[Training] Bound by noisy heartbeats

Jude

I'll still be here when the world slows down
And the sunbeams fade away

Jude's knuckles ache slightly at the glimpse of connection he gets to Ronin's jaw, and he immediately makes the 'time out' sign thereafter, taking the cuff to the head with a wheezing laugh that belies his dwindling stamina. "If we're gonna talk then we can't fight, or I'll puke a lung," he chortles, breathing hard between nose and mouth. His mother would cuff him in the back of the head in the exact same way for his loosely-mannered wording, and it makes his chest pang painfully.

Running a hand through his hair, Jude bites his lip, hesitant. It lasts all of a moment before the lonely urge for parental guidance breaks through like a tidal wave. "I don't know if you know her personally but um. Sohalia Lumaris and I broke up. I'd left on a break because she was hiding things from me. Things like...liking other people." His tongue spasms into silence because he had liked Koa too. It had come after, but it still hurts, still makes him question his own blame in the situation when he hadn't in the moment. "Then I ended up gone for longer than planned because people attacked my brother and I and he had to kill them and -" Jude's breaths and words alike come faster, tumbling over each other like stampeding animals, the memory of the viscera and blood choking him, "- well she was mad at me for not replying to her letters, but I was having the worst days of my life. So um. Even though we talked about it, we broke up." He winces, hating that part of this advice comes down to love advice which is unequivocally the worst to be asked to give.

Staring down at the sand between his feet, Jude regurgitates the rest in one big breath lest he lose his nerve. "Then I came home that day and my dad was no longer king and had moved my stuff out of my childhood home into an apartment and vanished. Sohalia only visited after seeing my dad before I did, said she was 'concerned'. And I...I was so angry, I was awful to her. And I don't think I was wrong, but I still feel so bad that it feels sick, and yet I'm still mad." Gulping down a harsh breath, Jude hesitantly looks up at Ronin, raw lips finding their way mercilessly between his teeth yet again. "Um. Sorry." Smooth moves, Judes.

Keeping time by a pendulum
as the fabric starts to fray

RONIN if there's one thing i'm good at, it's surviving "Noted," Ronin says with a chuckle, accepting the time-out willingly and straightening up to let the boy catch his breath. "Puking a lung or not, you're a decent fighter. Keep it up, maybe get yourself some boxing wraps or something similar," he suggests, stretching his arms over his head. The Nova doesn't honestly expect Jude to take him up on his offer to talk, and he gazes at him with a renewed sense of respect; it's a brave thing, to speak what troubles you into life, and it's not lost on Ronin. "Ah," he says with all the rumbling affection of a man who knows what it is to have girl trouble (even if it's been a long time for him, and it's more goddess trouble than anything else these days). "It can be hard, those first few seasons after a breakup. I think we get used to... almost feeling entitled to know what the other person is up to, you know?" He shrugs. "I imagine Sohalia is feeling pretty rotten about it all as well, not that it's of much help to you. I hope your brother is alright, though." But there's more, of course, and Ronin winces on Jude's behalf to hear the rest of the sorry tale, reaching forward to clap him on the shoulder (gently, at least). "That," he says, "fucking sucks. And I'm sorry for all of it. Once the Hanged Man is back up and running, I'll get you a drink." It's the least he can offer. "Do you think if you wrote her an apology, you would feel better? Not necessarily because you were wrong about what you said, but rather about how you decided to say it?"

Jude

I'll still be here when the world slows down
And the sunbeams fade away

The praise lingers, even through dredging up the rest of the shitstorm that had become Jude's life without his say-so. The lack of control he's had over quite literally any of the wrenches thrown into the gears of his life is giving him a complex without a doubt, he's just not sure what kind yet.

At least Ronin's hand is gentler, and warm and heavy in the way that Jude can privately project onto while it lasts. "He's alright. More so than me," he admits softly, shamefaced. It's surely not a crime to let such visuals linger, to be affected by them, but it feels like another way in which Jude is just different. "I hope she is too." Prays his words hadn't landed the way he knows, deep down, they had. Because he'd meant them to hurt when he said them.

"I think...I would feel better writing it, but it would be fair if she didn't reply," he mumbles slowly, parsing through his feelings there and then as the idea is presented. Jude smiles wanly up at Ronin, feeling wrung out but somehow...better. "Thank you, Ronin. That helps - a lot." The sparring, the silent bid for attention that had been readily answered, the advice - all of it really.

Keeping time by a pendulum
as the fabric starts to fray

RONIN if there's one thing i'm good at, it's surviving "Mm. Remember to look after yourself. Stuff like that sticks, and it can show up again when we least expect it." Ronin smiles sadly. "I remember, once I helped to carry out a rescue in a burning building. It wasn't until a lot later that I realised I'd started to get panicky around fire. A long time ago now, but it's taught me not to underestimate the things we survive." Survived doesn't always mean unharmed, after all. Smiling to hear Jude's thoughts, Ronin nods his encouragement. "Perhaps write it, then, but don't send it until you know you'd be happy with or without a response," he suggests. At the display of gratitude, he can do little more than reach out and muss the boy's hair affectionately. "You want to help me take these offerings up?" he asks, nodding to the doorway to the Aumakua where he's left them. "After that, the Hanged Man might not be open right now, but I'm sure there's another place I can get us a drink or two."

Jude

I'll still be here when the world slows down
And the sunbeams fade away

Jude hangs on every word like it's absolution for every nightmare he's had, every time he's flinched around one of the tide jaguars in the jungle despite being a cat of a different pattern. "It's been hard to be around big cats," he whispers like a secret. He isn't sure when Ronin became such a safe space, why or how either, but his lips can't seem to stay shut.

A task is exactly what he needs right now, so he shakes himself a little and smiles. It's a little less burdened now. "Yeah, of course. It's the least I can do!" And with a little more pep to his step he helps pile the offerings into his arms, and ascends the stairs behind Ronin, admiring the might of his shoulders and perhaps deciding - intentionally - to gain a new idol today.

- Fin!

Keeping time by a pendulum
as the fabric starts to fray