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[credere]

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[credere]

Someone else asking for his opinion. It's strangely exhausting, having to constantly anticipate that he'll be asked to say what he thinks or feels about something, having to have an answer to hand.

"Fine. I've been fine. Thank you. Are you well, miss?"

[garbagepilot]

She could sort of understand that if he were to say it out loud, be honest about how he feels about the question, because when she had first arrived people asking her the same question made her suspicious, sure they wanted something from her, and it had been annoying and unwelcome more than anything else. It took months for that to change, so she gets it.

"I'm alright," she says in return, because in this moment she is, and the things that bother her, the things that might make that answer different, they aren't his problem. She's not here to talk about her, so she glosses over that quickly. She's just about to try to find something else to say, fight her way towards an attempt at being politely social, but then she sees the shadow of a bruise around his mouth, the telltale sign of a split lip, and she frowns deeply. "I don't imagine you'd tell me what happened to your mouth."

[credere]

He touches his hand to his bottom lip unconsciously, still feeling the slight ridge there where it hasn't quite healed.

"Someone hit me," he says, perhaps unnecessarily. "It's alright, though."

[garbagepilot]

"Who told you that?"

The way she asks it is amazingly without judgement, because as sad as it is, it's not a surprising thing to hear out of him.

[credere]

"Nobody."

Elizabeth had tried to argue the point, in fact, but that doesn't mean he believes it any less.

"I did something wrong, that's all."

[garbagepilot]

"I doubt that, but whatever happened doesn't mean you deserve to be hit for it." She says, and she lifts her hand to motion for him to lift his head up more so she can see better, be sure there's nothing to be concerned about, but she doesn't try to touch him, not there. "Did you hit back?"

[credere]

"No, miss." He lifts his chin very slightly but keeps his gaze away, all the more nervous for her attention. "It's been seen to. In the Infirmary."

[garbagepilot]

That's enough for her, the Infirmary bit, so she just nods and at least will let that go. A split lip is relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, and she can at least be pleased that whoever did it didn't kill him.

"I'm almost done interrogating you, I promise," she says, giving a quick smile that's meant to make this less terrible for him. "Who hit you, Credence?"

[credere]

Surprise! It's still terrible. He ducks his head again, with a tiny little shake.

"It doesn't matter."

[garbagepilot]

There's a moment when her lips are pressed together in an annoyed line, but it's only a second, and then she breathes out and just nods. He won't tell her, and she isn't really that shocked by it.

"Next time, hit them back. Will you let me come in now or are we going to keep talking to each other with me standing in the hallway?"

[credere]

"Oh - I'm sorry - "

He steps back to invite her in. As the least favourite Barebone child, his room was the smallest, with five pieces of furniture: bed, desk, chair, trunk, bookshelf. The window was smashed at some point and boarded over rather than replaced.

"Sit wherever you'd like, Miss Rey," and then he checks himself. "If you'd like to sit."

[garbagepilot]

Looking at the whole picture, Rey can't help thinking that she would be willing to show Credence her home on Jakku. The sad toppled walker with thousands of days scratched into the wall, the one room where she made her meals, slept, worked, all by herself, alone in a desert for her entire life, she would let him see that.

"My world doesn't have Christmas, as far as I know," she says instead of mentioning Jakku, and when she sits she picks his bed, settling down on the edge of it. "Did you celebrate it in yours?"

[credere]

"....most people do," he says, and sits down on his chair. "But we - my family, we never did."

[garbagepilot]

"My inmate didn't either," she says, and she just assumes that the reason that Credence didn't is similar, something as simple as differing religions, so this doesn't really strike her as particularly odd apart from the way he says most people do, as though his family was odd for sitting it out. "Why didn't you?"

[credere]

"Scripture teaches that only the Sabbath is holy," he says quietly. "And - and our pastor always said that Christmas is just an excuse people used to overindulge themselves."

[garbagepilot]

That kind of tells her he'll probably be unlikely to accept her present, but it's good to know that now and she thinks that maybe if she's blunt with it, if she asks first, she might get somewhere with it.

"So if I were to want to give you something I can't use so it wouldn't go to waste, would you accept it?"

[credere]

"...yes, miss."

And he wouldn't have made the connection if she hadn't brought it up herself - it's over a week gone since Christmas - but since she has, he has to ask.

"Did you mean it to be a Christmas gift?"

[garbagepilot]

With a nod she reaches for her satchel, and the motion draws attention to the lightsaber hanging just beside it from her belt. It's something she still carries with her wherever she goes despite the fact that it's Luke's, that she'll give it back one day, and she walks around with her staff on her back still so she doesn't give any thought to being armed with what might look like a wand from the very distant future.

"In a way I did. I don't have any sort of a connection to the holiday, though, so it might be more appropriate to just call it a gift. Come here?"

He's sitting far enough away that one of them is going to have to stand and he might as well just come sit next to her.

[credere]

Honestly, anything that looks like it might run off electricity just goes straight over his head. It might as well not be there. He's touched his own communicator all of once, and that was just to take it off his bed and put it on the shelf instead.

"....alright."

He stands up and takes a step towards her, and with the room being as small as it is he doesn't feel any real need to come closer.

[garbagepilot]

It'll do, and he's at least close enough now that when she pulls out the scarf, carefully folded around a pair of gloves, she can hand it all straight over to him. They're in muted colors because that just happens to be her own personal taste, but thick and warm and perfect for the coolness the barge still has to it.

[credere]

He reaches out to accept them, and he's surprised by how soft the wool is, how the weight and thickness of the knit feels in his hands. He doesn't think he's ever had anything so new and so nice in his life.

"Are -- you sure, miss?"

[garbagepilot]

"Yes," she says, and as awkward as it feels to do something nice for someone she doesn't know well, to just give someone something instead of expecting there to be a trade for it, the look on his face makes her feel glad she's done it. "I bought a few pairs when we stopped in port, I have more than enough to keep myself warm."

[credere]

Credence nods, and stares down at his little taupe handful and he just wants to bury his face in it and take it all in.

He doesn't see any point in telling her he has nothing to give in return. Everything he owns is on display, and there's not a whole lot of it. Except--

"Thank you." A pause. "Would you like a brownie?"

[garbagepilot]

"I've never had one," she admits, but it's food and there's a good chance that no matter what it is, she'll love it. "But yes, I'd like to try one if you have extra."

[credere]

He goes to retrieve the tin Elizabeth gave him, which he's put in the trunk at the end of his bed. There were half a dozen in there before; there are now five. He's not sure if he likes them, but he understands that most people enjoy confectionery.

"Here, Miss Rey." He opens the tin to offer it to her. "They're quite sweet."

Because she sort of seems to him like she might not be used to that kind of thing, either.