The Depths

[Near]

He rattles the ice back and forth a couple of times. It's a percussion instrument, war drum. Ready steady go, then at last he swivels around on his bench to conduct a head-on assessment of the prodigal whatever-the-fuck, and if his face affects a few contortions of exertion, it's because he finds himself abruptly obliged to recalibrate the "Jude" he expects to the one standing there, who is still Jude but who fails to line up with the version that has been hanging around in his head all this time, like a kid actor who grew up between seasons one and two.

And what is that, disappointment? Idiot, Near. Idiot. But hell if he hadn't liked the unshorn lamb look, held onto those curls as a defining feature because they had been one of the few things about Jude that didn't get to him like nails down a chalkboard. Now he looks like any asshole with nothing to do but walk through a mall on a weekday afternoon. The smirk that Near allows himself, faint and sardonic, has nothing to do with Jude and everything to do with own pettiness.

But he is petty. Always has been, no point dancing around it. And we have to accept the things we can't change, etc. So there, disappointment. It doesn't take much, the pull of gravity, for a sardonic smirk to wilt into a frown.

"That was a shitty thing you did. Disappearing. I met your friends."