JUDE
the light of dawn is coming
Whether it's the water physically occupying his mouth or the way it douses the proverbial fire in his throat, Jude doesn't dignify that with an answer. It stings to be called cute when he knows he looks like shit. It stings more because it feels like the hollow compliment only proves him right. Koa doesn't care about people in distress any deeper than the shallow need to be everyone's knight in shining armor, and damsels are only as compelling as they are aesthetically pleasing in the storybook Koa lives in.
Jude meanwhile is far from aesthetically pleasing as he sits coated in dirt, bone dust, and - abruptly - tears.
So much for cute.
It's the first of what will be many apologies Jude will come to hear, but this one doesn't feel so empty. And damn Koa for this allowance, because Noe is Jude's best (and sometimes he fears only) friend and that's why he knows Koa gets it. Hates that he knows it too, as if it could somehow be an intimate revelation one sibling could share without involving the other. Jude doesn't want to see Koa as someone whose heart is capable of breaking. He doesn't want this understanding that dawns immediately between them. If Koa is more caricature than comrade then he can't hurt Jude; storybook knives only leave papercuts, but real people always take their pound of flesh when they go.
Gods, but he misses Noe like an amputated limb. He knows she went back after Starfall because it had been too similar to the event that had taken their mom away, but selfishly Jude wishes people would just stay.
Koa's hand lands on his back, warm and heavy and real. Of all the people who've left, Koa hasn't - even if he's been a painful thorn buried between Jude's ribs in lieu of constancy. Jude falls sideways into him, starving to be touched. If Koa is touching him then Jude isn't invisible, and even if only for a moment he isn't as alone as his dad's death has just finalized. His face aches with the rictus each muscle forms, heaving sobs into Koa's shirt as his damp curls and wet cheeks leave wide splotches on the Dragoon's clothes. "Don't go," he begs between hyperventilating breaths that leave just as fast in another sputtered sob, "please, I don't -" know what to do, "- he left me alone."
Jude meanwhile is far from aesthetically pleasing as he sits coated in dirt, bone dust, and - abruptly - tears.
So much for cute.
It's the first of what will be many apologies Jude will come to hear, but this one doesn't feel so empty. And damn Koa for this allowance, because Noe is Jude's best (and sometimes he fears only) friend and that's why he knows Koa gets it. Hates that he knows it too, as if it could somehow be an intimate revelation one sibling could share without involving the other. Jude doesn't want to see Koa as someone whose heart is capable of breaking. He doesn't want this understanding that dawns immediately between them. If Koa is more caricature than comrade then he can't hurt Jude; storybook knives only leave papercuts, but real people always take their pound of flesh when they go.
Gods, but he misses Noe like an amputated limb. He knows she went back after Starfall because it had been too similar to the event that had taken their mom away, but selfishly Jude wishes people would just stay.
Koa's hand lands on his back, warm and heavy and real. Of all the people who've left, Koa hasn't - even if he's been a painful thorn buried between Jude's ribs in lieu of constancy. Jude falls sideways into him, starving to be touched. If Koa is touching him then Jude isn't invisible, and even if only for a moment he isn't as alone as his dad's death has just finalized. His face aches with the rictus each muscle forms, heaving sobs into Koa's shirt as his damp curls and wet cheeks leave wide splotches on the Dragoon's clothes. "Don't go," he begs between hyperventilating breaths that leave just as fast in another sputtered sob, "please, I don't -" know what to do, "- he left me alone."
ready to return everything the darkness stole
