Jude couldn't remember the last time his head hurt this badly.
He awoke the next morning with what he quickly discerned as a hangover and only a vague recollection of what happened after his third daiquiri. Everything after had been a blur of lights and sounds, muffled by the fog of his alcohol-laden mind. Jude could vaguely recall the sensation of being half-carried half-dragged, the image of neon signs, and a shadowy figure leaning over him, speaking softly and touching his hair.
It was the makings of every PSA flyer Jude had seen since he was old enough to venture out on his own, and for a brief second he feared for his virtue. But when he awoke his clothing was intact and Alvin had already been to the breakfast buffet.
Too bad that the very idea of scrambled eggs and bacon was enough to turn his stomach and send Jude scuttling to the bathroom.
The trip back home didn't go much better. The overhead lights were far too bright for his liking and the clatter of wheels on the train tracks were enough to make his head spin. Looking back, Jude wondered what possessed him to order not one, but three of those drinks.
No, he knew why, and looking back it had been a stupid reason to begin with. The only reprieve came from pressing his face into Alvin's shoulder, affectively blocking out the offending light.
"Was that your first time drinking?"
Alvin asked, a chuckle in his voice that was equal parts embarrassing and painful. Jude had lied about drinking before, and for that he ended up getting completely drunk on the "liquid courage" that was supposed to make talking with his date easier. Now he was paying for it with the hangover from Hell.
Jude grumbled something along the lines of "shut up" and "too loud", but it came out as an unintelligible whine. Alvin chuckled again, shifting so he could drape his arm around Jude's shoulder, allowing him to bury his face in his coat. Unlike the scent of food from earlier, the musky cologne Alvin wore was far less detrimental on his stomach.
The train slowed to a halt outside of Trigleph station and Jude was eased from his seat by Alvin. "C'mon, kid. We'll get you something for that headache when we get back."
"I'm not a kid, Alvin." But he allowed himself to be led by his guard, keeping his eyes closed as much as possible. Jude was grateful not to have class, but he did intend to get some work done. That wasn't going to happen if he couldn't read a page without going cross-eyed.
"What time is it?" Jude muttered in his haze, fumbling for his GHS in his pocket. He flipped it open, fully prepared for his overly sensitive eyes to be blinded by the LED, only to be met with a blank screen. "Oh, it's dead…" An astute observation.
"Forget to charge it?" Alvin shifted closer to him, removing his own GHS and flipping it open. "It's just before t-" He paused, pressing a few buttons, his expression growing dark.
"What is it?" Jude sat up and ventured a peek, trying to see what had caught Alvin's attention. Seventeen missed calls from Leia. That alone set alarm bells off; Leia preferred texting, reserving calls for emergency situations. One glance at the messages she had sent confirmed his fears.
alvin is jude with you?
and hes not home!
the police are EVERYWHERE where are you guys?!
I AM FREAKING OUT ANSWER YOUR PHONE ALVIN!
"Police? I told her where I was going!" Jude protested. He was young and he trusted Alvin, but years of date safety lectures from his mother taught him to always tell someone where he was going. That, and as soon as he let it slip that he was going to Duval with Alvin, Leia had demanded to know the details of his prospective night out.
It only took one ring for Leia to answer. "Alvin! Where's Jude?!" Her voice was nearly deafening to Jude's sensitive hearing, but her panic remained clear none the less.
"Calm down, he's right here. We're on our way back to Trigleph right now."
"Oh, thank goodness… I'm at his apartment now. You guys need to get back here!"
At my apartment? Jude grabbed for the phone, missing it entirely twice before Alvin just handed it to him. Jude pressed the speaker to his ear, bracing himself for assault against his sensitized hearing. "Leia, what's going on? What happened?"
"Jude! Someone broke into your complex last night! I went to see if you were okay but your apartment door was kicked in!"
"What?!" Someone broke in? But that meant…
Jude took off, running ahead with Alvin's phone still clutched in his fist. He didn't care that the street was swirling around him still, making his stomach want to turn itself inside out. He didn't care that Alvin was following close behind, telling him to slow down, that he was going to hurt himself and that they needed to stay together while they were out. He just needed to get home, and fast.
Standing before the crumpled metal that was once his door, Jude looked into his ransacked apartment in horror. Shattered glass and sparking wires. Overturned shelves and a broken desk. Papers strewn around the room, some torn, some missing. His heart dropped out of his chest, heady bile rising into his throat. "No…" He took a wobbling step forward, eyes darting between the broken desk, the tipped shelves, the smashed computer monitor. His work, his research…
Jude dropped to his knees in the middle of the wreckage that was once his living room, trying to collect as many papers into his arms as possible. "This can't be… My work… All my work!" He cried, eyes darting around the room, what remained of months of his own research and years of his mentor's.
He just barely heard his name called from behind him. Alvin. Jude didn't wait for the man to speak again, didn't look his way, too absorbed in the cleanup.
"Don't just stand there!" Jude shouted, his voice cracking as he tried desperately not to cry. "All the progress, everything I've found…"
Alvin knelt beside him wordlessly, glancing around the vandalized apartment as if taking stock of the damage. Many other apartments had been kicked in too and a few had been looted, but none so badly as this one. It was easy to see why Leia had panicked so badly upon seeing the wreckage; the perpetrators were clearly out to do damage.
"Could they have been looking for something…?" Alvin observed, picking up a torn file, noting the numbered pages; none missing, but many torn.
"What could they have been looking for, Alvin?" Jude shouted, quickly losing the battle against his own emotions. He had spent hours, no, weeks, months of his time dedicated to his work not only for Spirius but for his own projects. He had done everything he could to progress quickly, so he could complete his task, all for the betterment of mankind as a whole. And what had it gotten him?
The first few tears slipped from his eyes not of sadness, but frustration, and Jude quickly wiped them away. No, he couldn't cry. Not in front of Alvin. Not again. "All I've wanted to do was to use my research to help Elympions, but every time I take a step, I get pushed back." His voice cracked as it rose in volume, his teary gaze aimed at his bodyguard, looking for answers. "Why does this keep happening, Alvin? Why… When I'm only trying to help!"
Alvin said nothing at first, only stood and carefully righted the bookshelf, looking anywhere but Jude in that moment. "People do things out of fear and hate, greed and power. Even if what you're doing is for the greater good, a lot of people can't look past their own agenda."
His words were telling, and immediately Jude knew what he was getting at. "You… You think Exodus did this, don't you?" It all made sense. The same people who had killed Professor Haus, attacked those people in the square… This thought only managed to compound the anger and sorrow he felt. "I… I can't figure it out. Why would they want the professor dead? Why… When we were both working so hard to make their lives better?"
Jude stood and surveyed the room again, thousands of pages filled with diagrams and research findings scattered about. His grip on the paltry stack of notes tightening, eyes falling to the sea of white at his feet; it would take days to organize them all again, and that was if there was nothing missing. "Wasn't it the Elympion government that brought us here? Didn't they want our help? Then why…" His voice rose with every word, Jude quickly losing his grip on his emotions. "Why do they continue to torment us? Why squander all our findings over some stupid grudge?!"
The papers were thrown down as the dam finally broke, and Jude cried, the frustration, fear, and anger all too much to hold in any longer. It wasn't fair. None of it was fair. Why? Why continue if all he'd meet were roadblocks set by those he wanted to help? Never before had he felt the urge to give up so strongly. He had always told himself to keep going, that things would get better, but every time he felt things were looking up, something horrible would happen and send him straight to the bottom again. It was such a feeling of hopelessness that Jude didn't know what to do with himself; he could only stand in the middle of his destroyed apartment, wrap his arms around himself and cry.
Maybe this is what they wanted… To break me, to make me feel like this wasn't worth pursuing at all. The logic only served to make him cry harder as he realized their tactics were working and it was all he could to keep himself upright while reality crumbled around him.
And then, Alvin's arms were around him, pulling him into a warm embrace. Alvin. Alvin was there. But his comfort only served to make Jude feel more weak, vulnerable, as the visage of the mature doctor melted away to that of a trembling sobbing child. "I don't understand…" He muttered, burying his face into Alvin's shirt. "What have I done to deserve all this, Alvin?"
Alvin just shook his head, running his fingers through Jude's hair. There was nothing he could say to make this better. Not now, not with months of research scattered at their feet and Jude barely clinging to his resolve.
In the back of his mind Jude registered Alvin's phone buzzing, yet he remained, holding him close.
They agreed that staying at the apartment wasn't in Jude's best interest. The door needed to be repaired, and the police needed to investigate the scene for any clues as to who exactly was behind the crime. It was a fruitless effort; Jude was already certain who had torn his place apart, and the fact that they were virtually untouchable only made things worse for him.
Leia had volunteered her apartment first; it was small, but centrally located, and the familiar face would certainly make him feel better. But Jude couldn't find it in himself to accept her offer. Leia meant well, but with all that had happened recently, Jude knew staying with her would only put her in danger. That, and Alvin would have to stay in the apartment as well, and Leia's place was hardly equipped for one person, let alone three.
The option of going home was suggested again, and Jude immediately shot it down. Running home and giving up… As much as he wanted to, Jude couldn't bring himself to abandon all the progress he had made. It was what Exodus's wanted, and Jude wasn't about to give them the satisfaction of breaking him down.
Even if they were already succeeding.
In the end, Jude had packed up his clothing and what books he could fit in a duffel bag and went to Alvin's apartment.
It was larger than he expected, but sparsely decorated. The living room had a couch and a television, the bedrooms furnished with beds and dressers both. It reminded Jude of the dormitories he stayed in while living in Fennmont, before he had moved all his belongings in. Alvin had reiterated on the way over that he hadn't actively lived there in a long time, mostly because his work took him to far off destinations on the regular. But it was quiet, safe, and most importantly, gated. Jude wondered if his apartment would have been vandalized if he had lived in a place like this, with surveilled entries and security guards.
Almost immediately Jude threw himself back into his work. Over the course of a few days, the collection of books and materials piled up in the spare bedroom of Alvin's apartment. Files from the lab, what books he could bring over in boxes with Alvin's help, stacks of notes from Haus's research and his own, anything that could help speed up his progress. They all ended up in his borrowed bedroom, scattered about in an order that only made sense to Jude.
Haus's notes did bear some fruit; his research had discovered a new correlation between spirit fossils and spyrix technology. The research was vague, harried, but it was something and Jude wasn't about to let any potential leads go to waste.
He hardly slept, keeping himself up with coffee pilfered from Alvin's kitchen and sheer will-power. Empty dishes and containers piled up next to the door for Alvin to retrieve while Jude remained hunched over his desk, filtering through note after note of loosely related material. Each passing hour yielded more leads, more studies to look into, a never ending trail of research and theories.
But they weren't more than just that, theories. Things they had covered before weeks ago and had lead nowhere. But Jude didn't want to let anything go to chance. Had they missed something before? Could a lead have gone elsewhere? He had to know.
Jude was going down a bad path, and he knew this, yet he couldn't bring himself to slow down, let alone stop.
By day three, Alvin had enough.
"Jude, give it a rest." Alvin was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed. "You're gonna burn out at this rate." He was concerned, and why wouldn't he be? Jude had hardly left his room save for rummaging for snacks in the fridge, and even that was a rarity now. But he couldn't stop, not when he was making so much headway with his research.
Jude waved him off, not even looking up from his notes. "I'm onto something here, I'll sleep later."
"You said that this morning." Alvin came to lean on the back of Jude's chair, forcing Jude backwards, away from his notes. "What good is your research going to do if you're laid-up in bed from exhaustion?"
Jude gave a tired pout before swatting Alvin away, annoyed. "I have to do something, Alvin. If I can just complete my research and present my findings to Spirius, then maybe…"
"You think it's going to stop." Alvin finished for him, staring him down. "You think if you crack down and turn in your findings, Exodus will leave you alone."
Jude refused to look his way. He knew he was right. Fear, frustration, self-doubt… He couldn't run back home without finishing his job, but continuing for the sake of his own moral code was becoming harder with each day. If he could just turn in his work, appease his employers, then maybe he could live peacefully.
His silence was all the answer Alvin needed.
Without warning Alvin lifted him bodily from the chair, provoking a yelp of protest from Jude. "A-Alvin! Put me down!" He shouted, flailing his arms and legs in an effort to get away from his guard. "I said, put me down!"
Alvin refused, carefully stepping over the piles of books and discarded papers that had overtaken the floor of his spare bedroom. Jude continued to squirm, pushing, swatting at Alvin, screaming and demanding to be let down so he could go back to his work. None of which had any effect, save for Alvin looking increasingly fed up with his tantrum.
Jude's fist connected with Alvin's nose with a spectacular crack. Alvin shout a string of curses in Old Elympion, just barely dodging a pile of books as he stumbled the rest of the way to the bed. He tossed Jude unceremoniously on the mattress, bracing both hands on either side of his head, effectively pinning him down.
"Look, I've been lenient with your crazy, self-destructive tendencies, but I'm drawing the line." Alvin all but spat, a trickle of blood dripping from his nose. Furious was an understatement. "I don't give a damn if you're on a roll, you're going to end up sick in the hospital if you don't take care of yourself! And who the hell taught you how to punch like that, huh? Are you trying to break my nose?!"
It was probably the first time Alvin had yelled at him, and Jude was at a complete loss on how to counter. He was right, damn it, he was always right. All at once Jude realized how much of a fool he had been; going over the same notes over and over, retracing all his research and meeting the same dead ends… He was only placating himself with the illusion of progress if only to prove that he was still together, that he could still complete his job. But at this rate, he'd end up too far gone to recover.
And Alvin was only looking out for him, but instead of thanking him for being so supportive, Jude had hit him instead.
"I…" Jude tried to mutter an apology, but stopped short, realizing just what sort of position they were in. His mind drifted back to their date, the soft utterance of Alvin having a chance with him that he thought Jude didn't hear. He'd attribute the blush that crept across his cheeks to exhaustion, hormones, curiosity, anything other than the fact that Alvin had him pinned to the bed and was glaring at him with such ferocity that his heart skipped a beat.
It was as if Alvin realized this as well, and only then did he back away, crossing the room to turn off the lamp and close the blinds. "Take a nap." He muttered, hand over his face to stem the flow of blood. Alvin quickly exited the room and shut the door behind him, leaving Jude to his thoughts.
The passage of time gave the impression of sleep, yet Jude felt he'd only laid in silence for several hours instead of actually resting. He'd close his eyes for a moment, only for his tumultuous thoughts to bring him back to waking in what felt like moments. It wasn't until the sun had set that Jude finally pulled himself from his borrowed bed, spurred by his hunger and the desire to see his friend.
I need to apologize, at least. Jude thought, sitting up slowly. A quick glance at the clock denoted the late hour, and Jude felt a small wave of relief when he realized he had slept at least a little.
Peeking out into the living area, Jude could see the flicker of lights from the television set illuminating the room. On the couch lay Alvin, remote in one hand, tissues stuffed up both nostrils. Jude had to stifle a laugh at that; he really did a number on him.
Jude came to sit on the floor before the couch, his eyes drifting from Alvin's pensive sleeping face, the bruises that had formed around his nose. Alvin always woke up before Jude, and waited for him to fall asleep before bedding down himself. During his craze, had Alvin slept just as little as he had? How many times had he walked in to check on him, only for Jude to ignore him in favor of his futile efforts?
Alvin… He really does care, doesn't he?
He pressed his hand gently to Alvin's face, drawing mana from the few spirits around him to heal the damage he had caused. Alvin winced, eyelids fluttering as he came back into conscious to a glow of blue and a wave of relief. Their eyes met, and Jude smiled.
"Sonya." Jude said, a soft chuckle in his voice. "Leia's mother. She's a martial arts master. She taught both of us how to fight to defend ourselves."
Alvin blinked, then grinned. "Remind me to never piss her off." He sat up, plucking the tissues from his nose and tossing them onto the coffee table to be taken care of later. His gaze returned to Jude, and he pat the cushion next to him. "Did you sleep?"
Jude came to sit next to him, sinking into the plush warmth. "I think I did… I hope I did…" He sighed, letting his eyes slip closed. "I'm… I'm sorry for hitting you. You were only trying to help and…"
"I get it." Alvin cut him off, and Jude turned to look at him, surprised. "You're doing what you can to keep going, Jude. But you can't keep at this pace, you know?"
"Yeah…" Jude sighed, rubbing at his sore eyes. He really was tired. "Thanks, Alvin."
"Don't mention it, kid. Just try not to hit my face next time. If you ruin my dashingly good looks, what will I do when this job is done?"
Jude snort, rolling his eyes. "Right, there goes your dream of being a trophy husband."
"I'd remain a lonely bachelor with too many cats for the rest of my days. What will my mother think?" That earned Alvin a swat to the head, and they both laughed for the first time in days.
As the laughter died off Alvin wrapped an arm around Jude's shoulder, pulling him closer, making him feel safe, warm. "Get some sleep, kid." He said quietly, his hand coming up to idly play with Jude's hair.
Jude gave a slight nod, allowing his eyes to slip closed once again.