scrubbing out the tub. And those were his only points of comparison, as physical a project as he undertook, to prepare him for this one. He had lain awake most of the night, wrestling with the glimpse of Ren’s body, well after it had been removed from the house; he had lain awake in a silence that denied even Casey’s concern, the cat’s attentions, his own prickling flop sweat of weariness.

And at sunrise he’d gotten up, the question of what to do with that body mixing with the question of what must have been done with Ty’s. The question of his own worthlessness tying itself to both ends, marrying them to each other, tethering him to this single purpose: dig one of them a grave, at least.

It wasn’t lost on him that Ren might have predicted this. That he might have known, and Kira hadn’t recognized it about him.

It wasn’t lost on him that, with his full abilities, he might have told him not to go home.

He’d stolen Casey’s gloves on the way out. It was almost habit, to pull one over his injured hand, to see how much he could get done in the kitchen. Today he wore both of them, and he could feel the soft new skin tear and ache for the work, under the leather. Sweat made a slippery layer between his flesh and the interior, but the gloves saved his grip, and he put his weight into it. There was no strength left, the sun directly overhead, his breath rattling dry in his throat.

On the next attempt, the shovel hit the side of a rock; slid; and sent him falling forward into the hole. It wasn’t so deep yet as to swallow him, but he tipped awkward inside, scuffing his shoulder and hip on the dirt, jabbing the handle against his ribs. When he sat up, his head and shoulders, hunched as they were, showed over the edges. His limbs shook from the long effort, and he slowly unclenched his hands from the handle: it was time for another break, whether he wanted one or not.

There was so much left to do, and not enough strength in him to do it.

He felt like he was facedown in the snow again, exhausted, out of his element, following a feeling in the hopes of doing something concrete. He’d been an idiot then and he was an idiot now: wasting time with people, getting attached, having a sliver of hope, when he knew how it ended. What awful place would he be whisked away to before he finished this task? Was he going to push a boulder up a hill, over and over, stripping away his sanity every time it crushed him on the way back down?

Lifting dirty hands to his face, Kira hid his mouth and eyes against them, and the sounds of the shovel chipping at the cold earth were replaced with soft and solitary sobs.

There was still a long way to go before even the top of this hill.

[Kira, owner of the Village Shovel, can be found either crying in his initial attempts at digging Ren a grave, or if you prefer to skip the waterworks, after he's gotten up and gotten back to work a while later. The list of characters are those who can tag, but no one is required; kept it short due to the emotional nature of the post for Kira himself]

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Ren is dead.

Credence doesn't cry. He feels bad--he feels awful, that there's someone he knows in the village that's now gone--but Credence remains stonefaced, surprisingly stoic. A selfish part of him--a cruel part of him--is glad it wasn't brought on by him. That it was lightning, and not his Obscurus. This isn't his first brush with death and what it brings about. It surrounds Credence in a peculiar way, and this is no different. This also isn't about him, though, it never was. This is about his friend.

He finds Kira where he was when he first noticed the other wasn't doing his chores. That had been a while ago, when there had been nothing but Kira and a shovel and no other progress. Credence had politely given him time. Now, just like how he pokes his head into Kira's room at noon to make sure Kira's alive, he metaphorically pokes his head into Kira's personal life.

When he arrives, Kira is crying. Kira is strong--so, so strong, and Credence's heart thumps in his chest, mouth dry with worry. He'd expected Kira to cry, sure--he expected most people to--but expecting and actually seeing are completely different things.

"Mr. Kira." Credence's words are hushed. He doesn't address the exact situation because Kira had never with him, during one of his moments. Instead, he has a small bag.

"I thought maybe you were hungry," he says eventually, He holds up a fruit--the very last apple from the gifted bag.

"And maybe I could keep you company."

You don't have to be alone.

There's a small gasp, the rush of air into his dry throat as he tries to suck every noise and tear back into himself at the sound of Credence's voice. That hush picks him up and punts him out of the feeling, leaves him sitting disoriented next to it while the train of wild and ugly thoughts leaves him on his ass to run the bases.

Another breath, he looks between the gaps of his fingers at his skinny legs tangled with a shovel in a hole. Dirt streaks on his scrubs, mud on his knees. Credence saying words he doesn't really follow

He sucks the snot back into his throat, fingers sliding down his brows to wipe at his cheeks, the sleepless bruises under his eyes, and he finally turns them up to Credence like he isn't sure how he wound up out here in a hole at all. "Yes," he says, hardly knowing what he's saying yes to. The words catch up as he hunts back for them, voice torn into something soft and ragged, but it works. Tears still leak from the corners of his eyes, blinked away and renewed, but he stops sobbing, and he stops--thinking, turning all of his concern to a person and a task, to get away from himself. "Yes, I--I should eat. Thank you."

Hunger registers only distantly, behind cold, and he finds his coat at the base of the tree, the top of the hole: "If you could just, hand me my coat--I'll be fine. I'll come up and eat." Hopefully the moment it takes Credence to fetch it will give his legs the strength back to carry him.

Credence nods in response, and makes it a point to take his time as he gathers the other's jacket. Kira is not well--he's digging a grave, too, and he knows it's Rens. There's a strange, somber touch to everything. More than usual--and he realizes with a hint of surreal amusement he's wearing his black sweater today.

When he returns, it's with Kira's jacket, ready and waiting for him. Credence doesn't say a word, and his face is neutral as he watches the other quietly, face impassive. He'll be whatever Kira needs. They're friends.

Credence has never had a friend before, but he knows he cares for Kira enough that he'd do anything for him.

It's only when he looks ready to speak that Credence carefully hands him an apple, drawing his knife from his pocket and handing it over, too. That's when he speaks, voice soft and gentle. He talks like he's talking to Modesty after she's had a nightmare--most of the people in his family have them. He's good at assuring them there's no monsters, even if he is one. Kira deserves everything Credence can possibly give him today.

"When things get really bad, and you can't cry anymore, you know--there's a secret."

He has to get up. He has to: for Credence, but for himself. No one is served by his sitting tangled with a shovel in a hole, or by his crying. Credence shouldn't have to stand on the edge of a grave and talk to him like he's a frightened child, when Credence has been through so much already.

Maybe if Kira hadn't thought he'd die, he'd have made sure to grow into a stronger person. He'd have learned better skills, or done more things that hurt so he could be prepared for it later. Instead, he'd chased whatever felt best or easiest, whatever had the fewest strings attached. Now he's alive and other people aren't. Now people look at him like he has answers, or like they need him to have them, and he's empty. He's out of ideas.

But not out of strength. He uses the shovel to start himself, to stand, and from there he lets Credence hand him his coat, lets it hang around his shoulders like a dark cape. He takes the apple in one hand and the knife in the other, looking up and up at the taller boy from the bottom of a hole. If he just focuses on the chap of the dry air against his skin, or the texture of the apple in his palm, the knife in the curl of his fingers, he can keep it together. "Care to share it?"

Credence shakes his head. This is beyond a simple apple, this is beyond 'you might be hungry,' but it's the only way Credence knows how to help. He will be there, quiet, because Kira is hurting. Credence has only ever soothed Modesty and Chastity; only ever comforted the nightmares of those younger than him, and this is decidedly different.

It's not a parent, it's not some half-formed figure in a child's mind. It's someone they both knew, and, for Kira, it's even worse. Credence had been on a slight acquaintance level, and this, for his friend, is something more.

He shakes his head, burrowing a little more into his peacoat.

"I've been thinking," he says absently, "about how pretty the sky is. How no matter what, even here, dawn comes."

How Kira finds the gentle smile, he doesn't know, but it settles automatic on his face when Credence shakes his head. Even sucking back his own grief, he can't let Credence think he isn't allowed to keep his secrets, or not have the strength to talk about something yet.

If he's critical of Credence, it's only ever teasing, or very of very important things. For all he told the young man fuck the rules, he has many about Credence, and not just because of the shadow that has followed him as long as Kira's known him.

One: he does not make his problems Credence's problems. Two: he does not lose his temper, or act annoyed with him. Three: he does nothing to demand anything of him. When he pushes, it's only through his own actions, the things he's willing to do or say in Credence's presence, the loose way he lets himself approach the world and the people in it, that Credence might see how no one hurts him for it.

So he only nods, an encouraging half-smile wobbling into place as he blinks away the last of his tears, fingers trembling on a knife. "Like the circles," he agrees, hoarse, thinking right now the bad is on a very, very long arc. "Nothing lasts forever."

"Right," Credence agrees despite not quite understanding, and it's soft and gentle and he's about to say more, but he's momentarily distracted by how Kira looks, blinking away tears and trying to pull himself together. It's admirable, and Credence wants to find the words to tell him it's not needed, but as he narrows his eyes and concentrates as he looks at him, he draws a blank.

He settles on digging his hands into his coat's pockets and exhaling softly.

"Maybe he'll come back. Like the man before."

The feeling lurches through his heart and sinuses like holding his breath, or stepping down from higher than he imagined. Like the man before--he'd told Credence that, his first night in the village. Repeating it just to commit it to his idea of the place.

He hadn't learned until later, that man had been Ren. That he'd left with another man and returned alone, no memory of any of it. It was likelier he'd leave and return, with no idea who he's met or buried, than he'll get another chance at reaching him.

slipping the apple into his pocket, he raises his hand to try to hold the tears back in his eyes, or just hide them from Credence's sight. "I don't know if anyone's come back a third time, especially when they haven't really left." Maybe the body would disappear, the way the creature had. No one had told him what happened to the woman it killed. His lip shivers its way back against the other, rolling in, bitten in its trembling. When he releases it, he takes a deep breath. Sniffs once, and swallows.

"You were telling me about the sky," he says, hoarse.

He'd messed up. A third time, Kira says, and Credence feels the weight and gravity of the words over him. He refuses to bend even more, refuses to slump his shoulders and quickly skulk off, knowing he's made things a little bit worse.

This isn't about him. It's about Kira, and he knows damn well what it looks like when people are trying to hold back tears. Credence is well versed in that, and he makes a point to politely look at his hands, not Kira, just like Kira did when Credence had been so overwhelmed with Joy he held back his own sobs.

Instead, Credence nods. "Is it the same where you are? You can't really see stars, there are so many buildings in New York, and I've always gone to bed early, but I've always loved how pretty it can be. Do you know constellations?" He'll do it. He'll talk about the sky, or grass, or anything Kira wants, as long as it'll take his mind off of things.

His laugh is a wet rag of a thing, into his hands after he's raised them to wipe at his eyes again. He hardly comes to Credence's waist now, standing in a hole of his own making, and it's easy to tip his head and hiding the tears against his own knuckles.

When he inspects the left, there's blood under the leather, bright and clean, but an infection risk torn anew. He takes the time to pull the gloves free, to not trap it with his own muddy sweat, pocketing them with the apple and knife Credence gave him. He offers his other hand up in a silent request for help, the shovel leaning against one side of the hole.

"I know a lot of constellations," he admits, "though I don't think I saw the stars any more than you did, until those months the city shut down. It only gets brighter as time goes on.

"Did you have ones you liked best?" It's past noon, and the nights have been too bright for weeks, but he knows the stories for them all the same.

"I'd make up my own," Credence confesses, and that laugh--it's not really a laugh that reaches Kira's face, but it's a slow start. Credence stifles a smile of his own, even if the tips of his ears redden.

He can do this. He can be there for Kira, just like he's been there for Credence. After all this time, he can at least keep someone company. Afterall, they're friends.

What a strange word for him to think about. Friend. But he watches the other intently; watches the way he puts his hands up with a small jolt of realization--foolish him, he's asking for help--and he carefully offers him as best of a hand as he can handle.

"You should wash your hands, or they're going to get infected." He's speaking from experience. "Cuts on your hands are worse than on your back or arms because you use them so much."

Kira knows Credence speaks from experience, and he ducks his head, assenting without the usual eyeroll or elbow the direction would warrant. Curling the fingers in on either hand hurts, but he does it a couple of times, touching the dirtied tips of his nails to his blistered palms: "They feel alright, but I will, thanks."

Perhaps he should do it now, let Credence herd him away and make him eat, feel useful as he keeps Kira from winding up useless. The thought makes him turn, studying the sky and showing Credence the back of his head--he already is useless, as the uglier twist in the corner of his mouth.

"Draw me one of yours," he says, turning back from the clouds reflecting bright daylight. He produces the knife and apple from his pocket, handing it back and motioning to the dirt. The apple is all the more crisp and sweet when he bites into it, for how little he expected to taste at all. Pinning the bite inside his cheek, he speaks around it: "If it looks like one of mine, I'll tell you which one it is."

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let's take it to the grave [closed to several]

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