“Fuck indeed,” he echoed the sentiment with a bitter mirth not quite present in his friend’s own delivery. Kohl-rimmed eyes lingered on Jude’s form, on the angles formed as they tilted their head to the sky, and the way the cityscape reflected off of them to create a soft diffusion of light like a pink-hued halo. Rather candidly, and likely a byproduct of the cross-fade starting to take effect in his brain, Sonny grinned, “I should’ve brought my camera. You look–” Inhale, exhale. “—too good to ruin it by gettin’ worried over my own…shenanigans.”
He shrugged at the silliness of the thought. Where Sonny’s shenanigans ended, Jude’s began, and vice versa. The world might see the Caine siblings as inexorably linked, but in the deepest sense of what the trio was truly comprised of — wouldn’t that title instead be better suited to the two who shared a secret as readily as a joint on a rooftop, as manicures and Mario Kart, as inside jokes and knowing glances? Sonny shrugged again, a half-bemused chuckle accompanying another small exhale of smoke as the other nudged his thigh.
“Well, half the reason I keep you ‘round is for the thrill of it all,” he joked in response, words bearing a certain truth — not solely in the sense of fending off any trouble that came their way, but simply because that Jude was a thrill. Beyond friendly flights of fancy, they offered something Sonny’s life seemed naturally inclined to reject: stability. Stability in the form of someone to look forward to, to even occasionally come home to, to lean against and trust even with that which was most hidden from the rest of the world. Whatever existed between them was indeed a thrill, the kind that demanded to be protected if only for its sheer rarity.
Before he could speak more on it, they were back on about Lydia — and when his sister was the topic of conversation, all other considerations fell momentarily by the wayside. “‘Too much’? How about eight days a week?” A beat, filled by a nervous chuckle, gaze clouded with a hint of reluctance. “I didn’t realize we were playing Truth of Dare, but seeing as I’ve lazily worked my way around a truth, that means you get a dare.” Those were hardly the rules, and they both knew it, but his assertion carried the undercurrent of a simple plea. “Dare you to distract me from the inevitability of my sister hating me when she finds out.”
Jude didn’t shrink under Sonny’s gaze like they might those of others, but there was an inevitable, curious tilt to their head when Sonny paused, and then a borderline embarrassing air of surprise when he finished the thought. Something twisted in Jude’s stomach, something they failed to understand and subsequently ignored when Sonny continued. The teasing was easier to make heads or tails of, which said a little more about Jude than they were comfortable admitting. There was a lot about this exchange they felt that they were more comfortable not admitting.
Accepting the joint back as the world’s edges started to soften around them, Jude frowned knowingly at Sonny’s words. Eight days a week, or: roughly as often as Jude himself worried about the same thing. For Jude, though, the same worry overlapped with Sonny; obviously his best friend wasn’t about to leave him for having a darker side few others got to see, but in Jude’s mind, there were plenty of other reasons to be left.
Sonny just had to find one. And Lydia, well. Could be that she just had to find out what the two of them were.
“I’m not much of a distraction without a controller in my hands,” Jude figured with a wry smile, eyes on Sonny as they took a smaller, more careful drag, holding the curls of smoke deep in their lungs. One leg started to swing idly, a habitual tic indicative of but not limited to nerves. When Jude exhaled, they shook their head gently. “Why do you think she could ever hate you, Sam?” they murmured, glancing over the planes of Sonny’s face, softened by the creeping high. Why do you think anyone could ever hate you?
“She’s your sister. End-of. I know you two mean the world to each other. You know that if she doesn’t like what she finds out, it’d only because she’d be worried about you.” Jude paused, then added, “Guess I’m not good at the dare thing.”
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