Chapter Text
“Did you really think I’d fall for that?”
When Jude wakes up, his first thought is, why is it so cold? His second thought is, where is Sharp? And then, as if being hit in the face with a bucket of ice water, he remembers. Right. He betrayed me. Jude rolls over and groans, pressing his face into the pillow as he pulls the blankets over himself, trying his best to recreate the feeling of warmth that Sharp had taken with him when he’d pulled that trap and broken Jude’s trust.
It’s funny, in a fucked up way.
For as much as he hated Sharp now for breaking his trust, for destroying everything they’d built together with the press of a singular button, Jude still found himself thinking of him. He thinks he spends more time thinking about Sharp now than he did before the fact, and it makes a bitter feeling well up in his chest. There was so much Sharp had left behind when he’d betrayed Jude, and it was Jude who had to deal with the fallout now that he was gone.
He hadn’t had a bedroom before Sharp had moved in, forcing his way into Jude’s life as if he had always belonged there.
Sharp had taken one look at his shabby, flimsy bed setup by his villager hall and tripwire duper and whipped out a pickaxe— the one proactive thing that Jude had ever seen him do, and even then it was probably only because he knew Jude would immediately stop him and dig out a hole himself to stop him from triggering one of the entrance traps and whining about falling in one— and now Jude found himself still returning to that secret little room tucked away behind his walls, flicking off the lights and burrowing into the bed as if he could will the slowly fading dent of Sharp’s body against the mattress into staying just a little longer if he kept staring at it.
Pathetic. The best trapper on the server— the most feared player on Strength, the guy who had noobs running from him like their asses were on fire if they spotted him in the crowd on a Hoplite server— and here he was, stuck in bed mourning the loss of a ‘teammate’ who had betrayed him at the first chance he’d gotten.
…Whatever. At least he’s not moping in public.
Jude groans as he peels himself out of bed— seriously, it’s way too fucking cold in here without Sharpness acting as the living heater he was— getting dressed with little fanfare.
He has things to do, traps to build… things that didn’t involve thinking about his pretty— petty, petty— ex-teammate like a widow mourning his dead wife. And— on that topic— he should really get out of this room, made cold with the absence of the other person who once warmed it, or else Jude might find himself overthinking things to the point of making a poor, irrational decision.
There’s no one at spawn this early in the morning— not that there’s many people who linger around spawn while Jude is around, anyway, given that spawn is practically his home turf— which allows Jude the peace of mind to focus on wrangling his traps before the session later today. They want everyone at spawn, which wouldn’t be as much of a problem if he actually had more active traps around there. But he doesn’t, which is why he has to sit down here, crouched underground as he fumbles around with the redstone sensors of a griefed trap.
Jude doesn’t usually have to worry about griefing, but there’s been more than a few recently that have been getting found; and the only explanation he has for it is that the newer players that joined with Parker have been far more motivated to avoid being trapped than the veterans are.
Which is fine, honestly. Jude likes the challenge, and he certainly doesn’t mind the monotony of working through the errors and fixing a griefed trap, or building a completely new one halfway across the map to work his mechanical joints. He works better in silent company than he does with a bunch of goons fucking around and bothering him while he tries to connect a malfunctioning redstone line. It was why he and Sharp worked so well, when they were still teamed— for as much as his complaining and jabs at Sharp’s incompetence with anything non-pvp oriented, Sharpness was good company.
It took him a while before he trusted Sharp to spot him as he built a trap— longer still before Sharp actually took him up on the offer, spending half his time peering over Jude’s shoulder curiously and the other half pacing the perimeter of the trap, one hand on his sword and another twirling a loose strand of honey-blond hair. He hadn’t asked Jude any questions— but then, Jude wasn’t sure he would have answered, at the time.
(Right before Sharp had betrayed him, he had thought— if he passes this test, I will. I’ll tell him everything he wants to know, and then some.)
Ugh. Fuck, he’s getting stuck in his own head again. Jude shakes his head, flicking redstone dust out of his hair as he pushes away his goggles. This whole thing is doomed, honestly— it’ll take him more time than he can spare to finish it before the session, and from what he can see, it’s not only griefed but also stolen from. So he’ll also have to go and farm the missing mats back as well as repair the griefing, and that’s just too much work for him to do in an hour.
Instead, he whips out a shovel and collects the remaining materials before reworking the trap into a spleef trap instead— it’s a lot more annoying to pull off, especially since he needs a baiter for it, but there’s always Parker, and Jude’s no stranger to waiting hours upon hours for a trap to pay off.
Against his own will, he’s reminded of the turtle farm trap, and then he’s whacking himself over the head again because goddammit is it really that hard to focus for five fucking minutes without thinking about his ex teammate?
The answer, it seems, is yes, and Jude eventually gives up, kicking aside his shulkers of gear and logging off to go clear his head with a game or two of Hoplite. With luck, by the time he comes back, he’ll have his head in gear and ready to actually do some fucking trapping.
By the time Jude can string at least three coherent thoughts together without any of them having to do with stupidly pretty meatheaded idiots who like betraying their teammates off a stupid whim, it’s already session time. He fumbles his way back onto Strength like a newborn fawn, grimacing when he finds himself back underneath his spleef trap.
A dozen messages flood his comm the moment he resurfaces, and Jude eyes the chat warily.
┃ Judelow joined the game
<_Tai> Judelow conexion honeydewmelen Nufuli
<_Tai> you guys have to all come to spawn
<Nufuli> why dude
<Nufuli> youre just gonna arrow cannon us :sob:
<_Tai> EVEROYNE ELSE IS HERE
<_Tai> its literally session guys okay offshore wants to talk to us
<_Tai> tf is OFFSHORE gonna do
<JudeLow> bros gonna try pulling the arrow cannon again while offshore distracts us
<_Tai> SHUT UP
<_Tai> I LITERALLY KILLED YOU TWICE WITH IT
<_Tai> I REDEEMED MYSELF
<ItsN00b> tai dude ur actively losing aura as we speak
<Nufuli> yea saying it over and over again isnt gonna change anything
<_Tai> WHY are u on the enemies side noob wtf
<Nufuli> cause noobs chillllll
<Nufuli> oh yeah. About ur ground arrow cannon? that cannons griefed now btw
<honeydewmelen> LOL yeah we did that like 2 days ago
<JudeLow> all this yapping and i still havent seen a reason why i should come to spawn
<_Tai> conexion is here
<_Tai> unlike the rest of u fuckers cause sharp actually LISTENS
<JudeLow> yeah im not showing LMAO u have fun with that shit
<conexion> i promise im not doing anything
<conexion> please jude
<conexion> we’re all here even Nufuli showed up
<_Tai> yeah
<_Tai> ur not gonna deny him when he asked so nicely are u?
<ItsN00b> tai shut up youre making him reconsider showing up even more
Jude groans, pressing a hand to his forehead as he flicks close his comm. Fuck. Why the hell did Sharp have to step in and help argue for Tai? He doesn’t want to go to spawn right now, at least not while everyone’s there. They’re definitely planning something— he’s totally gonna die there and lose his strength. But—
“Please, Jude? Can I have my stuff back?”
He’s only ever heard Sharp say please twice. Once after he killed him before they started to team, in the turtle trap, and the second time, after it had all ended, when he was staring at the blood-stained armor that Sharp had died in at the bottom of the harming potion trap. Sharp had messaged him, begging for his gear back, and Jude had just— given it to him.
His victory had felt hollow, then. He’d earned it, sure, but it had come at the cost of the closest teammate he had had on this server so far.
And— that was stupid, too. He had been teamed with Fymada and Rejoice since the start of Strength, and yet it was Sharpness, the stuck-up, lazy, princess of a man who had wormed his way so deeply into Jude’s mind that even now, he occupied a piece of Jude’s heart that he couldn’t get back. And it was Sharp now whose words would probably lead Jude into the biggest bloodbath of his life, even if Jude knew better.
He flicks open his comm again, not expecting to see anything, but—
conexion whispers to you: jude?
conexion whispers to you: r u coming
conexion whispers to you: they said they wont fight
What the hell is he even supposed to say to that?
You whisper to conexion: what
You whisper to conexion: and you just trust that???
conexion whispers to you: why would they lie
You whisper to conexion: sharp
You whisper to conexion: you cant be this dense
conexion whispers to you: jude iys offshore
conexion whispers to you: what can they do
conexion whispers to you: only dragon knows how to fight
Jude purses his lips. Unfortunately, Sharp does have a point— Offshore is pretty easily the worst team on Strength pvp-wise. Team Drowned is a close second, with HD dragging Nufuli’s name through the mud, but at least she knows how to grind. The only thing Offshore has going for them is their numbers, and that won’t matter in the face of the entire server.
Still— why the hell is Sharp going so hard about getting him to spawn? This whole situation is fishy at best, but Jude can’t imagine the whole server is waiting to jump him, not when Tai also called out HD and Nufuli for not showing up. Before he can decide whether or not to cut his losses before they even happen and go mole up in his base, his comm pings again:
conexion whispers to you: if anything happens i promise ill help u
You whisper to conexion: why would i want YOUR help
You whisper to conexion: you betrayed me remember
conexion whispers to you: well
conexion whispers to you: yea
conexion whispers to you: but i dont have a reason to betray anymore
conexion whispers to you: and the only traps i know u also know
You whisper to conexion: is critting me out with your sword not an option anymore?
You whisper to conexion: i didnt know you were that rusty
conexion whispers to you: stop trying to ragebait me
conexion whispers to you: it is but i wont do it to u
conexion whispers to you: i swear on everything
…Fucking hell. Jude is a weak, weak man. He groans, pressing his hand to his head again, before he takes a breath and types into the comm.
You whisper to conexion: fine
You whisper to conexion: i guess youll have to hold them up for a few more minutes i haveto pack my shit
conexion whispers to you: theyre arguing on stage rn so its ok
conexion whispers to you: u have time
Right. Whatever. So since his weak, stupid, idiot brain has decided to enlist him into the midst of what is sure to turn out to be a bloodbath all on the whims of his ex-teammate, Jude begrudgingly shoves his belongings aside and suits up to go to spawn. He only takes the bare minimum of essentials— armor, of course, a stack of exp, and half a stack of gaps. It’s stingy, he knows, but he just knows that they’re going to be up to some bullshit. Strength sessions always usually are.
He groans, clipping on his elytra and rocketing over to the stage. When he’s close enough to hear the distant chatter, he whips it off and re-places it in his e-chest, begrudgingly entering towards the back of the audience seating. Unsurprisingly, Tai sees him first, grinning way too excitedly for a guy who’s still on Jude’s shitlist.
“Dude, it’s starting in like, a minute. You came literally just in time,” Tai says, as if he thinks Jude actually cares about what the hell they’re doing today. His eyes stray unintentionally to the side until they catch on a glint of honey-blond hair, and— fuck. He’s gotta concentrate. He forces his attention back to Tai, who’s off rambling again.
“—dude, I can’t wait for the plans to get revealed, oh, but I can’t leak it, I guess, and I should wait until after the ban gets lifted anyway—” Tai’s cut off by the sound of a sword banging against the stage, Salem pulling his sword out of the stage when it becomes clear that everyone now has their attention on his team— and… Leekleek, for some reason, who are all standing up onstage.
“Yo!” Dany steps up to the mic, tapping the microphone and wincing when it echoes with feedback. That’s… partially Jude’s fault, actually, for stealing the original mic, but then again, it was Twirps’ fault for using a heavy core for the mic head, anyway. Especially considering what the Guardians had been doing the week earlier, it was way better that Jude had gotten to it before they had. “Uh, hey. So, we’ve gathered you all here to talk about something— it’s not boring, I promise, no one’s gonna die or anything, so just… let’s all sit down together and listen, okay?”
No one’s gonna die, huh? Yeah, and Strength is a server full of trustworthy teammates.
Jude can smell the lie from a mile away, but he keeps quiet, choosing to listen to (tune out, mostly) Dany’s words. He finds his attention trailing away from the stage and back towards Sharp, who’s faced away from him and actually seems to be paying attention to what Offshore has to say… but then again, he’s probably spacing out again, if Jude had to guess.
It wasn’t as big a problem when they were still teamed, but it had brought inconveniences to their daily routine. Sharp was as sharp (haha) as a sword in battle, but when he was made to sit down and pay attention to something, Jude would often find him staring off into space or at Jude himself when he was supposed to be learning the trap locations and how to pull them. Now, it’s not as if Sharp is on his own or anything, Cow’s probably waiting for him back at their base, wherever it is, and Saparata has logged on a few times (sparingly, but they’re still teamed).
And yet.
There’s still a part of Jude that worries about Sharp like they’re still teamed. It presses at his chest, a burning ache that almost feels like someone had taken a blowtorch to his circuits and hardwiring and gone nuts before inserting in a thick, vine-like rope in between the crevices of his mechanical chest. It hurts like hell for a moment, but then, like it had never been there at all, the pressure eases up, and Jude is free to stare at Sharp again like he’s the only person that matters.
…Not that he wants to. Jude hurriedly tears his gaze away from Sharp and looks back up to the stage— fuck, how long had he spent staring at Sharp like some idiot goonball fanboy meeting his idol for the first time?
It doesn’t seem like anyone’s noticed, which is… to be expected, since no one on Strength pays attention to anything that happens anyway, but when he looks back to the stage, Dragon’s got a grip on Leekleek’s arm and Dany is staring at Leekleek with a dangerous sort of edge in his eye. This is usually about the time that Jude’s instincts kick in and tell him to get the hell outta there before some crazy shit happens, but something keeps him rooted to the ground, staring up at the stage as Leekleek windcharges upwards and brings out a (technically contraband now after what the Guardians have been doing all week) mace, attempting to crush Dany’s skull.
As expected, this results in a fight breaking out. Who’s surprised? Not Jude! Most people jump into the fight immediately— Nuf and HD are the only two to leave, which makes sense, since HD’s lowkey the quickest drop on the server, and no matter how good Nuf is, he’s not going to be able to protect the both of them against the whole server free-for-alling.
If Jude had any sense, he would’ve left with them. Instead, he turns towards the fight, mechanical heart stuttering in his chest when he sees Sharp facing off against Tai and Noob together by himself. He’s… Jude’s not going to get involved in that. That’s not his fight, and Sharp and him aren’t teamed anymore, and he’s not going to get anything out of that anyway. Instead, he turns toward the massive free-for-all happening on the other side of the stage, with a whole crowd ganging up on each other.
It’s a relatively risky move to jump into an FFA so big, but it’s against Offshore and the rest of the forces are uncoordinated, so it should be relatively easy to kill off a few stragglers— or at least, that’s what Jude assumes until Dragon nails him with three honing arrows to the skull and sends him back to his too-big queen sized bed, still processing just what the fuck happened. Parker’s in the base when he respawns, and his teammate jolts in surprise when he sees Jude mine out of the wall and re-enter the main base.
“Heyyy, Parker,” Jude starts awkwardly. He shuffles over to the main room and starts to sort through his e-chest, mourning the set of gear he’d lost as he re-equips one from his stolen goop shulker.
“...Hey?” Parker smiles stiffly. Thankfully, he doesn’t say anything about where Jude just came from. “The hell happened out there, Jude?”
“It’s like— it’s just kinda crazy. Offshore’s got some fucking— I don’t know, some god bows,” Jude groans, “Dragon shot me like, four times and I exploded on the spot. I turtled and everything, but it literally went through the potion. I— oh, my god, and now Tai’s calling me. Can’t have shit on this server. Hello?”
“Hey, Jude,” Tai’s voice comes through the comm speaker, crackled and distorted. He sounds like he’s been panting heavily— probably due to running from Offshore, if Jude had to guess. “You also got your ass beat by Offshore?”
“Don’t rub it in, man,” Jude mutters, rolling his eyes when Tai bursts into a fit of hysterical giggling. Actually, wait, that’s not Tai— he pulls the comm away from his ear to check and, sure enough, there’s about six other people in the voice call with them; presumably all victims of the god bow incident. “Why’d you call me?”
“Why else?” That’s Leo, Jude can tell. “We don’t wanna keep dying, obviously. You saw what happened out there, right? They’re fucking insane, dude. Who else has a bow that can three-shot +5 players?”
“Which is why we’re going to take them down, obviously,” Tai butts in, despite no one having asked him anything of the sort. “
Jude’s about to say something before his ears perk up at the sound of a noise from behind him, and Jude inhales sharply. He deafens quickly and shoves his comm into Parker’s hands, signaling for him to go hide somewhere Offshore can’t see him, before steeling himself to turn around, aware that he’s not able to be killed again unless Offshore wants to start farming strikes.
But then he hears a voice come from the entrance of his base, soft and unsure. “Jude?”
Jude whips around, his heart stuttering in his chest before he catches sight of Sharpness, pretty face stained with sweat and his movements sluggish, weighed down by exertion. They stay like this for a few seconds, neither of them willing to look away and break their staring contest. Jude almost breathes a sigh of relief when Sharp lowers his gaze, piercing green eyes focusing instead on the button to trigger the trap at the entrance of his base. Something twitches in his chest at the sight. “Hello? I saw you died to Offshore.”
“Sharp,” Jude says, before remembering that Sharp isn’t supposed to be here, not anymore, and he narrows his eyes as he stares up at his former teammate. “Ugh, what do you want?”
Sharpness swallows. Jude’s eyes trace over the way that Sharp’s throat trembles as he speaks, his brain seemingly intent on committing every single little thing about the man who betrayed him to memory. Stupid. Pathetic. “I just— they killed you? Offshore? They actually killed you?”
“Are you seriously just here to mock me over dying?” Jude tugs at his collar, suddenly feeling all too exposed despite the fact that he’s actually fully covered, even without armor. “Look, you wouldn’t have lasted either with their god bows and all that bullshit—”
“But I thought you had turtles?” Sharpness asks— it’s not an unkind question, Jude realizes, nothing about him is mocking or gloating— as he enters the base carefully, looking around as if it’s the first time he’s been inside Jude’s base. As if he hadn’t once freeloaded from Jude as much as he could before he teamed— as if he wasn’t still taking things from the base (Jude had noticed the missing health pots from his secret stash and hadn’t said anything, but he knew for a fact it was Sharp, if only because he hadn’t told anyone else), as if he hadn’t spent weeks falling asleep beside Jude in the same base, as if whatever they had shared during that temporary time of teaming was nothing more than a fluke. “How did you die with— with the turtles?”
Sharp raises a hand to Jude’s arm, as if making to touch him, and Jude jolts back on instinct, though he’s instantly filled with a feeling of regret when he sees the way Sharp's face drops. Then he remembers the double trap, and a heat rises to his chest instead.
“It goes through turtles, dude. You wouldn’t have been able to do anything either if you were the one getting your ass beat,” Jude snaps, as if he’s responding to one of Tai’s taunts instead of Sharp’s surprisingly patient tone and words. …He doesn’t know what’s gotten over him. Jude was the one who got one over on Sharp— it should be Sharp who’s angry with him, Sharp who’s patience is lowering every time Jude speaks.
And yet— when Sharp treats him like they’re still teammates, like nothing ever happened between the two of them, his chest aches, something inside of it threatening to burst with pressure before fading back into obscurity the second he takes a deep breath and steels himself again.
But the anger in him doesn’t last long when he looks at Sharp— instead of the barely held-together laughter he thought he’d receive, there is instead a look of cloudy regret on Sharp’s face. It reminds Jude of the way he himself had looked, standing over the trap and staring down at Sharp’s broken body— the remnants of their trust shattered with Sharp’s bones.
It doesn’t last long, though, because the next moment, Sharp steels himself. “I’ll kill them,” he declares, as if Offshore doesn't have god bows that can hone in on its targets and kill them in three strikes. A small, stupid part of Jude hopes that Sharp is so upset by Offshore’s deeds because they killed Jude, not for Sharp’s own stubborn pride.
“You’re going to die,” Jude just deadpans. He expects Sharp to push back— say something stupid like, no I won’t, and then immediately leave the base to go get shot in the face, but instead, something completely unexpected happens.
Sharp coughs, once, then twice, and at the same time that his hands fly to his mouth to cover the movement, his eyes go wide, and for a fraction of a second, Jude can see fear in Sharp’s eyes, before Sharp swivels around, staring at the entrance of Jude’s base with his back to him. It feels like a mockery of the show of trust it should be. Jude doesn’t know why, but it makes his chest start to hurt again, those faint vines starting to break through his circuitry again before he banishes the thought to the back of his mind.
They both stand silently in his base for a second, Jude taking a few steps backwards to allow Sharpness the space it seems he needs as Sharp coughs again, sounding harried. “I won’t die,” Sharp says after more than a minute of silence has passed between them, and though Jude can see the way his body is clearly trembling from behind, he lets it slide.
They’re not teammates, after all. He shouldn’t be worried for Sharp’s safety anymore.
So he lets Sharp walk out of his base, eyes following the path he takes before he turns back to Parker, who’s gone invis behind him, offering him his communicator. Parker doesn’t say anything, which is for the best, honestly. Jude doesn’t think he can explain any of that awkwardness between him and Sharp without sounding like a broken record.
He wordlessly takes his comm back, undeafening to hear the conversation currently happening, and as expected, it’s complete and utter bullshit. Tai is fumbling his way through some sort of negotiation with Dragon— he sold them out, of course, because he’s an idiot goonball and he can’t do anything right— Jude groans, deafening again. He’s not wasting his time listening to this shit when there’s other stuff to be done, like checking if his base is safe to stay in or not.
And then there’s a fumbling at the top of his stairs again and down come Sharp and Cow and fucking Spongs, of all people, who all look different states of fucked up.
There’s a trace of dried blood on Sharp’s bottom lip, and for a moment, Jude’s heart skips a beat— had Offshore found him, too? Had they tried to kill him?
It shouldn’t matter to him. After all, Sharp’s skin was glowing with the golden sheen that only a freshly-consumed gapple could provide— he was surely in no grave danger now, and yet, glimpsing the smudge of blood that he’d clearly tried to wipe away to hide his weakness— Jude finds himself walking towards Sharp, pulling him further into the base without a word (and consequently, having Spongs and Cow walk around the two of them and make themselves at home).
He doesn’t trust himself to speak until a few minutes of silence have passed between them, Sharp not choosing to volunteer any details and Jude unsure of what to say with the peace between them so fragile. “Were they waiting for you?” He finally decides on asking, Sharp shrugging in response.
“They did try to kill me,” Sharp admits, his voice scratchy. He looks more frustrated than upset, thankfully, but that’s still not a good sign, coming from the undisputed swordsmaster of Strength. “It didn’t work, but their arrows shoot through walls. I think it’s… um, I don’t know, that thing that Tai said? The arrows…”
“They’re honing, yeah,” Jude frowns, realizing something from what Sharp had just said. “Wait, it shot you through a wall? Are you hurt?”
At that, Sharp finally laughs. It’s faint and there’s an air of defeat to it, but it’s the first time Jude has heard Sharpness laugh in… a week, now. It’s pathetic to admit to himself, but he’s missed the sound of Sharp’s laughter more than anything. “They couldn’t hit me. It made it through the wall, but I sliced it in half before it could land.”
“Huh.” Jude mutters. Before, when they were still teamed and everything they said wasn’t laced with underlying vitriol and distrust, Jude would’ve made a joke here, just to see Sharp’s face twist in indignance before he eventually relented and let himself giggle. Now, though, they just stand in front of each other awkwardly, neither sure what to say to continue the conversation.
“...Well—” Jude coughs, after another moment of silence. “I was going to suggest we try trapping their asses, but I guess if their stupid god arrows are shooting you through walls then there really isn’t a way to prevent them from one-shotting.”
Sharp shrugs. “I can do it. If you need me to bait—”
“I was going to… ask Parker, actually,” Jude says, immediately regretting the words the moment they leave his lips. He swallows at the expression on Sharp’s face— it’s subtle, but he’s had a month to learn the way that Sharp looks when he’s disappointed or upset. It figures that the moment he gets a chance to inch towards normality with Sharp again, he just fucks it up. “I mean— like, you know, since he’s… good with baiting. But it’s probably better if we’re both handling the trap and we have someone else to bait for it.”
Sharp blinks, evidently not having understood Jude’s words. Jude hurries to clarify: “I mean— it’s probably better if you bait. Since you’re on plus five, you can probably still stand a bit of a chance against them, but Parker’ll probably immediately drop.”
Sharp is about to say something— maybe a yes or a hell no, Jude wouldn’t be surprised if it was the later more than the former— when Parker comes running up to them, his invis having run out. “Jude, check your— oh, Sharp! Hey!”
“Hi, Parker,” Sharp greets awkwardly. “Um, what did you need?”
“Jude, check your comm,” Parker says, before jogging back off into whatever wall he popped out of. “Also, Sharp, if you’re coming back, I just wanted to tell you that Jude kept your things in the bedroom. So you don’t have to worry about bringing anything else over.”
“I— What?” Sharp turns to look at Jude with a bit of incredulity and some other emotion that Jude can’t bring himself to decipher right now written out on his face, a hesitant half-smile on his lips as he stares at Jude.
Jude, for his part, is considering whether or not it’ll be easier to bash his head into the wall until his skull splinters, or to ask Sharp to simply run him through with a sword. In the end, he simply ignores it and whips open his comm, scanning the message Tai had sent to him.
_Tai whispers to you: yo
_Tai whispers to you: I think theyre logging off for the day
_Tai whispers to you: offshore i mean
_Tai whispers to you: Lol
“They’re logging off?” Jude blinks at his comm, then glares at it. Sharp comes up next to him, peering over Jude’s shoulder as he too frowns at the message. “That’s fucking bullshit! They’re slaughtering everyone on the server— three-shotting innocent Strength members— and then they’re just running away like a bunch of pussies? What the hell?”
Sharp frowns. “They’re a bunch of cowards. It’s— as soon as we go after them, they get scared and log off.”
Jude heaves a sigh, tucking his comm back into his pockets. He’s about to say something else— tell Sharp he’s probably gonna log off for the day too, only for his brain to force him to remember again that they’re not actually teamed, and that Sharp’s only been loitering here because of the threat Offshore posed to the whole server. But it’s not like he can just log off and leave. That’s disrespectful as shit, and besides, Sharp still looks like he wants to talk about something or other. “Yeah. Well, that’s Offshore for you. Um… right, are you going to stay here after?”
Sharp jolts, something flashing in his eyes as his hand flies to his mouth again, as if on reflex. After a moment, he speaks, his voice sounding raw. “Ah… no, if you don’t want me here, I can go.”
That’s… unusual. Sharpness offering to leave his base for no reason was suspicious at best, but Jude didn’t have the energy to argue with Sharp until he admitted what he actually wanted. “No, it’s fine. You can stay if you want, it’s just… I’m going now. So, like. If you get trapped— it’s not my fault.”
Sharpness actually huffs a laugh, then. “I know where all your traps are now, Jude. I’m not going to fall for them again.”
“That’s what you think, princess,” Jude sing-songs, belatedly realizing the nickname that had fallen from his lips completely naturally. Sharpness doesn’t seem to mind, though— on the contrary, it only makes a small smile appear on the other man’s face. He… doesn’t know what to make of that, but his chest aches at the sight anyway. “Um. Anyway, that’s… yeah, I’m going to go now, probably. I’ll— I guess I’ll see you… around, or something.”
Sharp nods. “If you still want to train, I can help. Good night, Jude.”
“Yeah. Okay. Goodnight, Sharp.”
Before he logs off for good, though, Jude notices something strange as he hits the disconnect button. Sharp smiles as he leaves, close lipped— and in the corner of his mouth, something purple seems to be sticking out.