Title: Dear Jude (Part 3/3)
Rating: R-PG13
Pairing: Max/Jude
Summary: Max writes home from Nam throughout his tour but something is wrong back in the world...
The world tilted and then was full of fragrant, precious, blonde. "Max." Jude whispered into his friend's hair, holding him tight, secure in his arms so that Max wouldn't have to touch the ground, Jude would willingly carry him. He could hear Max whispering over and over but he couldn't make out the soft mumbled words, Jude held him tighter.
They made it to the bright yellow taxi Max had been waiting on, Jude was surprised when Max lowered his legs from their home around Jude's waist, smiling as he opened the driver's side door and motioned for Jude to follow suit. Jude soaked it up as Max drove them, the look of him, the sound, the way his laughter made his own heart sing. The way he was so very alive.
They spoke the whole trip like they had never been apart; like nothing had changed between them, even if they themselves had changed they were still Max and Jude. Max never spoke a word however about where they were going; the one time Jude asked all he got was a playful smile, after that he really didn't care where they went.
A huge crowd was forming where Max parked, all of them staring up at the sky. They got out and locked the doors and immediately found themselves migrating together, hands touching, shoulders brushing, each trying to protect and guide the other as they pushed through the throngs of people, it didn't matter that neither succeeded.
Cops were stationed all around the base of the building but Max put a finger to his smiling lips and held Jude's hand in his own, silently guiding them to an unguarded back door. Their laughter echoed through the stairwell as they raced up to the roof, stopping dead before they pushed past the final door, Jude unsure of what he would find and Max unsure of his self, their clasped hands intertwined and they stepped out into the sunlight.
Everyone was there, their entire impromptu family scattered about the roof, Sadie and JoJo at two of the microphones set up, happy in each other's company, Lucy watching the duo sing and Prudence…who came running and screaming towards them.
"JUDE!! YOUR HOME!!" The girl tackled Jude into a hug, releasing him only to give one to Max as well, taking him from his place behind Jude and throwing him into the mix. The song ended and the crowd on the roof turned, rushing towards them, clasping, touching, holding. Jude accepted all of their welcomes with grace and a smile but never lost his hold on Max, never letting him drift farther than an arm's length away. He could feel the blond straining to stay behind him, using Jude as a shield against the on slaughter, Jude didn't miss his companion's new found silence. The crowd rushed back to their places as the mob below bellowed for another song, Lucy motioned for them to come up to one of the microphones. Max took a step back but Jude wrapped his arm around his friend's waist, his hand resting gently on Max's hip, holding him as they approached the mike.
Instruments sounded around them, and everyone turned to them. Jude could feel the eyes of their friends upon them, he could feel Max withdrawing in his arms, pulling back to hide, pulling away from him, he couldn't get Max to look him in the eye, he had him for less than a hour and he was already losing the battle they needed to fight together. Max gave up, he burrowed into Jude's shoulder, hiding his face in the warm leather. Out of the corner of his eye Jude saw Lucy point to the microphone and smile.
Jude took a deep breath and took a shuffling step forward, holding Max tight and facing the microphone all on his own.
"There is nothing you can do that can't be done, nothing you can sing that can't be sung, nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game, it's easy." Jude felt the intake of breath against his chest, Max arranging himself in Jude's arms so he could hear him just a bit better.
"There is nothing you can make that can't be made, no one you can save that can't be saved, nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time. It's easy." Jude crushed the blond against him, smiling suddenly and pressing a kiss to Max's bowed head.
"All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love. Love. Love is all you need." Jude didn't see the crowd below him, nor was the gaggle of his friends surrounding him, to him all the world Max gently lifting his face into the sun, unraveling in his arms like he was the child he once was.
"Love. Love. Love." Sadie and Prudence sang softly behind them, beautifully twining with the delicate instruments, Max turned his face to see them, pulling gently from his haven in Jude's arms, standing alone save for the hand still linked to Jude's Max smiled.
"There's nothing you can know that can't be known." Jude sang over the girls soft reprieve, drawing Max's glittering eyes back to himself "Nothing you can see that isn't shown." Jude returned Max's gentle smile and hoped more than anything that Max could feel how very important these words were, that they echoed through his soul, willing them to be true. "Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be." Max laughed, carefree and easy, safe, the brilliant vivacious Max Jude had fallen in love with so long ago. "It's easy."
Everyone was laughing, clapping, fucking living. No one remained silent; a choir of voices poured forth, music was heard in the streets. "All you need is love!"
Max twirled in Jude's arms, laughing, letting the brunette catch him when the world kept spinning. Their hands fell together, pressing, balancing each other as they swayed back and forth, an almost waltz, their faces brought close. "All you need is love. Love. Love is all you need." Jude sang to him, only him.
Max twirled them faster, he was shinning, a blinding light. "Love is all you need!" He sang again and again and it felt like it was true. Like if he could live in this love forever he would never need to breathe, to eat, to drink, that this feeling would be enough for eternity.
"All you need is love. Love. Love is all you need." Max sang and Jude heard no other. The song crescendoed and trailed off around them, people were filled with love and joy. But Max and Jude found something much better as they stared into each other. All they needed was love, all they needed was each other.
Sirens whirred and lights flashed, ripping everyone from their beautiful utopia, eyes faded and the last notes turned sour, it was time to go. The group of them fled through the back entranceway threw which Max and Jude had made their entrance, if anyone noticed the two reunited best friends never released their hold on one another they kept their silence.
It was almost too easy to escape; Max led them down, slipping through the crowd and cops alike. The six of them stood in a semicircle around the little taxi in which Max and Jude had arrived. But they had escaped, they were free, Prudence's laugh rang through the air.
Max pressed himself into Jude's side and tossed the keys to Jojo, waiting for him and Sadie, the largest of their group, to take their places in the front. Another bout of laughter erupted as they forced themselves into the back of the cramped taxi. They didn't open both doors, better to press someone against it, Jude volunteered, pulling a grinning Max in behind him. They sat hip to hip, crushed up against each other as Lucy and Prudence climbed in awkwardly, Lucy ending up shutting the door behind her with her crouched on the floor and Prudence.
"Hey Luce." Max laughed at his sisters precarious position, "Didn't mom ever tell you to wear your seat belt in the car?" In days gone by Lucy would have feigned annoyance but she just stared at him in wonder, Max paused a moment then brought a tentative hand to his face. He was smiling, he didn't even notice, here, like this, his smile didn't feel so alien.
"And what about your seatbelt?" Jude asked so that Max looked away from his beaming sister and twisted awkwardly to look at Jude, scant inches separating their lips.
"I like to live on the edge."
"Then you sit on the edge!" Lucy laughed as she spoke but Jude was already moving, he slipped his arms around Max and pulled until the blond sat in his lap. Max squirmed until his back laid against both the door and Jude's chest, his legs twining with Jude's and just barley touching Prudence as she slid over to make room for Lucy.
"Mmm" Jude breathed into Max's hair, lifting his chin to rest on his friends shoulder, the sides of their faces pressing together as Jude's arms linked over Max's flat belly. "I'll be your seatbelt."
Everyone was watching them, including Jojo who had just started the car but Max didn't notice. "How can I live on edge with a huge smothering seatbelt?"
"Well…"Jude lifted his hips lewdly, blatantly shifting into Max, lifting him into the air. Max laughed and jabbed an elbow at him.
"Okay! I'll go with the seatbelt!"
Jojo rolled his eyes and started their slow way through the scattering crowd, a couple of people gave the two lead singers and the impromptu soloist a second glance but let the taxi plow on. Max was content to let Jojo drive his car, closing his eyes and relaxing back into Jude, letting the other take his weight, trusting him to keep him upright as he slumped, curling himself around Jude. By the time they made it back to the flat Max had lifted one leg onto Prudence's lap and his head was resting on Jude's chest.
"Hey mate-you still with us?" Jude asked softly, not really wanted to disturb Max even as he slid his hand through Max's hair. Blue eyes blinked blearily at him as if he had interrupted a dream.
"Jude!" Lucy tapped on the window from the outside, motioning that she was about to take away their door shaped support system. Lucy opened the door and Jude braced Max against himself, the blond didn't struggle, in fact he collapsed against the softly rising chest and watched them all through half lidded eyes.
Jude swung his legs out of the car and hoisted both of them up, Max's legs falling deftly to the ground, supporting his weight very much against his will. As Jude stretched Max leaned heavily against the car a pout on his lips, his arms coming up like a child asking to be picked up.
"Lazy booger." Jude smiled at his childish friend and turned around, bending so that Max could loop sluggish arms around his neck.
"Aw Max." Lucy shut the car door behind them and walked around them, her hand tentatively reaching up to brush a lock of hair from her brother's face. "You are almost cute when you are docile." Max took the energy to stick his tongue out at her, shifting as he did so so that his face lay pressed against Jude's shoulder.
"I don't care how cute you are mate- just don't drool on me." Jude leaned forward , holding Max's legs up in his arms, he desperately wanted to see what they looked like together now, wanted to see Max serene and trusting, wanted to draw it- he couldn't care less if Max drooled all over him.
They climbed the monstrous stairs, Jude carrying his nearly sleeping charge without a word, he wished he could complain at how heavy his friend was but it was so untrue it was morbid. It felt strange coming back here after so long, like nothing and everything had changed. He expected everything to be different inside but he was shocked at how similar everything was. He wanted it to feel stale like he had left it alone all this time but it didn't.
Everyone filtered around him, taking residence on the couch as Jude took in his surroundings, as weird as it was, it was right.
"Hey, where does this one sleep?" Jude gestured to his charge with a little flourish, causing Max to burrow deeper into the warmth beneath him.
"With you." Jude looked at Lucy, another silent understanding passing unfailingly between them; maybe it was the silent language of loving Max, who knows.
Jude passed easily into his old room, taking in the mix of old and new, things he left behind strewn indiscriminately with Max's things on a backdrop of paintings he stopped seeing a long time ago. A surge of longing went through him, he wanted to paint these walls, make them fresh and new, something beautiful that would fit its new inhabitants, something that would make Max smile, and for that reason make Jude smile.
But the paints on the floor were separated and dried out, there would be time enough later, he had found a new muse, one that he would never let leave him again.
Jude lowered Max onto the bed, straining and twisting so that he could turn and lower his head gently to the pillow. Like his mother had done for him as a child Jude pulled Max's shoes off his feet and let them clatter to the floor, tugging at the blankets until he could cover Max in them, tucking them around his shoulders as blue eyes flickered open and watched him with an indescribable well of emotion.
"Judey-" A slim white hand worked its way out of its entrapments and reached out for him.
"Max." Jude sat on the edge of the bed, clutching the hand held out to him, suddenly at a loss of what to do now that his brilliant Max was no longer smiling.
"Don't want to sleep." Max begged as his eyes drooped lower. Jude bent and kissed his nose, maybe this silent language was one of love because Jude didn't need to hear anymore.
"It's okay now. I'm here; I will be here when you wake." Jude squeezed the hand he held as his friends grip loosened. "And if you wake up and you are afraid I'll help you. You'll never have to be alone again." And that was it, Max was fast asleep, his face younger, more innocent in sleep, the change was subtle but he knew this was how he looked when they first met.
Jude just sat there, watching Max sleep, everything was happening so fast and he didn't want to miss a moment, he couldn't lose this again now that he knew the agony of it all being taken away.
"Jude." Lucy knocked softly on the door frame, walking to where Max lay and gazing down at her brother solemnly. "He was so happy to see you and he gets tired so easily now." She held out her hand as if to touch him but withdrew. "So happy..."
Her eyes sparkled in the dim light and although she smiled it was somehow melancholy, like her whole soul had been subdued. "I'm glad your back." He was tempted to stand, to hold her as he once did but he couldn't, it wasn't who they were anymore, now they knew their love had been a flash in the dark but Max was a blazing sun.
Lucy turned back to the sleeping man, letting time drift by of its own accord, allowing them some semblance of peace before she released the storm. "You have no idea how much he missed you. How he asked about you in letters, wanting to know if you were okay, if you missed him. He always tried so hard to be nonchalant but he missed you so …" Tears welled in her eyes and she wiped at them harshly with the back of her sleeve, unwilling to let them fall. "He wrote to you." Her voice choked, deepened with emotion. "He wrote to you more than anyone else and I never told him you were gone."
Lucy dropped a bundle of letters into his lap, in the darkness Jude could see his own name in Max's scrawl. "I couldn't do it and I told the others not to." Tears streamed down her face and her perfect teeth bit deeply into her lip. "I didn't want him to think he had nothing to come home to, you meant that to him. I just needed him to come home!" She was nearly sobbing, her hands wet with tears. Jude reached out for her but she stepped back, her head shaking a violent no as she stifled her tears. "I did what I had to do to bring him home. Now that he is here he needs you to put him back together again."
Jude wanted to be angry at her, she had let Max think that he couldn't be bothered to write, but he couldn't summon anything but pity. Jude rested a hand on Max's chest, he could feel each rib beneath his palm, hear the anguished murmur as Max moved so that he could hold Jude's hand against himself. Lucy had waited in terror for Max to come home in a bag like her high school love, only to be given a broken rag doll that they said was her brother. She could do nothing to make him eat, to make the tears stop when the night came and darkness fell on him. Lucy was in a hell of helplessness.
Jude watched the whine form on Max's face as he pulled away his hand, glad when frown lines melted once more into innocents.
"He hasn't smiled until today. You gave that to him. You give him life." Lucy didn't touch either of them as she ran from the room, leaving only the stack of stained letters. With a glance to make sure Max was resting peacefully Jude flipped through the envelopes, a military address on the back of one, stains of dirt on all of them, Max's handwriting writing his name over and over, a cry in the night with no response.
It felt almost perverse to carefully open the first letter, reading what he should have months ago when Max was a world away, not twisting through haunted dreams now that the parchment had yellowed.
'Dear Jude' He paused, smiled at the tenderness he found there, his fingertips running over the words, linking his mind to Max's of so long ago.
'…you are the first one that ever really mattered…Love, Max'
Jude leaned over Max, letter clutched in his hand, and pressed a kiss into his hair, sat back, and read it again.
He carefully folded his letter, these precious words Max had giving to him, putting it back in its dirtied envelope, hands shaking as he reached for another. On and on he read, he watched as the stains grew more pronounced on the paper, as the thin shaky scrawl became small and dark. With every letter he watched his best friend step deeper into darkness, begging for help, begging for him as his world slipped out of site.
Max's voice haunted him, reading the letters to him, whispering again and again into his ear 'I'm sorry. I guess I will always be sorry. I love you.' He could see Max sitting in those foxholes, writing him with sunken cheeks and a broken heart, Max with his innocent blue eyes clutching a gun like it was life.
One by one the letters fell away from him, like the pieces of Max he was watching break with every passing day. A child in the jungle with a gun. Jude felt the bile rise in his throat, the anger swell and knot in the pit of his stomach, no one, least of all his beautiful Max should suffer this, should sacrifice their selves like this. To know that every day may be your last…but for Max…Max was made to suffer more exquisitely. He would die alone and unmissed in an alien land.
'Do you think to yourself yes, seven days ago Max was alive?'
Jude could feel the heat in his eyes, watched the pages blur with tears, only moving the letters from harm as a single tear fell.
'Jude I still love you, if you read anything I hope it is that. I love you.'
Not for the rest of his life would he stop hearing Max whispering below the shots of gunfire, sounds he never really heard. Constant soft goodbyes that never ended in anything but Love because every goodbye was his last. In these letters Max died a thousand deaths, and every moment not spent in the letter Max did not exist, mindless, absent, wandering from letter to letter.
Another letter, maybe he only imagined Max moaning beside him, a desperate breathy gasp. '…so much blood, shot through the heart…' Jude let the stack of envelopes fall as he groped to hold onto Max, tightening his hold to feel the fragile pulse of life in the thin wrist. 'begging to die, then not to die.' This was not strange men dying, this was Max and innocent blue cast against blood red, screaming and pain that would die with the men in the letters but echo forever in Max.
'Thank god for that plastic Judey, I couldn't stand it if this blood that covers me tainted the only part of the world I have left- that sketch is all I have left in the world- of the world- of you. It is the only thing left in existence that isn't red.'
Jude didn't fight the tears that fell from his eyes, only blinked through them and the dark to see the shine of plastic catching the moonlight on top of paper. Pinned over where Max's head now lay still entombed in a plastic cage was an image of themselves, the one Max loved in his letters, the one Jude drew the night Max left and his world began to crumble. It was clean, loved, but Jude couldn't stop seeing the red that was painting his world.
He loosened his grip on Max, hating the fading marks he added to the fragile skin, pulling himself from Max's grasp, failing utterly to ignore the soft whimper that broke his heart.
The letters were back in their piles, glaring at him accusingly for not being there when he was most needed. Two remained and he didn't think he could survive the pain of more. The first one was thick, two pictures fell into his lap facedown, he left them there as he read- Thanksgiving, the day they had decided to run away to New York, to make a go at life- a lifetime ago. Jude didn't touch the pictures as he lifted the envelope, just for a moment he could hold in his mind the glorious image of the past, how Max was vibrant and whole, a student with an easy smile and a soft spot for a certain Brit.
Christmas day, the last letter Max ever wrote to him. 'I'm sick of writing to a person who doesn't exist, at least not to me… I volunteered for an operation Jude and I don't think I am coming back from this one.' This was it, Max's way out of the war, Max's precognitive death; this was the one that Max chose to die on and ended up coming home to him.
'Jude I love you. I love you as a friend. I love you as the person in my mind- the person I told everything to who will never judge me because he will never see me again and never wrote me. Judey I love you with everything I am- everything I was and everything I will never get to be. Jude I love you- I love only you. Forever. Goodbye Judey.
I love you –Max'
Jude could hear ever word, every dark pained I love you with subdued finality from Max's lips. It wouldn't stop; his mind was filled with it. 'I love you, Goodbye'. Tears streamed down his face, falling into his hands, into his mouth. A tear splashed against a photo and he snatched it up, turning it finally in his hands. Oh God Max.
It was him, his beautiful peaceful childlike Max leaning against the side of a foxhole. Grim covered his slender body, his shirt abandoned at his feet, every rib protruded, the dip of his belly obscene, all of him obscured by a long black rifle which he clutched in his arms. He was so young, a boy with a gun, short blond hair spiked with sweat and dirt, blue eyes trying to be hard for the camera reveling a mix of youth and death. A fallen angel.
Another picture. Jude sobbed brokenly, fighting for breath as Max stared up at him, frightened and young, begging, fucking terrified, covered in dirt, armed to the teeth and eyes all at once begging to die, then not to die.
Everyone was dying, no, the fighting was over and the dead had died, leaving only a soft heart wrenching sobbing. Max blinked and waited for his surroundings to make sense. Home, in bed, but the sobbing from his dream hadn't stopped. The bed creaked and protested as it shook from the force of the sobs. Jude.
Max watched Jude as he sat on his bedside; head bowed and face glistening with tears, messy black hair failing to obscure any of the pain. Max didn't move, he didn't understand, even as the shoulders he longed to hold quaked he waited. Letters stood in a pile by Jude, dirty and military, one fluttered to the floor as he watched, the writing indecipherable to him but the pictures Jude held in his hands, the ones that Jude wouldn't stop looking at even though each glance brought a fresh round of sobs, he recognized.
"Jude." Max sat up and pulled the shaking man into his arms, expecting acquiescence but not Jude to jump in his arms, to turn so that heavy arms could wrap tight and desperate around him.
"Max. Oh Fuck Max." Jude grabbed everything, constantly moving, pulling, needing them to be one, and Max returned the ferocity, Jude's need fueling his own. It was too much, it wasn't enough, this was the accumulation of his whole life and he needed more. Max finally sunk a hand into Jude's hair, capturing the still trembling lips in a kiss. Max could feel the tears hot against his own cheeks; feel Jude trying to swallow him in their kiss. They fought, they raged, they loved, and finally they broke apart, lungs searing as they gasped sweet oxygen, bodies locked together, breaths mingling.
"You're my Jude." Max gasped, sparing a moment of precious air to press their lips together in a chaste kiss. "You read everything; I have nothing left to hide from you. All this time I thought you didn't really exist and now your mine." Max still couldn't get enough, and he loved it. "You cried for me."
Jude was lost in the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, eyes that held so much more for them both than he ever dreamed possible. He closed the scant inch separating their mouths, whispering against Max's lips because they both knew what he was going to say.
"I love you too."