if work permits {oliver and jude}

j   u  d  e    r  i  p  l  e  y

They don't rob graves anymore.

At least that's what Jude and Nino promised each other a couple months back. No, it was the straight and narrow for the Ripley boys from then on and that was a fact. Nino had gotten a well enough paying job at a nightclub as a bar man and Jude had started working in a little coffee shop near the hospital that he was attending medical school at. I thought that would be enough to keep us in house and home. However, he hadn't counted on the bills that were piling up from tuition fees and the endless amounts of money that he'd need to achieve a Medical degree. That's because you're a fucking idiot, Jude. You were seeing roses where there was only mud. Oh fuck off, really.

He wasn't supposed to know, he was likely to be the first Ripley to attend school in the first place. With the money stress come back to haunt him, the faceless voice came too, the little man in the back of his head who had conned him into slitting his wrists nearly two years ago now. I'll get you next time, Jude my dove. "I highly doubt it," said Jude to the handle of the shovel that he was gripping tightly in two callused hands. Med school hadn't made them soft, only tught luckily and it seems that one never really forgets how to dig. Despite the stress and confusion that was weighing down on him so heavily yet again, Jude knew one thing for certain, "I'm not ditching Nino again." We'll see, won't we?

It was the three hundred dollar bill for his books that had him digging up some rich old crone who'd died only last week, all her jewels sewn into her skin in an effort to keep her wealth from the children she had only ever held scorn for. Jude was outfitted with his shovel, a scalpel he had nicked from the hospital and a particularly dead feeling resting beneath his collarbones. Maybe resorting to gravedigging again was breaking yet another promise to Nino, No, it is breaking a promise, he's going to hate you, Judey-boy. but there was nothing else for it, not if Jude wanted to become a Doctor and get Nino and him out of the slums forever. What he doesn't know can't hurt him at least. You just tell yourself that.

At least it was three in the morning and the place was deserted. The only folk you saw around the graveyard at night was the dead kind. Jude worked quickly, only stopping to rest a couple of times. It got to him just how quiet it was. Was it really only a few years ago that his three brothers were beside him, complaining and making terrible jokes about the state of their clients? He can't say that he misses the old days, but he does miss his brothers. Dead and gone from them for too many years now. BECAUSE OF YOU, JUDE, went the voice as if it had been waiting all night for a chance to bring up his failures.

He felt his shovel hit wood and he stopped, leaning his forehead against the handle of the old shovel, breath coming quickly from the exertion. "No. It wasn't my fault," he whispered to the rusted metal like Nino had whispered to him that night, nearly a year back when they had finally spoken about it. "It's not my fault that the-."IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU, WHY DIDN'T YOU VOLUNTEER FOR THEM? COWARD. He slammed the tip of the shovel into the rotting rood and it gave easily beneath his blow, splintering in on an old and rotting face. He dropped the shovel, and fell to his knees, hands scrabbling at the wood and tearing it away in chunks. "I couldn't...I didn't, I didn't-." COWARD COWARD COWARD COWARD, went the voice and it laughed, loud and raucous in his head and filled up the entire world with hateful laughter.

Desperately, Jude slipped the scalpel from his worn shirt pocket and dragged it horizontally down his left forearm, a line of blood appearing and bleeding from wherever the cold metal kissed his skin. It stung and he hissed in surprised pain, a cloud of confusion stopping over his head, kicking the voice out.

He waited for a moment as he angled his arm downward so the blood would drip down onto the casket bellow him, rather than onto his short.

The laughter was gone, the beast in his brain was sated and Jude could resume without interruption.

Acid built up in his throat and he leaned forwards reflexively, wondering if he was going to throw up right then and there, on the face of a dead woman but the moment passed. He shut his eyes tightly and drew in a deep breath. One of his professors had decided to send him to mandatory therapy sessions, without even really knowing him. She'd seen the name Ripley on her class list and had told him the same afternoon that he was to report to a Doctor Walt Robbins. The first thing he'd done was teach Jude how to breath. He'd told Nino about the therapy sessions. They were attempting openness with each other.

And here I am, fucking it up by building another lie.

Jude opened his eyes and set himself back to work, tearing away more wood to reveal a gold necklace and a wedding ring as a pendant, resting right over the woman's heart. He yanked the chain, pulling the dear thing away from the corpse in a cold gesture. It's not that he didn't care about the precious thing that he was taking, it was that he couldn't. Sure, it had been some time since he'd had to rob a grave in order to live but if he wanted to at least attempt to stay sane, he couldn't let himself care too much about what he was doing.

The jewels were inset into the collarbone and quickly, he dug the scalpel into the rotting flesh, loosening each rare stone and pocketing them in turn. Perhaps this job had ensured his ticket to hell, but it had also gotten him into Medical School as one of the youngest applicants. They'd never seen someone that was so calm around a dead body before at first go.

Bitterly, he finished with the corpse and stood, the jewels in his pocket would be enough to pay for his school books and more as soon as he palmed them off to the Libertines. He'd just have to be careful that Nino didn't suspect where the money came from. ....tut...tut....all these lies.....jude, said the voice and Jude didn't flinch, digging a fingernail into the fresh cut he had just given himself, the burning pain sending the voice packing for a few blessed minutes again.

Mechanically, he used his shovel to help himself out of the hole and set himself to burying the mutilated corpse, where no one might see the destruction he had done.

He was home, in the shower by the time the sun rose, jewels stashed safely in an old burlap sac beneath his bed.

_ _ _

Many might as him what the hell he thought he was doing as he made his way down the hallways of the Hospital during his short lunch break. He held a brown bagged lunch in his right hand, white lab coat made colourful by a multitude of pens in the front pocket over the left breast. To be honest, I'm not really sure myself. Perhaps it was because Nino was suddenly too old for Jude's careful care. Perhaps it was that he had left over feelings of nurturing from the two brothers that he had seen buried, whatever it was, it was most likely unwanted and invasive. However, he couldn't seem to help himself.

I couldn't watch him starve to death out of idiocy.

Put it down to years of forgetting to eat, of feeling sick and tired from malnutrition, whatever it was, for the past few weeks he'd been leaving a brown bagged lunch on the cart of the Hospital's day janitor at every lunch time. It wasn't anything special, just the same thing he packed for him and Nino everyday. He'd never been good at sticking to two lunches anyway, after so many years of making four every morning. He told himself that that was all it was because he didn't want to admit that he was still in the business of worrying about everyone else instead of focusing on his own health.

There was something about looking a kid in the eye though and seeing yourself in them. Jude had been there too often, exhausted out of his mind and starving himself to death. Perhaps if someone had tried to help him, he'd have suffered less. Ha, as if, you love suffering too much, you whiny little pissbaby. Jude groaned slightly as that same stupid voice spoke up in his head. However, he knew better than to admit it's presence in public and he ignored it steadily as he walked by the janitor's cart and dropped the bagged lunch on it, with the same command written on it as every other time, 'Eat'.

"Hey," someone called and Jude kept walking steadily, ignoring the voice because if they really wanted something from him, they could use his name. Otherwise it wouldn't be important. However, he found himself cut off, a brown paper bag waving in front of his face, "You forgot something."

It's the janitor boy.

Jude wasn't expecting to see him, it was why he always waited for the cart to be unattended before he left anything on it. He blinked at the boy and then at the bag in his hand as if he had never seen it before in his life, expression blank. He was good at appearing calm but on the inside his heart rate was already speeding up and his whole being was begging for a quick getaway. "You are mistaken," he said softly, eyes travelling away from the bag to rest unblinkingly on the face of the wielder of the nutritious evidence, "That isn't mine."

It wasn't a lie.

Jude had made it for him after all.

Oh twice as much
ain't twice as good
And can't sustain like one have could
It's wanting more
That's gonna send me to my knees

j   u  d  e    r  i  p  l  e  y

You make my job too easy when you make enemies so quick Jude.

He shut his eyes for a moment and let out a long breaht of air, imagining it blowing away from him in a long steady puff. The focus exercise helped sometimes. If he was lucky, it would at least quiet the asshole who had taken up residency in his head a little until he could find a supply closet and something sharp.

The janitor was not happy with him. In fact, he looked livid. I was just trying to help him. All he'd done was piss him off. He wondered when he was going to stop doing that and actually help someone for once. Maybe he wasn't as helpful as he thought he was. "how can you be too busy to eat?" he asked, marvelling internally at the mildness to his tone, "Besides," he continued, "It doesn't matter if you want my help or not. I'm a doctor."

More like doctor-in-training. That's a sidenote.

He moved to help him regain his balance, carefully putting his hand on his arm and waist to steady him, "Here, let me help you."

Oh twice as much
ain't twice as good
And can't sustain like one have could
It's wanting more
That's gonna send me to my knees

j   u  d  e    r  i  p  l  e  y

"Don't need help," says the janitor but before Jude knows it he's already supporting all of his light frame in his arms. He barely weighs anything at all and for a moment, a lightnening strike of fear skids through him. Maybe he's dying right now. Don't be a fool Jude.

The voice in his head is right for once. He isn't dying just fainting.

"It's okay, I know you don't," he says, voice soft in reassurance. As he speaks he gestures at a nurse walking down the hall to give him a hand. She's a pretty little woman named Jana and has a smile like the sun. Right now she's frowning and making a 'tsking' sound with her tongue.

Jude can't help but notice how his hair smells when he leans further into him as his consciousness fades. It's floral. You fucking perv. His cheeks went slightly red at the comment but it was covered well by a soft grunt of effort to hold the janitor up.

He gestured to another nurse, all business as the boy's head fell back. "Help me get him to a bed," he said, voice louder and more commanding. "Does anyone know his name?"

Oh twice as much
ain't twice as good
And can't sustain like one have could
It's wanting more
That's gonna send me to my knees