Into the Deep End

The thing about Jude was that, technically speaking, his powers didn't make him any smarter than most people. He couldn't connect the dots like magic. What was different was that he had all the dots, and could remember them as exactly as they'd spoken. All the mentions. The warning about not bringing up family. Alma's awkwardness about the subject. So the moment she said he has a powerful attraction aura, Jude knew. The pieces snapped together.

Oh.

Jude had all the information, but he didn't know what to do with it.

He definitely look awkward. Anyone could tell, but especially Alma, watching so closely. He didn't know what he could say. She'd opened up by sharing it with him, but beyond that's really bad, he didn't know what to actually do with the information, and he froze up for a few moments before his brain kicked in enough for him to muster a response.

"Someone warned me not to ask about family at all," Jude admitted. "They didn't say why or anything, just that it wouldn't be a good date conversation. I kind of thought your parents had passed away or something, though."

Not that her brother had done that. Jude didn't even want to think about it. Should he reassure her? Probably, even if Jude felt like it went without saying to a certain extent.

"That doesn't, uh, change things for me. I'm kind of of the opinion that anyone whose opinion would be changed is... kind of awful. It's not like it's something you chose."

He felt like he should share some secret back, something to make it even since she'd shared a big secret with him, only he was coming up blank. How many big secrets did he even have? Not a lot on Manta Carlos.

He did know how some people could be. Not from experience--he'd had a mostly charmed life as far as his days in Halcyon had gone growing up--but simply from watching. He'd been lucky. His friends had (mostly) been lucky. But not everyone had.

"I'm not disgusted," Jude said. "I was always taught that you were supposed to judge people by the things they did. Not who they were, or what they were. Just by their actions." Did he need to specify that things done to you didn't count?

No, he was pretty sure Alma was smart enough he didn't need to.

"Do you actually qualify as a succubus?" Jude asked, spearing a piece of rabbit with his fork. "I always kind of thought that lust demons and succubi were separate somehow, but I honestly couldn't figure it out and didn't want to ask. People tend to squint when you ask questions about succubi and think you're asking for the wrong reasons."

People tended to think of the exact wrong things. He would ask out of curiosity, but people... well, people didn't think of it that way.

"Actually it was Officer Genovese. He gave me the, uh, pre-date peptalk and threw that in. I didn't ask why."

Just snorted at the suckubus, because... okay. The island set up a lot of room for funny supernatural puns, and it seemed like a lot of people were willing to go for it.

"Not sure what I'd ask," Jude admitted. "I guess I feel a bit like you're putting yourself on the spot, but I... I guess I feel like I should talk about myself and share something, but I don't really, uh, have anything like that?" Well, his dad, only his dad wasn't quite the same kind of secret. He'd been told don't talk about yourself too much, and he was trying to take that to heart, only things felt imbalanced. Like he was interviewing her.

"I guess you already figured out about my family," Jude said. "In Halcyon the family name had less of a reputation, but anyone really involved in the life knew who my dad was. I only went by Jude there so people wouldn't connect me to him, because I figured no one would ever take me doing anything good seriously with him as my dad."

Her eyes did, in fact, scream tell me everything. It was the way she leaned forward ever so slightly, the obvious interest.

But that was okay. He liked talking about it. Even if it hurt a bit, he still liked it.

"It wasn't lawless or anything. Basically it came down to the fact that the police couldn't keep people with powers in check when they were doing crimes, so you had a lot of... random vigilantes? But also just bystanders. If you have water powers, and some guy is setting a building on fire, why not help? People think about heroes as running around beating up villains, but in a lot of cases it wasn't dealing with villains, just extraordinary situations. Like, a giant monster created by a child's out of control powers. But also you have rescue heroes, who... rescue people. The whole situation kind of grew up organically."

It wasn't like they'd sat down and hammered things out or anything. It just happened.

"It was... fun? I don't know how to describe it. It was dangerous, but every so often you'd just... save someone? And it felt good. Like, saving someone who thought they'd been lost..."

For a moment, Jude seemed lost in thought, and then he snapped his attention back to all of it.

"But yeah. My dad was... I mean, technically crime lord. Mafioso. He counted as a supervillain, but only by virtue of having mooks. As far as anyone knew he didn't have any powers or anything like that. I grew up with that sort of thing, so for me it was always just kind of normal."

"I still do," Jude admitted. "I was wearing it when I came over, so we stuck it in the closet. It's... I'm going to call it really cool, because I can take a shot to the chest and walk away with a minor bruise. It's made of some really good material."

A little bit beyond the technology that was common on Manta Carlos, but not unheard of.

"So would I have, honestly," Jude admitted. "I used to dream about just having a normal life. Like, I couldn't have friends over--not with my dad--and I never let myself get too close to anyone. I couldn't really have super close friends, because too many secrets. When I was a kid I desperately wanted to just... be one of the gang. To just hang out with people like it was a normal thing. I didn't get that until I started doing the hero thing."