JUDE
the light of dawn is coming
Well, Jude has tried bar fights, drugs, and drinking - it ended up with him in Koa's arms, then alone again, and then the recipient of worried looks from Hadama. So it's a good thing Koa doesn't recommend it, but what he does offer only leads to slumped shoulders and honey eyes that slide lower still.
"Sounds like she loves you a lot," he murmurs, the hoarseness of his voice dulling the sharp edge of aching envy to something that better conveys the sincerity hiding behind it. The present tense is habit given years of parents disappearing without dying, but does that kind of love ever really stop even when they're with Mort? The convoluted, abstract spin of his thoughts on the topic - and how Harper and Koa's mom can't possibly compare - keeps him docile and distracted as Koa readjusts.
"My dad moved all my stuff into an apartment when he quit being King. I came back from Stormbreak to all my boxes in it - didn't pick it, but it's fine." Fine in the sense of quality, because Jude arrived freshly broken up with to find the Court of Stars - the only home he'd known, the one he'd been raised in from birth - suddenly empty. Just a note with a key at the front desk to guide him, like a polite dog sitter excusing themself in the morning instead of a dad abandoning his child. That certainly hadn't been fine. "I have a cat? Her name is Winnie." Without consent his voice chokes up halfway, eyes burning from grit and abuse as they pitifully attempt to fill again. To try and dissuade that he finally looks up and into Koa's face again. Pale fingers clench anew in the wrinkled fabric still in their grip; like it might erase the bleeding hurt of the admission that Jude is utterly alone in the world now, and forcibly tether Koa to him in a panicked effort to change that.
"Sounds like she loves you a lot," he murmurs, the hoarseness of his voice dulling the sharp edge of aching envy to something that better conveys the sincerity hiding behind it. The present tense is habit given years of parents disappearing without dying, but does that kind of love ever really stop even when they're with Mort? The convoluted, abstract spin of his thoughts on the topic - and how Harper and Koa's mom can't possibly compare - keeps him docile and distracted as Koa readjusts.
"My dad moved all my stuff into an apartment when he quit being King. I came back from Stormbreak to all my boxes in it - didn't pick it, but it's fine." Fine in the sense of quality, because Jude arrived freshly broken up with to find the Court of Stars - the only home he'd known, the one he'd been raised in from birth - suddenly empty. Just a note with a key at the front desk to guide him, like a polite dog sitter excusing themself in the morning instead of a dad abandoning his child. That certainly hadn't been fine. "I have a cat? Her name is Winnie." Without consent his voice chokes up halfway, eyes burning from grit and abuse as they pitifully attempt to fill again. To try and dissuade that he finally looks up and into Koa's face again. Pale fingers clench anew in the wrinkled fabric still in their grip; like it might erase the bleeding hurt of the admission that Jude is utterly alone in the world now, and forcibly tether Koa to him in a panicked effort to change that.
ready to return everything the darkness stole
