they say looks can kill and i might try

Jude

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

Jude nods in silent encouragement, tongue glued firmly to the roof of his mouth. He won't toe the line of this topic any further - he lives with the Carpenters, and that's entirely because of Koa. He's not the man's greatest defender by any stretch of the imagination, but his heart is torn between validating his best friend's feelings and trying to keep the peace as a painfully obvious outsider.

The silence is easy to lapse into as horror creeps into his stomach instead. The hand in hers goes clammy, and he has to force himself not to blink because his poker face is atrocious and if he does she's going to see the fear too plainly. So Jude inhales slowly through his nose, like his maman taught him what feels like lifetimes ago, teaching him diplomacy and social rules that he would never come to inherit. His face desperately wants to twitch from being held perfectly still in what is now an unnatural expression, but Jude somehow manages to waste only a brief moment that he hopes will come off as thoughtfulness.

"I...didn't know you met him. Them? I thought...well, I know we live in Stormbreak so it's kind of a dumb point but..." Jude tries to manage a coherent thought past the alarms in his head, to talk without it being gibberish, but he's never had to act or lie in layers before. "I mean, everyone does seem to warn about how dangerous they are, right?" And if he widens his eyes just a little, playing the doe expression up to invite her to correct him in a way that makes her feel like she's not in the wrong...well yeah he feels bad about it, but he just needs to know for sure.

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