Page 80 of Drift

Night blackness still made a home in Gray’s eyes, and giving a serious frown, whether Jude recognised what that blackness meant or not, he pulled back a touch as if catching the energy Gray gave off, and all of his confidence seemed to… drop.

“Old Mukka, right? You’re poppateer.” Jude searched Gray’s eyes for a brief moment, but Gray was right there with him,searching Jude’s without losing any eye contact. Only Gray’s asked and answered every question so damn quickly.

Giving a frown, Jude quickly broke the deadlock and looked around. “Sick castle you have here.” He looked at Gray. “So why put a call out for a street rat to come poison it?” Whether he knew the black look or not, it didn’t stop him confronting it.

But Jude wasn’t saying the rat was him. He avoided it at all costs. But he didn’t know what his own looks brought to the table. How could he? All family photos were locked firmly away in a private gallery, purelyforfamily.

Gray went to speak, failed, then wiped a hand over his mouth, all emotion played out in that single gesture that tried so quickly to call back the blackness in his eyes. “You… you got a name, kid?” Gray knew it, but… reject’s club. He didn’t look to make the same mistake twice. He no doubt wanted to get to know Jude under who he was now, not the name scrawled on a birth certificate that neither a mother nor father had given him.

Jude gave a shake of head. “Doesn’t work like that,” he said gently. “You put out a name to get a reaction. That makes you a rozzer, pimp, or family. None of which are good blood, especially as the security set up here is top notch, yet, strangely enough, even as talented as I am, I was still allowed inhere rather easily. You’re playing enticement. How stupid would I be to give you a name here so you can trace this Jude on the street if he is still out there, huh?”

Gray nodded. So much emotion played in his eyes, and Light wondered if he was lost back up in the alley with Jack, all the turmoil over a first meeting when Jack would have only been, what? Eighteen… nineteen himself, or so Simon had said? The echo of Jack in Jude was also… startling. And it was there, how that touch to Gray’s lip said he wanted to react, to call Jude outas Jack’s, as blood to his lover—lovers?—but he fought against it so badly here. Had that same look… the same fight been back there off Gray for Light himself, and he’d missed it all in the backdraft of bombs and burning bodies?

“Can….” Gray looked Jude over. “Can you at least tell me if your Night-walker friends have backed down? They could get hurt here, and I really don’t want that.” A brief look came Light’s way and, yeah, Gray was trying to avoid bad echoes of Brin being caught in the backdraught.

Any play and friendliness dropped from Jude’s eyes. “You put out a name. I got curious. Nothing more. Me and my pips are fuck all to do with those cunts.”

“You got curious in the dark,” Simon said flatly, and Jude looked his way, right along with Gray. “That could make you one of them.”

“You know, I don’t know whether to be relieved or just plain disappointed at that house-trained comment.” Jude checked Simon out, his scan of his body a little longer, more sarcastic. “Been having difficulty finding out anything about them, have we? Because you’ve just bunched every streetwalker into simple safe and unsafe stereotypes as if you think you know them. Only a house-trained pup used to pissing on a delegated mat would do that.”

Oh… as Simon narrowed his eyes Jude’s way, Light eased back a little. Jude… he knewofthe Night-walkers even if he wasn’t with them.

“Apologies,” Gray said gently. “Sometimes lines have to be pushed in order to know who’s standing what side, right?”

“The man you used isn’t a Night-walker, but he is street and used to walking nights. You sent out confusing tones.”

Gray shook his head. “We sent out old-guard tones. Ones who have been around long before any night troubles started. He’s as concerned as you over bad tones bleeding through to daylight.”

Jude watched him for a few moments, seemed to size something up. Bad tones bleeding through to daylight? Talk on old-guards…? He gave a nod, something certainly seeming to hit a note with him. “I’m alone from here on in until I leave. No pips.” He snorted a small smile. “I trust you with them about as much as you trust me stepping onto your turf.”

Light went over, confused. “Pips?” He didn’t know the term, didn’t know why he felt he should, and Jude frowned his way.

“Kids,” he said eventually. “Apples or pears for parents, they all make… pips…. Some are either put in shit and pampered enough to grow into fruit-filled taxpayers, or they’re tossed in the garden waste, easing over-occupancy of the fruit field. Either way?” He shrugged. “All still pips, where the latter are given little chance to survive.” He nodded at Light. “No offense meant there on the pampered, tax-paying sort, mate.”

Light snorted a smile. “None taken. Home doesn’t always provide the best field to grow in.” But that comment over been tossed in the bin…. Jesus… did Jude find that out after running to the streets, or had he been told it by foster parents even though he’d only been a boy? Or was it all just a generalisation and Jude didn’t know?

“Too right. Home doesn’t always provide the best shit to grow in,” said Jude, tipping his head. “That’s why most pips have the sense to walk away, or hide from it in their head, if that’s all they’ve got.” He frowned. “It’s the ones who walk back into home despite all the trouble that scare the shit out of me. Avoid those.” He winked at Light. “They’ll always pull you down into the wrong kind of shit.”

Unnatural common ground. Jude seemed a natural at being able to walk in somewhere and find common ground to build on. Yet—

“Why’d you do it?”

Sat on the bed, next to Light, Gray smiled over at him. “Look at talking to Andrews?”

“Walk out on your kid.”

That lone stand on the beach with not growing up with family, Light still tasted it. The pull of the sand that drew him into drown over not knowing who or what he was. Only Jude’s pull into the sea must have been so much damn darker, so much more lonely. Light had grown up with at least half of the family puzzle. Jude had… nothing. Nothing beyond borrowed families, borrowed names.

Of course he’d walk in and answer the goddamn call of his name if he’d heard it on the street.

“You…” Light pointed at his jaw, how a little blood bled from his nose. Jude still hadn’t noticed. “You need something to ease that?”

“Hm?” Jude wiped it away and glanced down at the blood as if it finally registered it should be hurting. Then he focused on Gray, a little more anger creeping into his youthful look. Yeah. Light knew that anger too.

“I want to know why you put a calling card out,” Jude said flatly. “More so why you’ve all gone soft since you saw me.” He pointed at Ray. “Except him. He’s definitely looking like he wants to toss me out the window, second floor and a rush at concrete flooring a pure bonus over making sure I don’t leg it without a wheelchair he can keep tabs on.”

Ray looked down at his hands, snorted a smile.

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