responsibilities

There's all these secrets I can't keep
Like in my heart there's a hotel suite

When she lifts her head to meet his eyes he doesn't have very long, but he buries all his anxieties to grant her a reassuring smile. Whether it helps or not doesn't seem to matter because she lungs forward to wrap her arms around him, and Jude falls gracelessly backwards to sit on the floor, knees askew to make room for her body as he wraps his own arm back around her - two drowning bodies at sea.

He's not necessarily surprised by her need to be close, and though they're both rather bony people, Jude doesn't mind the discomfort of the floor beneath them if it means he has her in his arms. What she has to say doesn't provide much insight into the problem that had summoned him here so suddenly but they have time now.

As she pulls back to look at him Jude gently moves the hair out of her face, tucking it behind each ear and then cupping her cheek, dark brows drawn in concern. "First - are you okay? Physically? Are you safe?" It sounds too grown up and put-together for an eighteen year old, but Harper had said it enough times in his childhood for it to practically be rote.

And you lived there so long
It's kinda strange, now you're gone

Jude