last year's wishes

"Right." Liam said. "And were you told of me before, or something?" If he was, and the man could prove it, then it would be good evidence towards him actually being Jude. And while Liam had more questions he wanted to ask, there was someone else that took priority.

Autumn.

He's glad for the second chance, even if Liam's suspicious or doesn't want anything to do with him. They come up to the bookstore before he can say anything else about the matter, and the broken glass stops him in his tracks. "Oh.. oh, shit." Liam's faster than he is, and he's already made it inside by the time he runs up on the store.

He's careful - no healing factor now - and uses the door instead of climbing through the window. There's chaos inside the bookstore and it makes him more nervous. "Autumn!" He calls out with the other, head on a swivel as he looks for a sign of her. The door upstairs opens, and he looks up immediately. The woman with short, dark hair peers down at them, and Jude thinks this might be the first time they've met.. ever.

'She's okay, she's okay.' Aria tries to reassure both of them - Liam and the unfamiliar one. 'You can come in and see, but she's healing.'

Her voice sounds way too calm for the moment, but there's an exhaustion in it. Jude feels like.. maybe now this isn't his place, that he doesn't belong here. Hands in his hoodie pockets again, he tries to shrink down into himself. There's a factor here he hadn't considered: he's the only human.

Yet.

"That sounds extremely unpleasant." Liam muttered, flatly. The understatement of the fucking century. "I'm sorry that you experienced that. Both the shooting and then the..." His eyes shifted downwards towards the ground. He could imagine that Jude had felt alone, digging his way out of the ground and coming back to life.

"Accident or not, if you are Jude--" Which Liam was still a bit iffy about. "I'm glad you're back. It's good that you're back. Autumn..." It wasn't Liam's place to talk about the hardships she'd gone through, while Jude was gone. "She's better off in a world with you in it." And maybe that meant Liam was the replacement, in her world, when Jude had died. Maybe it meant Autumn would stop confiding in him and gravitate back towards her former best friend.

He's about to try and say something to show gratitude for the condolences but Liam surprises him and his lips hang parted for a moment while he gathers himself. "Oh. Uh. Yeah, I'm - I'm glad to be here, yeah. There's.. there's a lot of stuff I didn't get a chance to do. With her or - y'know, anyone. Like meeting you and shit." It's an example, but he flinches anyways after he says it, like he's definitely been too open.

But Bookends isn't too far, if they haven't moved since he's been gone. And he follows Liam's lead the whole time they're walking, with his hands shoved in his pockets. They make the last turn towards the store, and Jude's foot catches as he sees the broken window. "Shit."

It's wild, how many of her life's major events are book-ended by frank discussions in diners. She can add coup d'etat and resurrection to that list now. Truly strange times.

Autmn's eyes stare at the little bone around Jude's neck and it makes her think of the little green talisman she'd been given in New York - the one that had snapped from its bracelet the night the boy across from her had taken her place in front of a bullet that she's now strung around her neck on a simple lace of leather.

Before all of this, she'd never really believed in magic - but the amount of times that jewelry seems to have spared her life and doomed another, among, well, everything else, have made it irrefutable.

"So you just woke up," There's a hitch here, somewhere, like something doesn't add up - as if any of it should add up, like she doesn't spend full moons four-legged and hairy eating cows in a cell in her basement. "In some other guy's body."

She's recounting it, to make sure she understands - the same way she'd recounted the events of the past few weeks; Fortney, Kersey, the fact she's been thrown into the role of guiding a whole pack that she'd been on the verge of leaving. She doesn't expound too much on the injury in her side that somehow still makes it hard to reach for things with her arm - because a tiny part of her isn't sure this isn't connected to that somehow.

"Do we just... pick up? Where you left off?" They can't really - that means Jude leaving for Europe and the woods have gone weird - the roads out of town are said to vanish whenever you cross city lines. The weird haze of 'this is normal' has disappeared after the attack and replaced itself with what-the-fuckery, but that doesn't mean there's fuck-all she can do about it. She sips coffee in place of another question while she tries to process the implications here. Death is supposed to be the end. The idea that it isn't sort of grips her stomach in an uncomfortable way.

"Yeah. The last thing I remember is the biker guy, and then next thing I know, I'm pulling myself up out of a shallow grave in the middle of the woods." There's really not much more to it than that, because even if he did understand magic, he wouldn't be able to give Autumn an explanation as to why. "As far as I can tell.. I'm fully human now, too."

As for picking up where they left off, he shakes his head. "Naw. I mean, things are crazy different, right? You.. I mean, it's been a few months. You must have gone through a lot of stuff since then, and me - same mind, same.. soul, I guess? But I was planning on leaving, and now I want nothing more than to stay. I was giving up too fast back then."

Maja did not know how far this extension of her magic went, or whether he would crumble to ash, if left unattended for too long. The rules of the talisman were not outlined clearly when she loses one of the bones, to revive a boy she has never met.

"Then we find them. Kill the hunter, if he lives. And I let you sacrifice them." A gift, to let him draw the blood, and see what power is in his marrow, if any. "You will grow strong from it." If done right; amplify power in ways the once-varulv has never known.

What a weird world.

He flinches from the tap, swatting gently at her. The pen and paper, though, stumps him. He takes it from her, and looks down at the paper - his first instinct is to just start doodling and see what kind of silly things he can make from memory. Maybe a Sora or a Dart or a Patches. Instead, his shoulders slump.

"Do you.. want me to write a spell or something, what are we doing here?"

And then it curls back up, around her legs and her guts and her shoulders.

"You can't be." She says, shaking her head, hands flattened against the wall. "You can't, you can't be here, I..."

Did what you had to.

"It's okay." He doesn't know.

But he thinks he knows. And really, if it wasn't Tressa - it was going to be Autumn. His arms tighten around her, one hand going to the back of her head. It feels weird - mostly because he's bigger than he's ever been. Taller, more built. "It's alright." He says, again, hoping that it means something to her.

"If.. If you did what I think you did, then - yeah, it's.. I mean, I kind of figured. I wanted you to." If Autumn didn't do it, then this will be more awkward than before, he thinks.

Remi lead Jude through the halls, towards the the backroom they had set up as a small shelter the department had set up when storm had gone on longer than a week. "We've got a couple of extra beds for the night as well. Those are only for a night or two. " Remi paused, knowing topics of housing could always be a sensitive topic. "We've also go some paperwork for temporary housing and a job board if you need some leads." Remi offered. "Is there anyone I should call to let them know you're here?"

Gosh, he loves Port Leiry.

"A bed would be good, I can do one night for sure. But, uh, I have a buddy I can talk to about a job - she's a funeral worker and has connections with the morgue? I dunno if you know her, but I think she could help get me in as a janitor or something at least. Tressa Shaw over at Embrace."

After everything's settled, he scratches the back of his head, "Thanks for all this, by the way."

But when she answered, it was her voice.

It didn't make sense. How could it be Jude, if it didn't even look like Jude? And how could this person know everything about Jude, if he wasn't him? Liam took a step forward, getting closer to the phone so he could speak. "Autumn, I don't think--"

He frowned as she quickly told them she had to go. His stomach twisted at the quickness of it, feeling that it wasn't normal. That something might be wrong. "What was that?" He asked out loud, not necessarily to Jude. Fake Jude?

Fuck.

"Fine. You're Jude." Liam muttered as he pulled out his own phone and dialed Autumn's number. He put it up to his ear as it rang. And rang. And rang. His eyes flickered towards new Jude as the call went to voicemail. He cursed and then sent a text: Are you okay? Call me.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he was overreacting. But now that she was Alpha, Liam found himself even more protective over her.

"How did it happen, then?" He needed a fucking distraction. "You. This new face." He motioned towards Jude. "You were dead." A pause. "Did you--" No, no. He was not going to ask that. He ran a hand over his face as he shoved Matteo, and the potentials of an afterlife, out of his mind. "How?"

He puts the phone in his back pocket while he waits for Liam to try and get in touch with her, too. Nothing. No text back. She - was it an Aria thing? Vampire weirdness at the bookstore? It made him more uneasy the more he thought about it. (Weird jump scare thing, he swears.)

"Uh. Yeah, I died. A big, uh - like ginger, biker guy. He shot me." One of his shaking hands goes up to his temple, where the bullet had gone through. "It was like - I don't really know what happened in the between stuff, but one day I was.."

This part is hard. It makes his throat feel tight. It makes the shake worse. He puts his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunching forwards as he tries to make this new, larger body smaller. "It was like waking up from a long nap, only I was.. buried. Out in the woods. And I climbed through the grave.. couldn't talk, think much. It took.. I don't know, a bit. Before I could start to piece together stuff." The time at the circus was hard for a few reasons, and he still didn't know much about it.

"I don't know much about witch stuff, but I think it was an accident." Which is to say: he knows he's not meant to be here, and that stings. He waits a beat, "Can we.. swing by Bookends? Autumn not answering and stuff is making me, y'know, nervous."

If she is sacrificing, and moving souls from their resting sites into bodies that have reforged in the earth. There is something she has broken in the cycle of runes, and the power of talismans. Something gravely wrong. At the thought, her eyes dip to the bones tied together on her person, assuming she has not entirely stripped the rights to the power by bending the laws. They have not crumbled, and she knows the power in her blood. She would liked to have known she had this capability, or that the vampyr's blood she borrowed, along with the ribs she had carved meticulous runes into for an hour, had been capable of this, too.

Maybe she'd have done it sooner, for someone useful. Does he have any real power?

"No." She folded her arms, staring at him. "You were accident. I sacrificed life." A trade-off that is more frustrating by the fact that she had been certain the ritual had been perfect. If it had been the soil they were on, that shattered the intention, that could not have been pre-meditated. Every ounce of dirt has the dead rotting within it; it'd make ever casting a spell like that, void in its entirety.

She had lost a phalange of the talisman, regardless. Trading what she had, to give to her brother no longer evens the score. It simply lessens hers.

"Varulv?" That is a strange, and unfortunate factor in the bones that make up her talisman. She's got all the linkages to whatever, and whoever this man is. And now, he's got the residue of Grimhjarta all over him, that the troupe would know he is something other the moment he wanders back out through their circus. Maybe he wants a job, here. Make use of him. "You were made dead by hunter. That is sad." More importantly, "Are they here, this town? We kill them." Maybe this is kindness for him, and maybe it is self-preservation all the same.

Maja fishes through a cupboard in the caravan, for paper, and a pen. "Before you were Varulv — wolf, did you have power?" Magic, she means. "Do you have magic of Gods, mine, from where I have brought you back from the soil?" a beat, as she slaps the pen and paper to a small fold out table, "I will teach you."

The revelation that it was an accident he's here is almost a gut punch, but he tries not to react too terribly to that news. Magic is weird, he guesses. It's not like - anyone would go out of their way? Vengeance, maybe.

Turning back to her, his eyes widen a bit. "That's - weirdly nice. If he's not dead yet, sure. I had - I'm sure they're still here - crazy friends. Angry friends." Autumn's face when it happened flashes through his mind and he tries not to visibly wince in front of this witch, who is already moving on to magic.

At first, his answer is just a shake of his head. "Normal guy. Didn't know magic existed." Glancing down to the paper, his lips twist into a frown. "I can learn?"

Impossible. She did not know others blessed by Hel.

He is something uncharted. Port Leiry has become an enigma of raw power, and new ages of magic that Maja has never known. Even in all the countries she has slipped through. None of them brought back a life untethered to her, yet so bound to one of her lives, it broke the laws of Hel entirely.

She'd known something had gone wrong that night. Blamed a dead thing, of course. Blamed a brother for his disinterest, and dismissal to take a thing seriously. Blamed the name on the grimoire, too.

Maja sees this boy with soil in his lungs, and a face that does not belong to her troupe.

She had stolen him, like she would thrift a grave and stuffed him in a caravan's bathroom. It's her sanctuary, and he is another life within it, poking at his face in the mirror like a newborn child. Revived from a life that no longer hangs on her talisman, just ashes of bonedust. She cannot ignore the signature of Grimhjarta power, the same way she could not ignore Norwegian if she passed it in the streets of Port Leiry.

"Weird." Yes. Very. "You saw the shores, and clawed through the soil." Did you speak to her? The ruler of Helheim? Did she grant him a talisman like her own, and see something worthy of him, in their band of death and decay? He was not supposed to come back from wherever he had been, she had meant the life to be traded to her brother's talisman; not spent on a stranger now imbued with Grimhjarta magic. "What is your name?" A descendent perhaps? Granted new life, for the first time since the shattering of a talisman. "I brought you back." As if that delivers her rights and power on its own. "You were dead, yes?"

But he doesn't wanna judge too harshly, so he just shrugs in return. "Oh, uh - Jude Grigsby. I'm Jude - don't know what this guy's name is, though." At this, he gives a gesture down to the rest of his body as he finishes up his grooming.

Straightening up, he stares at her - frowning a little that he seems to tower a little more over people than he used to. To compensate, he hunches down some, not wanting her to feel weird about him being taller. "I was dead, yeah. You brought me back? On purpose? Er. I guess, uh, probably not."

Another pause here, and he rubs the back of his neck, wondering how much he should share. But if she's the one who did it, then.. he guesses it doesn't matter, because at least she's not a hunter. "I used to be a, uh, a werewolf. And some hunter guy did me in."

"I thought about it. I thought about killing everyone I could link to it. I didn't though. Figured meaner, worse people than I would get them eventually."

Tressa tosses the blood bag in a trash-bin with a conspicuous orange liner. It goes into the special trash; the straw hangs out of her mouth. "Yeah. She's good. A good kitty."

A nod, and then she leans with her knuckles on her desk while he chatters - matter of factly, like he's not the first recorded case of Zombie she's ever seen. "So you're you, but in somebody else's body."

His hand does go to the finger bone around his neck, though, fiddling with it. "I have this, I think it's a magic thing, from the people I was staying with for a while. But I don't know what it does or if I can use it or anything." He also doesn't wanna take it off. It feels important.

Her hands are all over his face and he lets it happen, trying to keep speaking through it, though its garbled and muffled in different ways. "Tressa - Tress! Come on, I'm good. Fully healthy human, I'm pretty sure." Stretching his jaw, he rubs at it after she stops. "Wanna run some tests?"

She digs and digs at the edges of her nails inide the cuff of her sleeve, because the sore heat centers her a little. This stranger rambles through an explanation, but then he brings up the hunter, and it's like she can feel the cold sweat wrap over her alongside the way her stomach drops.

There isn't a delicate way, there's also no easy way to believe it, evidenced by the way she stff-arms him up against a shelf, sending the books on the other side of it flopping to the floor, the scrape of the shelf on the wood floor echoing in the dead shop. "What the hell are you talking about?" she asks. "What the hell is this?"

Her brow's furrowed in harried anger, but there are tears threatening the corner of her eyes as she holds him there by the shoulder, nostrils flaring. "Leave us alone, witches or hunters, or whoever the fuck you are, it's over, you got yours in, we got ours, stop fucking with us."

She lets him go, starts pacing. And he stands there, rubbing at his neck and chest - there'll be bruises there shortly. So.. weak now. "I'm not a hunter. I'm not fucking with you, Autumn. They shot me, I remember that - I wanted them to save you, because you have your girl and this store. And a whole lot more going on than I ever did."

He wants to say he's sorry, but he's not. He'd do it again for her, to give her a chance to live. But he still doesn't move, just hangs his head. "We met for the first time because I was skating down a road, debating on whether or not to go meet a guy and you almost hit me. We went for a drink at the Heron club, talked about packs, I got you in on Cerb."

He peels away from the shelf, and starts picking up the books that fell, turning to put them back where they belong. "I showed you Elden Ring, remember? We ate pizza on your couch, talked about relationship stuff, and I told you I was gonna show you Kingdom Hearts."

Another pause, while he slowly finishes and turns back around, hands in his pockets.

"It's me, Autumn. It's me. I swear on my.. on my fucking life, I swear."

Liam's eyes flickered towards the guy's hands, which were now gesturing between the two of them. He wasn't advancing towards Liam, which was a relief, but there was still something odd about the interaction. "A nonchalant... thing." Liam repeated, his lips pressing together into a thin line.

The word vomit coming out of the guys' mouth caused Liam's mind to spin -- trying to connect the dots of whatever the fuck he was saying. Once again, there was a stranger that knew who he was, from someone he wasn't aware of, who had tracked him down. He knew where he worked. Did he know who he was? What he was? And who the fuck was this buddy of his?

"Listen. I'm done with my shift. If you came here to talk about me being your personal trainer, then you're going to have to--" Liam's brain short circuited as the last of the other's words finally penetrated his mind. "You..." He tilted his head to the side, his eyes flicking over the other's body. Not in a, i'm checking you out, kind of way. More of Liam just trying to process what he was being told.

Jude. Autumn's Jude? The Jude that had been in his pack? The one he'd planned to meet, had heard a lot about, and then... he died. Liam knew he died. Autumn had told him that he'd died. A laugh -- one of no humor and all dark annoyance escaped Liam's lips. "Stealing someone's identify. Fuck. Low shit, isn't it, Jude?" Did Autumn know about this? Had this man approached her yet?

He moves both of his hands to his head, holding it in a way that says 'oh fuck i'm so sorry'. "Look, look - I'm just gonna, I'm gonna get my phone out. Please do not punch me, I'm not a wolf anymore - you'll break my bones."

Still joking in the face of danger. He slowly moves his hand to his pocket and doesn't look away from Liam while he dials Autumn's number. It rings for a long while, enough for Jude to start to get antsy and shift his weight from side to side. He's about to weigh the pros and cons of just bolting when Autumn finally answers. He quickly pushes the button to turn it on speaker, so Liam can hear, too.

"Hey, Autumn, it's Jude - sorry I know it's weird, but I ran into Liam and he's, like, mad and I really don't wanna get my face bashed in can you uh... help?"

'Yeah, sure..'

Jude frowns, because she doesn't seem too enthused. God, he's gonna be all black and blue after this. The sooner the new bite comes, the better. "I told him it was me and he doesn't believe me, and I know you probably don't really, either, but - Uhm. Can you just tell him it's me?"

'I- ... Is he there or do I need to call him or what, are you like, safe?'

"You're on speaker, he's right here."

'... Oh. Yeah, I uh, I don't think it's fake, Liam. I guess. I don't know. He seems fine. And he knows stuff only Jude would know. And - wait what's going on, why are you- I've gotta go, explain later.' The tone goes dead, but Jude still talks for a second before he realizes.

"Thank you. Seriously. I'll, uh, talk to you.....later. Okay, she's gone." He stands there, phone in hand, shaking a little. And finally looks back up at Liam, sheepish smile. "Don't fuck my new face up, man, I just got it. Please?"

Grimacing he rubs his forehead - pretending is not gonna get him anywhere quick with this guy. "Shit. Sorry, I was like - I was going for, like, a chill nonchalant thing." He gestures between the two of them, too animated for how frigid it is out here. His fingertips already feel a little too cold to be comfortable. What temperature did eyeballs freeze? Are they good? He swallows hard.

"No one sent me or nothing, nah. I was - Listen, things are real weird for me right now, it's kinda hard to explain, and my buddy mentioned you worked at the gym forever ago, and I wanted to introduce myself, and I came up with, like, the worst excuse and now you're all on edge. I was supposed to meet up with you, like, months ago. And there's a whole bunch of stuff that prevented it -- the weird stuff that I - " The speed of his words quickens as he speaks until he's tripping over them, "Look, it's cool - My name's Jude. I didn't look like this before." He really can't even tell if he's flustered because of all the shit that happened or because he doesn't wanna make Liam upset or if it's because he's cuter in person.

He doesn't know what happened. "Makes two of us," she interjects.

Jude explains further. No, she doesn't know.

Well, kind of.

"Yeah, dying. Been there."

She moves to a cooler in the corner of the room, and unlocks it with a key before pulling out a bag of blood. She punctures it with a steel straw like some sort of demented Capris Sun. "There is no precedence for this -" Tressa doesn't want to gush, because to gush is to feel things and she'd tried very hard not to do that in these last few months - so instead she exposition-dumps. "I autopsied you and paid for you and covered your funeral and fully detached - I don't know what to say. Your cat's upstairs terrorizing my rats. Guy that killed you's dead too." A hand raises between pulls of rich AB-Neg. "I didn't do it - as you requested."

And he is. Couldn't have asked for a better best friend, even though it probably tore her up. That part he doesn't enjoy thinking about and isn't glad for. "And I'm glad it wasn't you, but I figured - that was probably hard for you to not do." If he had to chance a guess, he'd figure that whoever was left in Cerberus did it.

"Meru's here?" His smile widens a bit. "Sorry, uh - another cool thing, you can probably smell it - not a wolf anymore. Dunno how long that'll last cause I kinda liked it."

He's pacing as he speaks, "Sorry, uh - don't really know what I'm doing. First time coming back from the dead and all. Don't even have cool fangs to show for it."

Remi took a beat to examine him, held tilting at the took in the soaked clothes. "I can help you out with that. We've got some stuff here in the station." Remi paused, biting their lip as they thought. "We can also offer you a hot shower as well. This winter has been…. long. Are you new in town?" Remi trailed off, they didn't have words for the weather. It shouldn't be lasting until may, let alone still be dumping buckets. But it was, and Remi couldn't control the weather they could control offering and hot shower and some weather proofed shoes. "How much do you need? Couple days worth, new wardrobe?" Remi pulled out a clipboard, ready to make notes on what they would need to pull.

"A hot shower and some clothes would be awesome. Maybe just like, two days worth if you guys can manage? I just ran into some.. uh.." How does he even explain it? "Weirdness. With my apartment. I gotta figure out some work again and get back to a lease as soon as possible, you know how it goes."

He pauses, and decides to just risk it. "Oh, right - sorry, I'm Jude." He holds his hand out with a warm smile.

Autumn's been in her own strange place in recent weeks, and so when she comes out of the back, it's not to stock anything, or tend the register so much as it is to break up the doldrums of running a shop that barely does business in these strange times - she'd worry more if the mail still seemed to be coming, but it's like the world itself has come to a cold, hard stop.

Much like she does, when this stranger's stumbling questions confuse her. At first she feels like maybe she's gone a little crazy - cabin fever or something - left a conversation without realizing she'd started it. "Uh-..."

The skateboard, the... sagging shoulders. Flashes play back in her mind of a different winter. Her head tilts. "What about him?" She asks, shaking her head, brows furrowed. Her thoughts flash to the hunter - an image paints itself in her mind - Jude's grave, dug up or something by the Brotherhood - everything starting up again already. She feels like she might throw up. "Do I know you?"

"Sorry! I mean - I'm Jude. Me." He points aggressively at his chest, "I don't know why I look like this or.. what's going on with that, but I remember all the stuff that happened before.. the woods thing. You know, and the.."

He leans in, whispering, "The hiker stuff, too." Leaning back, he shoves his hands into his pockets. "I know springing it on you isn't cool, but is there even a delicate way to do this?"

The vampire's well aware whenever anybody enters, even without the warning from her single employee, a desk girl who works the daylight hours. But they do need sleep, and so on these evenings, the doors stay unlocked - most night-time clients are emergency phone-calls, but an open door policy is part of what makes Embrace what it is - accessible.

She's about to move from the office to the front when she realizes whoever it is isn't waiting, and when an unfamiliar shape darkens her doorway Tressa hears a beating heart's nervous flutter. Standing, she regards him briefly. "Sorry," she responds, "we usually ask people to wait up-"

He doesn't really let her finish, Tressa's eyebrows creep upwards, as if to say try me. "Alright," she says.

He's just killed somebody. Or he's brought a body with him. He's a detective following up on something. He's a true crime podcaster.

None of that's right, and when he finally says it, her expression goes from piqued curiosity to indignant disbelief - but perhaps most frustratingly, it isn't this strange face in front of her that she's incredulous about as her brain lights on fire. "Oh my god, I hate magic so much."

'You what?'

Unable to help himself, Jude laughs at hearing Estela's voice after all this time. He should have known that Tressa would, at least, be the most sane about this. Most of his worry comes from knowing just how badly everyone else he needs to talk to will take it.

There's a brief moment where he debates on what to say or do next, but before he can realize what he's doing - he's crossing the room and pulling Tressa into a tight hug. "I had, like, so much shit prepared about when we were kids." The hug doesn't last long - he knows his friend

When he pulls back, he shoves his hands into his pockets and looks down at his feet. "I don't know who did it or if it was on purpose or - You know? I just.. one second I was gone, the next I was clawing through dirt and stuff."