Harper
I'll keep breaking my own heart with dreams
I know I'm still not what I want to be
I know I'm still not what I want to be
Harper has been sitting and waiting in his son's apartment for the entire night. Hadama's letter sits crumpled and travel-worn on the coffee table in front of him, the only important words burned into his brain.
Jude has been injured.
But he had arrived too late. The Skyport had been destroyed - boards Harper had laid with his own hands shattered and discarded - and the Grounds was as far from Torchline as it could possibly be. Worse, Harper had been drunk when the courier had found him, and he hadn't opened Hadama's letter for days yet. Had never responded to his first letter, the one absolving him of guilt when it was so fairly earned in Harper's eyes. By the time he'd flown the entire way to Torchline, Jude had already been discharged from the hospital, and Harper was too late.
He has no right to ask where his son was at this hour of night, but when the door finally opens, it's the first thing that springs automatically to his lips. A return to form and habit that Harper does not deserve. Something made all the more clear to him with the unfamiliar, hateful look on Jude's face. Setting Winifred aside, Harper stands, uncertain what to do with his hands when it's clear his son won't accept any form of physical reunion. "I heard you'd been hurt. I came as quickly as I could," he explains instead, because he doesn't have a good excuse for why he had made a spare key when he had abandoned his son before he'd even made it back home. I'm here now. I came as soon as I knew. Please.
Jude has been injured.
But he had arrived too late. The Skyport had been destroyed - boards Harper had laid with his own hands shattered and discarded - and the Grounds was as far from Torchline as it could possibly be. Worse, Harper had been drunk when the courier had found him, and he hadn't opened Hadama's letter for days yet. Had never responded to his first letter, the one absolving him of guilt when it was so fairly earned in Harper's eyes. By the time he'd flown the entire way to Torchline, Jude had already been discharged from the hospital, and Harper was too late.
He has no right to ask where his son was at this hour of night, but when the door finally opens, it's the first thing that springs automatically to his lips. A return to form and habit that Harper does not deserve. Something made all the more clear to him with the unfamiliar, hateful look on Jude's face. Setting Winifred aside, Harper stands, uncertain what to do with his hands when it's clear his son won't accept any form of physical reunion. "I heard you'd been hurt. I came as quickly as I could," he explains instead, because he doesn't have a good excuse for why he had made a spare key when he had abandoned his son before he'd even made it back home. I'm here now. I came as soon as I knew. Please.
But what more do you want from me?
