Jude
Jude hates that he understands why his father had broken. Hates that he remembers seeing the wear and strain on him even as a child, before he’d visited Frey’s shrine with the intentional desire to become older, so that he might lift at least one burden from his dad’s shoulders. He hates that, somewhere along the line, the relief and freedom he’d prayed for for his dad had become something resent; something that hurt Jude, when he thought it was all he’d ever wanted. The most selfless thing he could ask for. Did that make him selfish now? Bitter solely over the fact that the cost had been paid from his own hide?
“You didn’t have to do it then!” It’s a shrill caterwaul that he’s not proud of. The tears that sting at his lashes and the sudden wobble of his chin are equally shameful. “You didn’t have to do it the way you did! Because I didn’t have anyone and you didn’t even look back to check!” And even if he’d left, couldn’t he have done that much? Paused, waited, wondered?
“Sohalia and I broke up, and Edmund left, and I came home to a letter and an apartment! And it took a meteor to make you come back and look at me again!” His voice cracks like he’s much younger, and with one rushed blink the tears boil over and his shoulders begin to shake. Jude shoves the heels of both palms into his eyes, spine curling over in a pitiful display of defensiveness as he tries to force the weakness back to leave more room for the anger he so desperately wants to feel.
“You didn’t have to do it then!” It’s a shrill caterwaul that he’s not proud of. The tears that sting at his lashes and the sudden wobble of his chin are equally shameful. “You didn’t have to do it the way you did! Because I didn’t have anyone and you didn’t even look back to check!” And even if he’d left, couldn’t he have done that much? Paused, waited, wondered?
“Sohalia and I broke up, and Edmund left, and I came home to a letter and an apartment! And it took a meteor to make you come back and look at me again!” His voice cracks like he’s much younger, and with one rushed blink the tears boil over and his shoulders begin to shake. Jude shoves the heels of both palms into his eyes, spine curling over in a pitiful display of defensiveness as he tries to force the weakness back to leave more room for the anger he so desperately wants to feel.
I need a cure, prescribe a drug - cut this out before it's love
