01-24-2025, 04:54 PM
Near’s body reacts before his brain does – sort of the opposite of when fingers brush against a hot surface but don’t register the pain until after the hand has already jerked away – so that there is a strange, detached moment during which he is plummetingly queasy but can’t understand why. Then both parts click together, and, Oh, if that isn’t Jude’s face bubbled up from the dim chasm of the bar. Hi. As if he has mistaken himself for a normal fucking human being who is allowed to come and go from normal human places as he pleases.
Another reason that Near likes (liked!) it here is because it feels (felt!) insulated from all that bullshit. The door to The Door as an airlock, through which the Jude/Courtland/etc plague could not pass. No logic ever existed to underpin that belief except the unassailable fact that, until right now, it was true. And not just in the exterior sense of Jude never having graced The Door with his presence; but maybe more importantly, it was easier to knock away the intrusive thoughts while he was busy wiping down tables and chatting up Crystals than when he was alone in his apartment.
Now here’s Jude, violating the dubious sanctity of a pact that Near invented without input from the other party, and Near is taken enough aback that surprise disrupts the formation of other feelings, anger or fear or whatever the situation deserves. He glares back from a staticky place of uncertainty for a few seconds, weighing pros and cons, before coming to a decision.
“I’m gonna need to see some ID,” he says levelly, through his teeth.
Another reason that Near likes (liked!) it here is because it feels (felt!) insulated from all that bullshit. The door to The Door as an airlock, through which the Jude/Courtland/etc plague could not pass. No logic ever existed to underpin that belief except the unassailable fact that, until right now, it was true. And not just in the exterior sense of Jude never having graced The Door with his presence; but maybe more importantly, it was easier to knock away the intrusive thoughts while he was busy wiping down tables and chatting up Crystals than when he was alone in his apartment.
Now here’s Jude, violating the dubious sanctity of a pact that Near invented without input from the other party, and Near is taken enough aback that surprise disrupts the formation of other feelings, anger or fear or whatever the situation deserves. He glares back from a staticky place of uncertainty for a few seconds, weighing pros and cons, before coming to a decision.
“I’m gonna need to see some ID,” he says levelly, through his teeth.