Tell me, am I good enough?

Jude

Jude returns from Safrin's shrine by early morning, shoulders lighter despite being unused to staying up so late. Despite his age and solitude, Jude has a reliable schedule that he keeps to religiously. He doesn't like to think about where he got that anymore. Any pride he had once taken in being Harper's son has been overshadowed by his father's absence and betrayal.

Maybe it's fate, or some cosmic entity's idea of a joke, but when he makes it back to his apartment the door is suspiciously unlocked. Tensing immediately, handle half-turned in his hand, Jude considers his options.

He has nobody to call on for help. His neighbors don't even know his name.

But he's nobody. There's no reason for him to be targeted for any conceivable reason. What would anyone want from him?

So he turns the handle and steps into his silent apartment, a small breath of relief escaping him when he sees that the room within is undisturbed. Not a break-in, then. And as he lifts his eyes and closes the door behind him, Jude freezes when the reasoning becomes immediately clear. Harper sits on the couch, Winifred purring in his lap. Jude's face goes hard and cold. "You never told me you made another key. I wouldn't have accepted the apartment if I'd known."

I need a cure, prescribe a drug - cut this out before it's love

Harper

I'll keep breaking my own heart with dreams
I know I'm still not what I want to be

Harper has been sitting and waiting in his son's apartment for the entire night. Hadama's letter sits crumpled and travel-worn on the coffee table in front of him, the only important words burned into his brain.

Jude has been injured.

But he had arrived too late. The Skyport had been destroyed - boards Harper had laid with his own hands shattered and discarded - and the Grounds was as far from Torchline as it could possibly be. Worse, Harper had been drunk when the courier had found him, and he hadn't opened Hadama's letter for days yet. Had never responded to his first letter, the one absolving him of guilt when it was so fairly earned in Harper's eyes. By the time he'd flown the entire way to Torchline, Jude had already been discharged from the hospital, and Harper was too late.

He has no right to ask where his son was at this hour of night, but when the door finally opens, it's the first thing that springs automatically to his lips. A return to form and habit that Harper does not deserve. Something made all the more clear to him with the unfamiliar, hateful look on Jude's face. Setting Winifred aside, Harper stands, uncertain what to do with his hands when it's clear his son won't accept any form of physical reunion. "I heard you'd been hurt. I came as quickly as I could," he explains instead, because he doesn't have a good excuse for why he had made a spare key when he had abandoned his son before he'd even made it back home. I'm here now. I came as soon as I knew. Please.

But what more do you want from me?

Jude

Jude hates feeling like he's on the backfoot when he knows that he's the one in the right. That Harper is the one who should be groveling. That this is Jude's house. Yet he feels trapped in the entryway, keys still in his hand, the ridiculous charm from Noe still butted up against his palm. It makes him feel a little less alone, but he wishes she was here to show up from around the hall just as she had when Sohalia had shown up unannounced, ready to save him. The desire makes him feel all the more pathetic - makes the anger that much stronger. That, he can use.

"Yeah, well, you can leave then. I'm healed. I don't need your help." Jude turns and drops his keys into the bowl beside the door and begins taking off his shoes, blatantly ignoring his father. At least until he hears the man's footsteps approaching.

One shoe still on, Jude whirls and points a finger at him with such intensity that it makes the Stalwart freeze in place. "No. I don't want you near me. You can wait until I get into my room, and then you can leave." He kicks off his other shoe, and it lands far from the other one. He'll have to fix that later, he thinks, as his face takes on a cruel smile. "You're good at that, right? You shouldn't need me to tell you how to do it properly."

I need a cure, prescribe a drug - cut this out before it's love

Harper

I'll keep breaking my own heart with dreams
I know I'm still not what I want to be

He's taller, Harper can't help but think even as his son brushes him off, cold and distant in a way Harper has never known him to be. Certainly never with him. They had always been the only two left. Eternally in each other's pockets, always sharing worries and dreams readily as they spent endless days in their little bit of home they'd cobbled together from the rubble. Only ever made better when Edmund would visit, or they would infiltrate his apartment for family nights and impromptu dinners. He has earned this, but it still tears his chest open one rib at a time.

He moves toward Jude, helplessly assuming that he can hug this out, that if Jude could just see how much Harper has missed him, that -

There is something sharp and mean on his son's face when he spins to forbid exactly that, and Harper's heart pangs again seeing Phoebe's eyes in their son's face. He's just like you when you're angry, he thinks, and he hopes she is laughing in his face wherever she is right now, because he deserves it.

Jude has never been the type to be cruel. He always bottled up his feelings, swallowed down his objections, and smiled his way obediently through all the unfairness of the world. Harper hadn't been blind to that. He hates himself all the more for having hoped that he could have been granted that easy forgiveness one last time. His son's words lash him to the bone, and he winces visibly, expression crumpling. "Jude. Please. I know I messed up - and I know that doesn't even begin to describe how bad I actually did." He edges forward another step, testing his limits. "I ran away, I was a coward. I did it all for me, and I didn't think about anyone else. I know I hurt you - but I -"

But what more do you want from me?

Jude

"But what?!" Jude flings his arms wide, challenging and disbelieving as they square off in the small space between his entryway and living room. It feels ridiculous, like something he dreamed up in a fit of adolescent self-fulfillment.

"You're doing the exact same fucking thing you always hated mom and maman for!" He knows it's going to land exactly as hard as it will, and Jude crosses the distance between them on long legs to shove his finger into his father's chest hard enough to send him back a step. "You leave without caring what happens when you do, and then you come crawling back asking for forgiveness and understanding from the people you directly hurt!"

It's disorienting to realize that he is tall enough now to look directly into his father's eyes. He doesn't feel old enough, strong enough, wise enough to be standing on such a level with the man he had elevated to a near-godlike status in his own head. "You think just because it wasn't as long, that it wasn't romantic, that it's any better to ask me to make the exact same mistake you always made?" His tone is incredulous, demanding. In this one way, he doesn't want to follow in his father's footsteps.

I need a cure, prescribe a drug - cut this out before it's love

Harper

I'll keep breaking my own heart with dreams
I know I'm still not what I want to be

Harper flinches back, and fully steps backward when Jude's finger digs into his chest. The comparison is deeply painful given the wealth of grief and anger that still lies buried in his own bones over those abandonments, and he knows that's exactly why Jude chose it.

"It's different," he argues, though it's weak at best. "I had to do it. I had to. I was losing grip on everything good about myself," he emphasizes, gaining a bit more strength to his tone as his own lips pull into a severe frown. "I knew it was going to hurt you, but you had so many people there to support you while I was gone. I couldn't be a good dad to you the way I was." And he doesn't feel like much of one now, so he wonders if any of it was even worth it.

"I couldn't lay those concerns on you, Jude. I'm your father. I had to make a choice to try and save myself, so that I could come back better." He hadn't anticipated to be back so soon, but maybe that's for the best. Harper isn't sure he'll ever be fully changed and content, but he has managed to move on from Phoebe and Maeve, and accept his faults in trying to lead Torchline. Isn't that enough?

But what more do you want from me?

Jude

Jude hates that he understands why his father had broken. Hates that he remembers seeing the wear and strain on him even as a child, before he’d visited Frey’s shrine with the intentional desire to become older, so that he might lift at least one burden from his dad’s shoulders. He hates that, somewhere along the line, the relief and freedom he’d prayed for for his dad had become something resent; something that hurt Jude, when he thought it was all he’d ever wanted. The most selfless thing he could ask for. Did that make him selfish now? Bitter solely over the fact that the cost had been paid from his own hide?

“You didn’t have to do it then!” It’s a shrill caterwaul that he’s not proud of. The tears that sting at his lashes and the sudden wobble of his chin are equally shameful. “You didn’t have to do it the way you did! Because I didn’t have anyone and you didn’t even look back to check!” And even if he’d left, couldn’t he have done that much? Paused, waited, wondered?

“Sohalia and I broke up, and Edmund left, and I came home to a letter and an apartment! And it took a meteor to make you come back and look at me again!” His voice cracks like he’s much younger, and with one rushed blink the tears boil over and his shoulders begin to shake. Jude shoves the heels of both palms into his eyes, spine curling over in a pitiful display of defensiveness as he tries to force the weakness back to leave more room for the anger he so desperately wants to feel.

I need a cure, prescribe a drug - cut this out before it's love

Harper

I'll keep breaking my own heart with dreams
I know I'm still not what I want to be

Harper has always known that his son is soft, fragile in ways he'd sought to protect and never degrade, and even with the temper of both his parents the Stalwart knows it's a fleeting thing. Jude doesn't know how to stoke the sparks of anger into something slow-burning and reliable, and as he watches his son's chin wobble and hears his voice break, he knows - horribly, manipulatively - that this is his chance if he intends to seize it.

But even with that understanding, Harper couldn't have refrained from wrapping his arms around Jude the moment he begins to cry. It's like gravity. A force he can't hope to fight, even as Jude writhes weakly in his arms, trying to refuse the comfort.

"I'm sorry," he cries in turn, quiet and strained with sincerity. Slowly, the two sink down to the carpet in a tangle of limbs. No matter how old or how big Jude may grow, he'll never be too big for Harper to hold; he cradles him against his front, weathering every bony elbow and barbed curse as penance. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I love you." And he always will, and he'll always come back, even if he never should have left in the first place. "I'm here. I'm gonna be right here, Jude."

It's not enough. But it's a start. Gods, he prays it's a start.

- Fin!

But what more do you want from me?