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The plains biome near spawn is offensively hot at noon, Jude decides, amidst crouching three blocks deep inside an opened hole he recarved earlier that morning, hunching over redstone dust linings at the bottom, careful little veins he had to fix under an unforgiving sun because someone had so graciously fallen into it last night and then griefed the redstone while they were at it. Not that he’s complaining, it’s expected, and he still has their loot, so it’s still a win in his book.
He rearranges the observer with one hand, then turns it over to face a sticky piston, which feeds into a sand-drop two blocks ahead, blending into the opening of the sea. It’s not his most elaborate trap, but it works—and Jude’s someone who’s not too keen on letting worthy stuff go to waste, physical or not—a couple of harsh sun rays won’t keep him away from reproducing his beloved machinery.
Click. Swoosh.
The remaining sand above him falls exactly where it should, and he sighs, a little victorious, because that’s less fixing than he initially thought when he first saw the broken wall with exposed wiring all over the place. Turns out they only watered down the redstone trails and broke a couple of observers in their frantic haze, nothing too deep within the trap itself, joy becomes the glue on the bottom as he mulls over the thought with delight.
He backs out of the cramped cavity on instinct alone, brushing stray grains of sand from his sleeves before leaning in again to inspect the trap’s core. Untouched, he notes duly, with a strange dryness in the back of his throat that he chooses to ignore, ducking his head under a few stone blocks to see if the comparators lit up properly by the trails instead.
They’re lit up, rectangular stone plates glimmering with their respective reds, glancing back one final time for a double check before he pulls away, all the more satisfied. Only thing that’s left on Jude’s checklist now that he’s made sure the redstone is alive and well—is to refill the sand hole, the most mindless and therapeutic of it all.
What isn’t therapeutic, though, is trying to climb his way out of the handmade hole. Too much trouble in lining himself up and filling the space below just natural enough so that suspicion won’t fester. Boots scratching roughly against packed dirt yet landing carefully light when he steps on the grass above, a mindful stride away from the sand, not wanting to dent a print.
His throat is still oddly dry, he finds out along the next full swallow. Spreading slowly, heat sinking into stones, scraped raw in the worst way possible. Jude’s tongue is affected too, moisture is all but soaked like alcohol dripping inside a cotton ball, twisting his already warmth-ridden body more to the edge.
Thinking it’s a fluke, Jude tries to swallow again, just for it to burn with the same fervor as before. He clicks his tongue, annoyed, and walks toward the sea, submerging his hands under the shore and letting saltwater clean away the grime. Rolling his shoulders back, he reaches into his inventory, watching a water bottle manifest itself onto his palms before he chugs it quickly with a tilt.
The water slides down his esophagus, cool and clear—and does absolutely nothing. His throat still feels like it’s lined with embers and swarmed with lava pools.
Jude scowls at the empty bottle. “That’s stupid.”
He tosses it back into his inventory anyway and presses on. There’s no way in hell he’s abandoning a trap just because his throat feels strangely scratchy. Forgoes the abrasiveness to let sand course under his fingertips, continuing to shovel the abundance of sand into his bag, refilling the opened hole.
By the time he’s finished and straightened fully, gloves returning to his hands, the sunlight hits him square in the face. It feels blinding, and his head spins, eyes squinted sharply as the onslaught of white yellows oppresses his optics, raising an arm to shield his vision. Seriously?
It’s barely spring. The server has only just shaken off its winter’s gray tones. Snow is still dusting at the borders of spawn on mornings where dew turns into frost, clinging onto logs and roofs of bases. There is absolutely no reason for the sun to feel or be this aggressive yet, especially not when it’s nowhere close to summer. That’s just bullshit.
And that’s not even the worst part, because the walk back to spawn feels ten times worse. Jude feels like he’s going through an actual trial and retribution for every dirty trap he’s pulled. Each step’s a brisk teetering on his own soles, clumpy with dirt that’s akin to molten rocks, an unpleasant pace he’s going in.
Every stride through the tall grass and fern sent a prickling sensation up his legs despite the skin tuckering under fabric and boots, foliage tickling sharper than they should be, grating in ways he didn't know they were capable of until now.
Then, a breeze brushes against his face and it feels too warm, too dry. Attacking his airways with a knotty sensation—and it’s only seconds before Jude feels his throat tighten again, heat flaring painfully when he attempts to swallow down the lump.
His arms are barely raised up in time when the first cough claws its way up his chest without warning, body seizing with a hack of air, sleeves facing the frontline of its deliverance. Jude’s almost a fool to think it’s done because one suddenly turns into two, and two turns into three. Before he even knows it, he’s lost count after the fifth one, mind too scrambled and hand too busy reaching inside his bag for another bottle.
The moment the rim graces his lips, Jude tilts his head back all the way and chugs everything in one go. Water is only a brief relief, sloshing down his throat with its chilly fingers tampering on the tightness of his throat, loosening barely anything the way it should’ve under any other circumstances.
As much as he hates to admit it, he thinks he’s sick. And that’s just fucking amazing. Who knew working under hot sand and sun-kissed stones for just half an hour would have such a detrimental effect? He didn’t, and not because he’s stubborn but because it’s far from his first rodeo with sand traps—an unforgiving sun is child’s play, he’s been through worse constructing more intricate traps.
Whatever. There’s no use thinking about it now, not when every time his foot lands on the ground makes him a tick more unbearable, noon’s heat toying with his body and impending Jude into even considering blowing himself up just so he can get home faster. Very carefully folds that thought away the second he’s come to his senses, though the urge is still there.
Thankfully, his base blurs into view only after a few more dreadful steps forward. He doesn’t think he’s been this excited seeing his house in all of his time on the server. The only close second is maybe that one time he’s lured Sharpness over, all too casual and cheery, a windcharge away from flipping the table on him; a chance that he took, naturally.
Still remembers it clearly even now, a few weeks after Sharpness’s betrayal. Strangely alive in his mind, the way he’s taken his hands and draped them over his, pulling up palms and taking apart fingers by fingers, printing them with feather kisses, bloodied and non-bloodied parts alike. Vividly recollects the blush Sharpness greeted him with afterward, the sheepish feeling he felt before he dropped everything with a laugh.
Brushing the memory off, he scurries closer toward his base, ignoring the way everything feels like they’re slapping him with metal bars that were dried under the sun. It works well, carries him steadily on his trail. Only when Jude’s a chunk away from his base did the strategy crumble with a sharp sting on his neck.
He doesn’t stop, his house is too close for that, but he allows himself salvation by slowing down just enough so that his hand can hover over skin, brushing past his exposed neck before coming into an uneasy stop, inches away from where the tips of his index and middle stand two small indents. Moving closer, he realizes they’re not from poking himself too hard with redstone torches but punctures—actual skin punctures.
The memory of three days ago resurfaces unwantedly in his mind. Sharpness was on his doorstep then, clutching his side and hunching over the entrance. Scarily pale and unsteady yet unwilling to come in for reasons beyond Jude’s mind, until he’s explicitly told him to because he doesn’t want a sick Sharpness swearing under his breath about how he waited too long and how he thought he could handle it.
He clearly couldn’t. So clumsy on his way down that Jude’s brief thought about trapping him in that same spot again—somewhere before their parting—vanished just as quickly as it appeared, dissipating in dust and thump of footsteps when he speed walked over to Sharpness’s side. Arguing that it was because Sharpness would’ve face-planted to the floor and dirtied his patterns, and not because he’s concerned.
Seventy-two hours and however long minutes later, he’s still not sure which holds more truth than the other, though he finds himself more inclined to believe in the former than the latter, despite the way his intestines twist wrongly at that same consideration.
Whichever truth it was, it was enough that Jude relented with a huff and sigh three nights ago, letting desperate hands tug his collar away and hold onto the side of his throat. It was enough that he bit his tongue and tolerated the needle-like sting that accompanies fangs sinking deep enough to draw blood. Was somehow enough to make him not let go and instead grabbed a fistful of Sharpness’s shirt just to stay upright.
The mark has been stinging on and off for the last few days after that encounter. He’s noticed, but all is promptly dismissed as some sort of weird, fucked up aftermath of being bitten by a vampire for the first time. Thinking about it more deeply now, it’s strange how his body has been malfunctioning only after that night.
His stamina drains out slower than usual. The jog from spawn to the nearest taiga would’ve taken him longer than fifteen minutes, but he’s been reaching it just fine with only ten. Remarkably more thirsty too, and he’s not one to remember drinking water all that often until lately, times where his throat feels parched to the point of annoyance, though much less grating than now.
The only thought that makes sense is if Sharpness had turned him, if that’s even how it works, because there’s no way in hell Jude would’ve grown to be an Olympian overnight. That just doesn’t make sense, tempting as it is.
Wooden floorboards echoing under his boots cut off the rest of his thoughts and knocked him back to the present. The unpleasant acknowledgement of a searing throat creeps back up at him again, aggravating like always even if this is the first time he’s had a sore this bad. It’s irritating enough that his speculations die down and make him beeline toward the storage area instead, fumbling for relief.
Rummaging past spare redstone, backup armor sets, and chests of who-knows-what junk he’s thrown in whenever his inventory is too full of stuff to hold, he’s finally able to find a potion of regeneration near the back of a corner chest. Beggars can’t be choosers, Jude supposes, uncorking it without ceremony and chugging it without another thought.
Purple-pink liquid strolls down his throat, easing the pain slightly. The second the potion empties out, his throat aches again, only lightly nullified. Fine, whatever, it’s gonna take a minute for it to fully kick in anyway, might as well be patient while he’s at it.
He sets the empty bottle aside and begins reorganizing his shulker boxes instead, slipping tools back into place, restocking the trapping materials he’s used for the trap—which was barely anything, but the motion of being busy is nice regardless, lets him have a peace of mind without being reminded of the searing sensation in his pharynx.
Then, as most things are, his trance is broken by the sound of footsteps on the top of his base, echoing a thudding noise as metallic boots that he’s oh-so familiar with clink their way down into the last few steps of his stairs. He glances over naturally, straightens himself whilst irritation overrides everything else.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Jude demands, slamming the lid of the shulker he’s organizing shut, forgoing the task.
Sharpness blinks up at him, mildly startled but not remotely apologetic. “Oh. I thought you wouldn’t be here until, like, late evening. And you did say I can come in whenever you’re out, so—”
Jude scoffs at the audacity. To think that Sharpness is under the impression that he can freeload whatever he wants whenever he wants in his base like they’re still teammates when he has already betrayed him, discarding their partnership like waves over sand, is simply stupid.
He scowls and ignores the way bitterness splatters all over his words, letting them spill over the rim as he replies, bothered. “Why are you tracking my time and shit? That’s weird.”
“I’m not tracking you,” Sharpness says, frowning. “That’s just when you usually get back after you do whatever it is that you do with your little traps. I got used to it.”
Jude narrows his eyes. “Okay yeah, cool. Good to know you’re keeping track of when I’m out so you can steal all my shit,” he snaps, crossing his arms. “That’s real nice.”
“Well okay, you gave me permission,” Sharpness shoots back as if that means anything. He’s only given him explicit permission during their alliance and the incident from three days ago, not now. It doesn’t carry over, that’s absurd, annoyance growing as he hears him continue. “Whatever. I just need some turtles and I’ll be out immediately. You have a farm anyway so it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“No.” Jude says flatly. “Why would I give my enemy turtles? That’s stupid.”
Sharpness groans and steps closer toward him, sheathing his sword. And Jude hates how much it reminds him of when they used to be on the same side, settling back together after a long day as he throws away his weapons and Sharpness doing the same. “I just need two, dude. It’s not that serious.”
They’re not like that anymore, he reminds himself, scorning further. “It is that serious. We’re not teammates anymore, Sharp. You betrayed me.”
Sharpness opens his mouth to retort and Jude does the same—except his throat flares up the second a wisp of air flows through, itchiness tenfolds like someone has shoved a torch down his lungs. He doubles over with a rugged cough, the sound rips out of him before he can suppress it, scraping painfully up his chest, dry and ugly.
Jude reaches blindly into his inventory, grabs another water bottle, and chugs it in one go. It does nothing, lava still coats the lining of his throat, not doused over by water at all. Clicking his tongue and chucking the bottle inside the chest, he looks up, barely remembers that Sharpness’s still here until he redirects his eyes back, catching the way he’s staring at him.
“…Jude,” he hears him say cautiously, voice lowering just slightly. “Are you sick or something? What was that nasty cough?”
Jude wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, vexed. “Dude, I don’t fucking know. It’s just a really hot day out today, okay? Do you not feel how hot the sun was? I swear it’s like, scorching and boiling the server alive or whatever, I thought spring’s supposed to be chill and shit but I guess not.”
Sharpness squints at Jude like he’s crazy, and he might as well be if his throat keeps this up. “Bro, what?” Sharpness huffs, crossing his arms. “It’s like twenty celsius right now. That’s nowhere close to scorching.”
Jude opens his mouth to argue, then stops. He would have, had Sharpness not mentioned how it’s only twenty-something outside, knows it would’ve been a pointless argument if he did try and much rather drops it than take on a fight he knows he can’t win.
Twenty celsius, he reconsiders the thought again, confusion and denial enclosing its grip around his body. Doesn’t know how much he has in him to fathom the idea that he might’ve contracted a fever and whatnot. It’s a nuisance to have a sore throat to begin with, so to chew over the bone that he might be carrying something more is not a notion he’d like to grind his teeth into.
His brief escapist daydream is snatched away with another cough, less aggressive than the ones before but still irksome enough to feel like it’s swiping at raw skin with sharpened nails. Worst of all, the first thing he’s graced with once he’s recovered, is how Sharpness is still staring at him, with something like concern cloaked over the green irises he’s grown to believe he hates (but knows better than anything he doesn’t.)
Jude instinctively shifts his gaze away before that thought can evolve past the shoreline he’s marked it with. A sand castle he’s constructed just a touch away from the waves, water clashing at the front the way it’s intended to, dampening the edges of grains but never the landmark itself. He’d like to keep it that way.
There’s a beat of silence, then there’s a voice entering his ears, moist with a worry he wished he could tear away with dripstones and swords, digging the tip of his blade into the junction of Sharpness’s larynx with enough pressure so that it would break and spill ribbons everywhere, tearing the flesh out afterward so he can relish in the feeling of crushing it apart barehandedly.
“Are you having a fever or something, Jude?” Sharpness eventually asks, breaking apart his fantasy with a clunk of boots. “You look like shit.”
Jude exhales sharply through his nose, shrugging. “I don’t know. Probably. Ever since you showed up on my front steps looking like you were about to die a couple days back, asking for blood that I so generously gave just because you were bitching about it, shit’s been weird with my body.”
“Oh,” Sharpness stills, eyebrows raised in the way that he gets when an idea ignites in that empty head of his. Jude looks back at him immediately.
A strange feeling twists inside his stomach and worms its tainted hands around his neck, pressing onto skin, squeezing airways shut at the late realization. Jude doesn’t know how much he likes the knowledge of Sharpness’s habits having their own cavern in his own mind, should’ve by all means tossed them under a pit like all of his victims and moved on.
But he hasn’t, and he doubts Sharpness has either, crawling back to his base—to him—every time. Even before the betrayal and past it, continuing like nothing has ever changed, still having each other’s blood on his hands like a second nature, the same way Jude lets him in time and time again.
“Oh what?” He says instead, crunching the thought away with a snarl.
Sharpness unfolds his arms and shrugs, looking way too casual than Jude would’ve liked for what he’s said next. “Don’t get worked up but,” he looks away, strands tilting to the side, indescribable. “I think I might’ve turned you into a vampire by accident.”
“You what?” And Jude’s voice is more shocked than he would’ve liked, but he doesn’t find it in himself to care about the volume when Sharpness has just literally admitted that he might’ve altered Jude’s entire species because of whatever the fuck reason.
Sure enough, his confusion is answered with an explanation that comes quickly alongside a grimace from Sharpness, “I was too out of it to control myself,” he says, steering his eyes back toward him. “If I bite too deep, it can—”
“—What the fuck?” Jude snaps, has no heart to care that he’s interrupting, and throws his hands up in a waving motion. “Wait, wait, wait. What do you mean you might’ve turned me into a vampire? How does that even work?”
Sharpness inhales, clearly preparing to explain, and under normal circumstances, Jude would’ve let him. Would’ve listened to dissect every word, to understand the mechanics and figure out what’s going on—but this isn’t a normal circumstance, because within one breath and the next, his throat tightens again, seizing another cough out of him, hands flying up to grasp at his mouth.
His teeth ache this time, too. A deep, uncomfortable pressure along his gums. Mouth unbearably dry, coursed through sand until they dried up on his tongue, grainy and prickly as the aridness covers the roof of his inner flesh. Pressing a hand to his jaw and making the other weave up in a shushing motion.
“Yeah yeah, okay. Forget it.” Jude cuts in hoarsely. “Let’s save your vampire biology lesson for later because my throat is too dead for any of that right now.”
“Okay,” Sharpness replies, studying him for a long second, and Jude’s eyes narrow, pinks backing away from greens, only seconds before he hears the sound of fabric rustling as Sharpness’s voice returns to earshot. “Well, no one else is online right now.”
Jude lowers his hand, not looking back. “So?”
“And even if they were, I doubt anyone would give you blood anyway,” Sharpness continues bluntly, accompanied by the fizzling noise of a hair tie rearranging itself on what he assumes is Sharpness’s methodical way to retighten his hair.
Distantly remembers being taught how to do it once, under a snowy sky with Sharpness’s bloodied hands guiding him, saying how his gloves are too stained to do it himself and that it was too cold not to have them on. Deliberately forcing Jude’s hands to clasp around the black ribbon while drilling his ears deaf to how to properly tie it into silk strands.
Enclose the bundle of hair into a smooth ponytail first, he remembers, then loops the tie around and knots it once. Twist the strand into two loops afterward and fold them one final time into a bow, tightening the ribbon as the final step.
Once all is done, he’s instructed to let him know with a tap on the shoulders. Sharpness will then respond with a turnaround and thank him, black gloved hand will catch onto his and drag him home thereafter.
“—You’re kind of a bitch,” is what he’s heard when a gust of air flies through the base, bringing him back to the present and drifting the memory away, as cold as the snowstorm from three weeks ago.
Eyes immediately flicking back to meet him, Jude scoffs, reminiscing thrown out of the window. “Okay? Like you’re any better.”
“Do you want to fix your problem or what?” Sharpness interrupts before he can say anything else. “If you do, I can give you my blood as payback for the other day. Just don’t make it weird or whatever.”
Jude scowls. “Why would I?”
Sharpness’s gaze hardens and he huffs. “Oh, you know why. You called me princess and stuff back then.”
His eyes narrow, momentarily recalling hands under his own and lips planting kisses where they should’ve been spewing insults instead. Gentle in ways he shouldn’t have been, knowing how it ended and how Sharpness doesn’t deserve a lick of that, at least not anymore. “This is far from back then, Sharp,” he reminds. “It doesn’t matter now.”
It still matters, maybe just slightly, because despite all the scoffing he’s done and all the revenges he’s taken against him and vice versa. Jude knows that it’s the only reason why he let Sharpness bite him that night instead of pushing him away—his stomach churns, and he clicks his tongue, not that it matters now, though; he repeats.
It takes less than a second for Sharpness’s expression to shift once the words register, just barely. A small contortion at the corner of his mouth, tight and invisible. Jude notices it easily, and against his better judgment, the organs behind his ribs teeter lightly at the sight. But he doesn’t take it back, that’d be dumb.
He hears Sharpness bite his lips, muttering something under his breath before grabbing Jude by the wrist and dragging him toward the couch. The whole thing happens in one fluid motion, and Jude barely has time to protest before he’s shoved down onto the cushions.
“Okay, what the hell are you—” But the sentence dies in his throat the instant he looks up and sees Sharpness right there. Close by, with his hair parted to one side, falling just slightly over his shoulders, fixing those stupidly pretty green eyes on Jude with something unreadable in them.
Jude internally smacks himself. Pretty? Why the hell did he think they’re pretty? They belong to his enemy, he doesn’t have the grounds to think about that anymore—wants to dive himself headfirst into the nearest stalagmites over the fact that he still did.
Even worse, he must’ve taken a long minute mulling over that thought too, because Sharpness turns up at him with a thinly-veiled impatience behind those god-forsaken eyes, expression morphing into a tiny frown and gripping at Jude’s shirt, tugging him closer.
“Well? What are you waiting for?” Sharpness asks. “Your throat burns, doesn’t it?”
And just like that, the distraction evaporates, leaving Jude to be painfully aware of the dryness scraping at the back of his mouth again, heat gnawing at the enclosure around his throat, magma-stinging pressure on the pipeline.
“I guess it does,” Jude mumbles as he focuses back on the task at hand, ready to do whatever it is that he’s supposed to do until he realizes he has absolutely no idea how this works. “Okay, wait. How do I even do this? ‘Cause in case you forgot, I’ve never had to drink blood before you did what you did.”
Sharpness rolls his eyes like the asshole that he is. Then spends a good heartbeat staring at Jude like he’s stupid, which is rich, all things considered, before finally grabbing his hands and guiding them. Firmly planting his palms on his shoulders afterward.
“Don’t overthink it,” Sharpness says, pulling back just enough to give him space. “Bite me like how you’d bite anything else. And don’t freak out.”
“Easy for you to say,” Jude grumbles, but he listens, albeit spitefully. Holding Sharpness’s shoulders and pressing his nails onto skin a tad more forceful than he should, angling himself properly against the flesh.
Sharpness doesn’t seem to mind the roughness all that much. If anything, he makes it easier. Simply tilts his head slightly to the side without ceremony and exposes the clean line of his neck like it’s nothing. As if handling Jude the most vulnerable part of him on a silver platter is but a daily chore, strangely compliant.
The casualness of it would’ve made him sick, if not for the way it marathons his brain back to the nights he’s spent awake at his work desk, absentmindedly tapping his fingers on blueprints. Brain unfocused on the designs themselves but rather the thoughts of Sharpness bleeding and dying underneath his hands. Potions thrown aside for the sake of cleaving his blade over the expanse of his skin, paleness tinted with crimson.
He could hurt him. His mind echoes, the little devil on his shoulder twirling in a circle beside his head, places its nimble fingers over his and makes him trace the offered stretch of dermis, all sharp with crescents.
It would be easy, wouldn’t it? Sharpness has always been reckless like this—giving access, coming back for seconds and acting like Jude’s roughness is predictable, manageable. Believing that he wouldn’t take it further just to prove a point, has skipped past red lights more times than Jude can count, all to solely test the waters, to see if the next rush ends in a crash or if it comes in the form of a ticket warning.
Jude wonders, briefly, what it would feel like to give in to that impulse. To press harder, leave cuts that aren’t necessary, carve his fingers so deeply into skin that it cracks and tears open. Letting the blood spill without the need to stop them, then repeat that process to see if Sharpness would finally react, or if he’d just let him.
Quietly, he wonders if that’s why he looks so unbothered, still returning time and time again despite the outcome being nothing less than blood splatters on each other’s hands.
Regardless, he closes off the thoughts and leans in, slower than he expects himself to. There’s a swift second where he can feel Sharpness’s breath against his cheek. Unconcerned and steady, encouraging him to sink his teeth in. Jude is simple-minded when everything comes to one single conclusion, dipping his fangs down as told.
The first taste of blood hits his tongue and somehow, it’s warm, oddly sweet, not at all metallic like he expected. It’s rich and intoxicating and it floods his mouth in a way that makes his head spin. The burning in his throat vanishes almost instantly, replaced by something dangerously satisfying, making every new sip feel like a renewed breathing cycle.
Jude knows he’s drinking more than he probably should, he realizes, many heartbeats later, frequent enough to be a rhyme. His instinct is more than aware of that fact, too, flicking to life as his hold tightens unconsciously around Sharpness’s shoulders, world narrowing down to nothing but the warmth and sweetness and the steady pulse beneath his teeth. Moments before he forces his brain to catch up, pulling back abruptly.
With a cough, Jude wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, inching away to recompose himself. “My bad,” he says automatically, unsure of what he’s taking fault for, yet doesn’t have it in him to recollect the throwaway phrase. Gratefulness is a scarily effective override to hatred.
“It’s fine,” Sharpness says after a second, tone indescribable, touches his neck lightly in his wake, checking the bite. “Are you good now, though?”
Jude swallows experimentally, relief nearly floods his senses at how the inferno past his tongue isn’t flaring up anymore. Already dwindles itself into something more bearable, head-clearing alongside the mellowed fire. “Yeah,” he says slowly. Then, just because he can’t help himself, he adds. “Is vampire blood always sweet?”
Sharpness looks at him strangely, and Jude’s brows raise, confused. Only lowering once his eyes skim over the entirety of Sharpness’s face, holding back a bemused smile at the faint red tint creeping up his ears—the same way they always do when he’s flustered.
“It depends,” Sharpness mumbles and peels his gaze away from Jude for once, relocating his hands onto his collar, fixing it with too many fumbles for it to be natural.
Jude blinks, phrases through the words again until the revelation clicks. It lands a second later than he’d like, heavy and unwelcome, body shifting as he feels it settle somewhere behind his ribs, threatening to bloom into something more, brisking with a sentiment he doesn’t have the patience to unpack.
“Yeah, alright,” Jude says instead, pushing himself off the couch. His body momentarily dizzies itself from the sudden rise, black and white dots entering his vision. Huffs out a sigh before he brushes the imaginary dust off his clothes and eyes, continuing. “Well, whatever. Let’s save that and your whole vampire biology lecture for another day.”
Sharpness rises behind him, and Jude spins around before he can open his mouth and make this worse, because he will. Always weirdly forward at the worst possible times, room reading is but a myth with him at this point.
He’s proven right when his face reunites with Sharpness’s, sees the way his mouth is already halfway into opening, Jude quickly shushes him before anything leaks out. Then, very deliberately so Sharpness doesn’t miss it, points toward the hallway leading to the turtle farm and holds up two fingers.
“You’ve got two minutes,” he says coolly. “Get what you need from the turtle farm, and I won’t touch a single trap.”
It’s easy to let a slow, smug smile creep back onto his face now that an escape is presented; the instigator, enthusiastic baiter in him, is more than happy to follow through with that tangent. Ignoring the way his body defies that line of thinking with a heart that’s pounding all too fast in his ears, jittering above an unwanted railway.
Sharpness gives him another unreadable look, but whatever it is that he’s thinking—if he is thinking at all—doesn’t make its way out of his lips. If he has a response, he swallows it while obliging to Jude’s statements, and all he gets is a scowl before Sharpness turns on his heel and heads toward the farm without another word.
Jude remains standing in the living room once he’s gone, dragging a hand through his hair, sighing heavily. Bites down on his tongue and abandons the thought before it spirals any further; he doesn’t think he has it in him to confront whatever idea that presented. Too busy trying to survive every instance of him and Sharpness comes into contact as it is, violent urges stitched barely tight enough to hold.
The lingering sweetness on his tongue makes it worse, if anything. Tangy in excess, too many unsaids lingering on the top of flesh and organ. Enough that for a brief second, he thinks he understands why gluttony is a sin, why craving more deserves a chamber under fires.
With a click of his tongue and a serrated breath, he turns toward the storage area, letting his gaze drift and thoughts wander, latching onto anything but the need to grab Sharpness by the shoulders again and sink his teeth back under skin, pulling him close, allowing dark crimson to choke his lungs more than the hollow burn left behind.
As fast as it comes, the thought snaps the moment his eyes catch the calendar on the wall. February 14th, it reads.
“Oh my god,” Jude breathes. “Can it get any fucking worse?”