Chapter Text
Jude Duarte is an utter fool. Here she stands, heart torn in two, just as the flowers she'd had prepared especially for today crunch underneath her steel-toed boots. Everything is a blistering pain inside of her, every pang of cold dashing through the thin material of her jacket and making her shiver.
It is all she can do to remove the memory of Nicasia, embalmed in Cardan’s arms, looking as perfect as she always did. Red, rosy lips, bitten from kisses and luscious, glowing with the gleam of saliva. But Cardan. How grand, how perfect he looked under the ceiling fan that spread a linen glow upon their entwined bodies, his black hair gleaming a mahogany brown and his eyes, black under hooded eyelids. The utter desire on his face, the shock when he saw stupid little Jude standing in the doorway, made to be the fool time and time again.
Cold, burning tears rush down her cheeks against her wishes. With every one that scars the tender curve of her cheekbone, it whispers, Fool.
Why had she even thought to woo Cardan? Cardan didn't need wooing, or even to be seen by her unworthy eyes. He didn't want her. It was as simple as that. But something inside of her wailed with agony at the thought– It just couldn't be. Cardan, beautiful Cardan, wasn't in love with Jude. That should've been obvious from day one; the cold gleam of his eyes as they appraised her hair and her body, the malicious grin that distorted his face and made him look even more menacing, the way his kisses caressed her neck and trailed downwards..
What had those kisses meant? Were they given to her unkissed, untouched skin out of pity? All along, she'd thought Cardan above feeling pity for another. The agreement was that they would hook up as friends with benefits, something that they could both agree to since they were okay with each other.
But Jude had fallen in love. She'd fallen in love, just as she had with Locke. Locke, who took her heart and stomped it beneath his feet when he took Taryn’s hand in his and said, with confidence, “I do.”
Madoc, who was in bars for the murder of her parents but had loved her once; had kissed her cheeks when they were red from sickness, had put a placating back of a hand to her forehead to check for her temperature, had loved her. He'd brought her soup, and warm, tender hugs that brought a newfound appreciation for her new father. The man who gave her and Taryn the biggest bedroom as there were two of them, but then moved Jude into a separate one, as he recognized that she was a girl who needed space from others. He'd seen her and understood.
Cardan was the only other person who'd gotten close enough to figuring her out, and if she'd just let time track its course, maybe they could've been something more. But no. Stupid Jude, who showed her cards too early and lost the game; who watched with the grim knowledge that it was her fault Cardan would never touch her again, that she would never feel his heartbeat pounding away beneath her fingertips.
Raven hair and black eyes, pale skin, all dissolving before her. She sunk to her knees, the cold bite of winter clawing at the blue of her jeans and staining them navy, her tears falling to make small, wet circles of snow appear. Nothing could bring him back.
She was alone again.
And the recurring question is Why? Why had she thought this was the best way to go about things-- Buying him his favorite flowers, wearing the clothing he liked most on her, going to his door to confess her love.
Jude never confessed her love for anybody before. Maybe that is why she so grandly messed up. Even with Locke, she could never summon the courage to say, “I love you. I miss you. I need you.”
With Cardan, however, those words came to her like a breath of fresh air, lifting her chest with newfound hope every time those last two phrases escaped. But never, not until today, had she planned to say that first phrase.
“Jude?” The voice is soft behind her, and she turns with a startle. She's been caught, she's vulnerable, where's her knife, damn it–
Liliver. A broken sob reaches her throat at the sight of her friend, eyes so concerned for her wellbeing that Jude feels like a monster. How dare she evoke worry in her friends? How dare she assume she is anything but a burden, her fate always leading to this same path?
“I'm sorry,” she croaks, unsure why she's even saying it. Maybe it's what she would've said to Cardan. Cardan. Would she ever talk to him again?
“Oh, sweetheart,” Liliver murmurs, taking off her white, furry coat and wrapping it around Jude’s shaking shoulders. The warmth floods through her, and she lets out a quivering sigh of relief, her nerves jittery from crying and her head pounding uncomfortably. “Why don't we get you home?”
“Okay.” She says nothing more, simply standing up at Liliver’s insistence and following the smaller woman’s light tracks in the snow, walking blindly as her vision blurs in and out of focus. Her body feels disconnected from her, so far away that when her nails dig into her palms, all she feels is a distant sting that doesn't jolt her from her dissociation.
“Lili?” She asks, vision going blurry long enough that she can't see in front of herself anymore. Then, a hazy figure comes in front of her. It's Lili, she assumes, since Cardan isn't that short. Stop thinking about him. Please.
“Are you cold?” Her voice is so fond yet so full of sadness that Jude wants to dig her own grave for making the lithe woman worry about her. Why is it that everywhere she goes, misery follows her? When had she become such a bad omen?
Jude shakes her head, even though her teeth are chattering and her fingers are startlingly cold against her bare skin when she places her hands around her waist, underneath the long sleeve shirt she's wearing. Liliver lets out a small huff at her stubborn dismissal of being cold before taking her hand more forcefully and pulling her along, “Will you tell me what happened?”
Even now, Liliver offers her a choice. Speak, or don't. Jude hates that she is even offered a choice. She doesn't deserve the right to speak, the right to exist, for that matter. All she does when she speaks is make her own life more miserable, more of a burden to all around her. Her confession to Cardan would've been cursed from the beginning, doomed to stab her in the back if Jude had come to his place some day after the confession and found him entangled with Nicasia.
Suddenly, burning rage tears at the linings of her stomach; roars in her chest. She wants to scream, wants to jump up and down and ask the world why she is so corrupted. Why it is so cruel to her, why it hates her so dearly. If you hate me so much, then maybe I should make it easier for you and do what destiny has set in stone for me all along.
Death. Jude had entertained the thought once when she was younger, a mere teenager who'd experienced the throes of bullying under Cardan’s spite. She'd imagined launching herself off the roof, being rid of herself. Maybe, if she'd done that, she wouldn't be feeling this anguish.
Don't be more of a fool than you are. Death is final. If you did it then, you wouldn't have ever felt Cardan’s hands on you. Never felt a kiss from his lips.
Is that a blessing or a curse; is it better to have died and never known the taste of him, or to die now knowing he was a luxury you'll never taste again? Both thoughts are unbearable.
“--de? Jude? Hey, look at me. Breathe in for four, then exhale for six. C'mon, hun, you can do it.”
Encouragement. What for?
Then Jude falls back into her body. She feels her heart slamming against her ribcage and her lungs fighting for air, her eyes burning and her throat closed up. Liliver is a doctor. Jude should listen to her, just as she never listened to her logical self when it told her: Don't fall for him.
Fool.
Fool.
Fool.
“Jude. Please. I'm here, I'm right here. In for four, out for six. There we go..” her voice fades, joining the incessant ringing in Jude’s ears as her lungs open, expanding with air that strangles her more than soothes her, before collapsing in on themselves and exhaling.
“Lili?” Her voice is brittle. She hates it. Hates how cold and tired and achy she is.
“Yes, Jude?”
“Why does everyone hate me?” Tears are spilling down her cheeks again. When had she become so weak, so susceptible to emotion?
Cardan. He did this. Blame him.
Though her vision is blurring at the edges, nothing erases the sharpness in Liliver’s eyes, the anger in her tone when she says, “Who made you think that?”
You didn't answer my question. You asked a different one. That means you hate me.
Cardan does too. Cardan hates me. You hate me. I hate me. I hate me. I hate me.
Hate.
Hate.
Hate.
Jude doesn't reply, not for many tense moments of silence. Understanding dawns in Liliver's eyes only then, and a twitch in her jaw makes Jude think she's resisting punching her for saying that about herself.
Jude's brain turns off. She doesn't want to be alive anymore, doesn't want to think. She is gone again, blind as she follows a person who hates her into her home, who gives her a warm blanket to wrap around her shoulders and hot cocoa to warm her fingers on.
She is settled down into a settee, and a new figure approaches, the scar on his face unmistakable against the harsh yellow lighting of he and Liliver’s home. Van. Van, who'd given her advice when she'd admitted what her relationship with Cardan was, how he'd warned her to not get in too deep.
She'd failed. Again. Again. Again.
“Jude,” he whispers, looking horrified at how banged up she must look, all teary eyed and weary. She should feel self conscious, but being with Cardan.. it made her forget about the flaws in her body, the blemishes and stretch marks running along her thighs, the weight of her breasts and the unlikable down-sloping smile she had.
He made her think she was pretty. Betrayal.
Liliver settles down beside her, curling into her but holding her tight against her chest. Who is holding who? Usually, Jude’s the big spoon. Cardan likes to be held, and that's not something she minds, especially when he takes care of her so sweetly. But sometimes, on rare nights, he'd hold her to his chest and she'd burrow her face into the hollow of his neck, smelling lavender and vanilla on his skin.
She does that now, but Liliver smells like the aftermath of fireworks with a twinge of rosemary instead. It is a scent that lulls her into a sense of calm her brain fights against, but ultimately fails when her eyes begin to droop and she falls into a merciless sleep.
—
Van has never seen Jude like this– Dark circles under her eyes, grimace permanently plastered on her face, pale skin glowing ivory under a lamp. She looks as if there is no blood left in her body, like a vampire. It is terrifying to see Jude so out of herself, as she's the one in the friend group who is the most collected in the direst of situations.
She is unraveling and Van can't help but wonder if there is more he could've done to save her from this fate. But how could he have known? He'd been lucky with Liliver– From childhood friends to friends with benefits, and then to lovers. He was lucky he even had a chance with a girl like her.
He frowned, looking down into his coffee cup. Cardan had told him once, when he, Cardan, Liliver, Jude, and Garrett had all gone camping and a fire was lit, that he was in love with Jude. At the time, Van wasn't surprised. He saw the tender, googly eyes they made at each other when they thought that nobody was looking; the way their pinkies would brush and they'd immediately get red cheeks, how they'd avoid eye contact for the rest of the day after an incident like that.
After that confession, one Jude never overheard, the friends with benefits situation happened between the two. This was months ago now, and feelings can change. Perhaps Cardan simply didn't love her anymore. But Cardan.. he'd seemed so genuine. His confession seemed heartfelt, raw and vulnerable for a man impenetrable as he.
He should've warned Jude more thoroughly. Should've told her– What? What would he have told her? “Hey, your friend and ex-bully Cardan loves you.” Jude would've beaten his ass for it!
A gentle hand on his shoulder snaps him out of it, and he looks up to find Liliver, frowning softly down at him, her smaller fingers pulling his fingers off the cup of coffee he's clenched his hand around, one by one. His heart melts in his chest, and he loosens his grip on the cup enough that she is able to slide it out and place it on the table. She settles beside him, her head landing on his shoulder without fail.
She'd told him, once, that she liked putting her head on people’s shoulders because it meant you could feel their pulse all throughout your body. It was a reassurance to her that that person was alive and well. With a job as a medical professional, deaths were a sad consequence to an otherwise nurturing job. She'd seen many deaths, and it all amplified her desire to be close to the people she loved.
“You okay, baby?” He asked softly, his hand coming up to rub her back, making her hum with contentment and bury her face into his shoulder, nuzzling the soft material of his green sweater. He could barely feel it, but she nodded, peeking up at him.
“I'm okay. Worried.”
About Jude was the unsaid part of her sentence. After all, Jude was in the next room, knocked out cold. It was all they could do to vanquish her trembling, whether from the winter air or her sadness, Van couldn't be sure. The entire house’s blankets had been placed on her body once she'd fallen asleep, if only to lull her body into believing she was safe.
And she was, here in their house. Van vowed that.
“Me t–” Knockk. Knockk. Knockk.
Long, slightly drawn out knocks echo off the wooden door, and Liliver and he share a confused glance. Only one person knocks like that out of the friend group. But he wouldn't..
Nevermind. Van stands up, but Liliver’s hand on his wrist stays him, forcing his feet to still. “Don't go.”
“Why? He’ll freeze out there.”
Liliver’s glare is colder than any freeze beyond the door, “Let him. He hurt Jude. I may like Cardan, but I do not want him in her presence. She’s already vulnerable.”
He sighs, knowing she is right, as always. “You're right. Why don't we hear what he has to say outside, then?”
Liliver huffs. “Fine. If he says anything out of line..” Her sentence trails off, but the message is there. Fuck around and find out.