they say looks can kill and i might try

Draw the cat eye, sharp enough to kill a man
You did some bad things, but I'm the worst of them

Looking back, Noe wasn’t sure how she and Jude had become best friends. She knew when it had happened and why it had happened, but she’d never been a particularly nurturing sort. Seeing him at his worst, though, he opened up a hole inside her soul, a need to fix and mend and support - something that only came out when she was around him. It only made sense that he would want to do so for her now, she supposed, even as she balked at accepting his help. He had enough to deal with without adding her issues to the mix.

”You don’t have to do that,” she protested, but it was a half-hearted sort of thing. Now that her fury had left her, she was simply tired - so, so tired - and the thought of tracking Koa down to talk to him, to convince him to meet in the middle, just sounded exhausting. But still she didn’t accept. Perhaps it was her stubborn pride, the very think she’d been cursing Koa for only moments before, but there was a niggling part of her mind that told her not to let Jude take care of her, that it was supposed to be the other way around between them.

”Besides, what will I do if you leave?” she asked, half pouting. ”If Koa’s gone, and you’re gone…” Who else was there to talk to, if not Vox? If she was to uphold her end of the bargain, would that leave her… alone?

Sometimes I wonder which one will be your last lie
They say looks can kill and I might try

Noe

Jude

Every time we touch, your hands are colder, colder
There's no beating coming from your wooden chest

"I do," he adds swiftly to her weak protest, certainty a line through his brow. Even if she wasn't infected, he would need to do this. To be a friend capable of putting their own hang ups and insecurities aside to make something important happen. He's done nothing but take and take from the Carpenters - from her in particular - and he is so tired of having so little to give in return. Purpose eludes him, but maybe he can find it in fixing someone else's life.

"You can write me letters, duh." He wrinkles his nose dramatically, mimicking the intonation Noe always uses when she says it. "I can write you literally every day. By time you get the first one, I'll already be writing you another." Jude pauses in the wake of his comforting smile, lips dropping slow. "I know it's not the same. I don't want to leave you alone in the house. But if I go, maybe I can get Koa back faster so you won't be alone anyway."

Frozen grin, a mannequin when I get closer
I can see the strings, they're underneath your vest

Draw the cat eye, sharp enough to kill a man
You did some bad things, but I'm the worst of them

Noe bit her lip, thinking, as she took in what Jude said, what he'd suggested. His offer was a kind one, and she was sorely tempted to accept - except for where that would leave her, without her brother, without her best friend... and who was she outside of what she was to others, really? She'd only just started to figure it out, and it was all thanks to the Family.

She reached up to fiddle with a lock of hair, twirling it around her finger. "But you'll come back soon, right?" she asked, her voice teetering on the edge of desperation. "Because, I dunno, Jude, if it's just me and dad here alone... you know how it gets, sometimes." Quiet. Boring. Sad. Koa hadn't been around to see it, but with their father's declining health, he wasn't always pleasant to be around. Sometimes he missed their mother so much it hurt to watch, and Noe had been the one shouldering the burden.

Sometimes I wonder which one will be your last lie
They say looks can kill and I might try

Noe

Jude

Every time we touch, your hands are colder, colder
There's no beating coming from your wooden chest

The image of her sitting there, meek and uncertain in a way so unlike the version of her he knows - the one he adores - pulls so hard at his heartstrings that they would sooner tie themselves into a noose to hang himself with any other day. But she doesn’t know that while she twirls her hair around her finger, tying his heart up in knots with every curl, Jude is swallowing down the panic that rises over the thought of losing her. Hurting her in order to save her is a pain he wishes he didn’t know because all of twenty minutes ago he hadn’t. Jude wishes she’d stop introducing him to new things.

”Hey,” he murmurs from where his cheek still rests on her head, shifting them until their shoulders bump and jostle as he dips his chin to look her in the eye. He can do that now when he couldn’t minutes before, because what he has to say isn’t going to be a lie this time. “You know I…I don’t like promises. Making them or hearing them.” His hand falls to hers, slowly enveloping it with his fingers to gently encourage it to stop fidgeting with her hair. Jude’s eyes slide away to look at that, her hand enclosed in his. Not because he’s lying, but because he’s too scared to make a promise for the first time since Sohalia had held his heart. But he’s not so scared that he won’t do it at all. 

“But I promise I’ll come back. Maybe not soon, maybe not the same, maybe even if you don’t want me to come back anymore.” All reasons why he doesn’t make promises in the first place. How many ways could this go wrong? How many ways could he break her heart over something as simple as wanting to see him again? “But so long as I’m still breathing, I’ll come back. I promise.” His fingers unfold just enough to slip his pinky inside her own, curling tightly around it. His head drops back onto hers until the dark shades of their hair meld together into some shadowed amalgamation that blocks out the kitchen until he can only see the edge of her cheek and the line where her nose hides her other eye away from him. “Let me do this for you. Or, y’know…let me try.” A murmur that belies the ache of knowing he might fail no matter how devoted his heart might be or how pure his intentions.

Frozen grin, a mannequin when I get closer
I can see the strings, they're underneath your vest

Draw the cat eye, sharp enough to kill a man
You did some bad things, but I'm the worst of them

Promises were things that Noe knew Jude shied away from; every one of them in his life seemed to have been broken at some point or other, and that had a way of destroying one's faith in the institution. And maybe that should have tipped the girl off that there was something strange going on here, something deeper than just her best friend going to soothe her brother's ruffled feathers. But she was so desperate to fix things, to have her life back to the way it should be, that she was willing to accept that Jude simply wanted to help. And if him helping meant that he promised to come back... well, then, she'd have to accept that, wouldn't she?

She stopped twisting her hair, letting her hand become enveloped in his larger one, and leaned against him in a clear sign that she was giving in. And when his pinky slipped around hers, it coaxed a choking laugh from her lips, and she tightened her grip until it was near painful. A single tear slipped from her eye, and she let it fall as she focused for a moment on her breathing, not even really sure why she was crying anymore. Perhaps it was the remnants of fury, or overwhelming gratitude, or abundant love - but regardless, Jude had never been someone she'd wanted to hide away from. He could see all of her, because she loved and trusted him, and if that was true, then shouldn't she be glad for him to do this for her?

"Okay," she said finally, the word barely a sigh, shaky with emotion and breathless with desperation. "Okay. Thank you, Jude."

Sometimes I wonder which one will be your last lie
They say looks can kill and I might try

Noe

Jude

Every time we touch, your hands are colder, colder
There's no beating coming from your wooden chest

Her laugh and the tightening of her finger around his settles the sharp angle of his shoulders, relaxing further. The idea of leaving her alone with only her father around is agonizing - even if she wasn’t infected - but he can’t lose this. Can’t even stand to lose her snot and tears and imperiousness.

“Don’t thank me yet, Koa’s head is thicker than Stormbreak’s floating base and I’m not a miracle worker or a mole.” If he doesn’t have to see her eyes maybe he can forget for a moment that, while she is herself in so many ways, there’s something insidious lurking deeper that has made her someone fundamentally different. Softening, Jude murmurs the rest into her hair. “You never have to thank me at all.” He owes her more than he’ll be able to repay in a lifetime, and even this impossible mission isn’t a gesture large enough to make him so much as hesitate before signing up for it. He doesn’t have anyone left in the world but her - safeguarding her health and happiness is the best use of his otherwise unimpressive existence. 

So he’ll sit here with her until her tears dry. He’ll get as many smiles out of her as he can before the sun goes down, and when the moon rises he’ll take heart in Safrin’s presence and start his journey to finding a cure.

- Fin

Frozen grin, a mannequin when I get closer
I can see the strings, they're underneath your vest