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

Noe slammed the door to the house as she entered, fuming. Their family vacation had been cut abruptly short after Koa learned that Halo’s hot springs had been destroyed - hot springs that, apparently, were meant to cure her, whatever that meant. She didn’t need fixing. She was happy and content and safe, which was supposedly all that Koa cared about, so why wasn’t he happy to leave her be? Why did he leave for months on end and then come home wanting to changeher? All when he hadn’t even been around enough to know her anymore?

The girl threw her bag into her room and stormed into the kitchen, hands clenched into fists at her side. Gods, but how naive had she been to think that maybe, just maybe, her father and brother had managed to patch things up, that they all wanted to just go spend some time together, that even after all this time they could come together and be a family again? What a stupid little fool she’d been for even thinking such a thing possible.

Worse than her anger was the kernel of hurt that festered inside her chest, a pain that she didn’t even deign to acknowledge. It just wasn’t worth it. Her family wasn’t worth it, apparently, and that stung all the more.

Noe plopped down into a kitchen chair and focused on trying not to cry.

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

Upstairs, Jude flinches so hard he drops his notebook, which bounces off the side of his desk and tumbles to the floor in a flurry of paper and eraser crumbs. There's not a lot of slamming that goes on in the Carpenter household - which Jude is grateful for - but it is consistently louder than Jude is used to. His home had been painfully quiet, only ever alleviated by his father's presence, and only ever for a short time. Whenever Jude was looking or listening really. He likes the difference most days, but clearly today has something worse in store.

Gingerly retrieving his songbook, Jude tides up his desk in a fitful attempt to delay the inevitable before he sighs, rakes his hands through his hair, touches Safrin's pendant for courage, and descends the stairs on quiet feet.

It's Noe, which he shouldn't be surprised by. He can't tell her expression with the way she's turned toward the kitchen table, but Jude can't just leave her like this. He's never been good at comforting people (last time he'd tried he'd left single) but you can't blame a guy for trying. Slinking into the seat beside her, Jude hooks the leg of Noe's chair and drags her closer with a grunt-squeal of the wood across the floorboards until they're knocking knees. "Bad hair day, huh? I can tell by how upset you are." His smile is a lopsided, faint ghost of a thing, but there's more sass there than there used to be and it's entirely credited to Noe. Which means it's only appropriate to use it to bring her back from the precipice of whatever ledge she's teetering on.

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 sat slumped in her chair, arms crossed over her chest, staring at nothing. She still couldn’t believe she’d been roped into something so ridiculous and actually thought it would work. That Koa actually wanted to spend time with her after so long away. Instead, he thought she was broken.

Suddenly, Jude slipped into the chair beside her, and then she was moving until their knees touched. Noe swiped angrily at a tear that had escaped down her cheek, glowering at the floor. At Jude’s comment, though, her expression softened marginally and she huffed a hint of a laugh. ”My hair has never looked better, I’ll have you know.” Tossing said hair over her shoulder (and dislodging Mika in the process), she peered up at Jude. At least she still had him.

Sighing dramatically, Noe tilted her head back until it leaned against the back of the chair. Staring at the ceiling, she said, ”Koa’s so dumb. I can’t believe I let him rope me into this ‘family vacation.’”

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

Tear or no tear, he’d gotten a smile out of her and that was a good start. Shooting an apologetic smile at Mika for the unexpected collateral damage, Jude leans both elbows on the table and leans in to feign peering critically at Noe’s hair. “Hmmmmm…are you sure? I swear your best hair day was last Tallsun. I remember it clearly.” Her hair looks leagues better than Jude’s even when she is fresh out of bed, but some people were born with lucky genes and he doesn’t hold it against her. Yet.

Alas, he can’t comfort her properly without talking about what’s bothering her, and given she’d briefly told him where she was off to before she’d left…Jude isn’t exactly surprised it involves Koa. He does still slide his elbows slowly off the table to straighten up though. It works to show he’s physically ready to engage with the more serious topic, but it also hides the discomfort he still feels when Koa gets brought up. 

“That bad, huh?” His voice is soft with understanding. Harper’s disappearances hadn’t hurt half as bad as his returns. “What happened?”

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

”Oooohhh, yup, you’re totally right,” she agreed with a watery giggle. She actually did remember a day last Tallsun where her hair had been extra cooperative. They’d joked about it back then, back when things were easy and happy and uncomplicated. Noe sighed again, her small smile sliding off her face.

When Jude sat up straighter, Noe stayed where she was, slumped back in the chair staring at the ceiling. Gods, where did she even start? With how strange Koa was acting when he came home? How something felt off from the beginning, but she ignored it because she wanted to believe… what? That her brother actually wanted some quality family time instead of rushing off to be there for everyone else other than them? She huffed a humorless laugh.

”He just… he dragged me all the way across the world to… to…” She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood, willing herself not to cry. Why couldn’t Koa see that she was happy and safe the way she was? ”He thinks I’m broken,” she said when she could trust her voice again. ”But I’m not.”

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

It’s a temporary bandaid at best, but Jude has never been good at fixing things. Certainly not long term. It hurts to see her fighting so hard to control something he’s not afraid to see. She’s seen the ugliest parts of him, her own are safe in this little bubble that only holds the two of them. So Jude reaches silently for her hand and slides his fingers between hers, squeezing to prompt her to do the same. To crush it if she wants. If that would make her feel better in the moment. 

“I don’t think you’re broken,” Jude assures, though self-doubt whispers that he could surely never understand Noe the way her brother does so who is he to say anything? “Why would he think that? He’s not really been…around. To be able to tell.” It settles lamely on the table before them, a dead fish of a vague excuse. Jude’s bitterness has to remain tightly leashed here. He can only say the facts or he’s just going to rile things up even more, and he can’t lose this last shred of happiness he’s managed to cling to.

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

Jude's hand was a welcome weight in hers, and Noe squeezed his fingers gratefully before interlacing hers with his. "I know, right?" Noe scoffed, her voice catching in her throat. She bit her lip, fighting off the tears that threatened, stubbornly refusing to give Koa the imagined satisfaction. "He got me to go on that stupid trip and said I'd feel like myself again, but he's not even around to know who that is anymore."

Sniffling, Noe looked over at Jude. "He was mad because I'm friends with Vox," she said. "But it's not like he's a monster! He's actually kind of sweet, in a weird way." Very weird, but hey, who was she to judge? And who was Koa to decide who she should or shouldn't be friends with? It wasn't like she was around calling his bad taste in women into question.

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

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

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

Fortunately for Jude, Noe was more than a little oblivious at this particular moment in time, so she barely even noticed when he grew unnaturally still. If anything, she thought it was simply outrage on her behalf: the calm before the storm, when they would mutually rage against Koa and all of his stupid plans. Not that her friend had ever had a bad word to say about Koa, but hey - she was mad, so he was going to be mad with her. That's what best friends did. Right?

"Dangerous?" Noe scoffed, huffing a laugh. "Hardly. Vox is just - different, that's all. I mean, don't get me wrong, he's for sure a strange being, but he's harmless." After all, he'd showed up to her taco party with an attempt at food to add to their tables, he'd taken her to Starfall and shown her around, and he'd complimented her poem. "Like, Dahlia and Pierce are super intimidating, but, I dunno. Have you ever thought that maybe people are overreacting?"

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

That's exactly what best friends did. They rallied behind you even when, secretly, they didn't agree or they had unvoiced concerns. Jude holds her hand and feels like she's miles away as she soldiers onward without a moment of hesitation. She's right here, but she's not. And he can see the path ahead that leads him straight to Koa's moment of error, and all he can think is please don't let me do the same.

He can't push her away, because then how will he reach her when the moment comes where he'll need her to take his hand without hesitation? And he has to believe that moment will come. Jude has been firmly ignoring the situation with the Family all this time, guilt be damned because there's nothing special about him that could possibly impact the course of history that this will someday turn into. But because a girl had the courage to sit down next to him on the worst night of his life, suddenly there's no other option. And he has to somehow lie to her the entire time, because he can't let her slip any further away.

These revelations sink like a stone through his body as he casts his eyes to the ceiling in the way he normally does when thinking hard. This time it's to quell the stinging that warns of tears. "Maybe. Caido as a whole doesn't really like change." Fuck, what does he say? It's so hard to think when his heart is so loud in his ears. "But Koa's your big brother. That's what big brothers do, right? Overreact, assume they know what's best, try to vet your friends and crushes..." he trails off with a lopsided smile, daring to look into her face again. He misses Edmund so intensely it burns in his throat. His brother would have handled this better. He would have known the right things to say, while Jude can barely find his tongue even with the most precious thing he has hanging in the balance. 

"And he's a Dragoon, they're super against change as like...an organization." Squeezing her fingers, Jude wiggles their joined hands like he's trying to shake another smile out of her. "You can totally be angry at him for being stupid, but maybe if you try to find a middle ground he'll warm up to the idea?" What would he have advised in a different situation? This feels right, but the cold sweat on his neck reminds him that he has to make this natural enough to slide under her radar. "Like maybe you visit Vox a little less and don't bring him up much so Koa won't fly off the handle, and in return maybe you can argue that Koa needs to be home more to see that you're fine?"

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

It was nice to know that, even if she lost everything else, she still had Jude.

And, really, when she stopped to think about it, he was right. Everyone seemed to have these thoughts about the Family in general and Vox in particular because of the whole talking-into-your-head thing, which she could at least understand being a little disconcerting. And Koa had always been unyielding in many ways. Stubbornness ran in the family - something that Noe knew all too well. Considering Jude's words, Noe pursed her lips. Had she been too hasty to get angry at her brother? Was he really just trying to do what he thought was right - even if he was misguided.

"It just... sucks, you know?" she said, but the fight had gone out of her. Jude was calming her, bringing her back to herself, and she was none the wiser to his desperate internal monologue that would no doubt have had her flying off the handle. "But, I mean, I guess we're both stubborn, so... yeah, I guess I could see where maybe he was trying to do the right thing. I just - I just wish he trusted me. I can take care of myself."

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

Some of the pressure lifts off Jude's chest as the tension unwinds from Noe, anger and injustice giving ground to melancholy, yes, but also consideration. His heart continues to pound but it's quieter now in his ears.

His free hand comes to wrap around their joined fingers, ducking his head slightly to try and catch her eyes so she might see his small, encouraging smile. "I know. Trust me, I get it." He's got a big brother too, and it's not hard to imagine Edmund's reaction if he thought Jude was befriending a dangerous individual. He can only imagine how Koa must have reacted given the man is incredibly, infamously talented at saying the wrong things at the wrong times. 

"It's hard to trust someone when you're used to looking out for them. Even harder when you think you know best." Jude shuffles sideways in his chair until he can pull her down to plop her head on his shoulder and tilt his own against hers. It helps to not have to look at her. The words come easier this way. "Maybe you gotta be the bigger person for a bit, even if it's just bait to get him to see your side. Tell him you'll see them less for now and maybe it'll soften him up. You know he hates when you give him the cold shoulder, he'll want to take the compromise." Noe is devastatingly good at it too, ready to ice anyone out for however long it takes, but if Jude can pose it as a temporary thing maybe she really will see the Family less. And that will give Jude time to get Koa alone as quickly as possible. "Sometimes people only change their minds with time and evidence, not words. It's not a race, right?"

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

And he did, too, she knew that. He understood her better than anyone - better, even, than her own flesh and blood - perhaps because she'd let him. With family, sometimes it was better to be an enigma than to face the consequences of one's actions. She remembered vividly the first time she'd gone out drinking and what a mess that had been. People always thought it was a challenge to be the oldest sibling, but Noe had plenty of arguments why being the youngest was much less fun.

She leaned against Jude with a sigh. His plan, she had to admit, was a good one, and now she was pissed she hadn't thought of it instead of storming off. Even when he was being an ass, Koa was still her brother, and she still loved him dearly. She still missed him after all the time they'd had to spent apart.

"Do you think that'll work?" she asked, her voice small. It would be a shame to have to avoid Vox, but if it meant that Koa would be around more... "I don't even know where he went. How do I do anything if he just avoids me like he does all the rest of his problems?" He'd certainly gotten good at avoiding their father, who he never got along with, and she was willing to bet he used the same tactic on others.

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

Jude would back her youngest sibling arguments to the fullest degree if she ever desired to put pen to paper and publish them in full. But he knows her the way he does from nights spent curled together like puppies in his tiny apartment bed, whispering late into the night because Jude was too scared to fall asleep and face the nightmares again. She'd let him in in order to make it fair, because he hadn't had a choice in showing her the ugliest parts of himself back then. He can reach her now in part because she'd been brave enough to open the door in the first place.

His heart pangs at the uncertainty in her tone. Lying to her feels like slowly sinking his hands into boiling water, but he tilts his head to breathe in the scent of her hair to remind himself why it matters. "I think it's worth at least trying." Any amount of time they can win back is more than they had to begin with. Jude's eyes stare off through the kitchen window, stony and certain in the face of her despair. "How about this - I'll go find him, and start working on convincing him in the opposite direction. He can't hurt my feelings nearly as easily." Another lie to join the others. Jude knows exactly what sort of gallows he's walking to in joining Koa in the crusade to keep Noe safe and, presumably, find a way to cure her. He knows he's not going to walk out the other side the same by virtue of his own weakness if nothing else. "I'll write you when I find him and tell you if it works, okay? That way even if he blows up on me too you won't be stuck in the dark." Hopefully an appealing idea given how Koa's unexplained absences had made them all feel. Noe worse than anyone.

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