All for nothing and all for you

Jude

Armed with a few more inherited protections than before, Jude paces along the slick, squishy edge of the cataract’s basin as he waits for Koa. Sick to death of his own voice in his head after days rehearsing exactly what he’d say to the Dragoon. The intonation, the speed of delivery, the careful masking of his own thoughts and feelings. 

He should have known rehearsal wouldn’t matter given his track record in attempting to do so in other social situations. As soon as he hears footsteps other than his own he spins around - swaying ominously as the spring mud and the careless trampling he’s been doing nearly send him into the drink - and only takes a half second to verify it’s Koa before he’s blurting out, “Noe’s infected, who else knows?” Honey eyes are sharper and more focused than they’ve ever managed to be when faced with Koa’s distracting and complicated presence. There’s no time for niceties - Jude isn’t sure he can do those anyway with the bubbling frustration in his chest.

My tongue will tell the anger of my heart

Or else my heart, concealing it, will break

// And it's our time now if you want it to be //

Well, this isn't how he expected things to start out.

Koa spots Jude ahead on the path; even at a distance it's clear he's tightly wound, like a yew bow or guitar string one note away from snapping. He, too, has rehearsed his statement, has hedged his guesses on what Jude knows and what he has to say. But the words all flee him as the boy spins around, all sharp edges and accusing eyes that send spears of guilt into Koa's heart.

He starts, stepping forward, an arm outstretched as Jude seems about to fall into the stream. But the singer steadies, and Koa stops, letting his hand fall back to his side. "Jude--" he begins, only to be interrupted as his friend?-slash-roommate?-slash-it's-complicated-okay's voice snaps out above the water's roar. The statement and question are loaded and harsh; Koa blinks, taken aback, then sags beneath the combination of relief that he doesn't have to tell Jude what's happened, and guilt that he has no solutions, yet.

"Zavien told me. Lena knows, and our Dad. Flora." He hesitates, licks his lips, copper eyes flitting briefly away before settling back on his face. "Soh." They haven't talked about Sohalia, not really; the Luminary is a cyst in their odd relationship that neither man seems particularly keen to express. And with everything that's happened the last few months, with Koa's feelings so in flux as Sohalia's re-entered his life...

Problems for another day.

"That's what I've been doing out here." Koa gestures to the Greatwood at large, glancing toward the trees, the crimson falls. "Trying to find a cure."

Koa

// Maul the world like a carnival bear set free //

Jude

If it weren't for the roiling stress-ball in his stomach, Jude might have had room to feel something over the way Koa reaches for him. Just as princely as ever - Jude has to remember that, remember he isn't special.

Koa reminds him anyway, each name that isn't Jude's falling like a hammer on the foundations of his composure. "And you didn't think to tell me?" His heart breaks in tandem with his voice on the final word. "I had to find out on my own. I had to find out through her telling me about you trying to cure her, and then not coming home." Home that, for all Jude has tried not to settle inside it, has been Jude's too these recent seasons. "The only way I could convince her to let me leave her too was because I promised I'd try to find you and make you at least visit!" The cataract turns any sound in its basin and amplifies it, turning Jude's outcry into an echoing, swelling thing that makes him feel larger than he is.

He staggers closer, uncertain if the flush in his cheeks is rage or betrayal and whether either emotion is for Noe's sake or his own. "What did you think would happen? You'd stay out here until you found a flower, and she'd just sit in the house thinking you hate her and do nothing? It's Noe." Jude's hands fist to try and stop them from shaking so hard. His lips wobble traitorously, but the weight of his furrowed brow keeps the tears at bay. "You told everyone but me. The only other person who lives with her. What if she'd convinced me to meet them too? What if - why, Koa?" He reaches out as if to shove the man only to falter midway and fist Koa's shirt instead, shaking him fitfully. "Why did you keep me in the dark? So I could be at her side like a toy that would distract her from you leaving?" As if Jude could fill a hole like that. Could measure up to Koa in any way.

Jude shakes him again, refusing to let Koa interject until he's done. He can't let himself be charmed back into silence. Won't listen to any excuses - partially for fear that some of them may be valid. That Jude's hurt is baseless, just a concoction of his own stupid mind again. "I don't expect you to love me or care for me like you do seemingly everyone else! I don't expect you to include me in your inner circle!" A circle comprised of Jude's ex and the only love he'd known, and his fucking cousin. "But am I acceptable collateral to you?!"

My tongue will tell the anger of my heart

Or else my heart, concealing it, will break

// And it's our time now if you want it to be //

Jude's presence in Koa's life has been an inconsistent constant; he's drifted away from time to time, yet always slotted back into the Dragoon's orbit with oxymoronic ease. Their relationship should be fraught and distant, yet somehow Koa's found a way to let Jude lean upon him, to skirt around the sordid history and provide an unsteady yet comforting safety and support. Koa's learned to expect the boy to be quiet, be sad, be earnest, be absent. Sometimes he'll vanish for days on end; other times Koa will come home to find Jude and Noe perched on the couch, gossiping over popcorn and cackling like thieves. He's learned to expect Jude's shy smile and ardent emotions.

Nothing led him to expect that Jude to be cruel.

The accusation bites Koa like a whip, each word another lash from Jude's cat-'o-nine-tails. Guilt and anger rise in tandem, twin wolves biting the Dragoon's heels. He snaps back, blinking at the flashing fury, not quite comprehending exactly what's been said. His first instinct is to force understanding - he'd reacted similarly, after all,  when he had found out, had let his emotions rule his thoughts, panicked and raged and tried to find someone to blame. But as the words whittle down upon his brittle armor Koa feels himself growing rawer and rawer, the rope of his seemingly endless patience fraying beneath the weight. Of course Noe knows he doesn't hate her; of course he hadn't wanted Jude to become infected, too. And to suggest he'd intentionally kept it secret, as some way to... what? Use Jude as bait?

Does the boy really think so little of him, after all that Koa's done?

Koa's hands ball at his sides, short nails still managing to cut into his palms. His jaw is set as tight as a wire; he stares at a point beyond Jude, expressive eyes and face shuttered and dark. He wants to snap back, but he can only stand as the singer rants onward, stoic and unyielding, barely moving as Jude shakes his shirt. The fists on his chest are pathetic and petulant; Koa looks down and then dismisses them, unimpressed. 

Part of Koa knows he's supposed to weather this. That somehow his role in their relationship has been to be a bulwark in the storm of Jude. And maybe he would have been able to - if he weren't already so fucking exhausted, if he hadn't already been running on empty so long it's a miracle he has yet to asphyxiate on the fumes. Koa waits for Jude to finish before speaking, like a parent standing by as a their tantruming child tires themselves out. "Are you done?" he asks with dangerous quiet, firmly but gently grasping Jude's wrists, tugging the slender hands from his chest and dropping them for Jude to reposition as he wills.

His jaw feathers with the things he has to say, and for the first time in Jude's presence Koa looks dangerous, a boxer's physique and a soldier's stare, all tight muscles and intentional movement and potential for staggering, remarkable violence.

Koa

// Maul the world like a carnival bear set free //

Jude

If Koa strikes an intimidating figure - and he does - it’s lost on Jude. The hurt and upset are jagged metallic things inside his chest and every time he breathes they cut him someplace new and he has little blood left to give. Koa grabs his wrists and pulls them away, and Jude isn’t sure if he feels chastised or simply bereft when they’re released without fanfare. Rebuked in such a calm and dismissive fashion that it only solidifies - in his own mind - the fact that he means exactly that to the other man.

“Yes. No. I don’t know!” His fingertips dig into his hairline when the pressure of the heels of his palms digging into his eyesockets isn’t enough pain to relieve the feeling inside. Maybe Koa’s stony face lingers too strongly, because he doesn’t lift his hands away. Like a child believing the blanket over their head makes the monster not exist.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Either to enlist him in the search efforts or to protect him. Or any reason at all. Isn’t that the question this all boils down to, once the pressurized steam is released? “I don’t understand.” And the exclusion of it all - the singled out sensation - is somehow not nearly as painful as the idea that maybe it hadn’t been intentional at all. That he’s an afterthought to everyone, as he’s always been, and Koa was never going to be an exception.

My tongue will tell the anger of my heart

Or else my heart, concealing it, will break

// And it's our time now if you want it to be //

Maybe Jude doesn't deserve his anger, but fuck does he have a lot of it, curled like a snake in the base of his stomach, waiting to be activated by an unsuspecting tread. And here comes Jude, stomping merrily onward, without regard for the whirling pain Koa's tried to suppress for so long 'Why didn't you tell me?' Gods, it's petulant and grating, snarling into the insecure parts of Koa's psyche, another knife cut upon the unraveling fibers of his patience.

"You don't understand," Koa echoes in accusation, eyes narrowing, his fingers clenching and unclenching against his palms. "I come home from an extended deployment and the first thing I'm told is that Noe - my sister - is infected." He shakes his head, reliving that moment, the way those words had permanently altered the trajectory of his life. "Not that I needed to be told, not really - she was different, like the edges of her personality had been sanded away. It was obvious as soon as I talked to her."

His eyes narrow further, bright and accusing. "Which begs the question, Jude - how the fuck did you not know? Because I didn't tell anyone - Zavien, Lena, Kaisel, Dad? They figured it out on their own. So tell me how you, her best friend, didn't have a gods-damned clue?!" He's properly angry now, his shoulders taut and curving forward as he looms above the slender boy.

"Here's the thing, Jude - you're right. I didn't think to tell you. In part because, I dunno, I assumed you would have figured out that your best friend was infected?" He gesticulates aggressively, needing to let out some of the energy that shoots through him like a burst livewire. "And in part because I didn't know where the fuck you were, and I didn't have time to hunt you down. Because like you said, it's Noe. And I wasn't going to sit around and sulk while my sister was becoming one of them."

Unlike you doesn't need to be said; it hangs between them in Koa's heavy breathing, the accusatory glare he fixes on the boy, the way he looks utterly ready to throw a punch far heavier than the one that broke Sohalia's nose.

Koa

// Maul the world like a carnival bear set free //

Jude

The anger flares right back into life, sour behind his teeth. There’s no target he can fight - no proper one, that being the Family which he can’t possibly stand against - so that only leaves Koa. And maybe that’s all either of them wants is someone to dump all that onto. It’s certainly not healthy, but Jude seems pretty damn good at burning bridges just to keep himself warm and the match is already in his trembling fingers.

“Because you weren’t the only one gone! Me and her - off gallivanting with them, because I live there but I’m not always at her side!” Which is true for a variety of reasons. Jude’s inherent ability to fade into the background like a chameleon, ghosting through the house to the bed they’d given him between the schedules of the inhabitants within. It’s not like he has specific hours to keep as a singer scraping coins at odd hours in clubs. Trying to be unobtrusive out of respect for the Carpenters opening their door to him. Before he’d found out about her infection, he’d last hung out with Noe in more than passing to find out she had a new companion. Yet it burns to think he has to explain himself to Koa.

“It doesn’t take long to write a letter, Koa! Gods!” Jude shoves his hands in his hair, gripping tightly at the roots as his teeth grit so hard they shoot pains up into his cheeks and sinuses.  “I could have been an extra pair of eyes this entire time! You came back, found out, and were gone so fast I didn’t even know you were back. I wouldn’t expect you to wait around before starting on a solution but I thought you’d fucking include me!” Koa’s looming makes his stomach churn for a variety of reasons (fear, despair, loss) but Jude doesn’t back away. If he’s going to swing so be it. Jude was a fool to think he mattered to the Dragoon. Not more than Noe, never, but enough to be remembered. 

“They got to her because she was lonely. Because I wasn’t enough for her after you left.” His lashes are wet now as he juts his chin up at the taller man who curves over him like a threatening, taut bow. “So yeah, I’m owning that I’m more to blame. I fucking failed her. But you’re not the only one who jumped straight to trying to help her - I just also came to you.” And Koa hadn’t. So Jude is all the more the fool for the way the man lives eternally in the back of his head when it’s not reciprocated. “So here’s the message: go see your sister, because she clearly needs you more than me and I clearly can’t fucking do anything helpful as you so helpfully pointed out.” And, like a coward, Jude spins on his heel and stomps away with a snarl to hide the wetness that slides into what might have been inherited smile lines if he’d ended up a different person. If Koa wants to hit him he doesn’t want to see it coming. Even the scraps of seconds it might buy him are seconds more he can live in his pale delusions.

My tongue will tell the anger of my heart

Or else my heart, concealing it, will break

// And it's our time now if you want it to be //

And we're back to the letters, which honestly, yeah, fair. It wouldn't have taken Koa that much time to write a note - except that he hadn't been thinking about it, about what was practical and what he should do, about anything beyond getting Noe and getting out. It doesn't help that at first he'd planned on a two-day trip, into the hot springs and back to their lives. When he arrived to find the springs were ruined and everything had fallen apart, well...

Let's just say that writing letters was the furthest thing from Koa's mind.

But he doesn't get the chance to explain himself, because Jude is taking off again, and it's a lot of "I", and a lot of "You", and not much about her. How many times had he been there for Jude? Held his hand and rubbed his back, even as his own world spun? Now Koa wants to strangle him, to wrap his hands on those narrow shoulders and rattle his skeletal figure until the bones clatter into a pattern that makes sense.

But Jude seems to have decided it's over, turning around to walk away. Koa's knuckles are blanched with fury, his eyes alight above a snarl. The patience he has for the boy snaps hard enough to lash them both.  "Fuck you, Jude, do not tell me I've failed my sister and then walk away like a petulant brat!" Koa roars, the his voice harsh and loud enough to challenge the nearby falls. "I don't know what you fucking want from me! I'm not your brother, and I'm not your boyfriend, and I'm not your fucking dad. Why the fuck would I have leaned on you, when you've never once proven you have any ability to take care of yourself? All you've ever done is need things from me. You've done nothing to prove you give a real shit about me, or Noe, or anyone other than yourself!"

Breathing heavily, Koa isn't sure if Jude's actually listened, and doesn't really care. He can't see much past his own blinding anger, or hear anything over the roar of his blood. With a final, furious punch of the open air, Koa watches Jude walk away, the river nearly as loud as the thundering of his heartbeat in his ears.

[fin]

Koa

// Maul the world like a carnival bear set free //